Goal

(This is tomorrow’s post, but you’re getting it tonight, because I don’t feel like doing it tomorrow.)

 The Center for Disease Control has found you’re all just as fat as ever, but getting no fatter, apparently. The CDC just published a report claiming 33% of US men and 35% of US women are way fat.

(And if you live in Mississippi, Louisiana, or West Virginia, there’s almost a 1 in 3 chance you are helplessly, pour-you-into-a-bathtub-and-call-you-pudding fat. Body Mass Index over 30, and I don’t mean from weightlifting, either. So lay off the Doritos, for chrissakes.)

Assumptions: the US population is 300,000,000, and half are women. Now, I’m not going to adjust for age–because obesity varies with age, with 40 – 59 year olds being fattest, at 40% of men and 41% of women. So, 150,000,000 x .35 = 52,500,000 way fat chicks, and 150,000,000 x .33 = 49,500,000 way fat dudes.

Now, the C.D.C.’s goal is for the national obesity rate to be no more than 15 percent by the year 2010. If the US’s population remained stable (I know, it won’t, but at not quite +1% per year I don’t feel like doing the math), that would be a total of 300,000,000 x .15 = 45,000,000 thigh-rubbers, which is to say, the goal is 22,500,000 superfat people of each gender.

Let’s think about that. Looking at the CDC’s own statistics, their goal means that 27,000,000 guys need to become un-fat and 30,000,000 gals need to slim down to merely hefty…in the next three years.

What is the CDC smoking?

If you honestly believe 57,000,000 US citizens are going to voluntarily lose literally tons of flabby fat in the next two years, then you need to apply right away for some job where you’ll be highly paid to lie about statistics, like that economic advisor job for our retarded president.

Or maybe this is all part of a secretly coordinated government initiative on alternative fuels. (Think I’m kidding? Try this one, then.)

I humbly suggest the CDC needs to develop itself some real goals that might actually have a prayer of being attained. However, as regards obesity, that would require the government to take a much stronger interest in health, medicine, nutrition, and, yes, our environment, than it ever has. Ooo! Big government! Big government! Well, fuck you: Americans are adept at proving they can’t make intelligent choices for themselves, so someone needs to do it for them every so often. Like the government we all pay to watch out for us.

Since that will never happen, look in a mirror, honestly reflect upon what you consume, and draw your own conclusions about your place in our society of sponsored excess.

Fun

It’s fun to run your own business, sort of–I know because I did it for a few years. The two eager youngsters who ran Bear Naked, a manufacturer of too-sweet granola cereals, presumably had piles of fun while the thing was going. But you always knew they were going to sell out, and they did, recently, to Kellogg, which owns Kashi. I like Kashi cereals much better than Bear Naked; they’re more balanced, and if you shop carefully, you can find Kashi products that are much less repulsive than the crap we were mainlining as kids.

As Bear Naked informs us, founder Brendan’s least favorite word is ‘redundancy’, and once Kellogg fires everyone at the Connecticut facilities, about 60 redundant workers need no longer intrude into his life. Founder Kelly says “To live Bear Naked is to: laugh deeply and often, schedule less and simplify more…” and the buyout should fulfill her, too, in that regard. Is the beautifully dressed Kelly a shopper? If so, you go, girl. Consume!

It’s great to build something from scratch, make it valuable, and then sell it for a bundle, as Brendan and Kelly have done. Perhaps Kellogg will further their stated mission of helping trees and trails and things. Personally I’m skeptical that monoculture on the scale required to manufacture Kellogg’s many brands is good for anything or anyone, but whatever. If I didn’t loathe the wealthy, newly so right alongside the old money, I’d wish them the best. Have fun, kids. Can’t wait to see the book.

Rebrand

“Rebranding” is another one of those words you just want to hate. It didn’t exist ten years ago–or if it did, no real people actually knew about it–and has moved from marketing douchespeak to general population douchespeak.

Now the British royals are rebranding each other, or, more accurately, royals are spending hard-earned OPM on (WARNING! The following link could make you want to claw your own eyes out!) rebranding would-be royals in a revolting manifestation of wishful thinking. Now don’t get me wrong: I’m no Princess Di worshiper. She died in a speeding carful of drunks and without a seat belt. But it really is ballsy for the new dressmaker to assert “If you look back at Diana’s style before all the headlines, she didn’t have much fashion sense – all those sheep jumpers, velvet jackets and penny loafers. It was a typical Sloane Ranger’s uniform. She was a gauche teenager who was made over from a very young age.”

