One sure-fire way not to sell me a food item is to lace it with unwanted vitamins and minerals. I don’t need “fortified” this and “enriched” that. I am not in imminent danger of scurvy, I don’t suffer from bone density problems, and if I am to believe the labels I eat so many times over my “recommended daily dose” of multiple vitamins and minerals that I should be (pardon) crapping straight One-A-Days. Popularity of certain food supplements varies every year and there are plenty of studies on the subject disproving each other’s findings. I eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, etc. and vitamin deficiency has never been a problem. With that in mind, when I go to the store, I avoid anything with additional supplements just because I didn’t ask to improve my food; there are plenty of unknown weird substances in my food already and don’t feel like I need to add to the list.
When Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev came back from his trip to the United States he had the answer to all of the USSR’s agricultural and other problems – corn. A directive was issued and pretty soon corn was being planted everywhere with joyous reports pouring in from all corners of the country even from places where corn had no chance of maturing due to the short growing season. Just like in the Special Olympics it wasn’t the results that counted, people got points (and awards) for participation.
I thought about overachieving and stupidity when I came home the other day to see my neighborhood lined with blue trash carts.
With these trash carts the City of Olathe is about to start its recycling program. I am skeptical about the benefits of recycling and until now did not participate in the program since it was not mandatory and cost an additional charge. My household doesn’t produce enough recyclable materials as outlined by the City to even bother. As a matter of fact we just don’t have that much trash in general. When the City supplied everyone with 95 gallon trash carts few years ago I immediately traded down to a smaller 65 gallon size and even that is almost always half-empty. I hardly ever have any items that fit the description other than an occasional phone book, a rare plastic bottle, or a piece of cardboard, so the 65 gallon cart represents about 65 times more volume of recyclables my family can produce in a year. The City did a test-run and feels that I will have enough stuff to fill it every two weeks. Obviously this is not going to happen.
In addition to the fact that I never volunteered to participate and wasn’t consulted with before the cart was dropped off in my driveway I literally don’t have any room in my garage to keep two 65 gallon containers. Hardly anyone in this neighborhood has more than one-car garage and most of the people already keep their regular trash carts out on the street (against the regulations), so now it will be adorned by two giant trash bins per household. However, the main non-benefit of the recycling program is a mandatory increase in the cost of the trash pick-up. While no one has to participate, everyone has to pay supposedly to attain a “long‐term stabilizing benefit to recycling because landfill costs are increasing”. Now I am torn between wanting to get something for the money I suddenly have to contribute and the realization that I will probably never have enough recyclables to even bother rolling the cart out on the pick-up day. Most likely I will just return the cart and curse the City every time I pay the bill.
I realize that many people believe in recycling, Jesus Christ, hope and change, world peace and global warming/cooling or both. Nothing wrong with that. What I find idiotic is the city investing in enough of the $65 trash-carts for every house, special trucks and equipment, with many people like me who will opt out of the program for various reasons. I have no idea how many people will return the carts or just leave them outside as decorations. The time will tell. I wouldn’t have any problem with just a price increase without the recycling gimmick, I realize that the costs are rising, but what may be a good idea for some, was imposed on all by the same type of thoughtless overachievers who long ago were planting corn inside the Arctic circle.
In the meantime you are welcome to drop off your recycling at my house – it’s already paid for.
If you have thirty minutes of spare time, watch this episode of Penn and Teller Bullshit, maybe you’ll recognize yourself.
They win 38 gold medals in games marked by many broken records, lots of rain but few quarrels – California beats all except three countries, but Dutch housewife takes top individual honors.
For 17 days – except for one night when there was trouble with the gas line – the torch flamed brightly in Wembley, England. From July 29 to Aug. 14 it was the symbol of the 14th modern Olympiad. Last week, after a brief closing ceremony, the gas was turned off and 5,000 athletes from 59 nations were on their way home.
The ceremonial dignity of the Wembley Olympiad was no match for the neopagan histrionics which characterized Adolf Hitler’s 1936 spectacle in Berlin. But by the athletic standards the show was superb, despite the fact that the weather was the worst in Olympic history (the sun shone only three days). The general decorum of competing athletes was admirable, and only a very slight international tension followed a disputed U.S. victory in the 400-meter relay. The U.S. team of sprinters won the race by seven yards but was disqualified when a British judge ruled that the Americans had passed the baton in an illegal manner. When the film record of the race proved the judge had erred, the U.S. was adjudged the winner in an elaborate show of good feeling. This deprived the British of their only track and field gold medal and gave the Americans another to add to the 10 they had already won.
The U.S. Olympic sweep – 38 first-place medals- was overwhelming. In men’s track and field and swimming the U.S. scored more first and second places than all Europe combined, although the final unofficial point totals reflected the prowess of other countries in such peripheral sports as fencing and Greco-Roman wrestling. Considering comparative manpower and coaching standards, the parade of the U.S. track and field winners to the Wembley Stadium victory platforms was no surprise. And the unprecedented U.S. triumph in men’s swimming was made possible only because the Japanese were not permitted to compete. (Other absentees: the Germans, who were not invited, and the Russians who snubbed the whole show.)
California athletes alone scored more points than any country except Sweden, France and Hungary. The two U.S. sensations were both Californians: Vicky Draves, who won both of the women’s diving championships, and Bon Mathias, a 17-year-old schoolboy who won the decathlon. But the greatest Olympic performer was not an American at all. It was Holland’s Fanny Blankers-Koen, the only person to win three individual championships.
One sure-fire way not to sell me a food item is to lace it with unwanted vitamins and minerals. I don’t need “fortified” this and “enriched” that. I am not in imminent danger of scurvy, I don’t suffer from bone density problems, and if I am to believe the labels I eat so many times over my “recommended daily dose” of multiple vitamins and minerals that I should be (pardon) crapping straight One-A-Days. Popularity of certain food supplements varies every year and there are plenty of studies on the subject disproving each other’s findings. I eat plenty of fruits, vegetables, fish, eggs, meat, etc. and vitamin deficiency has never been a problem. With that in mind, when I go to the store, I avoid anything with additional supplements just because I didn’t ask to improve my food; there are plenty of unknown weird substances in my food already and don’t feel like I need to add to the list.
