It's no surprise that Austin-based Whole Foods Market is in a celebratory furor over the adoption of National Organic Standards food labeling by The U.S. Department of Agriculture on October 21. The natural and organic foods retailer recently launched an in-store education campaign dubbed "The Heart of Organics," which involved a flurry of organic food brochures, signs and general information, and has even launched its own value-priced organic house brand called 365 Organic Everyday Value. It's also no surprise that organic foodstuffs are sort of the gateway drug to lefty political activism. For example, a scan of the signatories to the anti-war statement proffered by "Not in Our Name," a group opposing any U.S. military response to the recent terrorist attacks, reveals not only such knee-jerk indignants as actress Susan Sarandon, writer Gore Vidal and convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal, it also lists a certain I.M. Cornholio, who bills himself as a "Postmodern Vegan Poetry Therapy Activist/bag boy at Whole Foods"...October is National Tomato Month. We inform you of this fact at this late date because tomatoes have been crucial to many Halloween eve celebrations. November 3 is National Sandwich Day, and in celebration Jack in the Box Inc. is offering sandwich trivia, pointing out that Americans eat 45 billion sandwiches per year, 100 hamburgers per capita, 26.3 million hot dogs annually in major-league ballparks and 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before graduating from high school--which is perhaps why articulate human speech doesn't really develop until after Rush Week.
