Quick! Run! Here comes the new fat czar with a tape measure! In case you spent last week under a rock there are a couple of news stories you need to know about, so sit down and take a deep breath.
First, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has decreed that a new federal database, mandated by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, must include every American’s body-mass index as part of an all-encompassing Electronic Health Record. Vladimir Lenin in his prime couldn’t have thought this up, but here we are a century later, in the Land of the Free, not just subjecting ourselves to this encroachment on our individual liberty but cheerfully voting to pay for it.
For those who don’t know what a body-mass index is, it is the relative percentage of fat and muscle mass divided by height, and it is used as an indicator of obesity. Although many experts dispute its accuracy, don’t tell the federal government, because after 234 years of not giving a hoot, said government now has discovered a compelling and overriding need to add your body-mass index to its commodious collection of statistics. Don’t want it in there? Too bad. Doctors who don’t comply will have their Medicare and Medicaid payments cut, which eventually could put them out of business.
Back to basics with real American culinary favorites — the 75th anniversary edition of “The Joy of Cooking”
Pondering this latest assault on the real right to privacy, I find an increasingly relevant song making its way back into my head for the first time since, oh, maybe the 2010 census. It’s an old Hank Williams Sr. ditty from a simpler era when the purpose of government was to protect us from foreign invaders, rather than tell us what to eat and how many inches of our middles Secretary Sebelius has to pinch before we are in trouble.
“Why don’t you mind your own business, mind your own business?” Hank sang back then, “‘Cause if you mind your business, then you won’t be minding mine.”
In the other news, the current occupiers of the White House have upgraded the title of their personal cook, Sam Kass, from “food initiative coordinator” to “senior policy adviser for health-food initiatives.” Ostensibly hired as a nutrition-conscious chef to make the Obama daughters eat their vegetables, Kass is actually a graduate of the University of Chicago with a degree in American history and shares many social acquaintances with the Obamas, including senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
“Kass has definitely learned the ways of Washington. He is generally tight-lipped and careful to frame what he says in terms of Obama’s vision,” Politico.com reports. Kass, who works with Jocelyn Frye, domestic policy adviser to Michelle Obama, doesn’t seem exactly sure of what he’s supposed to do to merit that seven-word moniker plus an undisclosed – though undoubtedly healthy – salary. “It’s been a challenge to figure out my position,” he admits.
These two stories, especially when reported in tandem, actually beg a whole lot of questions that not many people are asking. Are they interconnected? Why does an unelected first lady need a “domestic policy adviser,” much less a “senior policy adviser for health-food initiatives”? Who is this history major–veggie cook from the lefty university, really? Will he stay in the kitchen or soon emerge as our first national fat czar? Why is the Obama administration so intent on obtaining the body-mass index numbers of millions of Americans, most of whom are independently – or through their private insurance companies – paying their own medical bills? What does it plan to do with this information once it is obtained? And, last but not least, where is ole Hank when you really need him and the self-sufficient philosophy he espoused so well?
If I want to honky-tonk around ’til two or three
Now, brother that’s my headache, don’t you worry ’bout me.
Just mind your own business, mind your own business …
So put your database away, Mr. President. If my headache gets bad enough I’ll just go to the doctor and it won’t be your problem. No, wait – in a single-payer system I won’t be able to do that, either. Well, I mean … I’ll fill out the applicable forms and ask if I may put my name on a waiting list … if I meet the qualifications.
That’s something the Obamas and their congressional accomplices won’t ever have to worry about, though, because – surprise! – they had the foresight to opt out of their socialized-medicine scam before imposing it on the rest of us. But that doesn’t stop them from wanting your body-mass index, so quit griping about invasive procedures, put down that chocolate bar and get on the scale right now. Kathleen Sebelius is waiting. And if she pinches more than an inch, you may be paying a fat tax, too.
Mindin’ other people’s business seems to be high-toned
I got all that I can do just to mind my own
Why don’t you mind your own business, mind your own business?
If you mind your own business, you’ll stay busy all the time.
That may be sage advice for a political wrecking crew that has racked up in a year more debt than it can ever repay, but don’t hold your breath waiting for any of them to take it.
Good grief, Charlie Brown, is it ever going to be November?
Marylou Barry is a Christian Zionist with a special interest in the Middle East. She is also the author of a series of children’s books. Visit her blog at Marylou’s America and her book website at House with the Light Books.
This might be the dumbest anti-hate campaign ever
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