Make Them Fat!

 padlocked pavilion:  students keep out!

Here's how it works in America.  A brave generation of public spirited citizens invests lots of time and energy into city parks.  Large structures are made that shield people from the rain.  Public restrooms are attached.  A public high school is nearby and on break students are allowed to leave campus, a sign of their emerging adulthood.  Some may use the building to smoke when not in the rain, victims of earlier ad campaigns, but lets look at fast food.

Fast forward and you find the large proud structure at Powell Park is closed, padlocked.  The public high school is still there, with a Burgerville directly across the street.  There's a McDonalds or is it Wendy's (or both) a little further away.  You know the scene:  get teenagers obese, like the adults, milking them for easy profit.

I'm not saying Burgerville is bad or unhealthy actually.  Of all the fast food chains, it's probably the one I'm least worried about.  It helped our Cleveland Cannibals (speech & debate team) raise money, whereas the district itself is too starved, its funds blown away by other governments on worthless munitions, million-dollar soldiers etc.

Health conscious kids go to Burgerville and find things on the menu.  This isn't really about Burgerville as the villain, but about those who padlocked the park pavilion, forcing kids to become consumers whether they wished to or no.  It's the surrounding ecosystem that reeks.

It's the American way, to be of service to commercial establishments.  Just standing around in a Gazebo or Kiosk or Pavilion is considered "loitering" -- unless its a public park ("a loophole! -- must close it" thinks the idiocracy).

Repeat this story a thousand times.  Public facilities, non-commercial, not making a buck on fast food, are accessible to young healthy bodies.  Fattening food is placed directly in front of a school and options to stay slender are physically closed off by Parks and Recreation.

How do you spell "ugly", how do you spell "mismanaged".

What does Cleveland High School think of the closure?  Were the neighbors asked?  How many and when?  What was the process?  Were the students polled?

These questions are pertinent now because the very same mismanaged bureau, complicit in making teens fat and less thrifty, is now thinking of applying the same treatment to another health nut space, another public Pavilion in another public park.

People show up on bicycles and enjoy themselves, get out of the rain.  They share healthy food, have a picnic.

"They're having too much fun, they must go to Burgerville, they must be commercial consumers!"

The hive mind is buzzing again.

Come to Hinson Church at SE Taylor and 20th next Monday if you want to hear the hive mind buzz.