July 13, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:Media alert
My Canadian fans can hear me on the radio on CBC at 4:30 EST this afternoon discussing the fast food lawsuits.
Update You can hear it here, if you're so inclined.
Posted by Jane Galt at July 13, 2003 3:35 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksWhy so little notice...but more to the point...why?
This should be interesting. CBC Radio is a megaphone for anti-capitalist activists. They gave a long, fawning interview to the author of Fast Food Nation. They are very sympathetic to any whacktivist trying to sue an evil multinational corporation. I'd bet they are setting you up for ridicule, or, at best, a token voice in the interest of "balance". I'll make a point of listening in.
It's already happened; I don't think they set me up to look ridiculous, although the host was certainly more tolerant of the idea that it's the job of corporations to regulate what we put in our mouths than I am.
Ah, I see you were a guest on the Sunday Cross Country Checkup. As a call-in show that caters less to whacktivists than their main programming. If a libertarian will ever get a chance to express a view without being heaped with scorn on the CBC, that's the place.
On any other program you should have expected an ambush, something like: "So you support evil multinationals marketing poisonous industrial effluent to children in the form of junk food?"
Henry Kissinger found that out when he agreed to an interview and got the "Are you a war criminal" ambush. See here for a more typical CBC style journalism:
http://www.canadiangrassroots.ca/print.php?sid=8242
I gave it a listen and came away with the impression that it very gently represented the greater general comfort level that I perceive Canada to have toward mild socialism than America tends to, your Libertarianism, Megan, hardly even being apparent in the conversation. If anything, I was a bit surprised that you weren't more explicit about concerns of secondary effects from regulation/legislation of fast food companies: once you regulate/legislate that provider of legal, voluntarily-abused products, what foreseeable consequences might it have on others? What level of risk of unforeseen consequences do we perceive? In fact, I'd still like to ask those questions.
I too, thought that I was soft on the assumption that it was somehow the company's responsibility to control what we eat. Next time I'll come prepared with more talking points and less data. ;-)
The obesity debate includes a paucity of discussion about an overwhelmingly dominant factor - - the role of inactivity(i.e., the lack of routine physical exertion.) The diet, and therefore caloric intake, of many heavy individuals would not be problematic if those people were living the lifestyle of a half century ago. Today's collection of lawnmowers & snowblowers, parking lots, powertools, at-home movie access, ... and so on... has drasticly REDUCED the baseline lifestyle physical exertion. Even farmers are now able to run their businesses with distinctly less physical exertion.
More than a century and a half ago, some girls in Paris gained regular access to mass transportation to the extent that their natural body habitus has marked by the unique phenomenon if skinny legs(a sign of reduced muscle mass.) Today the same phenomenon can be seen in some boys, whereas a half century ago such a body habitus in a boy was likely the result of a medical condition.
There is reason to carp about the changes in our diet. The change in physical exertion is equally consequential, and is equally amenable to remedy by means of solitary discipline. Victimization is a cop-out.
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