Your Tax Dollars at Work: Telling Kids to Do Jumping Jack During TV Commercials

In case you are happy, here's something that should make you sad: The taxpayer-funded website for Let's Move!, the signature project of First Lady Michelle Obama that's designed to get a nation of junior lard-asses off the couch (I was reminded of the program's existence thanks to a PSA on Nicktoons).

From the site's Fun Ways to Break Up TV Time entry:

… Quiet time for reading and homework is fine, but you should limit time spent watching TV, playing video games or surfing the web so you have more time to play!

If you're going to watch TV or play computer games, break it up! Pause the game. Make commercial breaks Let's Move! breaks. Here are some active and fun ideas:

• Jumping jacks
• Dancing
• Racing up and down the stairs
• Sit-ups
• Stretching
• Jogging in place
• Push-ups
• Active house chores
• Come up with your own activities and share them with friends and family

More here.

I realize that the budget for the Let's Move! site is a rounding error on the backside of a pimple on the backside of the guy who cleans a Pershing Missile and all that, but simply because something is relatively cheap doesn't mean it should be given a free pass. Maybe it's the fact that we just celebrated the nation's birthday, or that it's like 100 degrees everywhere that matters to me, or that a million people are without electricity, or that my blood sugar is spiking or dropping (must…do…jumping…jacks…) or that I can't shake the feeling today is Saturday and so resent being stuck at work. Did I mention it's like 100 degrees?

But in the wake of record-setting deficits (that show no sign of ending any time soon) and idiot screeds about how individualism is a cancer on the body politic and two major-party presidential candidates who stink on ice worse than the Columbus Blue Jackets, well, stuff like Let's Move! (is the exclamation point really necessary?) just fills my heart with more sadness than the saddest song and the stiffest codeine-laced cough syrup I can imagine.

Read Greg Beato's classic exhumation of President Kennedy's cortisone-addled response to news that Swiss kids were in better shape than American tubbos back in the early 1960s.

Comments

[sarcasmic]

Want to cure the obesity epidemic?

Tax inactivity!

Can't prove that you're getting enough exercise? Pay a tax!

BMI is unacceptable? Pay a tax!

Your pantry fails inspection by the Food Police? Pay a tax!

Thank you Chief Justice Roberts! You just saved America!

[ant1sthenes]

At least there won't be any more fat chicks. And the lamentations of the Jezebelians will be comforting.

[kibby]

Wait, my BMI is two higher than what it's supposed to be because of boobage! Does this mean I will undergo a mandatory breast reduction in order to avoid this tax?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Somebody write me a regulatory exception, stat!

[Mad Scientist]

Be sure that exemption does NOT exempt moobs.

[Lord Humungus]

don't be othering!

[Brett L]

We'll just rewrite the BMI so that adipose tissue on secondary sex organs doesn't count.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

What Brett said

[Restoras]

What,exactly,did Brett say?

[Brett L]

Boobs don't count against your BMI weight.

[BakedPenguin]

For females.

[Ska]

Panty inspections!! YES!!!!!

*squints*

Pantry inspections?! Oh man, weak sauce.

[Mike M.]

Michelle Obama lecturing people to move their lard asses more is like Barney Frank mocking someone for having a speech impediment.

[Barny the Frank]

Thtop it!

[Auric Demonocles]

Getting kids to stop watching commercials trying to sell products? Why does Obama want to crush American business?

[Atanarjuat]

Said business didn't donate to his campaign or hire union laborers who do?

[ant1sthenes]

Hey, don't insult the Blue Jackets. Half your readers are in Columbus.

[A Serious Man]

Racing up and down the stairs.

Um, does anyone else see how this can go terribly wrong?

[Res Publica Americana]

Shhhhh. It might thin the Obamabot population.

[CE]

How about playing baseball in the house?

[Pound. Head. On. Desk.]

Racing up and down the stairs.
Um, does anyone else see how this can go terribly wrong?

Brings new meaning to "dying to lose weight."

[Episiarch]

People watch commercials still? With DVRs? Michelle: thick, ugly, and stupid is no way to go through life, Mrs. Obama.

[Slut Bunwalla]

"Racing up and down the stairs"

This will be removed from the list as soon as little Timmy falls and breaks his arm.

[Pound. Head. On. Desk.]

"Racing up and down the stairs"
This will be removed from the list as soon as little Timmy falls and breaks his arm.

Nah, normal, healthy fracture. Even the part that pierced the soft spot.

[Paul.]

Seattle Teacher Union President tacitly admits that up until recently, Unions had no interest in bettering public education:

"Simply saying 'no' is no longer an option," said Jonathan Knapp, a shop teacher who crafted the approach as union vice president.

"The climate has changed, and we have to be badvocates for public education in a way that 20 years ago we didn't," Knapp said. "And the way that we do that is building relationships, not by confronting people and saying it's our way or the highway."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....on05m.html

[Paul.]

*be advocates* (damn text box editing)

Although "badvocates" has a nice ring to it.

[sarcasmic]

What rule is that?

[nicole]

you should limit time spent watching TV, playing video games or surfing the web so you have more time to play!

Note that what that actually says is, "You should limit time spent playing so you have more time to play!"

