Food Fight

Maybe former California basketball coach Todd Bozeman had to choke down too many ham-on-rye sandwiches during his eight-year ban from coaching. Or maybe he was still seething from the turkey he had witnessed, his Morgan State team having blown a 10-point lead in a loss to Longwood University. Whatever the reason, Bozeman found himself in a pickle last weekend. On a postgame food run, Bozeman threw a Bob Knight-like hissy fit at a restaurant in Farmville, Va.

Opponents of biotechnology have raised some legitimate concerns. In doing so, however, they have often employed guerrilla tactics and outlandish rhetoric. Instead of educating people, they have merely exploited the public's limited knowledge about genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Some biotech foes have vandalized fields of genetically modified crops, destroying test plots, while they criticize industry for insufficient field testing.

Grocery wars can bury innocent victims. Pull off the freeway into a Camino de Estrella shopping center where a closed Alpha Beta forced Popeye's for Hair to trim the price of a cut by 25%. A few steps away is an empty space that once housed the Golden Comb, a salon that catered to older women. The Jim's Pharmacy has also closed. And a Bank of America branch is soon to follow. With the anchor grocery store site empty, foot traffic past the small shops in the center plummeted. Sales followed.

Administrators vowed this week to crack down on students who participate in an annual food fight at Downey High School, after a pelting match last week erupted into a brawl. Police officers were called to break up the incident in which about 150 to 200 students were lobbing soda cans, burritos, ice, bananas, tomatoes, carrots, ketchup, mustard and paint at each other, officials said. "It was raining bananas," said freshman Janane Henderson, 15. "I saw eggs flying."

Refrigerated trucks trundle down the pretty country lanes laden with pale, doughy masses of fungus -- 32 tons or more a day. "Pure mycoprotein -- good enough to eat, won't taste of anything, very bland," declares manufacturing manager Pete Willis, tearing off a golf-ball-sized sample from a 2,000-pound glob. Workers in white boots shepherd the fungal paste through a sea of vats and clanking machines that mix, press, slice and dice the raw dough.

Holden Caulfield stood up at Dodger Stadium on Saturday and swore an oath about "deciding in your youth on a policy of truth." But Holden came in the guise of Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan, a center fielder in the wry. In the first of two sold-out shows at the stadium, Gahan danced exuberantly to dark-toned music amid stage smoke and flashy lighting, stating his pledge in front of about 50,000 screaming fans. An incongruous setting for such a personal--if universal--act of expression? Perhaps.

For Andrea Bonati, producing Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is more than a profession. "When I was a kid, I used to steal it from where my mother kept it," he says of the cheese better known around the world as Parmesan. "It's an addiction. It starts running in your blood. It's something that deeply affects the feelings of the people who make it. Once you start, you can't stop." But there are two kinds of "Parmesan" in this world.

Proposition 30, which would raise taxes to avoid more drastic cuts to schools, is doing better in the polls.  ALSO: Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Prop. 31 could be Californians' most important ballot decision Prop. 37: Taking sides in California's genetically engineered food fight Follow Ted Rall on Twitter @TedRall . Follow Opinion L.A. on Twitter and Facebook .

Re "A foie gras food fight in O.C.," April 17 Thank you to chef Amar Santana of Laguna Beach for his honesty in pointing out that just because some people love animals, "it doesn't mean your neighbor feels the same way" - essentially admitting that he doesn't care about animal cruelty. It is refreshing to hear a foie gras-serving chef admit the ugly truth: They don't care if animals are tortured. Santana argues that no one has the right to force others to prevent animal cruelty.

How do you make a dumb movie? The formula can vary--but not much. Sean Cunningham, director of the archetypal "Spring Break," described his plan thus: "Kids get drunk. Kids get laid. Kids go home." A critic for the London Times reduced the formula succinctly: "Rule 1: Kids must get even or actually destroy an authority figure. "Rule 2: There must be one outstandingly dirty comic scene on a par with 'Porky's' peephole vignette. "Rule 3: No shades on the shower, please ."