| sm3 (not smb3 (sadly)) |
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| 07:29pm 11/04/2007 |
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wtf is with the spiderman 3 soundtrack? pop-hipster extravaganza.
......
well the little town mouse and the country mouse
they got a little house, it's a little down south
where they groan and grouse about their spouses' blouse
and douse in the ground for a salty louse
and they don't get no visits from santa klaus
though the fire's always dowsed and the books well browsed
turning seeds out for a chowder in the house,
the little town mouse and the country mouse. |
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| 10:27am 20/11/2006 |
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our saturday art party had probably 200 people arrive. |
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| 09:24pm 17/10/2006 |
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My Thing
He took my thing and now here is where I stupid am: aming at the ol' new Market Street Auto Pavilion, that gets called the Mkt. St. Auto Pvln. by signs of here and of signs of there and of signs of streets of arrows' signs and peopling direction (go here for this, go that for there, this way is for the exit, entrance way for the that, that's a way for the entrance, move your legs in this way fors you can get to there and that other place, if'n only you follow these arrows to the Mkt. St. Auto Pvln.), where the big bows, where the life-size balloons of colors blowned by auto wind from the Auto Pvln., all blowned up, all ballowned up by the Auto salesmen, get placed on the cars' hoods so's they can get advertise and get blowned around by the autos' winds in the broad Pvln., (which is something that I call a street, if'n you wanna know, 'cause I always had the notion of the Pvln. as a thing of a square thing with a kind of those circus roofs, tent-topped carnival place, but I coulda figure this Mkt. St. for a kind of those CARnival, AUTOnival, even if it's strange to call it a St. & Pvln. all at once), while all the while all the salesmen carry the sales' bows over the Pvln. street to where's they ugly sales' eyes can even not see over the tops of the swelly bows, giant ribbon trying to unravel in their sales' hands and runnin' aroun' the crosswalk to make a sale an' make a sight of an auto with bowns and balloows an' a mighty price numbers stickers that I look at whiles I'm aming stupid out in the Market Street Auto Pavilion an' making way for the salesfolks and their balloons, though I never saw the blow-up tank of balloons' gas an' had a notion of an auto sales' man with his hot floating breath blownin' in the balloons' bodies where they don't even need balloon gas, but a warm breathe of sales' breath that gets the float, that's what's the reason I'm stupid here for on a usual day, the sales' men and their freerides of customers, and what I usually figure for a ride for myself, an' what I figure on usual is that "hey, since you two's already driving for no reason real, since your heart is of a kind of a heart of kindness (I can see in you, 'cause an ol' woman like me knows a heart), could'n you take your drive up to the SpreeMart (or PriceBarn if you like (because that's another kind of a drive)), but only if'n you put me in the back seat, and don't worry 'cos I know the way to get there, an' I could tell you every direction for to go, and the drive to the SpreeMart can make for a real test of a car," so they usually just get me and my thing in the back seat, roll down the windows like the way I like, an' I can make the way back on my own, on account of it all being down hill from the way back, so, usual, the men ride me down to the SpreeMart, I figure on account of they always recognize me, an' I always recognize them, the sales' men, even though, some times, a new man is got as a sales' man, an' he gives me a look like the gut of a sales' man, like he doesn't know what to do, but, always, another man runs up, with, some times, a balloon or a bow swelling in his hand and his face, and give the new man a gesture of a kind of tiny gesture that tells him, I figure, to ride me up on down to the SpreeMart, what I would do if'n I could today, but the part that I know is that the men don't recognize me without my thing, and wouldn't let me in the car because, "who am i?" if they don't recognize me on account of me without my thing here sitting stupid in the Auto Pvln., what makes me think of yesterday and the reason of why I'm here stuck in the place, what's my apartment house and what's Jimmy, who stays with me and keeps care of me, and who takes an' brings me back soda and lunchmeat, when he can, but, usual I don't see him for a time, what's when I took to going, myself, to the SpreeMart and get my own soda and calcium bread without Jimmy, on account of I don't see him more and more in the last while, an' on account of him coming home times where he wakes me up at night and comin' home times where he did't even tell me he's home an' I don't even know until I see him asleep on the floor on account of I, usual, keep my headphones on days so'n I