887 For the Good of the Children
News item: A prominent doctor in Boston, David Ludwig, recommends parents of some obese kids lose custody “for the good of the children.”
News item: The President and congress can’t agree on a way to solve the somewhat artificial economic crisis but both sides seem willing to soak the poor to the benefit of the rich by cutting Social Security and Medicare while fighting expensive, useless and unnecessary wars in places that don’t count, bailing out banks and car companies and handing responsibility for governing to the lobbyists.
The connection here: Politicians do little but harm. Medical politicians are the worst kind because they have the title “M.D.” after their names and took the Hippocratic Oath.
Ludwig is not just “any” doctor. He’s affiliated with the mighty, well connected and often miracle-performing Boston Children’s Hospital, which gives him much more influence than “Kindly Old Doc” in the “urgent care” clinic down the street.
But he is a politician and he is offering a political solution to a non-political problem. He may be operating from the most noble of motives, “the good of the children,” kind of like your school board when it hires 15 new administrators and fires 50 teachers, buys pre-fab edu-fad academic programs and replaces 500 laptops every year instead of every five years.
Get real. The children are pawns and excuses. Take them out of their homes because they’re too fat? Put them on diets of sprouts and soy patties? Then return them to their homes as sleek, healthy kids who make a bee-line for Burger King the first minute no one’s looking?
While you’re at it, blame the fast food joints, the advertisers, the working parents (if the parents are lucky enough to hold jobs) who don’t have the energy or time after a long day at the office or factory to do much nutritional research as they throw a fist full of Hamburger Helper and a pound of chopped meat into a pan and call it dinner.
Sure, kids are too fat. So are adults. And, yeah, parents should help develop decent eating habits in their kids practically from birth. But it doesn’t happen and seizing the kids and uprooting them will reduce their fat only temporarily, but enlarge their mental and emotional problems, embitter their parents and cost zillions. And all that is permanent damage.
Better not figure on spending money for a project like this. Not when the money that might ordinarily be available for it is going into the pockets of the people who least deserve it.
You want to know what causes tea parties and other anarchists? Re-read this blog.
Shrapnel (MoreOn Murdoch Edition):
--Soon after publication of the post about closing “News of the World,” Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp dropped its bid to acquire the part of BSkyB it doesn’t already own. He thus saves about 12 billion dollars and loses nothing. Murdoch already controls the thing with just under 40% of the stock.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), among the least worst in his occupation, is going to investigate Murdoch. Rockefeller may be too rich to corrupt, but he’s not too rich to shun the spotlight. We’ll go through a month of televised hearings and learn Murdoch is a bad boy, which of course, no one will have known previously.
--It looks like Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) and the FBI also want a piece of Rupert and have or will or plan to launch investigations. That works both ways. P. King, duck.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011
News item: A prominent doctor in Boston, David Ludwig, recommends parents of some obese kids lose custody “for the good of the children.”
News item: The President and congress can’t agree on a way to solve the somewhat artificial economic crisis but both sides seem willing to soak the poor to the benefit of the rich by cutting Social Security and Medicare while fighting expensive, useless and unnecessary wars in places that don’t count, bailing out banks and car companies and handing responsibility for governing to the lobbyists.
The connection here: Politicians do little but harm. Medical politicians are the worst kind because they have the title “M.D.” after their names and took the Hippocratic Oath.
Ludwig is not just “any” doctor. He’s affiliated with the mighty, well connected and often miracle-performing Boston Children’s Hospital, which gives him much more influence than “Kindly Old Doc” in the “urgent care” clinic down the street.
But he is a politician and he is offering a political solution to a non-political problem. He may be operating from the most noble of motives, “the good of the children,” kind of like your school board when it hires 15 new administrators and fires 50 teachers, buys pre-fab edu-fad academic programs and replaces 500 laptops every year instead of every five years.
Get real. The children are pawns and excuses. Take them out of their homes because they’re too fat? Put them on diets of sprouts and soy patties? Then return them to their homes as sleek, healthy kids who make a bee-line for Burger King the first minute no one’s looking?
While you’re at it, blame the fast food joints, the advertisers, the working parents (if the parents are lucky enough to hold jobs) who don’t have the energy or time after a long day at the office or factory to do much nutritional research as they throw a fist full of Hamburger Helper and a pound of chopped meat into a pan and call it dinner.
Sure, kids are too fat. So are adults. And, yeah, parents should help develop decent eating habits in their kids practically from birth. But it doesn’t happen and seizing the kids and uprooting them will reduce their fat only temporarily, but enlarge their mental and emotional problems, embitter their parents and cost zillions. And all that is permanent damage.
Better not figure on spending money for a project like this. Not when the money that might ordinarily be available for it is going into the pockets of the people who least deserve it.
You want to know what causes tea parties and other anarchists? Re-read this blog.
Shrapnel (MoreOn Murdoch Edition):
--Soon after publication of the post about closing “News of the World,” Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp dropped its bid to acquire the part of BSkyB it doesn’t already own. He thus saves about 12 billion dollars and loses nothing. Murdoch already controls the thing with just under 40% of the stock.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), among the least worst in his occupation, is going to investigate Murdoch. Rockefeller may be too rich to corrupt, but he’s not too rich to shun the spotlight. We’ll go through a month of televised hearings and learn Murdoch is a bad boy, which of course, no one will have known previously.
--It looks like Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) and the FBI also want a piece of Rupert and have or will or plan to launch investigations. That works both ways. P. King, duck.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com.
© WJR 2011
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