"In America all cornbread is in the shape of corn, that's how you can tell if it's real. "

So saith Chip Ahoy, who tells a very old joke about learning numbers and gives a recipe bereft of numbers.

And Chip wants me to tell you that "you can get your hands on one of those pans that makes cornbread in the shape of corn... through the Althouse-Amazon portal where you'll find several styles to choose from. He's right. There's this, this, and this extra-fancy one.

"Corn stalks sticking out of truck lead to drunken driving arrest."

"The stalks were acquired when Elliott drove off a highway into a cornfield and then back onto the highway, seen by a driver who claimed Elliott almost hit his vehicle, police said."

In other Wisconsin farms-and-bad-driving news: "Police said texting while driving led to the death of a 2012 World Dairy Expo prize-winning Jersey cow on Saturday night."

"Why our food is making us fat" — It's Nixon's fault!

"The story begins in 1971."

Richard Nixon was facing re-election. The Vietnam war was threatening his popularity at home, but just as big an issue with voters was the soaring cost of food. If Nixon was to survive, he needed food prices to go down, and that required getting a very powerful lobby on board – the farmers. Nixon appointed Earl Butz, an academic from the farming heartland of Indiana, to broker a compromise. Butz, an agriculture expert, had a radical plan that would transform the food we eat, and in doing so, the shape of the human race....

At the Big Game Café...

... you can see everything from here. And have some corn...

At the Tall Corn Café...

... you can aspire to anything.

"We know where you’re going to use it, and it’s great for that area."

What's the best way to encourage men to powder their balls?

... Dry Down Friction Free Powder by Jack Black ($18 for 6 ounces), with cornstarch, lavender and green tea, “works great south-of-border,” according to its packaging.

“Guys have a great sense of humor about this stuff, and they appreciate us saying, ‘We know where you’re going to use it, and it’s great for that area,’ ” said Patricia Finn, vice president for marketing at Jack Black, which has no affiliation with the comedian of the same name.

Great. I'm sure the famous Jack Black appreciates your associating his name with cornball jokes. Literally cornball. It's corn(starch) for your balls!

Man Powder, by Matte for Men ($26 for 10.5 ounces)...  its directions recommend using it on “underarms, feet or ‘down below!’ ”...

Introduced last year, Dry Goods ($12.50 to $14 for 5.4 ounces)... features a unique valve that permits spraying it “upside down for those hard to reach places”....

A unique valve for your unique valve.

Tim Joyce, the president of Joyce Labs, which makes Dry Goods, ... said the name Dry Goods “is totally euphemistic to make you think of your business.”

His business is your business. (Requisite song link: here.)

Even Gold Bond ($8 for 10 ounces), the 103-year-old brand of general-use medicated powder, is deploying double entendres... “I never suit up without Gold Bond Medicated Powder — it keeps my equipment dry.”

Looks like the advertising industry is desperately in need of a man who knows how to write snappy quips about balls. And I know just the man, and they say he may soon be looking for work....

ADDED: If Anthony's unavailable, there's always Louie.

Chief Justice Roberts teaches a language lesson: "The noun 'crab' refers variously to a crustacean and a type of apple, while the related adjective 'crabbed' can refer to handwriting that is 'difficult to read'..."

"... 'corny' can mean 'using familiar and stereotyped formulas believed to appeal to the unsophisticated,' which has little to do with 'corn,' ('the seeds of any of the cereal grasses used for food'); and while 'crank' is “a part of an axis bent at right angles,' 'cranky' can mean 'given to fretful fussiness."

And the point is, a corporation may be a "person" within the meaning of the Freedom of Information statute, but that doesn't mean it's gets in on the "personal" privacy referred to elsewhere in the statute.

[I]n ordinary usage, a noun and its adjective form may have meanings as disparate as any two unrelated words. ...

"Person" is a defined term in the statute; “personal” is not. When a statute does not define a term, we typically “give the phrase its ordinary meaning.”... “Personal” ordinarily refers to individuals. We do not usually speak of personal characteristics, personal effects, personal correspondence, personal influence, or personal tragedy as referring to corporations or other artificial entities. This is not to say that corporations do not have correspondence, influence, or tragedies of their own, only that we do not use the word “personal” to describe them.

Certainly, if the chief executive officer of a corporation approached the chief financial officer and said, "I have something personal to tell you," we would not assume the CEO was about to discuss company business. Responding to a request for information, an individual might say, "that’s personal." A company spokesman, when asked for information about the company, would not.

Crisply explained!

IN THE COMMENTS: rhhardin said:

While he's got the FCC's attention, mention that the "fucking" in "fucking brilliant" is not an adjective.

Ha! He's referring to this FCC opinion:

The complainants allege that the licensees named in their respective complaints aired the “Golden Globe Awards” program, during which the performer Bono uttered the phrase “this is really, really, fucking brilliant,” or “this is fucking great.”...

The word “fucking” may be crude and offensive, but, in the context presented here, did not describe sexual or excretory organs or activities. Rather, the performer used the word “fucking” as an adjective or expletive to emphasize an exclamation. Indeed, in similar circumstances, we have found that offensive language used as an insult rather than as a description of sexual or excretory activity or organs is not within the scope of the Commission’s prohibition of indecent program content.

"Fucking" can be an adjective, as in "You're a fucking crank," "Watch out for the fucking crab," or "I can't believe you're serving fucking corn again," but in the Bono boast, it's a fucking adverb.

