As IF Times

Kids and Killer Hot Dogs? 3 Tips to Prevent Choking on Food – On Parenting usnews.com.

Sounds reasonable.  I suppose hot dogs as a dangerous food for kids can rank right up there with such hazards as running with scissors or playing with firecrackers.   The real question is at what age range do the warning labels apply on this newly labelled death food?  Presumably, nobody is stupid enough to feed hot dogs to children until they have teeth, so that would exclude the under 1 year crowd.  At some point, the parents  have to take their eyes off the kid when he’s eating, because if they have to monitor every chew up until they feel it’s safe for junior to eat unsupervised, the parents may want to stay with the pablum or should consider getting the kid tested for IQ deficiency. 

I mean if the kid hasn’t mastered bite, chew, swallow by the age of 10, the odds are high that long division will be a challenge and saving for college is probably unnecessary.   No doubt, upon the heels of this recommendation from the American pediatric group, a veritable phonebook sized list of hazardous foods will be released to worried parents.  In the legal world, this creates another opportunity, because if some ill fate should befall someone’s child resulting from eating food items on this list, well, let’s just say someone’s kids will be going to college.

Has anyone noticed the eerie resemblance that kids these days bear to domesticated pets?  They both live in controlled environments, have regimented food and receive over the top fawning and preening.  Our western society is raising bubble kids, children who live in protected cocoons until some vague time of adulthood when they are allowed to go into the world.  Like domesticated pets though, many of these kids are unable to fend for themselves once out, depending on parents for the most mundane things.  Can you imagine if in nature, birds were not taught to fend for themselves and instead hung around the family nest?  You’d have birds nests the size of trampolines and you certainly wouldn’t park your car under one of those.

It’s very ironic that parents of kids today are themselves the tail end of the baby boom, people who were given lavish attention and nurturing during their time as kids because of the post war mentality of their parents.  This generation was also about drugs, free love, do what feels good yada yada yada, but now themselves are hovering over their own brood like over-bearing  nannies.

Back to the hot dogs;, while we don’t feed food to kids shaped like grapple hooks, to all of a sudden post warning labels on hot dogs after decades of consumption is nannyish in the  extreme.  What are we supposed to eat at ball games? Kibble? All I can say is, if this warning takes hold, lots of ears, snouts and eyelids will go to waste.  I guess there’s always baloney.

link Tiger Woods to Make Statement on Friday – WSJ.com.

Who cares? Ok, well that’s not true.  The real question is who really cares.  Most people clamor for their 15 minutes of fame: Tiger goes the other way and wants 15 minutes of obscurity.  The events that have come to light over the past few months surrounding Tiger’s life outside the links have more than fed people’s natural voyeuristic tendencies. People love success stories, but just as many love the crash and burn stories, if not more .  If this were not true, magazines such as The Enquirer, People and Us Weekly to name a few wouldn’t be in business.

Apart from Jen, Brad and Angelina’s permanent positions on the covers of those magazines, most stories have their limited shelf life and the paparazzi move on to the next big thing.  After the initial shock of seeing someone of Tiger’s stature being exposed for living  the kind of personal life most “celebrities” probably do, the  emerging sordid details are interesting only for those truly lacking their own lives.  Tiger’s your typical boy gets to be greatest golfer in the world, marries beautiful trophy wife, has 15 affairs story.  It happens all the time.  The fascinating uniqueness  in this case was the methodical yet reckless duplicity of his activities.  Is it really that gripping to hear what girl “a” said or what girl “b” did?  Only to their agents I suppose.

At this point, whether our hero is contrite and repentant is irrelevant.  His good guy star has already fallen irreparably and all there is for him now is to resume his golf career.  Despite the loss of Accenture as a sponsor, other corporations will line up to have him represent them.  Will Tiger care if he is tarnished in the eyes of his fans?  Likely not.  Golf is not naturally a team sport.  You strive by yourself to beat the competition, it is a selfish pursuit, but that’s the way it is.  Success in the game is somewhat ephemeral, so when the opportunity arises to distance yourself from others, you step on the gas, not let up to make a close match.  It is in Tiger’s nature to pursue wins on the course, the affection of fans is not a factor. 

Sadly, with all that’s happened, nothing that Tiger does or says from now on can be taken without some question of  honesty.  Whether through contrived speeches created for him by his management group desperate to reflate the franchise or interviews to media people, his words will always have the taint of insincerity.  You’d be wrong to think I blame this all on Tiger.  Certainly he had a role to play.  As culpable are his management team, his sponsors and the adoring media who extrapolated Tiger’s sporting achievements to real life heroism with the usual end game of commercial benefit.   Guilty as well are those in the public who bought into the fairy tale.  We all love our sports heros because we see them achieving things we aren’t capable of.  In the end…it’s only a game.