NYC Is On A Diet

Ok Bloomberg.....I supported your efforts to get New Yorkers to put down the Big Gulp and stop consuming too much soda, but I think now you are on a bit of a power trip with this new "Shop Healthy Program" calling for bodegas and supermarkets to reposition their food products so that healthy food options are placed in front of the store, and junk foods are removed from eye level. What's next Bloomberg? You going to banish the hot dog trucks? Stop the fleets of Mr. Softy from filling the summer evening air with their tantalizing tune? Decree that all restaurants serve vegetables to every patron with waiters that stand over you to make sure you eat all of your peas and carrots?
Obesity is a problem. And education and availability of healthy choices are the important solutions. But this policing is getting ridiculous. We are the land of the free. And you are the Mayor of a city that has many problems you may also want to put some of your energy into-like making sure garbage trucks don't hit cars, especially one carrying the precious cargo of Suri Cruise. And what about that Cowboys and Indian showdown in Times Square? Not to mention the general crime and grime plaguing the streets.
I think it's wonderful, Mr. Mayor, that you care so much about your city and it's people that you just want them to be healthy. But forcing a bodega in the Bronx to put fruit in front of the Funions just makes you a fascist food dictator.

Occupy Big Gulp

The months of protesting for Occupy Wall Street had finally dwindled and lower Manhattan was safe again. Until this evening, when it again became cluttered with marchers in protest holding droll signs and most importantly-their Big Gulps filled with soda. Mayor Bloomberg has proposed a ban that would make it illegal for restaurants, delis, movie theaters, stadiums and street carts to sell sodas and sugary drinks over 16 ounces. Many people are outraged by "Nanny Bloomberg's" efforts. As NYC Liberty HQ spokesman Zach Huff points out, "It's astonishing we have a mayor who is pro-choice when it comes to what a woman can do with her body but isn't pro-choice with simple choices, like soda container sizes."
I took my stance on this on a recent appearance on The Colin McEnroe Show on NPR-I am all for it. True, if you can't execute common sense when it comes to your own health-the government doesn't necessarily have the right to intervene, except that your fat ass is costing them more in health care. And not to judge (okay I'm judging) but it does seem fitting that the people in these media pictures of the protest don't look like models of fitness and health.

I understand that as Americans we like it big-bigger is better. That's in some ways the fulfillment of the American Dream. And of course we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But I truly have trouble believing that the pursuit of happiness leads to a giant Mountain Dew. (Seriously have you never seen the photos of what soda does to your teeth or this) But if that's what floats your fat boat through a sea of Coke then by all means do the Dew. And I suppose if think about this scenerio in terms of if Bloomberg was trying to stop me from enjoying my favorite kind of wine-which happens to be large-I'd be picketing all over Manhattan. Though you know Big Gulp Marchers, you can always just buy two smaller sodas with your Super Size fries and Big Mac. That's a pretty big loop hole in this law. And I know you like it big.