Gov't vs Family: A Conflict of Values

The Des Moines Register is telling us that kids are upset about a ban on soft-drinks on campus. In its next breath, the reporter writes that students now go off-campus to get their sugar fix. Well, I've made a couple fundamental observations:

1) Cash-draining, electricity hungry, health compromising vending machines have no place in public schools -- and I don't care what they put in them.

2) I'm expected, by law, to leave my kids in the care of the public school system, purportedly so they might get a proper education. I submit that when the schools release students to run around town during lunch, health and education are both undermined.

When I went to public school, we had a lunch ticket. One punch meant you got a plate of food handed to you and you could add bread & butter and milk, or drink water. It was a certified diet and parents could trust it. There were no vending machines, and no, students were not permitted to leave campus. It worked. Parents had trust. Don't dare tell me the budget made you poison my son.

Admit it. Fast food is now part of our school culture because administrators have no backbone and I think that's a sad commentary.

Family "A" gives their kid cash to go to Quizno's for lunch every day. Family "B: wants their kids to eat school lunch for nutritional reasons. For whatever reason, perhaps out of a sense of peer pressure or for social reasons, kid from family "B" wants to go to Quizno's too. Dad "B" says, "No son, I'm against your eating fast food more than once a week". Dad "B" subsequently has a fight on his hands.

This is part of a larger conflict. Cash strapped schools are compromising health out of greed of their administration. Soft drink bottlers and vending companies would like to see more of the market share. I have no problem with most of the creative ways they find to increase market share -- until they begin to enlist public schools to bid for their profits.

Parents feel that soft drink bottlers and schools make bad bed fellows. But it appears, once again, greed wins.

Researchers have found that rats, when given a choice, will consistently turn down healthy food in favor of sugary treats and cocaine, to the point of self-detriment and even their own demise. Unfortunately, it looks like our kids are more like rats than we want to think. So a level sense of guidance by parents and responsible adults is something society should value.

So what's the deal? Have parents become less concerned about the well-being of their kids? Are they complacent? Or has right-wing capitalistic greed gotten in the way of common sense? We report; you screw up the world.

Put down the talking points and rub the make-up off your seedy little face, Mr. Witherspoon, and see how you're poisoning society at its very base. We see through the phony spin. The fact that you still wanted to be superintendent, even after finding out that you'd have to sell our kids into virtual slavery, should give the city pause. Stop throwing money and spin at the problems you've helped to create. And start doing your job. Educate our kids. Stop feeding students -- and everyone else -- crap.

DesMoinesRegister.com

Elevator to space?

Although I haven't seen any official confirmation, Space.com reports that the FAA has given go-ahead for use of airspace to test a space elevator.

Now, you might be picturing a very tall and perhaps cartoonesque square shaft that is mounted to the ground and extending to the heavens. Close, but not quite.

Actually, the concept is to string a ribbon or tether, anchored to the ground and extended to a point in space that is beyond geosynchronous orbit (more than 22,500 miles above Earth's surface) with a counter-weight at the top, effectively pulling it tight.

The sheer tensile strength required to accomplish such a feat would be astounding, however, once in place, the space elevator would reduce the cost of space travel enormously. For instance, you could then build a car or 'climber' that is completely solar powered, eliminating the need for onboard fuel. Another concept is to create a pulley system that could be powered on the space end of the ribbon, which, as we know, could be nearly or fully friction-free -- and again, powered by the sun.

And yes, just in case you were wondering, this is not a pipe dream, but a completely feasible venture, begun by the LiftPort Group, a private company based in Bremerton, Washington.

I'm so paranoid, I'm convinced the elevator in our 4-story office building will break while I'm aboard. Can you imagine riding with me on the space elevator to orbit?

Read more about the space elevator at WikiPedia:
Space elevator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Innovation kills profits

Every time I turn around, I'm hearing about built-in limitations; products that won't perform fundamental tasks only because such enhancements might threaten a company's ability to further deepen its pockets at your expense.

The Rokr iPhone from our friends at Motorola and Apple is another example. The crumby thing can't even download an iTunes song or play an MP3 as a ringtone, features that would have made sense.

Deliberate disabilities like these will bite these non-innovators squarely in the posterior.

The Observer | Business | John Naughton: Why the iPhone won't rock your world