Soda canned

[Highwayman]

Who says conservatives can’t be funny?

By Jay Homnick
May 9, 2006

Wonderful news last Wednesday: Former President Bill Clinton has brought to completion an initiative designed to discourage young people from putting anything into their mouths that might cause them illness or other damage. Under his bold, visionary leadership, the William J. Clinton Foundation (I kid you not) has secured an agreement with manufacturers, vendors and schools to the effect that schoolhouses will no longer house soda machines.

You see, all those seemingly innocuous fizzy drinks are really cutting swaths of devastation across the unsuspecting countryside. Those bubbles have sugar, and the sugar makes calories, and the calories make fat, and the fat is turning into a gigantic blob of blubber that is squeezing the life out of our nation.

Obligingly, as if on cue, new studies and articles are sprouting almost daily over the past two weeks. Obesity crisis, the headlines shriek. Something must be done. We must take stock of the stocky and chunks off the chunky. One more good year and we’ll all be blimps. Who said that inflation was under control? And finally, as the news stories ratchet up the hysteria, we get the most wonderful phrase of all. The Center for Disease Control announced that we have an "obesity epidemic". Apparently it’s contagious; how long before we get the study on "second-hand food smells"?

Although I’m more of an eat-to-live guy myself, I enjoy watching the live-to-eat crowd who bring real gusto to gustation. There have always been some folks who are more, er… well-rounded than others. And actuaries have long told them that they are trading some longevity for those delicacies (though those Reubens models were in greater danger of catching cold). Except that nobody made a federal case of it. Until now.

Darn, I miss those old-time liberals. You know, the ones who were always yelling that the government should stay out of our bedrooms. Wagging their fingers and saying, "You cannot legislate morality". At first, conservatives resisted. Then they shrugged and figured it’s a fair deal; take government out of all our rooms, bedroom included, and if God wants sexual morality in society, He’ll have to sell it to people in their places of worship.

But liberals, like Palestinian terrorists and trophy wives with prenups, never see a deal as a destination, only as a stepping-stone. So now they are trying to press their advantage. Yesterday the smoking room, today the kitchen, tomorrow the world.

We used to complain back in the 1980s about "nanny state liberalism" because they wanted motorcycle drivers to wear helmets. At least the nanny is the lenient one who lets you smoke behind the shed when Mother isn’t looking. What we have now is more like "wicked stepmother liberalism". Or perhaps it’s the witch from Hansel and Gretel, only she has gone dyslexic and is feeling our fingers to see if they are skinny enough.

Not to mention the staggering inconsistency in demanding condoms in schools because "they’re going to do it anyway" but pulling sodas out of the schools on the premise that the kids won’t just walk down to the corner gas station. Let’s just focus today on the arrant, arrogant, mean-spirited, bloody-minded, goody-two-shoes, healthier-than-thou, interfering, meddling, odious, officious, imperious effrontery of the thing.

Methinks that these people will stop at nothing to get control over the lives of others. The same folks who bristle at any expectation that they practice self-discipline are eager to draw the boundaries for our lives. We should not only grant them that sway, they want us to crown them as heroes, here to save us from ourselves. William J. Clinton, already hailed as the Boss of Bosnia and the King of Kosovo, is prepared to take valuable time away from his legacy polishing to free us from being incarcerated by our fat cells. He will sign a new Emancipation Proclamation to emancipate our waistlines from the tyranny of the soda can.

I think not. Soda ain’t the problem, fellas, nor is flour, sugar, or fatty foods. Those are just part of life. On better days we vanquish our demons, but everyday we do battle. We don’t need a law or a lawsuit to tell us that if we eat too much grain from the amber waves and not enough fruit from the fruited plain, then we will be America-the-not-so-beautiful. We can figure this out for ourselves. Or not. Either way, these are private decisions for individuals, and they need not be addressed in formalistic or governmental ways.

This is my life, Mr. Clinton. What part of 'is' don’t you understand?

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/colu...09/196668.html

[lurker]

I thought the placement of sugar/caffeine machines was a money maker for the skuul'z. You mean to say that student health is now a concern?

[Tee]

Do you remember in the late 70's when Merill Streep was on a crusade to ban hot-dogs, saying they were killing our children?

This is very reminiscent of that.

[lurker]

From today's HutchNews

Coca-Cola's bid included an eight-year agreement to provide a total compensation package worth about $321,000. Pepsi's eight-year bid proposal provides a package worth about $465,000 a year and included $100,000 in up-front support and $16,000 a year in additional support.

Hutchinson High School's previous contract with Pepsi provided about $16,500 in commission sales. Board member Jeff Allen said beverage manufacturers' recent decision to remove sugar-laden beverages from schools could reduce future sales at the high school.