dagblog - Comments for "A Fickle Nanny State"

Lizzie Widicomb in the Talk

artappraiser — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 04:57:04 +0000

Lizzie Widicomb in the Talk of the Town section of the June 18 The New Yorker, wrote a short inspired by the proposed NYC soda restriction, titled "Fluid Ounces."

At the end she includes the opinion of Fran Lebowitz, caught "smoking a cigarette outside the Waverly Inn, where sodas are served in a highball glass."--

"These issues are class issues" she said of Bloomberg's soda scheme. She called the Mayor "the Monarch of Minutiae." "Soda is the recreation--the summer house--of the poor. It's an indulgence, and it's something they can indulge in." Speaking of the Mayor, she said, "This man has eleven houses. That's the self-indulgence of a billionaire." She went on, "He's of the generation of Jewish men who fell that if they didn't become a doctor they are a failure. Now he's trying to become a doctor."

(No link; article available only to subscribers.)

So much for the wisdom of

Donal — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 13:11:23 +0000

In reply to In this piece recommended by

So much for the wisdom of crowds.

In this piece recommended by

artappraiser — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 03:06:31 +0000

In reply to A Fickle Nanny State

In this piece recommended by Arts & Letters Daily (covering among other things, the eating choices of the 19th-century working class and poor)

is as succinct a statement about one of the main problems of some liberal versions of nanny state as I've seen:

For all of his zeal in such matters, however, Bloomberg merely presents the most recent notable instance of what has been a longstanding tradition among the economic elite: the assumption that given a choice, poor people will always make the wrong one.