Here's a rhapsody of vulgarity the worse for being written - and published - in an attitude of seriousness. Heather Havrilesky's sensibility, both as regards the issues of her concern and the language used to discuss them, mark her as a low point of banality for the country.

This nation has some problems, it's corporate world, serious failings, our people, several imperfections. However, these details now seem benign by comparison to this spectacle of tastelessness. If Havrilesky relishes McDonald's hamburgers, which have to be the worst prepared food in America, she automatically dismisses herself as a pundit for anything. Concerning TV, discriminating people years ago exorcised their homes of this demon for being what it is - an opiate to render a population somnolent and subject to manipulation.

The mentality of Heather Havrilesky is the problem. It will not be part of the solution.

The correct book title I meant to mention was Aftermath: Remnants Of War.

http://www.amazon.com/Aftermath-Remnants-Landmines-Warfare-Devastating/dp/067975153X

By now, I'm wildly off-topic. I apologize, it was probably a mistake from the beginning. I'm done here.

many of this "problem restaurants" seem to be run by prima donnas in various positions. Ramsey is impressive in that he arrives 100% present and stays on-top-of-the-job for the duration ...

Like "The Dog Whisperer," you can often see nstantly whether or not the client "gets it" ... that succeeding at being a chef/restuaranteur requires 100% effort and attention to detail and DEMANDING (over and over and overy again as necessary) top performance.

If he discourages one or more slackers from thinking it would be "cool" to start a restaurant -- well, god bless him.

Most of these restauranteurs have family and friends and (for gods sake) employees heavily invested in their success ... Ramsey makes it clear it's an heavy responsibility and almost a covenant of good faith.

On the bad side, the really lax sanitation featured in many of the restaurants on day one is seriously off-putting and I'm far from a germophobe.

While the Dog Whisperer has the advantage, as he says, that dogs only go forward, Ramsey is an excellent role model as a coach ... some times y'gotta curse and appear slightly threatening to keep their attention ... Most of the chefs and restauranteurs he deals with are cooler-than-you with virtually everyone in their daily sphere ... It's good for them to get a reality check, hopefully before they lose the farm.

"Working actual paying jobs, THEN writing, will keep writing far more grounded in reality."

I suppose that someone could say the same thing about crafting animated cartoons. You know, after sufficient hours were spent performing "actual work", every week.

Anyway, "grounded in reality" is not enough. It isn't even required for good writing- as a sci-fi (sorry, "speculative fiction") reader, you should have some grasp of that.

I'm trying to imagine Norman Mailer writing Harlot's Ghost as a side gig. And that was fiction (although the research bibliography was very impressive.)

My real worry is at least as much about the fate of authentic journalism- where's the next George Seldes, Clarence LuSane, Hank Messick, Sally Denton, Marc Reisner, Penny Lernoux? The last book I can think of that had anything close to a social and political impact was Cadillac Desert. That was over 20 years ago. I can tick off lots of books equally as valuable that have been published since then- City Of Quartz, Green Delusions, Fragments: The Remnants Of War, Cocaine Politics, Hot Money And The Politics Of Debt, The Money And The Power- but who reads any more?

The residents of the New Century apparently prefer to watch banal "reality TV" shows. (There's an oxymoron for you.)

And then there's what's happened to popular musical taste, as a result of the Machine Age. Ironically, there's a host of musicians who seem to me to be more talented than ever. But how many people are buying their music? What's really moving the product these days?

And he was only a very good (not great) critic at that, but at least he tried.

The notion of the "critic" or actual criticism on a higher level is dead in this country. As Smithers pointed out, Roger Ebert, who will unfortunately probably never talk again, is a good example of this. He's now been replaced with the precocious but slightly dim Ben Lyons.

I'm afraid we're just going to have to wave goodbye to any Mencken-esque notion of critique we have left. Columns like this (which I didn't dislike that much) are what's probably going to replace it.

Of course we won't really need it as the notion of American art is following closely behind in criticism's death kneel. They arrested Shephard Fairey, the guy who did the only passably bad red, white and blue Obama portrait, the other day for some graffiti work he'd done years ago. If HE'S considered an avant-garde artist we're really in trouble.

Face it the counter-culture, no-fun police have won. We all have to take full responsibility for having been lulled into stupidity by reality t.v., substandard art, writing and the crap we've accepted as movies for the past decade.

P.S. If it helps sud I agree about the idea of Gail, who at least had some basic understanding of cuisine, as host of TC. On a side note I also thought she was way hotter than Padma too.

You may not be able to find it, more's the pity. Book stores would rather stock the latest crappy romance novel (and ALL romance novels are crappy) than a well-written book from a few years ago.

And for the people astonished that I would defend Havrilesky, I defend her when she's right and attack her when she's wrong. It's the high school haters who usually keep attacking people until they die, right or wrong. Check back among my earlier stuff and you'll see I gave a REASON for attacking.

Finally, to tht yutz who talked about people quitting their call center jobs and getting a paid job as a columnist, what decade are you living in? NOBODY is paid anything for writing any more. Since newspapers are dying, and since anything written is available free on the Internet (including Lord of Light, if you know where to look, Cabdriver) writers are not paid enough for their work to sustain their lives.

Which is probably a welcome change. Rather than listen to someone pretentious like Garrison Keillor pontificate about his fictional Lake Woebegone, he'll apologize in print for using a backup column because his job as a Wal-Mart stocker left him overtired and suffering from the flu, and he can't get medical treatment because Americans have been denied universal medical coverage - again. Working actual paying jobs, THEN writing, will keep writing far more grounded in reality. It'll bring better writing; it'll be done out of love, rather than out of a need for food and shelter.