Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Beauty Incorrect -- Even for a Good Cause

Conservation of wildlife is something most people broadly agree with -- though not to the extent that it is pushed by the Greenies. And turtles do seem to be under considerable threat because of their habit of laying eggs on beaches where they can be easily found. And while it is easy to prohibit the taking of turtle eggs, obtaining compliance with the law is another thing -- particularly in poor countries. Recently, therefore, environmentalists very sensibly turned to education as a way of stopping Mexicans taking the eggs. And they used the techniques of modern advertising to make sure their message was as effective as possible. But that is when the trouble started (Excerpt):

"A campaign aimed at halting the illegal consumption of endangered turtles' eggs has run into trouble before it is officially hatched, with a women's rights group asking government officials to block public announcements featuring a scantily clad model. "My man does not need turtle eggs because he knows that they don't make him more potent," Argentine model Dorismar purrs from a poster, clad in a skimpy bathing suit. The message is aimed at Mexican men who for years have eaten the eggs believing they are aphrodisiacs.

Source


So the beauty of the female form is so obnoxious to the politically correct crowd that it cannot even be used to save an endangered species. What hate-filled shrivelled souls these forbidding harpies must be!




Incorrect Garden Equipment

There have always been restrictions on filling up the yard around your house with rubbish but now we have the evil of the backyard swingset. As one Palm Beach, Florida couple recently found out:

"Are they a toddler's toy or neighbor's nightmare? Are they collapsible play things or permanent structures flouting village code? "We didn't do this to offend anyone. We did it for our children," said Karen Barry, recently cited for the enormous swing set that sits about 5 feet in from her property line. Although Barry was not fined, village code says all permanent structures have to be set back at least 10 feet. She and her husband are now seeking a variance so they can keep the swing set".

Source


So the municipality is leaping onto a technicality which says that a permanent structure has to be set back 10 feet from the property boundary and the swingset concerned is only about 5 feet away. So the lawyers will have fun arguing that something dismantleable is "permanent" but the real issue is how much right busybodies have to criticize people when they are using their own property in a way that harms nobody.




Incorrect for Doctors to Tell the Truth?

A lot of people would think it was a doctor's duty to warn patients of when their weight problem was becoming a health hazard. And nobody expects that message to be happily received and everybody knows that the lecture will almost certainly go in one ear and out the other. So note this (excerpt):

"But now a New Hampshire doctor is under a regulatory cloud for very bluntly telling a female patient she is obese and needed to lose weight. Dr. Terry Bennett, who practices in Rochester, said he has "an obesity lecture for women" that is a stark litany designed to get the attention of obese female patients. He said he tells obese women they most likely will outlive an obese spouse and will have a difficult time establishing a new relationship because studies show most males are completely negative to obese women. Bennett said he tells them their obesity will lead to high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, gastroesophageal reflux and stroke.

One patient who Bennett had seen five or six times took offense at the lecture and filed a complaint against Bennett about a year ago with the New Hampshire Board of Medicine.... The complaint was initially investigated and reviewed by the board of medicine's Medical Review Subcommittee, which recommended to the board that Bennett be sent a confidential letter of concern. But the board rejected the suggestion at its Dec. 2, 2004, meeting. Instead, the board asked the Attorney General's Administrative Prosecution Unit to investigate and seek a resolution to the complaint. A settlement agreement was proposed that would have had Bennett attend a medical education course and acknowledge he made a mistake. He rejected the proposal. "I've made many errors in my lifetime. Telling someone the truth is not one of them," Bennett said. A public hearing is likely to be scheduled by the board."

Source


People who are moderately overweight in fact live slightly longer than slim people but really obese people have the shortest lifespan of all so there is no doubt that the doctor was telling the truth and that he would be negligent not to warn his patient. And doctors all over the world have been giving similar warnings for years. The amazing thing is that the Medical Board did not support the doctor. Whose side are they on? Have they been secretly infiltrated by representatives of KFC and McDonalds?