-To Persuade: an editorial may attempt to direct its readers to a specific point of view – the editorial may support or refute a topic. While taking a certain stance, this point of view is backed up with fact.
-To Answer: an editorial might serve the purpose of answering criticism or defending a particular point of view with supporting facts and details.
-To Warn: upcoming concerns may be written about to warn readers. Ex. Driver safety in the winter.
-To Criticize: sometimes the actions of others are criticized in a thoughtful and constructive manner. However, writers need to make sure they have done the research and have their facts straight before proceeding with the story. Criticism should also be balanced with suggested solutions or alternative courses of action.
-To Praise: offering a congratulations for a job well done – people or groups can be the subject of an editorial.
-To Entertain: some editorials are playful and do not take strong punches at the opposite side. They are meant to provide humor and cover non-serious issues.
-To Lead: can lead the way to positive social change by bringing public issues to light and gathering support where it is needed.
Our view on child obesity: In this toy story, San Francisco bars Happy Meal treats
USA Today 11/8/10
Amid all the Election Day hoopla, you might have missed last Tuesday's action in San Francisco: The Board of Supervisors moved to end a scourge on the American food landscape. Consumers call them Happy Meals. On a preliminary 8-3 vote, enough to override a threatened veto by the mayor, the supervisors prohibited restaurants from giving away toys with meals that don't meet certain nutritional standards for calories, sodium and fat. A final vote is scheduled for today.
Now, there's no doubt that too much fast food is bad for children. A study out Monday from Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that just 12 out of the 3,039 meals available at fast-food chains were considered a healthy choice for preschoolers, and only 15 satisfied the requirements for older kids. That's inexcusable.
But banning toy giveaways in meals that don't measure up to government-approved standards, as California's Santa Clara County has done and San Francisco is moving to do, is just another ineffective, quick fix attempt to solve the complex problem of child obesity.
For one thing, the "food justice" agenda, as supporters call it with a straight face, doesn't pass the logic test: Customers pack fast-food restaurants because they offer convenient, cheap and tasty (if unhealthy) food. Parents won't stop being pressed for time and money, or stop taking their kids to McDonald's, because harmless trinkets are harder to get.
More broadly, the toy bill is exactly the kind of invasive, nanny-state government intervention sure to infuriate many citizens. What's the next target? Sugary cereals that include a toy or stickers in the package? Sodas that offer discounts on amusement parks? Unless San Francisco plans to prohibit these, too, restaurants are being unfairly singled out.
Of course, none of this is to say that fast-food establishments shouldn't offer more healthy alternatives, or to deny that child obesity is a crisis. Nearly a third of kids in America are overweight or obese. Over the past three decades, child obesity rates have roughly tripled, putting more kids at risk for diabetes and cardiovascular problems.
There are a number of promising approaches to this legitimate health emergency that don't involve aggravating parents or depriving children of toys. These include making school lunches healthier and encouraging schools to offer more physical education. In low-income neighborhoods, where obesity tends to be more prevalent, efforts are underway to attract more supermarkets that offer fresh produce, and to build more playgrounds and ball fields to encourage outdoor activity.
Because junk food has been shown to have addictive qualities, information and education are keys to changing attitudes and behaviors, just as with the campaign against smoking. The new national health care law requires large restaurant chains to include calorie counts on menus. That's a sensible way to ensure parents can make informed choices about the meals their children eat — including opting to trade the fries for fruit, or soda for milk. The key is making menu items' nutritional content transparent to consumers. What they decide to do with that information should be their choice, not the government's.
As with other issues, San Francisco might think it's ahead of the times. But its heavy-handed approach is more likely to make kids unhappy than it is to make them skinny.
Opposing view on child obesity: Put kids' health first
USA Today 11/8/10
By Eric Mar
On Nov. 2, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors passed a common sense ordinance. The Healthy Meals Incentive ordinance does just what it says — it incentivizes restaurants to provide healthier options. Kids' meals must meet basic nutritional standards in order for restaurants to use toy-giveaways.
I proposed this ordinance, because my city is like so many others across the country: One in three kids are at risk in their lifetime for type 2 diabetes and other conditions due to poor diet. Communities of color and low-income families are disproportionately affected. Our doctors' offices and pediatric clinics are increasingly overwhelmed with the needs of younger patients. Childhood obesity rates have tripled in the 30 years since the introduction of the Happy Meal.
San Francisco is at the forefront of programs to promote physical activity, healthier school lunches and nutrition education. Yet, even as these programs make measured progress, each year, the fast-food industry sells more than a billion junk food meals to kids under 12 on the wings of toy giveaways.
In neighborhoods across the country from southeast San Francisco to east Los Angeles, to urban cities like Detroit and Newark, residents are living in food deserts, where fast-food restaurants far outnumber supermarkets and access to healthy food is scarce.
Dollars spent on junk foods dwarf what our city can spend on education. McDonald's says kids' meals are healthy. Are apple slices dipped in sugary caramel sauce healthy? A parent shouldn't need a graduate degree in nutrition to decide. Mom and Dad should be able to trust that food sold to their kids is healthy.
