I had the radio on while I was… forgive me John Galt… working my ass off. To my dismay the hippie banjo folk music I’d been grooving on gave way to hand wringing “news/tainment”. Damn it! Someday I’ll get decent shortwave and listen to music interrupted only by some language I can’t understand and therefore won’t piss me off. Stupid pronouncements in Finnish would likely spare me the mental strain of endless politically correct horseshit.
Within minutes the stupid hit the fan and a steaming heap of elitist tripe oozed through the speakers. Somebody was arguing for further government intervention. (For some folks, such thoughts are almost an involuntary reflex.)
The malady du jour was the ever growing waistline of Americans. (For this “crisis” I’ve coined the word “obesityism”. I like it so much I’m going to trademark it.)
The talking head cluttering up my airwaves explaining that it’s a bitch to avoid obesity. Why? Because we’re in an environment where food is ubiquitous. To her credit, this is true. On the other hand, is this news to anyone?
Her idea was that the government (who else?) should keep food out of places where it ought not be. Did you notice the implicit assumption in her idea? She presumes that people who agree with her would (and should) be making the rules that ignorant peons meekly accept for our own good. What she didn’t recognize is that Americans have already made their decision. Free people and free markets want cheap food everywhere all the time! We think food ought to be cheap and stashed in every available location from minivan cupholders to sidewalk vending machines. We have molded the world to our desires and she’s not happy to see her envisioned Utopia of arugula and Brie aggressively ignored.
“Since when is it ok to have food in a book store?” She sniffed. (I’m paraphrasing.) I pondered her point; do Americans really need a Snickers bar to pick out fiction? Briefly I drifted off in a revere about bookstores.
Then she moved on to complain about convenience stores which… and this is a surprise if you happen to be a nomadic Bedouin or perhaps live on Jupiter… have lots of food. I thought that’s what made them… what’s the word? Oh yeah, “convenient”. We have a word for convenience stores with no junk food; “gas stations”. Her money quote was:
“There is food everywhere.”
I did a double take and yelled at the radio. (It’s ok to yell at radios…they don’t mind.)
“And that is a bad thing?”
The radio didn’t respond so I shouted again:
“Would it be good if food was nowhere?”
All this did was make the dog nervous.
Folks, it sucks being fat and I sometimes veer dangerously close to lard ass territory, so I sympathize…but only to a point. I’m an adult. Therefore the responsibility for healthy diet rests squarely on my shoulders.
It’s not rocket science. Eat good things and you’ll be healthy. Eat things extruded onto a conveyor belt and you’ll eventually look like Jabba the Hut. How hard is that?
I try to keep reasonably healthy with my patented “mostly eat stuff I have personally killed” diet. I also get plenty of exercise. It only makes sense to lever my hefty American frame out of the LayZBoy to chop wood or climb a mountain or wrestle Sasquatch or do whatever else sounds like fun at the time.
Exercise is good. Junk food is bad. Act accordingly and you’ll improve your odds of someday being old. It’s a simple truth that’s available to anyone. Which is why I refuse to accept the impossibly condescending idea that it’s bad to live where food is everywhere.
You know what’s bad? Living where food is not everywhere! Only someone who’s gone very deep into their own circular logic lets glazed donuts overshadow the very important and timeless truth that starvation is really extra special bad and it has happened with tragic results all though man’s existence. I intend to stay as far away from that rat hole as humanly possible…even if it means I’ve got to man up and walk past a Twix bar in the checkout line.
Cue today’s Curmudgeonly Gem Of Insight:
“Cheap plentiful food is good. Always! Even if it’s junk.”
Those who would hinder cheap food are arrogant and bossy. They could just buy expensive good stuff and leave us alone. Sadly, that won’t calm their inner need to boss people around. They fall prey to an inflated power trip attitude to which a needle should be applied lest they create the hell on earth they think they want.
Anyone who wants to jeopardize our miraculously plentiful food is a menace. Let them realize their dream. Air drop them in a socialist paradise of managed caloric limits. A couple years in North Korea (where there isn’t a pop tart in the same time zone) should suffice.
In the meantime I’m scanning the airwaves for more hippie banjos and it’s making me hungry. Maybe I should go to a bookstore?