The Awl http://www.theawl.com/ Be Less Stupid Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:00:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.2 Mike Bloomberg Is Trying To Kill You With Healthiness http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/mike-bloomberg-is-trying-to-kill-you-with-healthiness http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/mike-bloomberg-is-trying-to-kill-you-with-healthiness#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 09:00:27 +0000 Alex Balk http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/mike-bloomberg-is-trying-to-kill-you-with-healthiness But does he love you back?I have very mixed feelings about this Times Dining piece on Mayor Bloomberg, who wants to reduce the amount of sodium in processed food yet eats plenty of salt himself. Also? He will eat the occasional Big Mac, yet insists that the calorie count be posted. And? He was once a smoker, but continues to make cigarettes more expensive and less socially acceptable. I understand the value of a good "oh, the hypocrisy" piece as well as anyone, and God knows it is plenty easy to look at the mayor and see a tiny Jewish tyrant bent on forcing the people of this city to do his will, but, really, is it that binary?

I was having a conversation with a colleague about this in the wake of the whole parks 'n' beaches smoking ban thing the other week. Now, I speak here as a pack-a-day smoker who will drench his bacon in salt without even tasting it first. My consumption of alcohol and artery-clogging comestibles is fairly well documented. Still: I am not sure that I necessarily disagree with many of the measures that the mayor and his ilk have championed. I cannot think of anything, in my lifetime, that has had a more beneficial effect on the health of Americans than the increasing and incessant regulation and taxation of cigarettes. I would, perhaps, have a different opinion in the event of an outright ban, but can anyone really argue that bars are a whole lot more pleasant now that you have to go outside to smoke while you're at them? Particularly given the fact that the people least likely to smoke are always the most boring, so it provides you with an excellent excuse to extricate yourself from a deadly dull dialogue.

Again: conflicted. I understand the libertarian arguments about everyone being able to make their own choices in a free society, but is that really what this boils down to? No one is talking about banning salt; the proposal simply reduces the amount in prepared food. You're always free to add your own. In an age where you have to go on an extended safari to find a food that's free of high fructose corn syrup, is it an absolute restriction of liberties to say that maybe we should remove those items that are obviously detrimental to our health, particularly when we know that most of us are so lazy that we will pretty much accept the default option without complaint? Nora Ephron-yes, there she is again!-tells the Times that the listing of calorie counts "takes the fun out of everything," but is it some kind of brutal disenfranchisement to let people know that the large fries contain pretty much all the fat and sodium you need for a week?

Anyway. I'm not trying to be the Food Police. I think we should be able to smoke in parks (although not beaches, because there is nothing nastier than stepping on a cigarette in the sand). I just think that maybe we're getting a little overheated about regulations that are not exactly draconian. But I am certainly open to arguments. While you come up with them, I think I'm gonna go have a cigarette.

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]]> But does he love you back?I have very mixed feelings about this Times Dining piece on Mayor Bloomberg, who wants to reduce the amount of sodium in processed food yet eats plenty of salt himself. Also? He will eat the occasional Big Mac, yet insists that the calorie count be posted. And? He was once a smoker, but continues to make cigarettes more expensive and less socially acceptable. I understand the value of a good "oh, the hypocrisy" piece as well as anyone, and God knows it is plenty easy to look at the mayor and see a tiny Jewish tyrant bent on forcing the people of this city to do his will, but, really, is it that binary?

I was having a conversation with a colleague about this in the wake of the whole parks 'n' beaches smoking ban thing the other week. Now, I speak here as a pack-a-day smoker who will drench his bacon in salt without even tasting it first. My consumption of alcohol and artery-clogging comestibles is fairly well documented. Still: I am not sure that I necessarily disagree with many of the measures that the mayor and his ilk have championed. I cannot think of anything, in my lifetime, that has had a more beneficial effect on the health of Americans than the increasing and incessant regulation and taxation of cigarettes. I would, perhaps, have a different opinion in the event of an outright ban, but can anyone really argue that bars are a whole lot more pleasant now that you have to go outside to smoke while you're at them? Particularly given the fact that the people least likely to smoke are always the most boring, so it provides you with an excellent excuse to extricate yourself from a deadly dull dialogue.

Again: conflicted. I understand the libertarian arguments about everyone being able to make their own choices in a free society, but is that really what this boils down to? No one is talking about banning salt; the proposal simply reduces the amount in prepared food. You're always free to add your own. In an age where you have to go on an extended safari to find a food that's free of high fructose corn syrup, is it an absolute restriction of liberties to say that maybe we should remove those items that are obviously detrimental to our health, particularly when we know that most of us are so lazy that we will pretty much accept the default option without complaint? Nora Ephron-yes, there she is again!-tells the Times that the listing of calorie counts "takes the fun out of everything," but is it some kind of brutal disenfranchisement to let people know that the large fries contain pretty much all the fat and sodium you need for a week?

Anyway. I'm not trying to be the Food Police. I think we should be able to smoke in parks (although not beaches, because there is nothing nastier than stepping on a cigarette in the sand). I just think that maybe we're getting a little overheated about regulations that are not exactly draconian. But I am certainly open to arguments. While you come up with them, I think I'm gonna go have a cigarette.

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]]> http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/mike-bloomberg-is-trying-to-kill-you-with-healthiness/feed 25 New York City To Try Ban On Smoking In Parks & Beaches http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/new-york-city-to-try-ban-on-smoking-in-parks-beaches http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/new-york-city-to-try-ban-on-smoking-in-parks-beaches#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 17:04:53 +0000 Choire Sicha http://www.theawl.com/2009/09/new-york-city-to-try-ban-on-smoking-in-parks-beaches TASTY"The city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, announced on Monday that the Bloomberg administration would seek to ban smoking in city parks and beaches." ALSO BREAKING: New York To Be Renamed "Pussy City."

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]]> TASTY"The city's health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, announced on Monday that the Bloomberg administration would seek to ban smoking in city parks and beaches." ALSO BREAKING: New York To Be Renamed "Pussy City."

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