can hear the TV, on account of the neighbors downstairs had complained times about the noise of the TV of mine, what they come home drunk up kids and have a notion of sleeping the all day, and any time Jimmy is sleeping in the house, his friend will show up and wake him and he won't let me answer my own door, waking up from the floor and taking to yelling at me in a sleep-throated voice that I never chanced upon hearing of any time of before, and that Jimmy, the boy-eyed man, the fat-faced fat-body boy of forty three years my child, he makes me stay home days with all these fooly cats of the house, never brings me soda, and I can't see his sweet boy's heart I used to, so I stay home days with the cats, that climb the walls and drooling and yowling and fight in the drawers and fight sliding around the garbage, wanna take down the blankets of the wall by the window, I reckon so they can go out the window and come and go and inviting their friends in, and I always pin them blankets back up so'n I can like the dark of the inside, like the glow of my lamps on the blankets instead of the bad sunlight, and keep the cats' fooly friends from getting in and out and pulling the cat food off of the fridge with a tear of the bag and a crash of the floor, I reckon because they don't know why I keep that food and buy more every time at the SpreeMart: for Charlie and Jetty to come back, always cats climbing on my back and caught in the wheels of my thing, always cough in the wheels of my thing that he took now, what makes me recall times before what happened, when the times were of just me, and going in and out and around or staying in, and just the cats Jetty and Charlie who I wait for, before their cat friends got in and took them away and leaving me alone with all this cats who's names I don't know what they are, and the fooly baby-eyed Jimmy, so I end up home days looking at the TV or looking at my locket and my picture of Earl, what's my husband's name, and thinking of what times would be if he were still here to kick these cats out and put on a record and give me a dance and a wine of a glass, thinking of what you'd think what if you knew him, and you'd say what "he's a real character," if you ever met him, while laugh about it and smile at me to think of him, if that gives you an idea of Earl but now, here, sitting in the Auto Pvln., I'm wishing that the mailman would come and just deliver my mail here on the sidewalk so'n I could say hello to him, because I always lift my window blankets to see an' greet him deliver the mail and wave from up behind my window in the apartment, even while he doesn't have the notion of looking up or say anything, but I know he might not recognize me without my thing and wouldn't know which one to give the mail to, out here on the sidewalks of the Mkt. St. Auto Pvln., what's where Jimmy left me out yesterday where's he took my thing from me, when he was on the couch of the morning, petting cats, with a shirt on too small and without his pants and told me that "Mom, let's go out and we'll go to the store," after he'd been away nights and with a cat drooling on his lap then he took me downstairs in the elevator with my thing when we stood on the Pavilion for a while, while I had a notion that I didn't believe Jimmy and me would go on a trip anywhere, what was why I started yellin' at Jimmy in his crumby fat boys' underwear about "where are we goin' Jimmy and what are we waiting around here for, because I didn't see you days, boy, and you never come around to see me and this old woman can't even see her boy's heart anymore because he's got fat hard ribs and stomach-headed; following a want of stomach for somethin' while not the want of his heart," what made him, I reckon, push me from my thing and take run down the Pvln. St. with his broke underwears and the half-a-shirt, with the wheels of my thing crash on the street what his dragging it away from me, and then was I fell and recalled that sound of what happened ago, what was the sound of the accident of me, that like utensils being set next to your head for some kind of a preparation of a kind of meal, the accident of me in the Market Street Auto Pavilion, the accident of me strucked by a customer and a sales' man and a test drive auto, what wrecked my legs and what put me in my thing that he took, and now I've just been layin' hear wailing and wishing for Jimmy to come back or a man from the Auto Pavilion would ride me away, but my notion is they don't recognize me without my thing, or for Jetty and Charlie to come again and give a lick on a woman's face and give a lick on her heart, like they used to, because I reckon those two would recognize me from they knew me before I got wrecked and got put in my thing. |
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| making wish |
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| 03:39pm 23/08/2006 |
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i'm making a wish that everyone who will read this
will go look at my internet design portfolio
and tell me what they think.
i can't tell if it's good anymore, i've been looking at it so long.
