The new TIME magazine (Aug 1, 2005) has a tiny article about Bill Clinton increasing efforts to cut down the fast food industry's influence on chlidhood obesity. A statistic Clinton points out is that new generations are to have an actually lower life expectancy than prior ones. It's scary to imagine that our culture machine is giving us more and more evidence that it's killing us (forget fast food, what about high decibel capable music fanaticism And, has anyone ever studied the health risks of all the wireless tech we're being exposed to these days? Wi-fi for the office and the home; blue-tooth for the headsets; XM satellite radio anyone?; television signal broadcasts; and of course our mobiles we can't live without But that's another topic all together...).
Clinton forecasts necessary changes in the entire menu-creation-planning of fast fooders, saying that unfortunately his ideas are, "easy to state and hard to achieve." I like the hold-backs, unlike Bush's Jan 2004 'pre-state of the union' Mars speech, where he says, " This will be a great and unifying mission for NASA, and we know that you'll achieve it. I have directed Administrator O'Keefe to review all of NASA's current space flight and exploration activities and direct them toward the goals I have outlined." So the mars mission will be achieved then. I don't quiet understand why we must often base our future goals on tragedies of our past. The two big goals I have on my mind are fighting terrorism and going to space. In the same speech from above, the President says that we must aim to our country's space goals in order to commemorate those who lost their lives in the Columbia crash. Am I a terrible person to say that he's squeezing everything possible from their deaths? Here's an excerpt:
I find it moral to pay tribute to those who have passed on, sure, but why try to, not only make money off of it, forget that for now. The bigger question is, why use it to plan out a course for our future? Over a thousand US soldiers have now lost their lives to the war in Iraq, but we can't say that, we must say that they have given their lives for the effort of the Iraq war. Moving on, ... we are to use this now to continue to accept the lack of deadline setting by the Administration. Let's even forget for now that we're in a bit of a tough situation with this war and that it is a very tough issue to resolve however way you look at it. Why, beyond all this, can't we build our future based on re-enforcing successes of say, world cooperation initiatives, though few, or even US achievements. Not accepting this is trusting that we don't need another tragedy to take us yet farther
Going back to the Clinton article though, he also says he'll start a partnership with the AHA by talking to kids, but that just talking won't do much, becaus the food industry must make the changes that will have any sort of effect. Sure, it'll be a long process.
Clinton forecasts necessary changes in the entire menu-creation-planning of fast fooders, saying that unfortunately his ideas are, "easy to state and hard to achieve." I like the hold-backs, unlike Bush's Jan 2004 'pre-state of the union' Mars speech, where he says, " This will be a great and unifying mission for NASA, and we know that you'll achieve it. I have directed Administrator O'Keefe to review all of NASA's current space flight and exploration activities and direct them toward the goals I have outlined." So the mars mission will be achieved then. I don't quiet understand why we must often base our future goals on tragedies of our past. The two big goals I have on my mind are fighting terrorism and going to space. In the same speech from above, the President says that we must aim to our country's space goals in order to commemorate those who lost their lives in the Columbia crash. Am I a terrible person to say that he's squeezing everything possible from their deaths? Here's an excerpt:
The loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia was less than one year ago. Since the beginning of our space program, America has lost 23 astronauts, and one astronaut from an allied nation -- men and women who believed in their mission and accepted the dangers. As one family member said, "The legacy of Columbia must carry on -- for the benefit of our children and yours." The Columbia's crew did not turn away from the challenge, and neither will we.The legacy must carry on. After some three more sentences, that's the end of the speech, so we see that he uses one of our nation's devastations in order to bring us to action for the future. The example which overshadows the Columbia crash is of course 9-11. We are often directed to look proudly into the wind whenever we.... see someone with a 'Remember 9-11' bumper sticker or t-shirt. What better way to go through your day than by dipping our thoughts back four years every time we see a piece of manufactured mass-distributed mass-disturbing piece of memorabilia-tear-jerker-media? Are we expected to look back every time? Do you gain a little bit of strength whenever you walk past 9-11 hats on the tourist shops of 34th street? We are living in a culture that makes money at the expectation that we should submit to sorrow. It's mass manipulation.
I find it moral to pay tribute to those who have passed on, sure, but why try to, not only make money off of it, forget that for now. The bigger question is, why use it to plan out a course for our future? Over a thousand US soldiers have now lost their lives to the war in Iraq, but we can't say that, we must say that they have given their lives for the effort of the Iraq war. Moving on, ... we are to use this now to continue to accept the lack of deadline setting by the Administration. Let's even forget for now that we're in a bit of a tough situation with this war and that it is a very tough issue to resolve however way you look at it. Why, beyond all this, can't we build our future based on re-enforcing successes of say, world cooperation initiatives, though few, or even US achievements. Not accepting this is trusting that we don't need another tragedy to take us yet farther
Going back to the Clinton article though, he also says he'll start a partnership with the AHA by talking to kids, but that just talking won't do much, becaus the food industry must make the changes that will have any sort of effect. Sure, it'll be a long process.