The ad yanked from Pepsi's Super Bowl contest.

There are over 5,000 entries in the contest, but this was so "irredeemably offensive" it couldn't even be permitted to contend:



So... if Christians are really that touchy, maybe you shouldn't even be using the expression "irredeemably offensive." Don't be having any fun with The Redeemer.

***

Did you used to play "Communion" with with Necco wafers? Was that okay in a way that Doritos would not be?

Al Gore explains his mistaken support for the government's terrible ethanol policy.

"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president."

So... self-interest then. Where's his self-interest taking him these days?

"When I was a kid, Halloween was strictly a starchy-vegetable-only holiday, with pumpkins and Indian corn on the front stoop..."

"... there was nothing electric, nothing inflatable, nothing with latex membranes or strobes. I do remember the first time I saw bright orange lawn trash bags decorated with smiley pumpkin faces, which was about ten years ago; I thought they were kind of clever and festive, if a bit commercial. Now they seem quaint, compared to, say, yard decorations like Demonica Zombie Baby ('a latex skin foam filled child with sound and motion activated flashing eye lights,' in stock and ready to ship for $39.99) or a life-sized Hellraiser Pinhead Animatronic (a big investment at $279.99)."

That's Susan Orlean, who also bemoans the trend toward Halloween as a time for adult revelry: "when I was young, Halloween was a holiday celebrated only by children." That made me look up Orlean's age — 54 — and city of origin — Cleveland. The trend toward Mardi Gras-style street parties and parades for adult revelries goes back to the 1970s. That's when Freakfest began here in Madison, Wisconsin and the time of the first Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in NYC. I remember those parades in the late 1970s, when I lived in Greenwich Village. It was a continuation of the counter-culture of the 60s, isn't it? They called us Baby Boomers, and we internalized the concept of "baby." You'll just have to deal with it now.

ADDED: Orlean... Mardi Gras... Maybe that has something to do with her annoyance at the migration of adult revelry to the autumn holiday. That and the fact that — as she reveals in the article — Halloween is her birthday.

"I was a corn-packer. And I know that term is offensive. To some people. Because corn-packer is a derogatory term for a gay Iowan."

Colbert responds to Iowa Republican Steve King.



IN THE COMMENTS: Quaestor said...

Some impression[s] I've formed on this matter:

1) A disgusting and puerile corruption of the legislative process. Thank you Colbert, the Comedy Channel, and the Democratic Party (a wholly owned subsidiary of the Comedy Channel) for your efforts to uplift the cultural milieu of our heretofore tawdry government.

2) Colbert has been jealous of Jon Stewert's bottom line for years. Being a witness before a Congressional committee adds product recognition at taxpayer's expense.

3) A "Punch 'n Judy" show aimed to distract the MSM from Christopher Coates testimony before the Civil Rights Commission.

4) Witnesses before Congressional committees are typically sworn. Is Colbert liable to perjury charges?

At the Country Store Café...

... either there's no smoking or pets are allowed.

35 years of "Blood on the Tracks."

Do you remember waking up in that tenement apartment that morning in 1975 and listening to the new Dylan album on the FM radio? "'Twas in another lifetime... one of toil and blood..."

Shelter from the Storm begins with four seconds of unaccompanied acoustic guitar strumming, lively, purposeful, and then it is joined by the voice. “’Twas in another lifetime,” Dylan begins, “one of toil and blood,” immediately establishing this song as one cut from the same musical cloth as the traditional folk tales, gospel songs, and murder ballads Robert Zimmerman was learning before he “came in from the wilderness,” only not as “a creature void of form” but as “Bob Dylan”. It is a song that, thirty-five years after its original release, remains both contemporary and as timeless as one of the most basic archetypes of human experience: the hunter.

History and myth reveal three basic types of hunter: first, the hunter/gatherer who operates strictly to sustain life on either a personal or group level; second, a warrior whose primary motivation is destruction; third, a seeker whose interest lies in finding Holy Grails or a heart of gold.

The hunter in Shelter is ... a seeker with no interest in destruction but reconnection.  Despite being “burned out from exhaustion, buried in the hail, poisoned in the bushes an’ blown out on the trail, hunted like a crocodile (the hunter becomes the hunted), ravaged in the corn”, this quest will continue until she is found or the hunter is dead.  “Nothing really matters much,” the narrator in Shelter states, “it’s doom (destiny, fate) alone that counts.”

I made fun of the mixed metaphor — I had the ridiculous image of somebody raping a crocodile in a cornfield — and you defended Bob. That was in another lifetime, it seems.

Corn smut is tasty and good for you too.

A fungus we should be eating, not eradicating.

When huitlacoche attacks corn, the insidious-looking pustules that bubble up don't just force the husk to explode, it forces the metabolical process inside the cob to change, creating new, healthier nutrients.

Take lysine, one of those ''essential amino acids'' that the body requires but can't manufacture. We need it to fight infections and strengthen bones. Bodybuilders pound lysine when they want to build muscle, and estheticians recommend it to keep skin looking young.

Corn has virtually no lysine; huitlacoche is loaded with it. It also is packed with more beta-glucens -- the soluble fiber that gives oatmeal its well-known cholesterol-cutting power -- than, well, oatmeal.

This is a great metaphor for all the things we think are bad that could be perceived as beneficent if we just knew more about what it really is. What else is like huitlacoche?