cody.carriagereturn.net |
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| 12:01am 15/08/2006 |
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Invalid video URL. |
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| near the airport, there is more chance of somebody looking at you from the airplane seat |
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| 01:09am 19/07/2006 |
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in the nature conservation area, between the railroad and the highway, the new trees are fenced in with plastic grid wraps. the sun sets on the wrong side, where you can't see it going. only one way on the railroad tracks disappears with orthogonal distance to a single point, toward the sun, and the other one curves into east town. the only lake was the little one in the middle with the aluminum platform and the red water valve over it.
in the nature conservation area, there's a green steel fence around everything, where the line makes the area of trees and water versus the area of flat grass and railroad pebbles. and the grass is long, but it's flat when it gets so long that it dries out and falls over and makes a shelter of a sticking cobweb of gray hollow. sometimes, the new trees are on the outside of the green fence, by accident, because of the freedom of pollen. those new trees never are wrapped with plastic grid wraps. there was one tiny tree at the most shaded corner of the green fence, only it wasn't a tree anymore. its arrounding tiny plastic wrap was almost hidden, like the size of a battery, and in mixed down with the grasses. the plastic shell was so old that it crumbled like emptied butterfly skins, and inside was a tangled dry of brown and red pine needles, tied through the center into the shape of a furry caterpillar by some gossamer. it was like it hadn't been born yet, but dried up inside its own egg. it fell apart like burnt candies and blew away, because of a rotted stem and furry needles only held in place by habit. it was still waiting to get born, the thing. |
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| let learning fuck you: |
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| 07:59pm 11/07/2006 |
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fucking businessmen in baseball hats.
eating salad.
fleece zipper vest.
fucking JEANS.
friendly colloquialism.
friendly drawl.
baseballmen in business hats. |
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| 06:11pm 30/06/2006 |
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Dear members of the Youth Speaks community, family, and friends,
It is with great hope that we write you during a critical phase in the
life of Youth Speaks. After 10 years of creating spaces for young
people to thrive, we need to ask for your help as we enter our 11th.
While we've maintained continuous growth in our programs and the number
of youth served, we have recently experienced significant financial
setbacks. Some funding promises have been broken (due to circumstances
beyond our control), and we've incurred unexpected moving costs (our
building is being sold). As we are a small - but growing -
organization, these costs are tough to absorb. In order to continue our
innovative programming in the new school year, we still need to raise
at least $100,000 in gifts and pledges by August 1.
If you have ever been inspired by the courage, intelligence,
creativity, and passion the youth bring to the microphone, then we ask
you to please join with us now at this critical time by making the most
generous gift that you can to Youth Speaks.
Founded in 1996, Youth Speaks has led a national Spoken Word
performance, education, and youth development movement that is helping
to transform the cultural landscape of the Bay Area and the country at
large. As an organization, we have been proud to carry much of this
growing movement on our back during these early stages. New programs
are beginning to flourish nationwide, and here in the Bay, Spoken Word
and poetry among youth have become a mainstay. But in order for us to
be able to pay the people who do this work everyday, we need you to be
a part of the solution.
Here are 4 ways you can help Youth Speaks now:
1) Make a donation or pledge (cash, stock, etc). A pledge form is
attached for your convenience, which can be sent to
james@youthspeaks.org. We ask that you please consider a multi-year
commitment.
2) Get 3 of your friends to donate or make a pledge as well. Please
forward this appeal to all who you think might be interested in being a
part of the movement by supporting this organization.
3) Host a fundraising event on our behalf. We'll provide poets and Dj's
and other forms of entertainment.
4) Give some time to help raise funds. If you've got the background, or
the desire, to lend a hand during this fundraising drive, please let us
know.
If 4,000 people each give $25 or 2,000 each give $50, a few give
$1,000, $10,000 or more, we will make our goal.
Youth Speaks works with over 40,000 teens per year in the Bay Area
alone, and has helped create partner programs in 35 cities across the
United States. This year, we published 6 books, gave free long-term
Spoken Word residencies to 17 public high schools in San Francisco,
Oakland, and Berkeley, held almost 500 hours of free after-school
workshops, and produced over 50 events, which included the sold-out San
Francisco Opera House for the Grand Slam Finals of the 10th annual
Youth Speaks Teen Poetry Slam, and the sold-out Apollo Theater for the
Brave New Voices Festival finale in NYC. (As part of that festival, we
housed and fed over 400 youth from 40 parts of the country.) We also
subsidized over $75,000 worth of tickets for youth throughout the year
so they could take part in these events in these extraordinary places.