Hey Hannah thanks for the comment! [=
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant was that our emotional ties are being sapped to generate money and political points. As for money, I really do mean that memorabilia manufacturers make way too many 9-11 tshirts. These 'things' are too reproducible to represent our feelings. You should remember the past, especially if to go about your life another way in the future, but it shouldn't be for an implanted reason.
The other reason I mentioned is a political scoreboard. First of all we allow ourselves to prejudge by putting the labels liberal, conservative, democrat, or republican on commentators or analysts we listen to/read. If you, for example, see some a person on a television news show being asked what they thought about say, Mike Bloomberg not participating in nonofficial debates with Fern. Ferrer, with a 'Democrat' subheading below their name, you will automatically assume they will probably badmouth the mayor, so it will be pointless to even listen to what they have to say. I think that 9-11 is like one of these labels.
Whenever we see 9-11 in the heading of an article, we already have a trained response to 'consider those who have fallen' to make us 'pre-evaluate' our response. We are already considering the 'duty' we have to uphold the duty we have to anyone affected by the tragedy. I say that it's subliminal to use tragedies like that as a subtext to say, public speeches or debates. That's because people will bring out their mindsets before you say what you have to say instead of evaluating what you are really saying. I think politicians and political writers do this a lot to get you in their favor.
This is from the first debate between Bloomberg and Ferrer:
In a question, Bloomberg was asked about his closing of several firehouses in the city...
He responded citing response time numbers, matching the need for more/less firehouses. The only basis for where we site firehouses, where we site police precincts, is what the chiefs say they need to do the job. Next, Ferrer was asked if he would re-open the ones closed down...
He said he would and cited his involvement in a case to re-open a particular one. As borough president I took the city to court to keep engine 41 open. Some might say, "Why did engine 41 need to be reopened?" Well they lost six men in the attacks on the World Trade Center. "Yeah, but we're good enough to sacrifice six men, they're good enough to protect New Yorkers."
Ferrer brings so much fluff in his statements, trying to incite emotions by using key 9/11 objects, "the firefighters". Sure they lost a lot of lives, but paying respect to them is not the main reason for what we do for this city's fire response time. Actual fire statistics and response metrics are.
Ferrer on nyc 9-11 memorial...
I believe that our most important work is … building a fitting memorial to the hundreds of New Yorkers who perished trying to save so many others, and to the 3,000 New Yorkers – innocent New Yorkers – who lost their lives in that terror attack. And then we've got to set about rebuilding the economic engine.
Now, I think he didn't have to be so superficial, but just stick to the facts. Bloomberg talked about some of the office space reconstruction:
If you go back and remember when the World Trade Center was built it took 13 years to fill that 10 million square feet of space. And I want to make sure the market is there before we build more office space. In the meantime, since 9/11 there have been over 9 million housing units built downtown.
He used a brief 9/ll and everyone knows what he's talking about. No need to get mushy.
I finally read your reply comment!
ReplyDeleteI agree with that whole thing about people using 9-11 as a means to generate sympathy from others. It's disgusting. Good example with Mike and Ferrer. Ferrer only tried to get people to vote from him by trying to appeal to people's emotions (he reminded people that he's Hispanic every chance he could, he kept sympathizing with Black people -- he thought those things will bring him the Black and Hispanic votes.)
The part about memorabilia: If people are buying it, then sellers should make them. I understand that the idea of people making money from unfortunate events is insensitive, but it is not immoral.
Yea, but Ferrer wasn't the only one playing the race card. I remember the pres campaign had both sides posing with Black and Hispanic communities and reps. It's all about covering both sides.
ReplyDeleteAnd in the Metro from 11/21/05, Bush was talking about people's perhaps negative views on the war, "I heard somebody say, 'Well , maybe so-and-so is not patriotic because they disagree with my position.' I totally reject that thought. this is not an issue of who's patriotic and who's not patriotic. It's an issue of an honest, open debate about the way forward in Iraq."
Well my quick response to this is that he's trying to go both ways again, to be the bipartisan or multipartisan president. I understand he has had some tough times recently, and he is trying to satisfy both sides.
As far as consumers, I guess you're right that it's the fault of the buyer to give in to the gimmick and I guess the financier in you will find that these businesses should take the opportunity and run with it.