Healthcare

The other day I was driving in a car somewhere with my brother and his friend and I farted. Before I could smell any flatulence, the aroma of greasy fried food drifted through the open window and completely overpowered any and all other smells. A Burger King was about 150 meters up the road from us. We hadn’t even passed it yet, but its smell swarmed into the car and extinguished what would have been a gasser you could be proud of. A gasser that left you grinning and waiting for the reaction of when it hit the nostrils of your prey. A gasser that had just the right amount of noise, length, and aroma. A gasser worthy of a name, such as Hamilton or Marshell. Why am I writing this? First of all, it gave me an excuse to write about farting. Second of all, I think it brings to mind a very current event. Healthcare. The day that a semi-vegan fart is vanquished by the drifting scent of a fast food restaurant a block away (who’s food tastes just about as good as a decent fart) is a sad day for all of us. It use to just be McDonalds, but now it seems like every fast food place pumps out that greasy smell of fries and frozen meat patties so heavily, you can’t think about anything other than food. And with ever increasing amounts of these fat shacks polluting the continent, the streets will only become more saturated with the stench*, just like our arteries.

In the United States 127 million adults are overweight while 60 million are obese. You can blame the people themselves for being either lazy, poor, over-worked, for their unfortunate upbringing by obese parents, or even for their poor genetic make-up. You can blame fast food and junk food corporations for their Philip Morris-like attitudes towards their customers. Or, everyone likes blaming government for things, so why not blame them for selling out to the fast food companies and giving subsidies for the cheap production of their nasty food? Did you know that from 1995-2006, we’ve spent $56 billion on corn subsidies alone? That’s a lot of cash on the cob!!! Just think if that money was spent on broccoli and carrot subsidies instead of high fructose corn syrup. There’d be a lot of pissed off children for one thing. But a lot of happy rabbits. Over the years, I think schools have wised up and realized they could make a tiny bit of much needed cash by serving hamburgers and Coke for lunch. I’m not sure if it’s better to have fat educated kids or stupid skinny kids. I guess in this country you have to pick one or the other. Although smart is probably an exaggeration. Who else is there to blame? Television of course. It’s just another excuse for us to sit on our asses, as is the internet and blogs. Then there’s the car companies for making it unnecessary for us to walk anywhere. City planners for making it impossible to walk anywhere. Iraq for hating our freedoms. Dentists for fixing our teeth and making it possible for us to continue eating candy… The list goes on and on until you reach the very bottom. The sole reason why the US is reaching an obesity epidemic: Farmers. If it weren’t for these pure evil, black-hearted demons plotting and laughing like mad men up in their combines, there would be no obesity issue at all. And because of this, I suggest the new healthcare system includes a mandate that does away with all farmers. Assuming the rest of the world follows our lead (because of course they would–they want to be free like us), the scenario would play out as such: There would be a short period of time where people died in the hundreds of millions as they unsuccessfully fed themselves on the remaining livestock, natural animals in the woods, dogs, cats, squirrels, the 17 fish that are left in the oceans, and then each other. I’m guessing the world population would go down to around 10 million before we reached an equilibrium with the planet and all the other animals. Assuming all of the governments were still functioning and continued to forbid any type of agriculture, humanity would remain here in a state of hunter gatherer peace. No more wars, large scale disease, famine, obesity, pollution, or traffic jams. No more homework, debt, or paper cuts. No more brilliant farts being cancelled out by the smell of french fries from a block away. Obama, please take my plan into consideration, as I believe it is the best way to address healthcare reform. Either that or model it after our tiny, third world, embargoed neighbor to the south, Cuba.

*I actually like the smell, but it sounds better if it’s a negative thing.