By the Way…

? Do you peel back the wrapper on a stick of margarine and chomp away at it like a banana? Yech, right? But that's what the public-interest nannies fret you might do if the American Heart Association goes ahead with a plan to award "heart-healthy" seals of approval to food products that pass muster.

Ever-vigilant Naderite Dr. Sidney Wolfe objects that consumers might think they could eat any amount of the approved foods. Not to be outdone, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture are hopping all over the Heart Association. "Illegal health claim." "We don't feel this is a proper way.…" "…potential for real harm."

Can Americans not even try to handle things privately, voluntarily any more?

? Since they're saving national film treasures from the perdition of colorization by their owners, perhaps our illustrious solons should turn their attention to an artistic perversion of similar import: the trashing of Shakespeare's plays. Where were these art lovers when San Diego's Old Globe recently decided to turn Coriolanus into an Ollie North look-alike, tossing in lines like, "He's a real fighting machine"? Why, Sir Laurence Olivier himself—in a prime candidate for colorization—twisted Hamlet into a Freudian household drama sans politics. If colorizing a mere movie warrants committee hearings and a new law, shouldn't the state step in to protect the Bard himself?