From the Institute of Medicine to the World Health Organization, we know that reducing the consumption of junk food by kids could spare the health of millions and save billions of dollars to our overstrapped public health system. That's why pediatricians, educators, parents, community health advocates and thousands of individuals lined up to support this ordinance.
As the California Restaurant Association says, this epidemic requires a "broad societal response." We agree. From Mom to McDonald's, everyone must do their part.
After all, parental responsibility does not preclude corporate accountability.
San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar sponsored the Healthy Meals Incentive ordinance.
Our view on security vs. privacy: Critics bash airport scans, but what's their alternative?
USA Today 11/16/10
If anyone wondered about the limits of public tolerance for the increasingly unpleasant airport screening experience, the answer is being provided by the reaction to newly installed body scanners and newly aggressive pat-downs offered as an alternative.
This week alone, New Jersey's Legislature passed a resolution saying the scans violate a citizen's right against unreasonable searches. John Tyner, a California traveler who sought a pat-down instead of a scan and then told airport security, "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested," became an Internet sensation.
And in the most ambitious and irresponsible protest, two grass-roots groups started the call for fliers to "opt out" of scans and insist on public pat-downs on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving. That's about the worst idea since somebody suggested, "Let's change the formula for Coke." It threatens to create even bigger bottlenecks on what's one of the year's busiest travel days.
More broadly, there's a gaping hole in the critics' logic: None has offered an effective alternative. The body scanners can detect objects that metal detectors miss, such as plastic firearms, ceramic knives and, yes, possibly explosives hidden in a person's underwear — the kind carried by the failed Christmas Day bomber last year. The unspoken conclusion of the critics' thinking is that the government should possess technology that can detect hidden weapons, but not use it because of public squeamishness. Imagine the outcry if a bomber managed to board a plane and bring it down.
In fact, despite the critics' overwrought charges, they are a vocal minority. In a CBS News poll last week, 81% of those surveyed said airports should use full-body X-ray machines. The scanners' invasive aspects have been toned down considerably. Software obscures images of body parts. Individuals can't be identified. The operator who sees the image is in another room.
This is not to say there aren't valid questions about the machines or that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can't improve this process. While the Food and Drug Administration has assured the public that the scanners do not pose a health risk, a few scientists question that assertion and have called for more study. Given the millions of people who will pass through these devices, that's a good idea.
More urgently, the government should take heed of the hundreds of travelers who have complained about rude, curt or obnoxious treatment by TSA workers, particularly during pat-downs. Such treatment is inexcusable, and screeners need to be told pronto that unpleasant pat-downs aren't meant to coerce passengers into using the machines.
The government and airlines should do everything they can to make the process less infuriating without compromising safety. This includes reviewing existing policies that have piled up in response to particular plots. Is it still necessary for everybody to take off their shoes? Is 3.4 ounces still the right limit for carry-on liquids? Is it necessary to clog checkpoints by giving fliers big financial incentives to avoid checking their luggage? And is there room for more common sense in the whole process?
As another holiday travel season approaches, airport screening might finally be reaching a tipping point. But before a vocal minority forces the issue, everyone needs to calm down and remember that the security-line indignities are a necessary byproduct of an era in which terrorists remain fixated on blowing jetliners out of the sky.
Opposing view on security vs. privacy: Honor basic human dignity
USA Today 11/16/10
By James Babb and George Donnelly
We Won't Fly urges air travelers to say "I opt out" of TSA abuse on Nov. 24. Travelers should opt out of full-body scanners not only to protect their health and privacy, but to protest the Transportation Security Administration's demeaning new security theater. We can ensure passenger safety without making nude images of our children or groping our grandmas.
For this, TSA Administrator John Pistole accuses us of being "irresponsible."
The TSA and the Homeland Security Department, however, are the irresponsible parties. They have deployed untested technology that biochemist Michael Love says "statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from."
They did not properly educate the flying public about their new intrusive security regimen. Passengers thrust into these new procedures report cases of trauma, including flashbacks for rape victims and feelings of humiliation. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a political appointee, irresponsibly misled the nation in a USA TODAY Forum piece Monday, saying the scanners were safe and the genital probings were discrete. They are neither.
Homeland Security has suckered Americans into a false sense of security with scanners of dubious value. It remains to be seen whether they even detect the threat presented by last December's underwear bomber.
Rafi Sela, a leading Israeli airport security expert, recently told the Canadian government: "I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747." Is that the security you were expecting, America?
National Opt Out Day is of vital importance to the nation, despite the risk of flight delays. The traveling public urgently requires education on these new intrusive TSA procedures, education that the TSA has neglected.
Individuals need to be warned of the radiation dangers. Parents need to be aware of the emotional trauma their children may be subjected to from TSA "bad touches."
Air travelers are clamoring for someone to stand up and demand that their basic human dignity be honored. As parents, we have a sacred responsibility to our children to keep air travel safe, trauma-free and respectful of individual liberty. The only irresponsible action would be for us to continue doing nothing at all.
James Babb and George Donnelly, who live in the Philadelphia area, are co-founders of the grass-roots group We Won't Fly.
No comments:
Post a Comment