We are extremely proud of our many accomplishments, and are asking for
strong partnership right now from all who have been impacted by our
work. Our board and staff have strategically mapped out ways to prepare
our organization for the future. Intentionally focussing on much needed
capacity building, we hope to never turn away a young person who wants
to be involved.
If you would like more information or want to get involved, please feel
free to contact us at: James (james@youthspeaks.org; 415.902.5637) or
Tony (trod@onebox.com). We'd like to thank you in advance for your time
and consideration and look forward to hearing from you. Also, check
out the video on the site at www.youthspeaks.org to remind yourself of
just how powerful the experience can be.
in peace & poetry
James Kass, Founder & Executive Director
Tony Rodriguez, President of the Board
For the entire Youth Speaks Staff & Board
Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Jason Mateo, Chinaka Hodge, Ise Lyfe, Joan Osato,
Rafael Casal, Adriel Luis, Elz Cuya, Tomás Riley, Khalil Anthony
Peebles, Michelle Lee, Hodari Davis, Aya de Leon, Paul Flores, LaShawn
Route-Chatmon, Leighanne Daley Sanchez, Miles Smith, Sara Jane Philips,
Lauren Wingate, Leah Joy Turnbull, Josh T. Klipp, Cathy Garza, Vivian
Chavez, Dalia Yedidia.
* Checks should be made payable to Youth Speaks, and can be mailed to
2169 Folsom Street, S-100 San Francisco, CA 94110. Credit Card
donations can be made directly on our secure website at
http://www.youthspeaks.org/indexx.html by following the Donate to Youth
Speaks link. Please contact James at 415-902-5637 if you would like to
make a stock or other property donation. |
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| 11:48pm 06/06/2006 |
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it's fun to shove cameras in peoples' faces.
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| 11:38pm 06/06/2006 |
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"we all need a way to relax."
"i skip stones."
"you do?"
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| 10:14pm 01/06/2006 |
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When most people think of pick-up lines, they imagine corny come-ons like “you must be an angel, because you are invited to my pants.” While there is a time and a place for such banter, TDTDT conforms to the more subtle view that everything you say to a woman until you have sex with her is a pick-up line.
Pick-up lines from classic literature show a woman that you’re a cultured gentleman. Avoid using lines from Shakespeare, as it may be considered pretentious and effete. Instead, consider reciting this classic erotic invitation from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird:
“Come here, nigger, and bust up this chiffarobe. I got a nickel for you.” |
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| 04:32pm 01/06/2006 |
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summer film checklist
running man
desparado
the converstaion
serpico
mad max
marathon man
carlito's way |
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| 04:31pm 01/06/2006 |
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stick to you
like a tire on the
licorice road |
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| looking for suggestions! a scholarship essay |
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| 09:06pm 31/05/2006 |
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Autonomy, Restriction and Education
by Cody Blanchard
Harry sits in the waiting room. There are magazines and a check-in desk and other waiters of various weights and heights. Harry is waiting to see the doctor, to get checked out, to get approved. He thinks he’s in pretty good shape. He looks at his arms, at his stomach. He looks at the other people in the waiting room, gauging which ones are less healthy than himself. Harry feels pretty healthy. In a few minutes, the nurse will call him in, “Harry...Harry Reynolds?” and he will follow her into the examination room. She will take his height and weight, his blood pressure, ask him about his day, tell him the doctor will be in to see him shortly. Harry will look at his arms again, look at his waist. He will feel pretty healthy and tell himself so. The doctor will come in and will greet Harry, will ask him about his job and his daily routine, will nod and say “mmhmm,” and look at the numbers on Harry’s blood test printout. The doctor will approve Harry and he will tell him when to expect his Controlled Substance Permit in the mail for pastry class foods. The doctor will also hand Harry a pamphlet on the safe usage of high fat/high sugar foods, including pastries, and read aloud the key points: “Do not exceed the daily recommended allowance given by your physician. Do not share your foods with non-approved friends or family members. Your diet has now changed; make sure to get extra exercise in order to maintain a healthy body and to continue to be eligible for your Controlled Substance Permit.”
