Tuesday, July 31, 2012

BIG BROTHER Rides Again!

Not long ago, New York City Mayor/Billionaire Bloomberg decided that people need to be told how to live longer, be healthier, be happier, probably, and be all around free from everything bad, which will, of course, make every city and town free from everything bad. The mayor has already decided that people in the Big Apple eat too much salt and has taken steps to stop that bad habit. Restaurants…look out, since even Bloomberg hasn’t yet figured out how to monitor salt intake in residential kitchens and dining rooms!

Bloomberg has come up with a plan to engage the cities by offering millions in awards to cities that come up with the best ideas regarding how to establish Utopia. Most ideas about anything are worthless, of course, because they conflict with other ideas, but maybe the mayor is on to something…a sort of Idea Commission that will settle the matter of how to make everything perfect.

Actually, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (or some such agency) has already started the ball rolling on the federal level. Probably the “idea” came from Head Czar Sunstein and involves school-lunch examiners/regulators whose job is to make spot-checks in schools and make on-the-spot corrections when it’s discovered that some mom has erred grievously in the preparation of her child’s lunch.

The recent North Carolina case comes to mind. The federal examiner pronounced a private lunch unfit (had only fruit and stuff like that) and mandated that the child eat three (count ’em) chicken fingers in order for her life not to be threatened by a lack of white meat. It happened…you can’t make up this stuff. It’s part of Obama’s CHANGE, like the skyrocketing electricity rates he promised.

This matter was taken seriously by columnist Tom Eblen of the Lexington [Ky.] Herald-Leader, who gave this as his suggestion on 27 July: “Set a goal to make Lexington the nation's healthiest city through better nutrition and more exercise.” How’s that for originality? Actually, cities usually neither eat nor do aerobics but…okay…that’s semantic nitpicking gone amok, totally unfair.

Eating salads and at least walking a proper distance every day are nothing new. As far as the health conditions of the people of Lexington are concerned, Eblen could have suggested that all trucks be kept off city streets because they fill the air with multi-carcinogens. Ditto for those diesel-fumes-emitting locomotives that thunder through town. Naw, the H-L will opt instead for a smoke-free outdoors – no tobacco fumes, never mind that all the smokers in Lexington in their entire lifetimes could not put as much carcinogens in the air as the trucks and trains do in one hour.

The Bloomberg lunacy is reflective of the “Big Brother” philosophy that drives the nation now – both political parties sharing the blame. Bloomberg’s latest dreamed-up “regulation” is that hospitals should deny formula to babies whose mothers take a dim view of breast-feeding. Okay, the experts say that breast-feeding is best, but it’s sometimes hard to do on the job. Rosie the Riveter (not to mention her baby) might find breast-feeding disconcerting. One wonders when groceries in NYC will have to sell formula on the black market.

Mayors do have responsibilities in keeping their cities safe, however, as seen in Chicago Mayor Emanuel’s assertion the other day that Chic-fil-A should have no restaurants in the Windy City because that outfit doesn’t observe Chicago’s VALUES. This is the mayor of the current U.S. murder-capital, who suggested to the gang-bangers recently that they shoot each other in the alleys and not on the streets, lest innocent children be caught in the cross-fire. Now…that’s a real VALUE! Perhaps Rahm should invite back Barack, his old boss and fellow Chicagoan, to organize the community, his specialty.

One supposes that Chic-fil-A could be dangerous in Lexington, given that, as Eblen noted, Lexingtonians are among the most sedentary, non-exercising, and therefore unhealthiest people in the country. He doubtlessly views fried chicken as a lethal force, though one suspects it might be dangerous only if one of the thousands of couch-potatoes should partake of 50 grilled-chicken sandwiches in a single sitting.

The point is moot, however, since the rap on Chik-fil-A is operative not because of its food but because its CEO claimed that marriage (actually the only possible arrangement) should be between a man and woman, as so states the laws and/or constitutions of most of the states, including the federal government. The president has stated that neither he nor the attorney general will enforce that law, an impeachable offense, but Obamessiah has declared that government by executive order trumps all else, except perhaps the directives of his chief adviser, Valerie Jarrett, who finally – after some prodding by sane people – let him “do” Osama.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

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