Category Archives: Media Criticism

That Fake Heartland Memo

…is looking faker by the minute.

I think that Megan is being a little too optimistic here:

Unfortunately, I’d imagine that this is still a sizeable set of people, and it will be hard to identify the author. I suspect that it will be easier to do if the climate-bloggers–who may well know this person as a commenter or correspondent–get involved in trying to find out who muddied the story by perpetrating a fraud on their sites.

Certainly, if I were in their shoes, I’d want to expose this person, so that they could refocus on the legitimate documents, and put to rest doubts about their integrity in this matter. But I’m not going to hold my breath.

Chimichangapalooza

What’s amusing about this kerfuffle is that the chimichanga is the Mexican-food equivalent of chop suey, which is a dish invented in San Francisco, and no one in China had ever heard of. It’s not from south of the border, but originated in Tucson, at the best restaurant in town when it comes to Tucsonian cuisine. And most places in other locales don’t really know how to do it, often adding beans or rice, making it a mere fried burrito. It’s best filled with carne seca, an El Charro specialty that is also not widely available. The other things that are local to southern Arizona, but hasn’t made it much farther is a cheese crisp (flour tortilla topped with monterey jack and broiled open face to melt it, with or without jalapenos, then sliced and served like a pizza) and green-corn tamales. I was eating them in the seventies when I lived in Tucson, working for the L-5 Society, before most people had ever heard of them.

[Update a few minutes later]

I see that Prudence Paine is amused at the ignorance as well. Though I take issue with her denigration of them. They are excellent, and better than most Mexican dishes, in my opinion. I suspect her antipathy toward them is based on a misplaced fear of fat. When I used to eat them in Tucson, they were fried in lard, and that’s actually much healthier than low-fat, or vegetable oils. The bad thing about them is the flour tortilla itself, not the fact that it’s fried.