VIEWPOINT b Blanchard in the great white north The fat and the furious LUKE SMITH UNRESERVED EMBRACE Monday, July 29 2002 - The Michigan Daily - 5 I can For mont inees for have fum er like a piglets, bo scarce tea tIe-to-the piffW, alt its been i grunt and and hide each.oth grade-sc vivors, in Suppo heat in the few mont wonder i what's go appear li blanket ca unsheathe Any day ing out. L But mayb through dupe. Wel must be "race" is the pund about can candidate render the bike in th referring t former A have we a haps a his In Au uwrn in t bowlless ment by t Clinton's chard - public sen on the W tone for a prove to ground f Michigan Asjot ambassad spent thre inferno a tournique sors, re-d dian relat immortal the North Charg relationsh that share der in the chard bec back and worlds-ap Canadian in gravy terity of potato an the diffic combinati Aboot chard's te by the Tor ing from witch Ce single "T BY JoHN HoNKAA cans watched in horror as a jubilant Joe Carter bounced recklessly around stay silent for only so long. the bases after his walkoff homerun hs now, the Democratic nom- secured a World Series victory for the Michigan's governorship Canadian nine, the deep cultural divide bled and pawed at one anoth- between the countries widening with litter of blind little newborn every taunting fist-pump. rn two too many for mama's Other men and women have crum- ts. Watching their feeble bat- bled under this sort of pressure. But -death has been somewhat Ambassador Blanchard? Unlikely. By hough to be honest, at times 1995, he was helping to broker the his- nspirational watching them toric "Open Skies Agreement" that i sigh at debate inaccuracies broke the iron sway of the U.S.-Cana- passive-aggressive shots at dian "Aviation Berlin Wall." A year er behind muscle-defying later he was given America's most hool-picture smiles. Sur- prestigious honor, the "Foreign Affairs deed. Award For Public Service." sedly all three are in a dead World-savvy and blessed with the polls. That was acceptable a good looks and charisma of his hero hs ago, but I'm beginning to Jack Kennedy, Ambassador Blanchard f anyone can actually see may in fact be over-qualified for ing on here. Sure they all Michigan's executive office. Alack, ke the same mundane, wet- Ambassador Blanchard is also a man andidate, but Jim has yet to of integrity. He has self-imposed the his broadsword, so to speak. political experience equivalent of cam- now, I should think, its com- paign finance reform by restricting ikely there will be parades. himself to the same amount of political e Jim really is going to go capital as his lesser opponents Bonior with this. Maybe I'm the and Granholm. Thus, he rarely men- LI won't let him; the public tions his ambassadorship and the vast informed. See: This whole arsenal of political expertise it is has a farce, the polls dispensable, provided him. Instead, he rambles on its useless. The old cliche and on (and on) about his two rather ndy and babies is apt. One tepid terms as Michigan's governor in so eclipses the others as to the '80s. Surely his repeating of the em as futile as a stationary phrase, "I've done it before. I'll do it he Engler household. I am again" is an attempt to lower himself o, of course, Jim Blanchard, to the level of your average pandering, ambassador to Canada. Or sound-bite politician. And sending his ll forgotten about that? Per- son to Michigan State is the most obvi- tory lesson is in order. ous kind of self-effacement. gust 1993, Blanchard was The primary's inter-party quibbling to the most soul-wrenching, is most certainly a Blanchard cover-up. position in the State Depart- When the public actusally teamns of the hen-president, Bill Clinton. ambassador's three years of Gandhi- fiery introduction of Blan- like public service, it will realize that he called him a "very able there is no one this side of Marion "ant' - left nary a dry eye Barry better fit to deal with Michigan's hite House lawn and set the vast financial and social problems. n ambassadorship that would Who better to tell Canadians to keep be the perfect breeding their trash on their side of the border? 'or a second go-round in Who better to stem the violence in our s executive office. cities than the man who spent three b performance goes, the yeams on the mumn streets of Canada? or's was unparalleled. He What better fiscal training is there than e years as proximate to the spending three years converting and s one can get, refusing the reconverting U.S. quarters into Cana- I solutions of his predeces- dian "quarters?" And who among the irecting battered U.S.