On Twinkies and Petraeus

Today we have a couple of unrelated items worth talking about-- though if Twinkie is a euphemism for....well.....If that is the case then maybe the two big items from the news over the past week have more in common then originally thought.

Yum?

First, the Twinke.  Hostess Bakeries are going out of business, and that has triggered a run on various baked goods not seen since the Panic of 1823 in London, when King George IV granted a monopoly to the Torquay Crumpet and Biscuit Company.  The fear of price hikes on a large variety of baked goods by TC&B's Dickensian owner Thaddeus Sneed triggered mass hysteria that left 17 people dead and not a crumb of biscuit in London's rat infested bakeries.

Quite frankly, I don't understand America's affection for the Twinkie, because in my opinion they are not just not very good.  Excuse me for a bit of tree-huggy smugness, but I had to laugh when Hostess said they are closing bakeries.  Twinkies aren't baked, they're manufactured.  I mean, look at the ingredients list:

Enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow No. 5, red #40

As recent photos of me in the press sunbathing on the French Riviera show, I'm no health nut.  This morning, for example, I ate buttermilk pancakes loaded with butter, syrup, sugar, -- a cornucopia of carbohydrates.   But if it wasn't healthy, at least it was made from scratch.  At least it was all real.  

Twinkies aren't real food.  Why do we love them so?  

We may, as a nation, love them because they hearken back to a time when the USA was Number 1, when America was up on top. If we aren't on top anymore, or if on the horizon we see a day where we are going to be eclipsed by someone else (which history shows is probably inevitable), it may be because we have eaten too many Twinkies, or have gotten too used to the instantaneous "pleasure" that the Twinkies and their ilk symbolize.

So even though I am sad about the lost jobs, I am not upset over the possible demise of the Twinkie.  We as a country can easily do without them.  

Speaking of instantaneous pleasure,  this man is sadly getting a lesson on ethical behavior in the work place:

I know that David Petraeus has his detractors, but I for one am sorry to see his career end because he was embroiled in something of a love triangle (or maybe more of a love square...thankfully not a love circle -- at least that we know of, though I am sure the FBI is getting to the bottom of that).  The man who rethought our approach to counter insurgency in Iraq and was poised to maybe do great things at the CIA that we would never know about has resigned because he exercised poor judgement.

Should his indiscretions have forced him to resign?  On the face of it, I would say no.  I obviously don't condone being unfaithful to your spouse, but I don't agree with the notion that someone in the public trust should automatically have to resign for cheating on his husband or wife.  I am also not sure the FBI should be spending time prying around in people's private lives the way they apparently have in this case.  The revelation that Broadwell may have had access to classified information are far more troubling and give more ground for dismissal.  

I don't believe any of the conspiracy theories about Benghazi and stuff like that.  I don't know if there is anything "fishy" going on, but I kind of doubt it.  Anytime this happens we put immense pressure on the subject official to resign to the point where it must be impossible to stay on the job.

Before we wrap it up, one question remains: is this really the end of these two?

I would say not.

As for the Twinkies, I have a horrible feeling that, like some horrible flesh eating monster from a 1950's B Movie, the devilish little yellow cakes are not dead yet.  Someone will buy up the Hostess "Bakeries" and will start extruding those things out of a tube whatever it is that they do to actually make 'em.  America's bodice ripping (or perhaps more correctly bodice busting) love affair with the Twinkie will in all likelihood continue after a brief hiatus.

I don't think we have heard the last of Petraeus either.  He'll probably lay low for a while, write a book or two, get into teaching and/or inspirational speaking, and then maybe re-enter the political arena. Will he get as far as he would have if he had managed to keep it in his trousers?  Maybe not.  But I imagine he will learn from his mistakes, dust himself off, and get back into the fight somehow.  From what I have read about Petraeus, that seems more like his style.

Twinkie Photo Credit:  (CC) Larry D. Moore