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June 14, 2005
irst, he spent 30 days eating nothing but McDonald’s in his widely acclaimed and Oscar-nominated documentary feature Super Size Me. Now, Morgan Spurlock is taking on the issues of the day with his new FX documentary series 30 Days. In the first installment, Morgan and his fiancee, Alex, spent a month trying to live on minimum wage in Columbus, Ohio, where they endeavored to find jobs, affordable housing and the best possible quality of life. Just as Super Size Me looked at obesity and nutritional ignorance in this country, the first installment of 30 Days examines the working poor and their financial strains in the U.S.
Video & Resources
• Senator Kennedy: Video
• Q&A Session: Video
• FX Networks: Web site
• Transcript: Full Text
Note: All video provided in Windows Media format.
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| Panelists |
 Senator Edward M. Kennedy has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate since he was first elected in 1962 to finish the term of his brother, President John F. Kennedy. Since then, he has been re-elected seven times, and he is now the second most senior member of the Senate. Throughout his career, Kennedy has fought for issues that benefit the people of Massachusetts and the nation. The effort to bring quality health care to every American is a battle that Kennedy has been waging ever since he arrived in the Senate. In addition, Kennedy is active on a wide range of other issues, including restoring economic growth and helping the unemployed, improving elementary and secondary schools and making colleges more affordable, protecting and strengthening Social Security, raising the minimum wage, and defending the rights of workers and their families. Kennedy is the youngest of nine children of Joseph P. Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, and is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Virginia Law School. His home is in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, where he lives with his wife, Victoria Reggie Kennedy, and children, Curran and Caroline. He also has three grown children, Kara, Edward Jr., and Patrick, and four grandchildren. |
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 Steven Kest is the Executive Director of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. |
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 Alexandra Jamieson works with individual clients as a certified Holistic Health Counselor and Personal Chef, offering personalized recommendations integrating appropriate food choices and lifestyle options. Alexandra attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and was attracted to healing with food, positive lifestyle changes and complimentary medicine because of her own battles with fatigue, migraines, sugar addiction and candidiasis. Alexandra graduated from New York City’s Natural Gourmet Cookery School, and began cooking professionally in Milan, Italy. Working under Chef Mohamed Tourkey, Alexandra expanded her skills creating regional, vegan, macrobiotic and seasonal organic menus. Returning to New York in 2001, Chef Alexandra Jamieson worked as the pastry chef at Other Foods, one of the city’s finest organic restaurants. As the vegetarian chef at Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, a camp for children with life-threatening illnesses, Chef Jamieson spent the summer of 2002 offering up healthy, fun foods for the staff, volunteers and kids. Her first cookbook “The Great American Detox Diet” was inspired by her experience with fiancé Morgan Spurlock filming Super Size Me. |
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 Morgan Spurlock, a native of West Virginia, is an award-winning writer, director and producer. In 2005, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his widely acclaimed film Super Size Me and is currently setting out to level the playing field in the world of production through film, television and books. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Spurlock has conceived and created more than 60 projects during his 12 years in the industry. From commercials to music videos to television shows, Spurlock has had the privilege of working with such companies as MTV, ESPN, NBC, FOX, TNT, VH-1, Sony and MCA Records. Spurlock’s first book, Don’t Eat This Book (Penguin Books) was released in May 2005 and picks up where Super Size Me left off, revealing how the film affected consumers, the fast-food industry as well as Spurlock and his family. 30 Days is Spurlock’s second television series. His first TV series – MTV’s I Bet You Will, which premiered in 2002 – was the first show ever to make the jump from the internet to television. The profits he made from producing 53 editions of the reality game show were used to produce Super Size Me. |
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 John Podesta is the President and CEO of the Center for American Progress and visiting Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. Podesta served as Chief of Staff to President William J. Clinton from October 1998 until January 2001, where he was responsible for directing, managing, and overseeing all policy development, daily operations, Congressional relations, and staff activities of the White House. He coordinated the work of cabinet agencies with a particular emphasis on the development of federal budget and tax policy, and served in the President’s Cabinet and as a Principal on the National Security Council. From 1997 to 1998 he served as both an Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff. Earlier, from January 1993 to 1995, he was Assistant to the President, Staff Secretary and a Senior Policy Adviser on government information, privacy, telecommunications security and regulatory policy. Podesta previously held a number of positions on Capitol Hill including: Counselor to Democratic Leader Senator Thomas A. Daschle; Chief Counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee; Chief Minority Counsel for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittees on Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks; Security and Terrorism; and Regulatory Reform; and Counsel on the Majority Staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Podesta is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Knox College. |
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