Hoo boy, Diana Spencer in a velvet jacket…? Yes please. Camilla Parker Bowles in anything? Maybe less painful to rebrand our eyes…the old-fashioned way.

P.S. Here’s a link to that gross phone conversation. British taxpayers certainly got their entertainment money’s worth outta that one.

Hang

Just hang in there. My two wonderful daughters are visiting for Thanksgiving, so you don’t get any media/marketing loathing till tomorrow or the next day. Nothing really going on since no one actually gives a shit about that new stem cell thing anyway (as there doesn’t seem to be any obvious way it can be translated into wallet leeching for quite a few years yet) except the present administration, which is pathetically desperate to claim something good happened during the past six years. Since I’m just a wee bit skeptical the upcoming Middle East summit will usher in an age pf peace and prosperity over there.

Massive!

The former oligarchs at the Wall Street Journal are trying to charge you for a piece of massive news that you can read for free everywhere else: Chrysler is “considering massive branding changes”! Whoa! Big news! We should all be interested, right?…Um, right…?

Here’s the massive change: Jeeps are going to be marketed as off-road (ish) vehicles; Dodges are going to be marketed as trucks; and Chryslers are going to be marketed as cars.

What? That didn’t absolutely rock your world…? Wasn’t it massive for you, baby? Or could it be that you (gasp) already pretty much knew that, and this is just breathless hype trying whip some life into some poorly-selling cars while enthusing marketeers everywhere for tackling the massive scope and scale the new branding will require? Oh yeah. Embrace the rush, man, you navel-gazing marketing gurus.*

* Whip-smart website here.

Nourish

Newsweek’s groundbreaking article (no, not really) questioning the efficacy of vitamin C bravely tackles the supplement’s vague scientific history as a preventative for the common cold. Think, for a moment, about the notion of taking something as complex as an orange or a grapefruit, and isolating a single chemical compound–then claiming there are health benefits to be had by consuming that compound in ridiculous amounts. Sure, it’s easy, and it makes money: selling chemicals. Push those drugs. Doesn’t make any sense, of course, but there you are.

Look, science today has no way to simulate or predict the effects on your body of the interaction of the many ingredients of a single orange. Is it any wonder that there aren’t any studies that can prove a single vitamin supplement actually does what it claims to do? Sounds weird? Well…it’s dead true. There are only a very few assertions about health which hold up under rigorous epidemiological study–for example, smoking really does lead to lung cancer–and none of them have anything to do with Centrum or fish oil supplements.

So for fuck’s sake, stop throwing your money at vitamins for this and quack remedies for that and just eat some decent food. If you can get it locally, all the better. A hundred generations ago, your ancestors didn’t survive to create the ninety-ninth generation ago by popping diet supplements. They survived, and you are here, because they nourished themselves.

Yesterday’s answers:

I – 3. Yep, old Bob Zimmerman needs the money, so he’s a whore.

II – 1. The Clash, of course. I could’ve used a line from “Lost in the Supermarket” or something, but it was already ridiculously easy…

III – 2. A From a Pearl Jam interview.

Principle

Because I’ve been busy today with service for the Triumph and the Ford, instead of the usual whinging you get an all-too-easy little pile of post-millennial irony. Musicians need to make money, just like everyone else. Selling their art to very large corporations is one perfectly acceptable way for them to do that. The funny part happens when the performer chooses to betray principles for cash. Match the numbered quotations to the answer choices below!

Quotes:

I. “…I woke up and caught my senses, I realized that I was just workin’ for all these leeches. And I really didn’t want to do that.”

II. “Every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world, and ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl…”

III. “These were pure feelings coming out from real individuals and were being co-opted quickly by the masses and characterized into a joke. And we weren’t a joke.”

Answer choices:

A. The Clash. Oh, wait–they never whored themselves.

B. Pearl Jam. Oh, wait…

C. Bob Dylan, of course!

(Answers in tomorrow’s post.)

Science

Well it’s Tuesday, which means the Science Times will run some stories about health, eating and…science-y stuff. Let’s look.

In the first of a pair of related articles, the paper reveals that if you’re really overweight, parts are going to jiggle when you exercise. This will come as surprising news to no one who has…well, to no one, full stop. The article combines scientific analysis of routine observation with unpleasant image-inducing reports on those observations: “Or the wider step may simply be a function of leg thickness or large thighs rubbing together.” Thank you.

