A moral crisis in China

Ironic really. The dog eat dog world of capitalism turns out to be even worse under communism. Gosh - who would have guessed?

I thought that was the government's job

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From the BBC

CES 2019: Lumen's breath test gadget tells you what to eat

The makers of a new device claim to be able to give users a tailored daily recommended diet based on its analysis of their breath.

Busy

I'm very busy at the moment so the current blogging pause may last for another day or so.

Fat fascism

For who would want to choose by rule?

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes from the Underground (1864)

During my lifetime the private citizen has been driven to the edge of extinction. As with so much government activity this has happened entirely by stealth. For example, this recent claim that obesity should be classified as a disease.

Obesity should be recognised as a "disease" rather than a lifestyle choice, leading doctors say.

The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said action to tackle excess weight was more likely to be successful if the problem was treated as one caused by environmental and social factors, rather than by individual greed.

In spite of some semi-fashionable attempts to suggest otherwise, it is easy enough to imagine that most obese folk have no great desire to be obese. In other words obesity is not usually a lifestyle choice – that much seems obvious enough.

Equally obvious is the constant political pressure to be seen to do something about every headline. Classifying obesity as a disease comes under that heading - the politics of conspicuous official involvement. It takes away yet another area of personal responsibility. In so doing it chips away at any possibility that there could even be such a thing as a private citizen.

Yes as Dostoevsky suggests – who would want to choose by rule? That isn't personal responsibility. Rules narrow, restrict or even remove choice and what are the longer term penalties from going down that route? How do we draw lines between official meddling and personal responsibility – where does personal choice become personal?

How do we halt the relentless and ultimately totalitarian politics of conspicuous official involvement? Because it is relentless and it is totalitarian. This choice is stark – breathe some life into the private citizen or the private citizen disappears even as an ideal.

Of course ultimately the ideal of the private citizen probably will be revived. But only for the elites.

Britain's worst MPs: Anna Soubry

Video does not appear to be one of a series unfortunately.

A way with words

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He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.

Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment (1866)

He certainly had a way with words did old Fyodor.

New Year resolution

Strange gaunt females used to come down from London, with small parcels full of tough food that tasted of travelling-bags and contained so much nutrition that a portmanteau full of it would furnish the daily rations of an army.

E. F. Benson – Queen Lucia (1920)

Hmm - perhaps this quote suggests a New Year resolution –

Be wary of strange females from London with indigestible offerings.

Be wary of faddish diets too I suppose - so that's two resolutions from one quote. Must be a good start to the year.