Regulating Choice Among Aldermen and Aussies

Image sent via Bonnie's e-mail. No clue as to the source, but I feel sure Alderman Nataras wouldn't like it a bit. No, siree.

1) As Candy Sagan of the WaPo feels paralyzed by the guilty dilemmas of food choice, Felicity Lawrence of The Guardian wonders whether having soya proteins and related antinutrients in 60% of processed foods really represents a balanced, healthful diet. On a personal note: I recently increased markedly the amount of plant estrogens in my diet as a side effect of an increase in soy products for other reasons. Well, I was knocked silly by some dramatically negative hormonal effects which tapered as soon as I stopped the hyperconsumption. Mere anecdotal evidence, I know, but I usually eat food fairly close to its original form and prefer protein from meat and dairy. I think I'll be keeping on with that for my own little self, since I probably get enough soy and its effects from invisible add-ins to foods and condiments I consume already.

2) Oh sure, abandoning bastard children is old hat for the bluebonnets, but the connoiseur must admit not every international peacekeeping force (none of the Aussies, for example) can brag of soldiers sent home with injured penises from attempting to sex up goats.

3) Over the years I lived there, the aldermen of the Socialist Republic of Chicago were always getting overheated over personal gripes and using them to dictate narrow policy. I remember Burton Nataras' City Council rant about his sandwich man who spread the mayo real thin just like Burt liked it and how he didn't want to get, shouldn't have to get another sandwich man. Here's a recap of his greatest hits from B12 Partners which includes, among banning parasailing for thermal reasons, the following:

-Most famously, Natarus wanted to put diapers on Loop [carriage] horses, so as not to soil the city streets.
-Newspaper boxes, he said, should be limited in size to 26 inches wide and 50 inches tall and prohibited from carrying advertising.
-He has also proposed an ordinance to prohibit the “reckless operation of skates and skateboards on the streets and sidewalks” -- “rollerbladers and skateboarders have knocked people down,” he said.
-He wanted something done about the rudeness of film crews working in his ward, wanted a repeal of right turn on red, asked that car valets be city regulated, demanded that bicycle messengers be licensed, insured and labeled, calling them “hot-rodders.”
-In 1977, he proposed that, by law, dog walkers carry “a scooping device or other means.”
-With mixed emotions, he called for mobile food trucks to be kept out of downtown, noting morosely that the truck parked near the traffic court building supplied his favorite cheese sandwich.

Well, it ain't just Burt who's at it. I do enjoy the occasional fois gras, and mourned its recent banning from Chicago fine dining establishments as nanny-state provincialism. But what's the latest? Enforced microchipping. My pooches would've welcomed their new cyborg masters.

4) In a rare victory against PC revisionism, Penny Lane gets to keep its name.