Is your cereal racist?
Do you find yourself inexplicably offended this morning? If so, I think I have the answer. Quickly, retrace your morning routine in your mind. I’m guessing you probably ate a big bowl of Corn Pops for breakfast. I know, I know. It’s uncanny. How could I possibly know this?!
On Tuesday, Marvel Comics writer Saladin Ahmed suddenly found himself feeling just as you are now. He was chowing down on his big bowl of Pops, and as he was wiping the sleep from his eyes, gazing at the back of the cereal box, something caught his eye. There, in the midst of a cartoon depiction of little corn pops playing and shopping in a mall, was a darker corn pop sweeping the floor.
Excelsior! He had found the reason why a sudden creep of offense had now ruined his morning routine. Ahmed sprang into action quicker than one of his superheroes. He needed to wield the power of Twitter! He tweeted:
“hey @KelloggsUS why is literally the only brown corn pop on the whole cereal box the janitor? this is teaching kids racism.”
He sat by his phone. Furiously refreshing his timeline. The offense was boiling at this point! But at 3:26pm, a response came. There on Ahmed’s twitter feed, was a response from @KelloggsUS:
“Kellogg is committed to diversity & inclusion. We did not intend to offend – we apologize. The artwork is updated & will be in stores soon.”
Victory!! Cue the slow-motion superhero walk away from, what was now, an exploding twitter timeline.
So, if you suddenly find yourself offended this morning, pull out your phone and compose that tweet. Maybe you're not even offended by the same thing that triggered Ahmed. I mean, there’s just so much to get offended by on that cereal box. Not only is the slightly darker corn pop a janitor, he’s also the only one wearing clothes! Why does Kellogg hate clothes? And the janitorial arts?
There’s just so much to get offended over these days. I don't want that to kill your spirit though. Just like Ahmed, there’s a superhero in us all. Take to social media and cry racism, sexism, feminism, transgendersim, offense-ism, whateverelse-ism, and you too can manipulate a company just as powerful as Kelloggs. To arms everyone, to arms!
The opiod crisis is at a fever pitch.
21 people will be dead before this show is over.
Why?
In America, seven lives are lost every hour to drug overdoses.
It’s not hyperbole to say that the current opioid epidemic is the deadliest drug crisis in American history. It’s so bad that President Trump declared the crisis a national health emergency yesterday.
I am impressed with Trump and Melania’s dedication to this issue. It is an honorable cause that desperately needs to be addressed. The opioid addiction is suffocating this country. That stats are truly horrifying.
Overdoses killed more people last year than guns or car accidents, and are doing so at a pace faster than the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak.
In 2015, 2 percent of deaths, one in 50, in the United States were drug-related. Opioid addiction is so bad that it contributed to the US life expectancy dropping for the first time in decades. Trump’s plan to fight this epidemic is clunky, yet noble. Of course, he is going to produce “really tough, really big, really great advertising” to discourage people from getting hooked in the first place a la Nancy Reagan.
But he also said his plan would include a requirement that federally employed prescribers be trained in safe practices for opioid prescriptions, a new federal initiative to develop nonaddictive painkillers, and suspending a rule that currently prevents Medicaid from funding many drug rehabilitation facilities.
It’s a step in the right direction. But the government alone cannot end the opioid epidemic.
Only individuals have the true power to end their addiction.
Ultimately, it falls on us to dig ourselves and our loved ones out of this opioid mire.
Leave politics out of Halloween.
“Burn in Hell” read the tombstone.
It is a rather harsh epitaph.
You’d have to be a really despicable human being to deserve that on your grave. Just think, this person was so odious that someone actually spent money on the gravestone and the unforgiving engraving.
Thankfully, it only cost Fabian Vergara ten bucks at Party City. The tombstone is a Halloween decoration on his front lawn. The scene is complete with bright yellow caution tape and a fake corpse rolled up in garbage bags.
It’s a half-hearted attempt as far as Halloween decorations go, but his yard has had some scary reactions so far. In fact, it’s tearing the neighborhood apart.
Why? Above the “Burn in Hell” part on the tombstone, Fabian wrote President Trump’s name. Fabian’s neighbor Theresa was so disgusted by the scene that she called the town officials to see if they could force Fabian to remove the foam headstone.
"I want to know how far freedom of speech goes…Fabian needs to be removed from the neighborhood," she said.
Fabian responded to his neighbor’s threats by saying, “I'm doing it for fun. It was a joke. I like Halloween, so I don't see anything wrong with that. It's a free country."
This little rift in small-town America over stupid Halloween decorations is a microcosm of what is happening in this country.
Fabian and Theresa are both wrong here.
Look, it’s just distasteful to make a display about any President’s death—let alone call for him to “Burn In Hell.” It’s not cool. But Fabian is entitled to be as repugnant as he wants. As he said, it is a free country.
Theresa is wrong because you don’t have the power to eject someone from your neighborhood just because you don’t like them. Our first amendment protects Fabian’s free speech and that’s the way it should always be.
And I hate that I even have to tell you this story.
Can we please leave politics out of a kid’s holiday? Let’s remember Halloween is for them and they don’t give a Pixy Stick about your political agenda. Just give them the candy.
