FOX PROLEFEED, IN ITS DESIRE TO PRESENT THEMSELVES AS A TRUSTED AND RELIABLE SOURCE OF PROLEFEED TO THE PRODUCERIST CROWD, has this fetish--if you could call it so--for taking issue with certain beverage preferences among "Secular-Progressive"-leaning Presidential candidates.

Which, come to think of it, could apply across the board among the Dark Satanic Mills of Conservative Propaganda.

The which all started back in 2004 when a CNN correspondent took then-Democratic Presidential wannabe John Kerry to task for asking for green tea during a campaign stop in Dubuque, Iowa (of all places), suggesting such preferences were a sign of "elitism" somehow inconsistent with Mainstream American Values.

And which has continued in recent months with Democratic Presidential wannabe Barack Obama being taken to task for asking for an orange juice @ a diner ... and Hillary Rodham-Clinton also chided for her fondness for latte, both during campaign stops.

Which, in any case, begs the question of whether Fox Prolefeed, among others in the Neoconservative Propaganda Mill, is suggesting that "Real Americans" only drink straight coffee, preferably Brand X stylee with an oily sort of aftertaste thanks to the roasting having gone awry for some reason or another.

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WHICH IS ENOUGH TO WONDER HOW MUCH LONGER IT CAN GET BEFORE FOX PROLEFEED SUGGESTS THAT HAVING MUESLI OR GRANOLA FOR BREAKFAST is clear and present "proof" of "elitist tendencies***incompatible with the Great Silent Majority" among "Secular-Progressive-leaning" (read: Democratic) Presidential candidates.

And that "Real Americans" only eat oatmeal, corn flakes, shredded wheat or Cream of Wheat for breakfast cereals.

What Fox Prolefeed is hesitant to acknowledge is that corn flakes were originally created with an eye towards suppressing carnal desire (as manifested by, in particular, masturbation) among Impressionable Youth, which Dr. John Harvey Kellogg thought was the consequence of having pancakes, sausages, bacon, waffles and other cooked foods served hot @ breakfast on a daily basis.

Never mind that Dr. Kellogg's thinking was influenced by the teachings of The Rev. Sylvester W. Graham and Seventh-Day Adventism, who to this day still advocates a vegetarian diet among its teachings--and who, towards the end of the 19th century, ran a faltering "water cure" sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan which Dr. Kellogg turned around--only to have the Seventh-Day Adventists excommunicate him and withdraw its support of what became known as the Battle Creek Sanitarium (a/k/a "The San") in due course.

But not before using "The San" to advance his health-reform model which he called "Biological Living," deemphasising meat, caffeine and tobacco in favour of whole grains and nut-based meat substitutes, plenty of hydrotherapeusis (hot and cold baths), gymnastics, long walks and other forms of "vehement sports" as the path back to perfect health.

Not to mention a fondness for pure cow's milk (even to the extent of keeping a private dairy to serve the needs of "The San") and--equally interesting--Bulgarian yoghurt, even importing a quantity of the Lactobacillicus bulgaricus strain of yoghurt culture. (And incorporating yoghurt enemas as part of the routine @ "The San.")

And did I mention sexual abstinence and chastity?

Yep, Dr. Kellogg advocated outright chastity, contending that sexual activity was "unnecessary" to physical health; he spent his honeymoon writing his 644-page masterwork Plain Facts for Old and Young, a warning about sexual excess and its consequences upon health (of which he devotes a full 97 pages to the Evils of Self-Abuse, where he suggested that among the "warning signs" that one may be pleasuring themselves were such telltale behaviours as sleeplessness, inattention, "use of tobacco" to excess, "love of solitude," "false religious piety," overzealous appetite and acne).

But then, on the other hand, it's been suggested that Dr. Kellogg was a klismaphile (one who achieves sexual gratification through enemas, which were a regular staple of his after-breakfast routine) ... not to mention a childhood case of mumps afflicting his mental processes to the point of affecting his pseudomedical thinking as would premeate its way throughout "The San" and, in time, the nation.

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ORIGINALLY, THOUGH, DR. KELLOGG THOUGHT ABOUT LIMITING SALES OF HIS SANITAS CORN FLAKES TO THE CONFINES OF "THE SAN," even with a younger brother by name of Will Keith Kellogg who saw mass-market business potential in his older brother's revolutionary breakfast food.

Which would lead to considerable enmity between the two until, by 1906, W. K. ("None Genuine Without This Signature") pulled the rug out from Dr. John Harvey, so to speak, and removed any connexion between corn flakes and "The San."

Which was about the same time that Battle Creek itself became something of a Mecca for the "health food" industry, what with no less than 44 cereal manufacturers incorporating themselves in the dawn of the 20th century, producing their products under, in extreme cases, less-than-sanitary conditions in the likes of shacks and even tents.

Some would fold up shop quickly, but in the end, Kellogg's and Post would come out surviving.

C.W. Post, an overworked inventor, was given up for dead @ "The San" until he decided to go his own way with the rival La Vita Inn across town from "The San," promoting mental therapeutics as a way to deal with one's maladies. Not to mention Postum (a grain-based ersatz coffee whose sales were helped by lurid "scare stories" about coffee being the cause of blindness, auto accidents, murders, suicides, juvenile delinquency, arsons and even mortgage foreclosures), Post Toasties (which he originally wanted to call Elijah's Manna until the trademark registrars in England refused to allow it a trademark, citing laws there banning use of Biblical names or allusions in trademarks) and Grape-Nuts (which takes some getting used to to eat properly; one trick I've learned is to let the Grape-Nuts soak in milk for a couple of minootas so they're tempered to a soft enough, yet crunchy, texture).

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THUS DID MISGUIDED NOTIONS ABOUT DIETARY REFORM AS A WAY TO PREVENT SEXUAL EXCESS IN THE YOUNG change breakfast habits across the nation--and, in time, the world.

Uh--before I go, perhaps some final words in the form of a suggestion from the aforementioned Dr. John Harvey Kellogg about how doctors and parents could discourage masturbation in children:

A remedy [for masturbation] which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision...The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind...In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.