-Cana- Democratic candidates -nay, the free ions toward the promise of world - is better equipped to quash harmony that has so teased the latent Upper Peninsula separatist American populace. movement than the man who accord- ed with reigning in the torrid ing to his book, "Behind the Embassy ip between the two countries Door: Canada, Clinton & Quebec" the longest undefended bor- almost single-handily prevented Que- world, Ambassador Blan- bee's break from Canada in 1995? ame a chameleon, shifting But the Democratic primary forth effortlessly between the marches on, catty and under-whelm- part minutiae of U.S. and ing, toward its Aug. 6 terminus. Each English, dipping french fries lackluster day another 24 hours of with the adroitness and dex- Ambassador Blanchard-inspired politi- a 40-year Winnipeg couch- cal hysteria lost. Whether or not the d learning how to perform public discovers the true nature of this ult layback-forward camel election is up to the ambassador. God, on on figure skates. grant him the courage to open his (eh) two months into Blan- beautiful, transnational soul to Michi- rm, America was blindsided gan Democrats. Lansing needs an onto Blue Jays. Already reel- ambassador. Caesar Barber has a bone to pick with the fast food industry. Actually, Barber already picked his bones clean at Ken- tucky Fried Chicken. It might be better to say Caesar Barber has a beef with the fast food industry, but as his five-foot-ten 272 pound frame jiggles, he's already had plenty of beef His girthy midsection and poor health has led Barber to file a class action suit (naming.Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's and KFC as defendants) against the fast food nation. This man and a host of other fast food aficionados are set to launch an assault on the okay-food-quickly powers that be for more than a chunk of change. Why should anyone care if a man ate fast food, had a pair of heart attacks (circa 1996 & 1999) and got fat? You'd think the first heart attack in 1996 would be a good lifestyle clue, let alone the second batch of blockage in 1999. The 56-year-old Barber, a mainte- nance worker, told MSNBC, "I didn't realize how bad it was for me until 1999." Maybe he should sue the doctor who didn't tell him about his burgeoning belly in 1996 when he had his first heart attack. Come on. Does anyone feel bad when a college co-ed drinks too much at the bar, goes home, pukes and falls asleep? No. Barber said he would eat at fast food restaurants "four or five" times a week. The man ate like a friggin hobbit. It certainly doesn't take a rocket scien- tist to understand that in most cases, if some- thing tastes good, itsis probably bad for you. Barber's lawyer Samuel Hirsch likens this case to the suits against the cigarette industry. Hirsch says that consumers are not adequately warned about foods that could cause obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels. Hirsch believes that the level of deception deployed by the fast food industry is on par with the tobacco giants. He maintains that consumers are not being told all of the facts about the health content, or lack thereof, in fast food. Is this big news? I thoughteveryone knew that fast food wasn't good for you. Was this some big secret? Those white menus with the nutritional information have been deterring me from the Double Whopper for years now. Why couldn't he read those menus and realize that the higher the numbers are in most cate- gories, the worse the food is for you? Maybe the four horsemen of the expand- ing waistline apocalypse should fire back with a counter-suit. McDonald's can lower the arches and Burger King should pull the plug on Kid Vid, and the giants should team-up, enlist KFC and Wendy's to the fold and sue the fat people clogging their restaurants.Yeah, maybe obese people are taking business away from the fast food industry. Perhaps prospec- tive patrons peruse the restaurant-mosphere and see a bunch of cage-ball-sized people spilling out of swivel chairs, and instead of going in for a Western Bacon cheeseburger the nearest customer heads back out the door and off to Subway for an Under Six Grams of Fat sandwich. Maybe the hondo-hoss mon- sters scarfmg down their fifth meal of the day courtesy of Mickey-D's (right Mr. Barber?) are creating a loss at the business end because patrons are scared off by looking into the win- dows and seeing the flabby future threatening the joints of the tile floor. There is a greater concern here than this one man's suit in the name of the chubby everywhere. It returns to the American value that life should be fair Instead of filinga law- suit against the four fast food chains, perhaps Barber should sue his parents for providing him with the genes to fatten him up and his slow metabolism. Or Barber should sue his mouth and appetite, taking them to court and finding them responsible for his obesity. Caesar Barber and the other butterballs involved in this legal action are overlooking what most of the world's population continue to glance over. That life is not fair. It's not fair that Caesar Barber loves fast food and loved enough of it that his bodyrmass index boomed up over 39, deep into the obese portion of the scale. It's not fair that people get addicted to sex, booze or burgers. But because of addic- tion and ignorance, does this make it right to sue the corporations that Barber and the chubs blame for their tubby stomachs? Maybe they should sue the fitness centers for not being alluring enough or not having enough televisions so they could watch Emeril while they Stair Master-away the extra tonnage. Even