Saturday, September 12, 2009

Big Food vs. Big Insurance

This is an excellent article, relating the current health care debate issue to the current American food supply and farm policies.

For instance, the government currently subsidizes the corn industry (at the tune of $37.3 billion between 1995 and 2003).  In fact, because of said subsidies, it’s so profitable to be a corn farmer that many farmers have forsaken all other grains and vegetables to jump into the corn industry.  This causes a surplus in the amount of corn produced in this country. 

Rather than cutting back to balance the economics of it, the corn industry is continually coming up with new ways that people can consume more corn.  So now while we sit on the couch listening to pipe dream reports about replacing gasoline with ethanol (made from corn), we can drink our sodas and eat our snack foods that are heavily laden with high-fructose corn syrup.

There’s a similar problem with the dairy industry, ever since the advent of pumping cows full of hormones to make them produce twice as much milk.  They need to sell all that extra milk so they can pay to replace their hormone-loaded cows, who have this annoying habit of dying every 5 years (a cow’s normal lifespan is 20-25 years).  So how do you sell the public more milk than they need?  Convince them that they need more milk.  Hence the $23 million per year spent on the “Got Milk?” campaign.

The point I’m trying to make, and which the article addresses, is that the cost of health care in America is a result of Americans’ bad health.  Our bad health and plagues of preventable diseases are largely the result of the way we eat - the “American diet.” And the American diet can be directly linked to the economics and structure of our food supply.

Do not even get me started on school lunches. 

Just read the article.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Inauguration

A nice quote from Congressman John Campbell:

It is easy to recognize the impact this event will have on American History. Since the founding of our great Republic, Americans have always relished our most sacred of traditions…freedom. This is yet another display which will be viewed all across the globe, and allows us, as Americans, to display our commitment to our founding virtues.

I encourage all Americans to welcome our new Commander-in-Chief and President, Barack Obama. We may not always agree on policy, but we are united by our American tradition, culture, and patriotism.

May God Bless this President and May God Bless America.

President Obama, I do not envy you your job.  As someone I respect said recently, I’m sure the thought why did I think this was a good idea? will cross your mind during your first 100 days of your presidency.  But I wish you the best and hope to see you meet the expectations you have set for yourself and the rest of the country.  I hope you can weather the stresses and remain true to yourself and the people who put you here.  And may the hope you inspire in people push us to better ourselves and our country as befits this one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Election Thoughts

So Election Day came and went with no surprises, which I found a little disappointing.  As it turns out, I could have done something BESIDES spend the entire evening glued to CNN, because I wouldn’t have missed anything. 

Well, that’s not true.  I did get to see the capital building appear out of nowhere on a table, with a 3-D illustration of the senate seats being filled, and I watched an interview with Will.I.Am via holograph.  To quote my daughter, “THAT’S something you don’t see every day!”

Not sure if it’s my tendency to root for the underdog or maybe I’m just a drama whore, but I was hoping to see SOMETHING unexpected in the election results though.  Unlike Obama, I prefer the neck-and-neck victory to a blowout.

This was a difficult election for me because I found myself unable to stand fully behind either candidate.  They each had qualities and policies that would - under any other circumstance - be deal-breakers for me.  Consequently, I’m neither as forlorn as most of the McCain supporters nor as jubilant as the Obama supporters at the results.  I just feel kind of melancholy about the whole thing.  I would have felt the same had John McCain won.

In the end, I had to make a list of the issues that concern me the most and narrow it down to the single most important issue at stake, the issue that I saw having the greatest effect on the lives of Americans today, and one the new president would have direct control over.  One day maybe I’ll devote the energy to expound on that, but I’m not making any promises because now that the election is over, I’m pretty sure nobody cares.

So this country is undoubtedly headed in a new direction.  I hope it is the direction our new President Elect has led us to believe.  I hope he follows through on what he says about bringing people together.  It may be a challenge for him to set aside some of his own left-leaning ideals for the sake of centrism and moderation.  If he is REALLY able to do that, he could go down in history as one of the greatest presidents to have assumed the office.  If not…

Well I dunno.  Time will tell.

I’m boring myself.  Signing off now.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

I Miss Mike Huckabee

This is the first time I have ever voted or even really paid attention to a political election.  I have no experience in political science, campaign marketing or political history.  So I will be the first to admit that the idea of me offering advice to the experts probably seems a little… pretentious?  Laughable?  However…

Like most bloggers, that doesn’t stop me from running my ... keyboard.

* * *

Dear Senator McCain,

I’m fairly certain that you are going to lose this election.  This was going to be a tough one for the Pubs to win from the get-go, but I think you royally screwed up.

You’re an interesting paradox of being eternally stuck in the past, yet refusing to learn from it.  All your honor and examples of your upstanding and sacrificial character come from many, many years ago.  What about NOW?  You seem to have changed, even since the 2000 election.  You have run a smear campaign despite vows against it.  Stories about your honor are tough to swallow when followed immediately by deliberate distortions of the truth.  You are correct that you “won’t win Miss Congeniality,” but not for the reasons you profess.

In the past, politicians owned the information, but that has changed.  You can’t mangle and reshape facts to suit your purposes and think nobody is going to notice.  Who wants a president that talks in such a way that everything he says has to be called into question? 

Your behavior has been erratic and reactionary.  People don’t know what to expect from you.  THAT IS NOT A GOOD THING.  Despite mediocre (and declining) approval ratings, George W. Bush beat John Kerry in the last election - an election that should have been a handover to the Democrats.  WHY?  Because Kerry completely failed at establishing himself, his stances and his plans.  His central message of, “I’m not Bush” wasn’t good enough.  He was an unknown, and the public decided that they would stick with Bush because even if they doubted him, at least they knew what they were getting.

You watched the showdown between Obama and Hillary Clinton.  You saw Clinton throw the same kinds of mud-slinging, distortionary, smear campaign tactics that ruled politics in previous elections.  And they didn’t work for her.  Why then, do you think they’re going to work for you???  Learn from the past.  Don’t stay stuck in it.  The race has changed.

* * *

Dear Governor Palin,

I think you have an interesting political career ahead of you once you get some more legitimate experience.  I say go for it, but I don’t think having John McCain as a mentor is going to help you.  His tactics don’t work for you.

Also, it saddens me to hear reports (from Republicans, no less) that you’re being treated “like a secretary” by the McCain camp.  I hate to say that I called it.  I was hoping to be wrong.

* * *

Dear Senator Obama,

I’m predicting that you’re going to have a pretty big win, unless McCain can pull some kind of 11th hour miracle.  But I’m also predicting that you will be under a lot of pressure to fix things in a very short time span.  The country is going to put trust in your “Change” message, but our trust is usually tentative and even the most optimistic supporters can turn on a dime if things don’t meet their expectations.

We’re Americans.  We have high expectations.

If, after 3 years, there hasn’t been significant progress (just “progress” will not be enough), I’m betting the Republicans will be booting you out of the White House the next time around.  I hope you’re up for the challenge.