While there was some (not wholly unexpected) griping about the whole idea of having a kid blow up a stadium, that pales in comparison to the actions of a so-called physicians' group, which is looking to pay the city of Irving the same amount of money to replace the Kraft advertising with its own ad, which would basically say that cheese is making people fat:
Susan Levin with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says they have sent a letter to the mayor suggesting that they remove Kraft as a sponsor of the event and for the same $75,000 allow them to warn children of the dangers cheese poses to their health. Levin says dairy products are the number one source of saturated fat in America.Thankfully, Irving Mayor Herb Gears isn't taking the bait (Get it? Bait? Like cheese in a mousetrap?), especially when the advertising the group has proposed (which can be viewed at the link above) shows a fat guy eating cheese and wearing an "I [heart] Velveeta" shirt, with a caption reading "Cheese really blows you up."
More on this at the Dallas Morning News Irving blog, where the commenters have already done a lot of the heavy lifting, exposing this "doctors' group" as an radical animal rights group, less than 5% of whose members are actually physicians. And others have pointed out that Kraft is donating $75,000 to local food banks, as well as another $75K in sponsorship fees to the city, which will be donated to local charities. I'd like to see the "doctors" match that one...
When I heard this story on the radio this afternoon, two thoughts came to mind: 1) I'm glad that Mayor Gears said no, because this would have been yet another example of nanny-statism run amok, and 2) This group is probably some sort of wacko "activist" organization. I'm glad to see that my suspicions have been proven. (And I look forward to the day when "activism" no longer pays, and all its practitioners have to actually go out and get real jobs.)
No comments:
Post a Comment