Prescription and Regulation
The above is a world where all things legally available are completely safe for persons approved for them, via a process similar to prescription and request. All dangerous substances are controlled by the federal government, on a definition of dangerous as eventually contributing to, or directly leading to, death over the lifetime of a person, as proven in FDA laboratory or public survey studies. Problem foods, prescription/recreational drugs and liquor are held and distributed using the same process. The problem is that it doesn’t work. The problem is that modern people, used to choice and relative freedom, will just simply want to eat, use and do certain things and will respond negatively to any challenge of their respective autonomy. They will see it as a judgement on their own ability for judgement. Without education, a person will subvert the guidelines and decide things that s/he is not educated to decide, the decision briefly reaffirming autonomy, though endangering the individual.
Flash forward to Harry, skimming his pamphlet on foods safety, still feeling healthy months later, examining the size his arms and stomach with satisfaction and disregarding the rules of the pamphlet. He feels healthy. Flash forward to Harry, confident at his bi-annual permit renewal examination, being denied renewal as the doctor cites his blood pressure and blood test results, rising cholesterol and blood glucose levels. See Harry disillusioned and frustrated, his authority over himself taken away. He still feels healthy and doesn’t understand what the danger in pastry class foods is. Fake IDs don’t sound so bad anymore and asking his wife to apply for a second Controlled Substance Permit doesn’t sound so bad either. Harry explains how good an old fashioned donut is to his kids and wife to convince them. He lets his daughter try one of his last remaining pastries, an offense with punishments ranging from moderate fine to indefinite removal of the minor from the home by Child Protective Services. Flash forward to Harry’s daughter, days before her next bi-annual permit renewal examination with fake ID and Controlled Substance Permit dog-eared and faded from use, and she’s vomiting into a public toilet prepackaged frosted cakes and creme sandwiches so that she can pass this next exam. If this stops working, Harry thinks to himself, he can try some kinds of alcohol. Maybe it can afford the same feelings of freedom and fulfillment, and it will be an easier permit examination. He has heard, Harry, that there are also some places, places downtown, north of Chinatown, where you can buy anything, where it’s all unregulated and the FDA and State Health Inspectors never go, where they have even sweeter things, even creamier things you could never sell in a grocery store. He searches the internet, finding titles like “Cheap butter from Canada! No permit needed!”, “Get pure white sugar by the pound! Mexican imports! We don’t check your permits!”, “Bacon imports from the U.K.! No permit required!”
Harry is a severe example. Statistics show that prescription drug abuse, stealing, and trading is not uncommon, with 11.1 million people reported abusing prescription drugs non-medically in 2001, using methods including prescription forgery, mail/internet ordering (sometimes across national borders), and shorting refills on the job and keeping the difference (Wartel). This factor could be easily multiplied when replacing drugs as the hard-to-get government-dispensed item with something widely seen as more “safe” and without labeled side-effects, like foods.
Studies also show that the symptoms and patterns of food addiction are extremely similar to drug and alcohol addiction. It is not unfeasible that the governmental distribution of foods could lead to an obsessive and irrational seeking out of these foods on a level equal or greater than that of similarly addictive drugs, the “safe” and harmless perception of foods making up for their relatively milder addictive properties. Both drug use and food eating flood the brain with the chemical dopamine, making the person feel good and reinforcing the drug or eating behavior (Brownlee, 156), thus fostering a chemical addiction. The parts of the brain (the hippocampus, the insula and the caudate) that are stimulated during food craving are also stimulated during a drug craving (Brownlee, 157). All of this could lead to irrational addictive behavior similar to drug addiction in the seeking out of restricted foods.
