Mmmm....Beer

Ezra Klein wonders when arugula became the signpost of fancy-pants elitism. I wonder, too. On the one hand, I'm pretty much a fancy-pants elitist but I'm really not sure which of the various leafy greens you see in salads is the arugula. Apparently it's also used as a garnish at Olive Garden.

But the real question is when did beer become so downscale? Go to a retail corridor in a yuppified neighborhood in any town in America and you'll find a bar full of people drinking . . . beer. Go to a Whole Foods in a town where supermarkets are allowed to sell beer and you'll find . . . beer. Surely these are well-known facts. Meanwhile, in literal sense the American "beer track" seems to involve Obama-friendly plains states plus outliers like Nevada (casinos) and New Hampshire (people driving in from neighboring states to avoid taxes).