Some of you may be aware that certain restaurants are now legally required to provide the nutritional information for their offerings to their clientele. Now you can see exactly how many grams of saturated fat those scrumptious French fries have, and as for that fabulous burger, well that too shall hide no caloric secrets from you. The reason behind this is to help people make better food choices, as far too great a proportion of our population is obese, and that, in turn, leads to increased health care costs for everyone, trim and not so trim alike.

Now, while I am in favor of this, my mister is not. He thinks people should be more responsible for their food consumption on their own--that restaurants should not have to inform their patrons how sodium and fat riddled are their meals. While it is true that people OUGHT to employ common sense and will power when it comes to their food (and their waistlines), it is also true that many do not, and anything that makes people at least think twice before stuffing some fat laden treat into their mouths has got to have some merit.

What do you think? Does this mandate remove personal responsibility or does it help people make better choices?

More (MIS) Adventures in Samson Land

Some of you may recall a few weeks back that there was a race for the senate seat in Massachusetts. The republican candidate emerged victorious. Well, my sister-in-law posted a comment on her Facebook page that basically said the people of Massachusetts were brainless fools. Several other of her Facebook friends posted like comments condemning the people of this aforementioned state as heartless followers intent on dooming our nation. Well, I posted a little comment saying that maybe it really didn't have so much to do with being a democrat or a republican so much as it did with being an independent thinker--and people were voting based on individual candidate's merits as opposed to what their party affiliation was.

Soon, though, I found a message in my inbox from my brother. Evidently my sister-in-law took such umbrage at a dissenting view that she felt the need to UNFRIEND me, and my brother decided to take me task for discussing politics in a public arena (Wendy, if you want to disagree with Erika, the kitchen is the proper place) and demanding an apology for hurting her feelings (I would desist and apologize for making trouble).

WELL, seeing as how she was the one to bring up politics ON FACEBOOK, which is hardly a private space, and how all I did was express a politely dissenting view, I declined to proffer this apology.

However, I remain UNFRIENDED and have no desire to submit a pathetic little friend request to Erika. But what does she think? That she will never need to speak to me again? She's married to my brother! The mother of my niece! Is she not going to talk to me when I call to wish this little niece a happy birthday? Will she forgo dinner when I come out to visit? How should I behave when I interact with her?