Still in Bizarro world, I see

News of the weird continues:

People are snarking on Nutella's ad about, gasp, people eating Nutella.

Okay, okay: the controversy is in feeding it to your kids. On whole-wheat toast. And claiming it is a "healthy" breakfast.

But, dear Lord, people, Apple Jacks has done that for years, with the caveat that the kid eat some "real" fruit along with the Apple Jacks. (And, yes, I know. Frosted Flakes is apparently now only for kids to eat after soccer practice to try to replace the glycogen they used up running around. It is apparently No Longer For Breakfast).

You know what? I sometimes eat Nutella on whole wheat toast for breakfast. It's GOOD. And the fat content keeps me from getting hungry before lunch time rolls around (which may be 1 pm some days). I don't put very much on - in fact, too much doesn't taste that good. But I'm sure the nutrition-nannies would want to put me in a time-out for doing that.

I know little kids are apparently different now, but when I was a little kid I had to almost be force-fed peanut butter to keep the weight ON. I didn't like to eat - had to be coaxed - and I generally preferred running around outside to sitting in front of the tv. And I was a monumentally picky eater; my parents DID "doctor" food to make it more palatable to me, figuring that my eating carrots with brown sugar on them was preferable to my not eating carrots at all. (Later on, we found out I have a food intolerance to carrots and should not eat them)

But I guess now kids are little sacks of lard, who will only move, amoeba-like, off the couch for the siren call of the next serving of fat and sugar. Or something.

I'm sure the next campaign will be: "Show your kids how much you love them! Give them dry whole grain toast for breakfast! And water to drink!"

In other news, Some designer (of whom I have never heard) says Barbie has "cankles" and wants to redesign her feet..

Okay. Here is my suggestion to all clothing designers who are troubled by the fact that women, even models, possess flesh, and that somehow detracts from their designs:

Call up an anatomical-supply house. Buy a bunch (say, 15) model skeletons. They are not that expensive when you consider the cost of hiring models. They also come with a handy little hanger in the top of the skull- so you can rig some kind of a carousel system, like what dry cleaners used to have, so you can move them around the catwalk.

Because then people could see what you really think of women. That they are really just racks upon which your clothes should be hung.

And oh, for that matter, you should frame your clothing in giant sealed shadowboxes. So it can be hung on the wall to be art, and so it never has to be dirtied by an actual human being wearing it. You might even want to consider selling boxes of air, and tell people there is clothing in there, but only the truly hip and fashionable can see it.

The rest of us, we'll spend our dollars elsewhere.

And then - and I can't find a good story link for this but heard it briefly on the news this morning: Rush Limbaugh wants to buy the St. Louis Rams. But Jesse Jackson and company are going to "lobby" to prevent him from buying them.

First off: I'm not a fan of Rush. I don't listen to his show. I find other commentators more to my liking. But lots of people listen to him, he really was the one who opened the door for talk radio.

And I don't have problems with the OWNER of a business choosing not to sell to someone (An example: the bar owner refusing to serve someone who's been overserved already. Or the bookstore owner who asks someone who has come in with five sticky-handed children to leave before their kids ruin more of his books). In fact, I wish more restaurant owners and such had more cojones re: people on cell phones, people with loud kids, people having arguments loudly in public.

But I do have a problem with third parties coming and TELLING people "don't sell to this person." Because this is how we get the Nanny State: someone decides either "I don't like this person so we should be able to freeze them out" or "I'm going to keep this person from a product for their own good."

The "I don't like this person so you shouldn't sell to them" is particularly worrisome because I can see it quickly becoming a racket: "You want that I and my people should still buy from you? Then don't sell to this certain particular individual, this individual that we do not like. And if you do not stop that particular individual from buying from you, it will not be good for you, capisce?"

Life is already too damn much of a popularity contest, anyway. (see: The Nobel Peace Prize).

But the "for their own good" is probably the real way we will slowly lose our freedoms. Because people will be made to believe that they will be safer, or healthier, or more SOMETHING by allowing the requested restriction.

An example of "for their own good" that kind of backfired: the whole decongestants-behind-the-counter-because-they-can-be-used-to-make-meth thing.

I'll admit, when the idea was first floated, I was kind of in favor of it. I had a friend who unwittingly bought a house next door to what had been a meth house, and the cleanup process (and his concerns about, "What if the waste they left catches fire when I'm not home") was unpleasant. And I don't like hearing about cops raiding a place and finding two-year-olds wandering around the hazardous waste while their meth-head parents cook the stuff.

But you know? I don't know how much the ban has helped. It does not seem that there are fewer "convicted of meth possession" cases in the paper. There's been no report of a decline in numbers of people using the crap, and I think there would, if there were.

Instead, we have the meth being made by (I am told) Mexican gangs in Mexico, and brought here by gang members, or also distributed by people in violent skinhead gangs. So instead of Bubba or Joe-Jack making the stuff - which was bad enough - we have organized, violent people who also have an interest in protecting their "market share." And who have no objection to killing those who get in their way. That is not an improvement.

And yeah, Limbaugh is a "polarizing figure." And maybe he did say some unfortunate things about race, as Jackson claims (Though I don't know, seeing as I'm WORKING when his show is on, and seeing as I probably would listen to something else at that time anyway). Jackson himself is kind of a polarizing figure, no?

I wonder how he'd feel if someone wanted to stop him from doing something (legal, and something he could afford) that he wanted to do? (I think I can guess).

I don't know. I'm kind of ready to be done with this attitude of "I know better and so I should be allowed to interfere in everyone's lives" that so many have now - the Health Police, the Eat-Local-Or-Die groups, the Turn-off-your-AC-or-the-Polar-Bear-Gets-It League, the We-Know-Better-Than-You folks.