Re: Are we protected from Junk Food Corporations?

From: Lictor (ghostmlNOSPAM-REMOVE_at_online.fr)
Date: 09/03/04 

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2004 03:43:30 +0200

"MikeL" <MikeL@elnet.com> wrote in message
news:j8dfj0pl0oncipe1fr96j610q2dkg6veoc@4ax.com...
> I was riding my bicycle around the neighborhood sometimes 5 miles to
> an arcade or just playing in backyards. I truly feel sorry for kids
> today that live in these cookie cutter houses that were built on a
> corn field.

We come back to the problem of urbanism... We are just beginning to perceive
how deeply how we build our cities and villages can impact both daily life
and society as a whole.

> Watching a ton of TV is
> simply a symptom of having nothing to do.

Actually, watching TV is a symptom of being afraid of having nothing to do.
How many people nowadays are still able to stop for 10 minutes and do
nothing at all? I mean, sitting down, staring at the sky and daydreaming. I
read an interview from a movie director (Agnès Jaoui) who was saying that we
should not be afraid to let kids have nothing to do; that's during these
idle moments that they can put their imagination to work and think for
themselves. Well, that's not happening anymore. Nothing to do = switch on
TV, switch off brain.

> But if you live in one of
> these subdivisions what is their to do? Just a square backyard with
> nothing but highly manicured grass.

Well, I guess you could still read books or stuff like that, but that's not
happening either.

> Unfortunately we have a generation of parents that are just plain self
> indulgent and selfish.

The problem is that the pattern is self repeating. How do you think these
kids will educate their kids?
I'm among the last generation who had parents from the hippie era. They
might have done drugs and have had weird ideas (I just can't eat whole rice
anymore), but at least they were convinced you *had* to try new things. So,
they did try plenty, got me to see as much as I could take and probably
beyond that. I think many parents nowadays have just given up on hope.

> People tear down smaller houses that are
> unique and have character but smaller to put up big plain boxes
> completely without character. There is no serious though given to
> urban planning or its consequences..

Thank god, this one is different in Europe. You have bunch of laws
protecting old typical houses or restricting you from building anything
anywhere. Many people complain, because they see rules that tell them they
can't build a parpen wall around they house and paint it pink, because it's
not the style of the area. But that's the cost to pay for keeping part of
the country pleasant enough to live in. Even from a business point of view,
it's profitable - France ranks very high in tourism revenue, and I don't
think we would if all our countryside was plague with big plain boxes.
There is indeed much thought given to urban planning. That makes the process
a bit slow. I mean, it's very hard to build anything new in Paris, because
that means destroying things that are likely to be classified or near a
classified building. And you're not allowed to build very tall buildings
either. This also means that you are supposed to work at keeping a mixed
population in cities, in term of classes and ethnicity. This doesn't always
work, because many people see all that as a limitation of their freedom.
Most people would want to live in their own big plain cheap box, while being
surrounded by typical cute small houses... Urban planning is extremelly
frustrating because of things like this, you keep seeing people who only
care about their own little interests without looking at the big picture.

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