Of course, this scenario would have economic consequences for the corporations which make and distribute these problem foods. The total market would shrink, as the number of available consumers would now be reduced strictly to those who are found healthy enough to eat these high fat and sugar foods. Even if these companies adapted, producing more broadly “safe” foods, the farming and food processing industries growing sugar cane, refining corn for corn syrups, raising high fat animal meat and processing dairy, would all suffer, as industries involved in healthier foods and simple produce would boom. Expensive legal battles could ensue between industry corporations and the Federal government over terms of restriction and loss of revenue. Hearings could involve chain restaurants also, though smaller restaurants would be unable to afford representation. Many would close down or go underground, subverting the government and selling black market foods without monitoring Controlled Substance Permits of customers. Discovered, some would be shut down and/or heavily fined by government inspectors, leading to further economic stress. The psychological effect would be worsened by the fact that these restaurant owners did not come into the business doing something illegal or considered socially immoral, but started out completely legitimate and respectable. Suddenly, the practice that they had built their businesses on (serving potentially unhealthy food to any paying customer) became scandalized and illegal, requiring government issued permits to purchase, being morally equivocated to liquor sales, and questioning their own judgement of what is safe and morally acceptable to exchange for money from another human. From all of this, general economic downturn would follow, though maybe only temporary.
Total Restriction
Now imagine Harry Reynolds in a society where problem foods, drugs, liquor and cigarettes are outlawed entirely. Imagine black market foods being made and handled outside of regulations. Imagine Harry remembering foods from his childhood and seeking out unlabeled and highly concentrated desserts, with unchecked amounts of fats, sugars and other additives, in more potent forms to make up for the lack of regular availability. Drinks of melted butter and refined white sugar. Imagine Harry bringing these outlawed treats home to his family, bacon hamburgers and whipped cream cakes, incorrectly cooked and stored, and imagine the entire family sick with E. coli, verotoxins and kidney failure . Imagine liquors made in bathtubs, as during prohibition, and Harry sharing a glass with his wife, not knowing it was brewed improperly or cut with turpentine or lye, also as done during the years of prohibition. Think of unregulated hamburger meat made from whatever animal is easy to find in the city, made in plants that never receive inspection. Cigarettes rolled with stolen pharmaceuticals and insulation materials, boasting a bigger buzz with hidden additives like Xanax or tiny amounts of MDMA. Foods and liquors being sold across borders without labels, coming from undisclosed sources. Refined forms of caffeine sold in markets alongside cocaine and heroin, with unknown side-effects and a broader audience familiar with it from its days in energy drinks and sodas.
Families closer to upper/middle-class like Harry Reynolds’ would be able to afford the more reliable illegal imports, the ones that promise safe handling and production in another country in exchange for a higher price, but the poorer families who wanted to indulge would be forced to buy from unreliable street peddlers who guarantee nothing but a low price. People would be faced with the moral question of pity for poor people who can’t afford safe versions of the foods that used to be legal versus lack of pity for poor drug users who can afford only dirty and diluted drugs. The economic consequences of total restriction are similar to those of regulation and prescription, only exaggerated.
Labeling and Education
“Coffee may become addictive and may cause headaches, dizziness, difficulty concentrating and/or hyperactivity.”
“Regular consumption of beef products has been linked with high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease and constipation.”
“Cayenne pepper may cause perspiration, gastric upset or difficulty breathing.”
“Diets high in sugars have been known to lead to diabetes and obesity in some people.”
Diet-related illness was the second highest cause of death in 2000 in America at 365,000 deaths, with tobacco-related illness the top killer at 435,000 (Mokdad, 1240). To battle this type of death toll, Canadians have introduced cigarette labeling laws similar to laws in America, but which require graphic photographs of related diseases to accompany the warning text. Out of a test group, the percentage of smokers with intentions to quit smoking within 6 months went up to 42.5% after seeing the new labeling (Hammond, 1). However, labels are not a perfect solution; it has recently been released that acetaminophen overdose is the “No.1 cause of death in poison-control cases and acute liver failure”(Dworkin, A1), despite government mandated labeling. In 2002, ~48% of all fireworks injuries were caused by a lack of adherence to warning labels(Greene, A1-2). Researchers from the Canadian Departments of Psychology and Health Studies secondly asked cognitive processing questions, gauging depth of understanding of the warning labels. Test subjects who had read about and discussed the health risks with other people and had thought about the warnings after the labels were no longer visible were ~40% more likely to be successful in reducing or eliminating their smoking habits than subjects who had only looked at or once read labels(Hammond, 1).
