Year: 2011

I watched NBC’s Parks and Recreation when it first came on the air, but didn’t keep up with it, as it seemed too much like a clone of The Office. But the dudes over at A Hamburger Today tipped me off to the most recent episode, in which burgers played a central role. And man… that episode was funny!

April hands Ron Swanson a phone message.
Ron: “Did you get his number?”
April: “No.”
Ron crumples the message up and tosses it in the trash can.
Ron: “That’s my girl…”

Ron goes to the health food store with co-worker Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe):

Ron: “I came here for the same reason people go to the zoo… [looks at white man in dreadlocks scooping some type of grain from a barrel] Shhhh! Look at that thing! Nature is amazing!”

“Zerts are what I call desserts. Tray-trays are entrees. I call sandwiches sammies, sandoozles, or Adam Sandlers. Air conditioners are cool blasterz with a ‘z.’ I don’t know where that came from. I call cakes big ol’ cookies. I call noodles long-ass rice. Fried chicken is fry-fry chicky-chick. Chicken parm is chicky-chicky parm parm. Chicken cacciatore: chicky catch. I call eggs pre-birds or future birds. Root beer is super water. Tortillas are bean blankies. And I call forks…food rakes!”

– Aziz Ansari as Tom Haverford

Asked why he was getting samples of vegetarian bacon and immediately throwing them into the trash can:

Ron: “I’m saving anyone from eating this!”

And the highlight of the episode… the burger cook-off:

Chris: “I humbly place before you my ‘East meets West’ patented Traeger turkey burger, an Asian fusion burger made with Willow Farms organic turkey, a toasted Taleggio cheese crisp, papaya chutney, black truffle aioli and microgreens on a gluten-free brioche bun. Enjoy!”

Ron: “Here’s mine. It’s a hamburger… made out of meat… on a bun… with nothing. Add ketchup if you want. I couldn’t care less.”

After Ron wins the cook-off:

“Turkey can never beat cow, Chris. Sorry.”

 

 

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger; well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim; well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire; well, there is such a thing as sex. If I can find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find until after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside;  I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same.”

– C.S. Lewis
Mere Christianity

“The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men.” He paused, and for a moment assumed again his air of a schoolmaster questioning a promising pupil: “How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”

Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.

“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love and justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy- everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty toward the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always-do not forget this, Winston-always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face-forever.”

– George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty–Four