Where's the Beef?

Global warming and other nutty issues...

January 02, 2007
Where`s the Beef?
By Timothy Birdnow

In the mid 1980`s the
Wendy's Hamburger chain ran a very successful advertising campaign in
which an octogenarian (who sounded amazingly like Helen Thomas)
bellyached about the stingy amount of meat on her sandwich; "where`s the beef?"
became a nationally known slogan, and embodied the prosperity of our
nation. We were red blooded Americans, by God, proud and vigorous,
hearty appetites for red blooded all American beef!

In many ways, this advertising campaign embodied part of what it means to
be an American; beef lies at the heart of our cuisine, and was the
staple of the cowboy, the cavalrymen, the settlers on the Great Plains.
The Texas Longhorn wandering the dusty backcountry of the Lone Star
State was the symbol of American grit, American independence and
cussedness. The dairy farms with their quaint barns and quiet pastoral
scenes in Wisconsin or Iowa were a part of Americana as were the great
open ranches of Montana, or the boxcars transporting cattle across the
width and breadth of these United States.

Oh so true...