Hands Off Mom’s Breasts
“Nanny MacBloomberg” strikes again. The Bloomberg administration has proposed initiatives forcing residential landlords to regulate smoking in apartments, denying second helpings to school kids in city breakfast programs, and encouraging new mothers to breast-feed.
Mayor Bloomberg and his agents have a bigger presence in our lives than even George Orwell’s Big Brother. Bloomberg has used his bully pulpit to push New Yorkers around.
Smoking has fallen tremendously in New York. Tobacco taxes are prohibitively high. Scary anti-smoking ads haunt our waking consciousness. Lighting up in public spaces is nearly non-existent. Those who smoke skulk about like rats in the subway.
Now the city seeks to ban smoking in the privacy of one’s home. Average smokers are unable to seek refuge in speakeasy-style cigar bar hideaways because of membership fees.
I’m surprised that Bloomberg hasn’t tried tying together his anti-smoking and anti-gun campaigns. Tobacco and guns, two quintessential American industries, are under siege by a billionaire mayor who made his fortune using machines that transmitted information.
First they came for school children’s cupcakes, now they coming after breakfast seconds. The city health commissioner wants to treat poor school kids like Oliver Twist waifs forced to hold up their bowls asking, “More, please.”
Some city policymakers want to end the Breakfast in the Classroom program (which itself is a dubious notion) because a second helping of oatmeal might contribute to childhood obesity.
Just like traffic agents, the food police enforce contradictory rules.
Eat healthier food 6AM-7PM, but don’t do it in a school zone 8AM-4PM, unless you’re in the cafeteria 7AM-830AM or 11AM-1PM.
The city has successfully upped the number of eligible families receiving food stamps through the federal supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP). Despite that success, the city piloted Breakfast in the Classroom in 381 schools because many of the eligible students wouldn’t show up for the early morning free breakfast available in the school cafeteria. Policymakers believed many students avoided the free breakfast in fear of the social stigma.
Apparently, no one cares about the ineligible kids forced to watch their poorer classmates snack on waffles and fruit during the morning essay.
Mind you, this is the same administration that after luring record numbers of city families onto the food stamps rolls petitioned the federal government to restrict the purchase of soda and sugary drinks by SNAP recipients. Fortunately, the Obama administration rejected that request.
Now that they’ve gotten their grasping hands on our cigarettes, salts, and trans fats, they want to reach out and touch the breasts of new mothers. Bloomberg wants city hospitals to encourage more breast-feeding because it may reduce the risks of childhood obesity.
We are on the road from “nanny-state” to full-blown cradle to grave Bloombergism.
Every few decades, societies produce leaders who mistakenly believe they know what is best for the unwashed, under-educated masses. Fortunately, there are 616 days remaining in the Nanny MacBloomberg era.
Meanwhile, New Yorkers ask, “what’s next, dodgeball?” No. Some schools banned that venerable game years ago. School officials said something about dodge ball being risky and encouraging bullying.