As IF Times

link White House Task Force Seeks Fight on Childhood Obesity – Political Hotsheet – CBS News.

War on two fronts in the middle east.  Crushing government debt loads in all nations.  Out of control health care costs.  U.S. immigration showdown. Nuclear arming of rogue states. Calamitous oil gusher in gulf of Mexico.  Stubbornly high domestic unemployment.  These will now take secondary consideration by the White House now that “Childhood Obesity” is now the crisis du jour.

The steady march continues in the erosion of personal freedoms and responsibilities as the government officially dubs fat kids a crisis that requires government intervention.  We know how this will play out because we’ve seen it all before in other crisis du jours from the recent past.  Slick marketing and propaganda machinery will be employed to convince the public that such a thing actually exists, similar to global warming.  No doubt, nutritionists/pathologists and psychologists will be employed to plead the case to the general public.  In co-ordination, Hollywood will be engaged to champion the cause to fertile and naive minds.  Remember Sally Struthers years ago with her doe eyes pleading for money to feed hungry children?  Now it’ll be the opposite.  We’ll have washed up stars pleading with kids to forgo the big mac, the slurpee or the fried chicken.  It won’t be Sean Penn, he already has a cause, communism, so it will have to be someone with some kind of respect. 

I”m sure they’ll find someone suitable, after all, Hollywood is full of people living healthy normal non addictive lifestyles.  I can even think of slogans for any rappers who care to champion the cause.  “Do da weed, dis da feed”, or ” bein’ big fat, ain’t where it at”.  How about more mainstream slogans, ” eat like a bird, pass on thirds”.  An entire new industry is created to “help the kids”.  Telethons, marathons, bowl-a-thons, sing alongs, everything except eat-a-thons to encourage food abstinence.

As any experienced parent knows, to forbid any activity from your children is an open invitation for them to do exactly the opposite. Years of admonitions not to use narcotic drugs has only ballooned the size of the population doing them, so much so that it’s a mainstream phenomenon, not the isolated activity a few dopeheads participated in 30 years ago.  Oddly, while cigarette smoking has managed to reach pariah status, the smoking of marijuana is an acceptable activity.   When the new food nazis arrive, rebel kids can be found lurking in groups beyond the school grounds sneaking and sharing tubs of fried chicken with gravy. 

So in this new campaign to encourage thinnner kids, fat kids will be subject to even more ridicule and derision.  Not only that, but their parents will be exposed to an entirely new social dynamic as their children are compared to each other at parties like status symbols.  “My little Johnny has only 1% body fat, we only feed him kibble once a day”.  Parents of fat kids will not showcase them at parties, pretending that they are off at law school somewhere.

Speaking of law, that is the logical extension of how this campaign will roll out.  Initially, restaurants and purveyors of food deemed “not acceptable’ by some bureaucracy will need to have special licenses to operate.  The second stage is to make kids carry licenses or permits to carry certain kinds of food. 

“Can I see the permit for that bucket of chicken son?”

“Uh, I left it at home..”

“Please come with me, you can call your parents from the jailhouse”

And so the criminal population grows…..

link AFP: Obama bemoans ‘diversions’ of IPod, Xbox era.

You have to read this article carefully to make sure that it’s an accurate reporting of events.  It appears to be genuine and therefore alarming.  Did he really say that  “information had become a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy”? In the same breath, he says that education is the key to progress.  I have written before about how the President’s actions have often been in direct contrast to his actions.  This is the first time he has contradicted himself in the same sentence.

It becomes clearer what the reference is when he states:

 “…some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets….All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy….”

Now this becomes clearer; what he is really doing is throwing an oblique dig at certain right of center media outlets, led no doubt by Fox Cable, a notorious critic of the administration’s policies.  Strangely, all of the mainstream media outlets have given favorable spin to the President’s policies; Fox is the only balancing voice to those views.  Somehow, this qualifies a mention in a commencement speech. Truly ironic in a place of learning since in the latter part of the same speech, the Pres includes this obligatory message invoking Thomas Jefferson:

“…What Jefferson recognized… that in the long run, their improbable experiment — called America — wouldn’t work if its citizens were uninformed, if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out, and left democracy to those who didn’t have the best interests of all the people at heart….It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged, if we held our government accountable, if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship…”

So a confusing message is being sent.  If he doesn’t care for the role that technological devices are playing in society, he is the First Luddite.  That doesn’t speak well of the thousands of high tech jobs created by likes of Apple, Amazon, Sony etc, companies and  industries that have led the U.S. over the past decade.   Like it or not, society needs more engineers and technologically savvy grads to propel America forward.  Lawyers seem to be in surplus at the moment.  If he doesn’t care for the few dissenters with his policies, perhaps an official White House news service will be implemented, although that would be redundant in the presence of NBC, CBS, ABC and PBS.

Lastly, there is the discussion of learning being the equivalent of  emancipation.  Again a function of pandering to your audience, but emancipation is no longer an issue, hasn’t been one since, well, 1863.   This may explain the skepticism of modern technology.  It looks like someone’s looking to the past instead of the future.  Or maybe it’s just the politican/lawyer showing, covering both sides of an discussion without saying anything.  Bottom line, I think the man is confused.  Information, regardless of how it’s transmitted is everything.  Like the old saying, the truth shall set you free.