more effective than this class-action lawsuit would be a Million Pound March on Washington - I just hope that Barber et al make sure they book the hotels closest to the Capitol because frankly, I don't think the steaming masses will be able to get that gris- tle in motion for too many miles before some- one needs a fast food break. Luke Smith can be reached at lukems@umich.edu. VIEWPOINT Only the fans lose with MLB's latest travails BY S. NAUMAN SYED Just like everyone else these days, Major League Baseball is feeling the money crunch. Unlike the current economic woes, baseball's financial crisis has been looming for years. Some teams can't keep up and may be contracted. Several others, like the Tigers, are finding it increasingly difficult to pay huge salaries, unjustified by the waning interest in baseball. Of course, even of those teams that can pay, none can pay like the Yankees. And now both the owners and the players are fighting for an even bigger piece of the pie. Like bandits, these idiots are prepared to throw away their system for a little bit more money, money that means little to most of these people. With a strike or a lockout, hope- fully some improvements will be made to even the playing field, but if it comes to that, will anyone be in the stands watching the field? If either a lockout or a strike does occur and baseball does not have a World Series this fall, it will not be the owners or players that lose. No one should feel sorry for the owner of a baseball team and the players are for the most part only a step below that. Gone are the days when players had to work a second job to make ends meet. I am not talking about minor leaguers who only make $30,000 a year. No, it is the fans who lose out on all counts. We are the only ones who make no money in the scheme. We invest time, money, and passion into our teams and are more often than not repaid in disappointment. And if the owners or players decide to stop the game without regard to its fans, why should we care about the owners, players or the game? Unfortunately, it is we the fans who large- ly have caused this vicious cycle of capitalis- tic cannibalism. In past decades, strikes could be justified and supported by fans because owners were not giving the players their due. But now when everyone is rich but still com- plains, clearly there is no end in sight to the greed. Greed and money has really spoiled America's pastime. Ballparks no longer house heroes, but mercenaries, and baseball is no longer a game, but a means to exploit the masses.Yet the power still lies inour hands. The money that is in question here is the fans' money, and because they haven't with- held it to voice their displeasure, the combat- ants have ignored them. Fans must really slap owners and players with indifference to get the message across: If that is how you want to play, baseball is not that important after all. With prices jacked up to compensate for higher salaries, an honest kid would have to save for weeks to go to a ballgame, and even then, he probably could not afford a hot dog. It was never the game that brought most casu- al fans to the stands but the experience, the atmosphere, the escape, the memorable after- noon. Now most people would probably remember the ticket price pain more than the actual game. Baseball's price has exceeded its value. If it does not come back down soon or if the value does not go back up; many fans will have no choice but to abandon it. Like a bad habit or a costly hobby, baseball should not be acceptable for long. As a Red Sox fan, I would like for nothing more than the BoSox to finally win one, but I think my happiness would be tainted or hollow knowing that it took $200 million just to beat the Yankees. Imagine how much good could be done with such money, from everyday expenses to bet- tering the community. Instead, most of it is just being blown on the high life. In this, I envy the Twins and the Expos. They also share the futility, but at least they didn't waste as much money trying (or not trying) to win. Nonetheless, baseball has a function to play in this society, a role that is quite important especially in this day and age. At a time when random kidnappings plague the nation, baseball stadiums like Enron Field need to change their names, signs of the apocalypse come every week, the economy is acting like a sinkhole, and the Justice Department wants us to spy on our neigh- bors; America really, really needs an escape like baseball. Both the players and the own- ers must shape up quickly and avert any work stoppage not only so they continue making money, but so we have something to take us from the travails of the times, if just for a little while. If the fans are ever forced by economics or disgust to abandon base- ball, baseball will die. And if baseball dies, a little hope, a little dream everywhere dies as well. Syed isan LSA sophomore and a mem- ber of the Daily's Editorial Board. the effects of Canadian she- line Dion's cross-over hit he Power of Love," Ameri- Honkala is an LSA senior and a mem- ber of the Daily's Editorial Board.