No, Fat Is Not Contagious

I awoke Thursday morning ready to read The Seattle Times. I'm sure many people read their local paper in the morning as well. It is an activity that seems retrospectively moot most of the time, since the paper mostly glosses over the news I already saw on the Internet the day before. But I digress.

I've become accustomed to sensationalism in the media, including in my newspaper. They have to make the lead story and the rest of the front page interesting to grab the attention of potential readers. I expect this, but I also expect that behind that relatively mundane sensationalist attired there to be some actual information. Unfortunately, Thursday morning my trusted newspaper let me down.

The lead story was about Boeing's 787 and its first flight coming up. It's at least a competent story, seeing as Seattle was once called the Jet City. But the story that took up the majority of page was actually one about a new study that had been released, titled "Is fat contagious?"

The piece was written by The Washington Post and was quite disappointing. First off, the title asserts that fat can be "caught" from one person to another. According to the "study", being around people greatly increases your risk of being fat. I presume these assessment techniques would also find that bread causes people to commit crimes, since many criminals had carbohydrates in their system during criminal acts.

The article even states:

"[T]he researchers are not saying that obesity is literally caused by a virus or some other pathogen, or that factors such as poor diet, lack of exercise or genetics are unimportant.

Rather, the findings suggest that once a person becomes obese, for whatever reason, it may make it more socially acceptable for people close to him or her to gain weight, and that new social norms can proliferate quickly."

In other words, humans are affected by their environment. Bravo researchers, bravo. You've stumbled across a textbook from psych 101, applied some simple statistics, and magically you have what the Times calls a "trailblazing study." I just hope the next time they decide to ignore a fairly large story, such as the fact that US Attorney General may have lied under oath to Congress, that they actually obtain material that can even be considered news.

No Man is Above the Law

"No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it."
-Theodore Roosevelt

Do we adhere to this simple doctrine in our society? No. President Bush is a perfect example of this. For some reason our politicians and many Americans seem to think it is okay that a president be above the law.

"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
-Article II, Section 4; United States Constitution

President Bush has clearly ignored or incompetently misinterpreted many laws throughout his presidency. You can find books and material all over the Internet that lay out the case for impeachment on Mr. Bush, so I won't bother repeating them here. My main point is that nobody, including the president, should be above the law.

I understand the idea that impeaching our president may hurt the country. Gerald Ford thought this, and pardoned Nixon so we could just move on (or at least that was part of his reason). But we need to understand that holding our public officals under the fire of the law makes our country stronger. Thomas Jefferson once said that if the government fears the people, there will be liberty.

If government officals know that we are willing to impeach them for their breaches in the law, perhaps they will think twice before unlawfully destroying haebus corpus, or spying on law-abiding Americans. For once I would like to see some integrity in the people we elect into congress to do their job.

In the end, it is our duty to make sure our elected officals are following the Constitution and the law. If you believe your president is breaking the law, insist our lawmakers in congress to begin impeachment proceedings (I already know there is a bill gaining cosonpors in the house as I type this). If your congressperson is not willing to impeach those who break the highest laws of our country, than look into their record. Find out if your congressperson has been breaking the law and perhaps impeach them as well.

No person should ever be above the law, including those who make the laws and enforce them.

If the United States Were A Free Country...

If the United States were a free country, its citizens’ mail, phone calls and electronic communications never would be subject to warrantless government snooping . . .

Read more here.