Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
I’m a Lardass Because You Don’t Spend Enough Money
This blog, which nobody actually reads anyway, makes it a regular habit to probe the thoughts we have that widen the already-gaping chasm between public policy, and public policy that would make some sense. And in that pursuit, we are drawn to, and re-drawn to, and re-drawn to again and again and again, like a moth to a flame…the never-ending issue of people finding new things to worry about, wombat-rabies bollywonkers crazy things, when a little bit too much time has slipped by since they’ve had something real to worry about.
Er, about which to worry.
Heh. I’m an example of my own point. Roofs over our heads, food in our guts, you even understand what I’m saying just fine and dandy…and least, with a couple of re-reads, you do…and here we are obsessing over the prepositions I end my sentences with. Well, anyway. Back to the subject at hand.
We just don’t think the same way after Beowulf brings in Grendel’s head, as we do an hour before. The candy machines are installed. The breakrooms in which those candy machines sit, have linoleum and power. The buildings housing those breakrooms, have good foundations, and the swamps that once lay in the spots where those buildings sit on their foundations, have been cleared. Naturally, before the swamps were drained, the snakes were killed. And now that people have nothing more worthy of their carping and complaining, besides the machines eating the dollar and not dropping the right candy…on the very spot where poisonous snakes once slithered…about what shall we worry?
THERE now are more overweight people than undernourished, organisers of an international obesity conference claim. The escalating problem, particularly in children, could make today’s generation the first to die before its parents.
:
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows almost 70,000 extra South Australian adults have joined the growing ranks of obesity since 2001. In 2004-05, 18 per cent, or about 202,800, were obese; 32 per cent, or about 370,000, were overweight. In 2001, 15 per cent, or about 168,400, were obese and 30 per cent, or about 335,800, were overweight.Campbelltown mother-of-three Kerry Scerri is conscious of protecting her children from becoming obese or overweight.
“I put on extra weight and I know what it’s like to feel uncomfortable with yourself, feel unhappy and wonder what people are saying about you,” said Mrs Scerri, who has been a life member of Jenny Craig for 15 years. “I don’t want to put my kids through that.”
The Dietitians Association of Australia has called on the Federal Government to:
RECOGNISE obesity as a chronic disease under Medicare.
PROVIDE a significant financial commitment to help struggling Australian families get the skills and support they need to feed their families properly. [CAPS in original]
Woo hoo! Things must be going great in Australia. Looks like a few too many opera houses have gone up since anyone has had to worry about losing a leg to a Great White shark, or getting kicked in the head by a kangaroo, or having a dingo eat one of their babies.
It just goes to show what I’ve been saying all along: Too much civilization. Once the snakes are killed and the swamps are drained and the buildings built and the candy machines installed…we, as a species, appear to be incapable of conducting our lives the way we did when we were killing those snakes. We can’t think the same way. It’s like a chunk of our collective brain goes missing. Once the concerns are addressed, the new priority becomes to find more concerns.
Which is fine by itself, I suppose, as long as it’s a linear process. When you have what it takes to build a ten-story building, it’s just the human instinct for progress to try to find a way to build a twenty-story building…and it makes sense that we’re incapable of worrying about twenty-story buildings when the swamp has not yet been cleared so the foundation can be set. Put some buildings on this continent, when you’re done, put some buildings on that continent over there — then, build a spaceship, and conquer space. Progress.
But this is not a linear process. Not when you have egghead scientists twisting the arm of the Australian government to give money to fat people, so fat people might stop being fat…which, I’ll wager, nobody anywhere is going to bet some serious coin or some left testicles is what’s really going to happen.
No, this is a cyclical process. This is an empire getting ready to fall. Only the brain-damaged can recite this in a one-line summary, with a straight face. We got all these fleshy kids…we’re worried that a whole generation of Augustus Gloops could expire before their parents because they’re so chubby…government has to appropriate some funds, to give these porkers and their parents the skills they need to thin the kids down. Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh…right.
No, here is the next thing about which the international community can get worried, now that the swamps are cleared and the buildings are built. How about this: Scientists, who have figured out that if their research says the right stuff, it will have a positive effect on their grant money. It’s been a problem for a long time now. Give me anyone willing to argue with me about it and tell me it’s not a problem, I can change their mind, toot-sweet, simply by citing some scientific research such a critic would happen to not like, and I’ll have an instant convert. In other words, we all know this is true, some of us just choose an opportune time to admit it.
And so what we have come to call “science” is now something quite different from what science really is…and we are blind. We have been commanded — or Australia has been commanded, anyhow — to take as our next priority in the continuing human struggle, the appropriation of public funds to turn fat kids into not-so-fat kids. EXCUUUUUUSE ME…it’s cheaper to make a skinny kid, in the first place, than a tub-o-goo. Turning out skinny kids instead of fat kids, should produce a freakin’ savings — from whence arises the necessity to pay for it?
I mean, I’m sure there’s a decent answer to the question…but how come nobody seems to at least be asking it in the first place?
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