In regards to dangerous substances or situations, a government has more of a responsibility to educate it’s citizens than to blindly restrict their actions, citing reasons only when asked. Standards can be placed stressing cognitive processing and recall of important consumer information appearing on labels, evaluating techniques such as forcing clerks to communicate with customers the dangers of the products they are buying, or manual consumer safety classes for adults where the dangers of different products are elaborated on and discussed, especially for citizens with dietary or other addictive health problems. Classes could include information on fireworks, alcohol, food and prescription medications. This is not so different from enforcing ID checks or safe driving classes or mandatory driver’s insurance. Education in schools would also be a main focus, including deeper information about food additives, quality of foods, processed foods, food ingredients, what the nutritional information numbers mean (besides dreaded weight gain), and the subtle effects of different foods on the body. Guest speakers could be included who’ve dealt with food-related health problems and who could describe the conditions which lead to the related disease. Films on par with Traffic, Super-size Me, or Requiem for a Dream could be screened with parent permission or edited content to realize memorized lists of side-effects and symptoms. Eating disorder cases could drop as the world of food becomes less vague and generalized and foods are distinguished further beyond fat grams and calories.
Of course, there are economic questions that come up. These changes cost money, which might be raised through surely controversial food tax or health care taxes, reasoning that this education could greatly reduce overall health care costs. One problem might be that seeing a change in public health could take several years, while citizens already afflicted with irreversible health problems might suffer from taxation. Another possible outcome is that food producers lower standards of production to keep prices low, creating even more problematic foods, though, hopefully, this new education and labeling could teach consumers to identify unsafe foods. Or consider the taxation of recreational drugs.
Another question raised in the action of trusting education over illegalization is that of recreational drugs. It is interesting to note that the side effects of cocaine and heroin are not that different from many prescription medications, and that death only results from overdose or outside problems related to addiction. It is also interesting to note that no deaths have ever been reported from marijuana use, on its own. An incredibly large part of the population already has a moderate addiction to caffeine, a common and legal food additive, in the form of coffee, chocolate and countless energy drinks. It could be argued that caffeine and liquor have survived in our society only because they have long been a part of western life, occuring naturally in many foods. Other intoxicants have been pushed to the periphery, forced underground, resulting in the creation of dangerous hyper-concentrated versions. Imagine the effects of an illegal concentrated form of caffeine when inhaled, smoked, or injected, and the resulting addiction. Now imagine cocaine and heroin legalized in controlled, low-concentration forms, with labels, as food additives or in special drinks not available to minors, who could more easily suffer irreversible damage. This could have the benefit of providing a recreational outlet which could prevent the creation of future laboratory drugs like meth or medical hybrids like ecstacy and to curb the desire and market for super-concentrated black market drugs. Or consider custom-made recreational pharmaceuticals that could fill this niche and reduce the market for less safe drugs.
If a government tries to deny a part of society, it loses control over this part and the trust of its citizens. Allowing it to exist makes it easier to regulate and use for the benefit of society and encourages trust in government. The responsibility of a fair, effective government is to educate its citizens, offer them more options instead denying them, and allow them a maximum of reasonable autonomy.
Cited Works
Wartel, Julie. “The Problem of Prescription Fraud.” Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. 2003. 16 May 2006. <http://www.popcenter.org/problems/problem-prescription-fraud.htm>.
Brownlee, Christen. “Food Fix.” Science News Weekly. 3 Sept. 2005: 155.
Hammond, David “Impact of the graphic Canadian warning labels on adult smoking behaviour.” TC Online by BMJ Publishing Group. 2003. 11 May 2006.
Greene, Michael A., Joholske, James. Consumer Product Safety Commission. 2002 Fireworks Annual Report. June, 2003.
Dworkin, Andy. “Painkiller can be a killer itself.” The Sunday Oregonian 28 May 2006: A1, A8.
Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, Marks, James S., MD, MPH, Stroup, Donna F., PhD, Msc, Gerberding, Julie L., MD, MPH. “Actual Causes of Death in the United States.” Journal of the American Medical Association. 10 March, 2004: 1238. |
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