Seriously, as a kid whose "play" was almost completely physically inactive, this would have been more cryptic to me than anything else. Go play! No, don't play dress-up with your dolls, go play, dammit!

[Paul.]

Playing dress-up with your dolls isn't playing...that's serious business.

[Res Publica Americana]

Did your dolls have federally mandated safety labels on them? And were they produced by union labor?

[SugarFree]

My mother would usually go for the simple "Go outside!" As if reading outside was so much healthier.

[Paul.]

We would go shooting in the desert. I'm thinking that Obama would call this form of play as "clinging to guns".

[Mad Scientist]

No, that's clearly child abuse.

[SugarFree]

My dad used to give me a 100 rounds of .22 and tell me "make it last."

[Restoras]

Shoog, that's child abuse. 100 rounds of .22 ammo is just two of those little boxes!

[SugarFree]

He was strict but fair. I was taught to make shots count, not spray and pray like Epi.

[Episiarch]

"He was a cruel man, but fair."

Look, just because poor people can't afford even .22 ammo doesn't mean I'm a bad shot.

[SugarFree]

Wait, I thought because I was white I grew up rich and privileged. I'm a millionaire just for being white and male and hetero, right?

It was mostly to mollify my mother, who was horrified that I got my first .22 when I was 8.

[Episiarch]

Ha, I got to blow through an entire box in an afternoon.

[tallyho]

A hundred rounds!!! I got a magazine full, seven rounds and one for the chamber. In the winter, daily limit for rabbits (snowshoe hares) was six. Bring home six rabbits and two rounds and I had two extra rounds the next Saturday. The only time I ever had a full box of .22 was at the high school rifle team practices (occasionally a box, or a handful followed me home at the end of the evening).

[nicole]

As if reading outside was so much healthier.

LOL, yes, that was my mother as well.

[Mad Scientist]

My mom did the same thing. "Go outside" was code for "I want to watch TV now."

[Episiarch]

My parents would take my book away. Then I would pull one of the other ones I stashed under the bed out and read that.

However, I also liked running around in the woods and getting ticks on me.

[SugarFree]

The power went out, and my mother found out that making me go to bed wasn't a magical incantation to force me to go to sleep when she found that we didn't have a single working flashlight in the entire house.

[nicole]

I stopped liking that quite so much after I got Lyme disease. I did still like our pool though.

[Episiarch]

Considering I'm from the state that contains the town for which it's named, I'm amazed I didn't get it ever. Just wood ticks for me. And yeah, swimming is the shit and I loved our lake club.

[Res Publica Americana]

My mom thought the outdoors were for hippies. Staying at home to study some more was considered the better thing to do, though my parents generally didn't give a shit about what I did with my free time.

[nicole]

Yeah I have to give my parents props for never discouraging me from reading, even though it was being done in freakish amounts.

[Brett L]

At least you got to be inside. My parents didn't give a shit if I sat on my ass on the grass just past the porch for 9 hours a day on weekends. But I had better be outside my and everyone else's house.

[Translucent Chum]

I had the same option. They didn't care where, but outside which meant not at home. We would leave for the park (and ball diamond) at 8am and return home around 6pm for dinner. My parents never once complained or worried someone would run off with us.

[carol]

Same for my parents. I was allowed to wander far and wide as a kid. I think my parents may have secretly wished that somebody would run off with me. As soon as I turned thirteen they started shipping me off to Europe during the summer. Twelve months a years was more than they bargained for.

[Abdul]

I made my 6 yo a bow out of pvc pipe and arrows from dowels (topped with wine corks and pipe insulation for safety). He loves it, but i keep expecting the knock on the door from CPS any day...

[Brett L]

You are an excellent parent.

[CE]

I had a real bow with real arrows when I was 10. Before that I made my own with sharpened sticks hardened in a fire. Those were much more dangerous, since they didn't fly very straight.

[Montani Semper Liberi]

It's rare to see a picture with Bobby Flay where he is not the biggest douchebag present.

[Brett L]

I'm not sure he can ever do worse than tie for biggest douchebag present.

[sarcasmic]

No way! Ever watched Throwdown? He's actually a humble guy and a good loser.

Tyler Florence on the other hand... Douche of douches.

[Pro Libertate]

Nah, he's a douche. I can feel a disturbance in the Douche Force when he's on the air.

[Episiarch]

He's an excellent chef. He's also a dick. I know, because I'm a lot like him.

[Auric Demonocles]

Except for the "excellent" part?

[Episiarch]

No, I'm an good chef as well.

[sarcasmic]

Most chefs are dicks. But dick != douche.

[CE]

Flay is a gracious loser when he gets beat on Throwdown, but I don't think someone who's truly humble would fly around the country taking on other chefs well known for a particular dish on their home turf in front of their home fans, and expect to win going in.

[BakedPenguin]

'Why can't kids food be healfy?" *sobs*

[Brett L]

Also, is that guy in the 2nd picture doing one of those new agey "rebirth" ceremonies. And who would want Michelle to be there to welcome you to your new life?

[CE]

Another fun way to break up boring TV watching time: log on to the internet on your tablet or smart phone.

[Scotticus Finch]

fills my heart with more sadness than ... codeine-laced cough syrup

You're doin' it wrong.

[Franklin Harris]

Bobby Flay: Still a jerk, and still adding corn to everything!