sebastian troen

A lot of people think Jamie Oliver is a prat! Naked Chef?! Who cares?

But over the years he has used his celebrity for real-world good. He started hiring disadvantaged youth in England to work in his restaurants (when there was a line of talented and highly skilled cooks that would have sold their own mother’s off as  dishwashers for the chance to work for free in his kitchen), he went into English schools and changed what kids eat.

And now he’s come to the States in a new series called Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. If you haven’t already seen this show, I strongly urge you to do so. Whether you live in America or in Canada or anywhere else in the world, he’s tackling a real problem that we all face: the industrialization of our food supply has resulted in epidemic obesity levels and an astronomical drop in basic knowledge about nutrition and food preparation.

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President O!

It’s impressive how quickly and decisively President-Elect Barack Obama is putting together his new cabinet and hitting the ground running. Even more impressive is how he’s filling his roster with former adversaries, most notably Hillary Clinton, something he’s taken from the pages of President Lincoln (the last notable Illinois President). After 8 years of watching the most powerful man in the world surround himself with like-minded individuals (the notable exception was Bush’s first Secretary of State Colin Powell, who was effectively excluded from the Bush Machine for having a contrarian view). Read the rest of this entry »