The other article is the Luke to the first one’s Darth: related, but SO much nicer. A lamentably un-commented blog piece by the author of the first article overviews the evolution of the sports bra. [*EDIT: After everyone read about it in this blog, people started commenting like crazy. The comments are especially useful if you are female or a Robert "Bob" Paulson type of guy.] After two years of careful study, British scientists at the U. of Portsmouth have concluded that women’s breasts move in a figure-eight pattern when their owners jog. There is simply no point asking which study you would rather have helped conduct. The name of the field of science the study falls under? Breast biomechanics. Yes, lads, there is such a thing.

Today’s departure from marketing and media loathing comes to you courtesy of science. Tomorrow we’ll get back on track, probably with some railing against Bob Dylan, the sellout jerk.

Beware!

So it turns out I am completely wrong on at least some of what I believe about modern China. According to an article in tomorrow’s (??) Christian Science Monitor, suicide attempts were the second-largest cause of injury in China in 2005. Suicide? Suicide? If you’d asked me to list the top ten causes of injury in China I would have said:

10. Disfiguring diseases brought on by exposure to industrial chemicals used to poison world’s pets and children

9. Organs sold to pay gambling debts

8. Assault by tattooed Chinese mafia opium-runners

7. Mauled while poaching tiger cubs for gourmet diners (not really, but I can always hope)

6. Losing footing while crossing rickety bamboo bridge over acid-filled lake of seething industrial pollutant death

5. Shot by government

4. Run over by government tank

3. Kung fu gang-fight

2. Horrible traffic accident involving rickshaws, bicycles, a truckload of waste from a pig farm, a tai chi class and the Mercedes of a local government official

1. Choking on acidic coal sulfur death gas fumes of Glorious People’s Progress

…Goes to show. I learn something new every day. {smile}

Total

If you watch TV you’ll have seen alleged food maker General Mills’ new ad for Total cereal. The commercial uses trippy design and animation to support an announcer’s claims that Total was really, like, radical in the 1960s. Now, setting aside the blatant stupidity of trying to assert a cereal that tastes like sweetened cardboard was a counter-culture icon for now-bloated baby boomers, the commercial contains some interesting content, amplified on their website.

“Total contains 100% nutrition.” Yes: if we accept that nutrition is what comes sprayed onto wheat paste. Here’s the nutrition General Mills means, taken from an older online ingredients panel because GM is ashamed to post Total’s ingredients on their website. Ready? Here goes:

“Whole grain wheat, sugar, calcium carbonate, whole grain brown rice, corn syrup, salt, lactose, monoglcerides, vitamin C (sodium ascorbate), beet juice concentrate and annatto extract color, zinc and iron (mineral nutrients), vitamin E (topopheryl acetate), a B vitamin (niacinamide), a B vitamin (calcium pantothenate), vitamin B6 (pyridoxine hydrochloride), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B1 (thiamin mononitrate), a B vitamin (folic acid), vitamin A (palmitate), vitamin B12, vitamin D.”

Whew. That’s nutrition…? Eat a fucking apple and shut up.

“Total contains an antioxidant for your mind.” Sure, if, like most people, you have no clue how antioxidants are claimed to work, or that science is a long way from establishing that antioxidants even do what industry wants you to believe. Do you know what they do? (Be honest–and remember that oxidization is an inevitable consequence of breathing.) The antioxidant GM’s referring to is tocopheryl acetate in the ingredient list, and the form of it that General Mills wants you to put into your body is either vegetable oil, or else wholly synthetic. Yum yum! Grab some broccoli or some berries or something. You are what you eat. Vegetable (or artificial) oil versus a few fruits and vegetables daily. Your choice, greaseball.

“Total contains calcium to support a strong body.” Yeah, that would be the calcium carbonate–blackboard chalk–listed as the third ingredient, right after the sugar. But before the corn syrup (sugar)–5th ingredient. So have some calcium. Sandwiched in between all that sugar, your teeth will need it. Or, maybe you might want to just drink a glass of milk.

‘Total nutrition’ would have once meant eating a wholesome, varied diet of minimally processed foods. While this was attractive in certain circles in the 60s, despite the new commercial, such healthful eating habits will do little to help General Mills take your money.