The Walking Tacos

Hey Friends,

I had a walking taco, and it got me crawling to the baño.

More on that in a minute. But first, the one and only VP debate happened earlier this week, and there was a pretty clear winner.

For those of you who watched it, I'm sure you noticed it as well.

I think we can all agree that J.D. Vance's eyeliner was the real champion. Even his brows were on fleek this week if that term still exists.

Vance did an excellent job at responding to the moderator's questions and even made some of Trump's positions sound like they could be normal. But the toughest questions still haven't been asked, like, how long does it take him to apply his eyeliner? Before we put him in the executive branch, should we be concerned that his mascara will run like Rudy Guiliani's hair polish in humid temperatures or when he gets emotional about his love for his boss?

Now I know that some of you criticize me for the commentary about Vance's enhanced lashes because maybe he's born with it. But to that, I say just maybe, and I don't mean to be glib, maybe it's Mabeline.

Vance's biggest dodge was to a question about his running mate's stolen election claims. He obviously has to play the bit to the end, and it's obvious he doesn't believe it. He does, however, believe that women’s rights should be truncated. He believes that school shootings are the school's fault for not having enough armor. Besides, what was the school wearing? Was it asking for it?

This debate was notable, mostly in how cordial the two were. Tim and J.D. were so friendly at one point that J.D. opened up a Twix and shared the other half with Tim. At one point, the moderators even asked if the guys needed a moment alone.

But despite a friendly debate, Walz was no winner. He hesitated during a couple of key moments and failed to address some pointed questions. His performance put him in second place. However, what made it most striking was that his shortfalls were only noticeable because this was the first civil debate we've seen since the 1990s.

Personally, I'm on team cop and not team criminal. I want my vice president to carry a beeper and check his sugar six times per day. There is something to be said for being able to enjoy a corn dog and be one at the same time.

There is a through line for this piece, which brings me to the topic of tacos.

The event had no business offering walking tacos, but I enjoyed one anyway. I can’t say why I caved to buy one, except that I love that new corn chip smell. You can’t tell the difference between a Frito-branded masterpiece of commercialized culinary genius and a dog that needs a bath, but only for the first few minutes after opening the bag. Wait much longer, and your choices may come to haunt you.

I may as well have called it a running taco, in my case. Digging into that chip and beef pile was not only hard work for a plastic hand shovel. It was hard on my stomach. So I got what I needed of the super-size snack and moved on to the walking part of the taco — as fast as possible.

The dilemma this brings to mind is the issue of starvation.

Hunger has all but vanished in modern societies, but we’ve done it by industrializing food production, which reduces its nutrient quality. Is it better to end world hunger if it comes with diabetes and heart disease?

Research suggests that between 60% and 90% of the standard American diet consists of ultra-processed foods. Our diet is largely created by a scientist who reports to the marketing department rather than a chef whose muse is a farmer slicing an heirloom tomato in fields of green. Now, a square meal refers to the shape of the plastic bag in which it comes. By inventing new ways to eat, we‘ve invented metabolic diseases, which largely didn't exist before the Industrial Revolution.

I’m struck by the irony of it all. Solving world hunger is killing us.

As explained in the War On Weeds, your neighbors won't let you have them, and your conscience won't let you kill them for fear it will cause your kids and dogs to go with them. I wrote the article with another premise in mind, but my research landed me in a paradox, which I summarized as such:

It makes sense to keep weeds out of our lawns, because it will improve our social standing with our neighbors and our HOAs. It makes sense to keep them out of our farms, too, because the only way to produce enough food for our ever-increasing population is to keep killing the weeds – along with the people that hate them – to make room for more.

As far as I can tell, our solutions are worse than our problems.

Do you think dress shoes are uncomfortable? How about we add a big white piece of rubber to make them ugly? That should solve it.

Want me to solve climate change? Let me just quickly crush the entire economy. Or maybe you'd rather me burn up the earth so we can enjoy a booming stock market in space?

I could go on. I'll just give you one more.

Some of you are afraid your employer will make you put a pronoun on your email signature. Maybe you’re concerned your kids might see a picture of a naked person in a book somewhere. Well then let's fix it by electing someone who will weaken government controls, overturn an election, and pull out of international agreements. But don’t worry, this pussy grabber is a pro-life-curious Christian, so he must be ordained by God.

You get the idea.

It's time we stopped thinking of our cultural problems as a zero-sum scenario. When we do, we're tempted to pursue extreme solutions that come with new problems.

There’s always something to strive for, but there's no need to throw babies out just because you want to be rid of the bath water. Perhaps, rather than rushing to an extreme solution, maybe we strive for just a little bit better.

Allowing the world to be less than perfect while we work on it one moment at a time; that might just be the safest place we can live.

That's it for this week.

Remember: The Lorem Ipsum is made with healthy fats and contains only the good cholesterol. That means you can read more of it, completely guilt free. If you want to share your guilt free experience with others, share this issue with a friend.

Have a great weekend!