policy with pop

To Glee or Not to Glee

This week marks my twenty-##### birthday… 

With a twenty-something birthday coming up, it’s only natural to question what you’re doing with your life. It’s kind of cliché though. Like a TV show…

Sometimes figuring out who you are and who you’ll become is melodramatic, like Felicity. Sometimes it’s awkward and funny, like Glee.  Here’s hoping my quarter-life crisis is Gleeful, filled with catchy pop tunes, a little bit of dance and sarcastic humor.

As the Glee trophy says, “By its very definition, glee is about opening yourself up to joy.”  Some people follow their passions, regardless of financial insecurity or social expectations. Will Schuester chose the glee club and teaching over being an accountant. Happiness won over money in this narrative.

However, others value wealth and/or prestige as the prevailing objectives and do jobs they don’t like. I have plenty of buddies who eagerly go through the hazing process that is law school - the Socratic Method, class rank, law review, etc. - to gain a $160,000 big law firm job.  Hopefully, the rewards make up for the sacrifice.

As I ponder my life - what I really want and how to achieve it – I want to know your perspective. Let’s call it your birthday present to me. Tell me: What are “good life choices?”

Palin: Secret Life & Reba Combo?

Is it just me or did the presidential election become a crazy TV show? The recent headlines about the Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has brought a ton of drama to the tube. And she’s only been on the national scene less than a week.

A few days after John McCain selected Palin as his running mate, it was revealed that the religiously conservative governor’s unmarried, 17-year old daughter was… pregnant.

The teenage daughter’s pregnancy is similar to the summer hit show, The Secret Life of an American Teenager. This ABC Family show, a cross between 7th Heaven and a watered-down Juno, explores the tough “realities” of teen pregnancy.

But back to Palin: She got all Reba on us when she became the VP nominees and admitted that her daughter was in fact pregnant. Palin made this public statement, “Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned.” This is reminiscent of Reba, a sitcom that focused on a mother taking care of her untraditional family, which included her teenage-mother daughter. Reba, while realistic about her daughter’s actions, still openly welcomed and celebrated her granddaughter’s birth.

Now Palin’s story touches a lot of different issues (and a few TV shows apparently).

First, how do we prevent teenage pregnancy? Palin advocated abstinence-only education. Can she still make a strong case for that? Or is her daughter’s situation anomalous to that policy recommendation? Or does Palin’s story help support sex-education?

Second, once a teenager becomes pregnant and decides to go through with the pregnancy, how should society treat her? Do we hide it? Shun it? Many school districts segregate pregnant teens – taking them out of the school they were attending and placing them in special schools for pregnant teens (and delinquents). Is this a fair policy? Or do should we treat teen moms-to-be as they were before?

What message, if any, are sent to other teenagers and children with these policies? Should it matter?

Finally, should Palin’s daughter’s pregnancy be a factor in whether we should vote for her and McCain?

Michael Phelps: New Breakfast of Champions GRRR-EIGHT!?!

Continuing our Olympic coverage:

Michael Phelps… What can I say? If you don’t know who he is, something's wrong. Very wrong. Alright, for the one person who doesn’t know, Michael recently won an unprecedented 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics.

Now he’s temporarily replacing Tony the Tiger. That’s right Michael Phelps has signed an endorsement deal with the Kellogg Company to be on the cover of Frosted Flakes and Corn Flakes. What!?! I thought the breakfast of champions was Wheaties… Well, that’s going to piss off some people.

Actually, it has. Nutritionists are criticizing Michael for promoting the kid-marketed Frosted Flakes, which has three times the amount of sugar that Wheaties has and a third-less fiber.  They worry that children will heed his picture, eat the cereal and become unhealthy and obese.

For his part, Michael reportedly eats 12,000 calories a day and burns it off swimming in the pool, so he probably doesn’t think about the health effects it has on us ordinary people.

But is Michael Phelps morally responsible for making sure his cereal endorsement is healthy, especially since it’s targeted towards kids?

Assuming that Michael actually eats and enjoys Frosted Flakes, is it better that he endorses it rather than promoting a healthier cereal that he rarely eats or even likes?

Coming of Age: China's women gymnastics

In a showdown in the final round of the women’s team gymnastics competition at 2008 Olympics:

But throughout the competition eyebrows were raised at how young the Chinese gymnasts looked. The Chinese squad looked a little too young… young enough to be ineligible. Compared to the American team, the Chinese were on average 3.5 inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter.

In order to compete at these Olympics in gymnastics, each athlete must be 16. This age restriction is meant to protect kids and their bodies from the enormous stress of elite competition. The age restriction is also found in other sports, such as figure skating.

Opponents of age restrictions in sports argue that it may prevent the best athlete from competing and thus put the results in doubt. Plus, they say age restrictions may not deter athletes and sports federations from pushing younger athletes to the max.

Are age restrictions in sports like gymnastics appropriate? Or should they be eliminated?

To satisfy the current age rules, the Chinese government supplied its athlete’s passports as evidence of eligibility before the Games. International Gymnastics Federation officials have accepted these passports as valid and accurate.

Skeptics doubt the accuracy of these passports as they believe the Chinese government has doctored its athletes’ date of births as it has in the past (double bronze medalist at the Sydney Games, Yang Yun admitted that she was really 14, not 16 as listed, at the time) . They also cite online Chinese documents and newspapers which give a different age (14) and date of birth for two of China’s team.

Still the Chinese government and athletes still assert that all members of the current gold-winning squad are 16 or older.

Has the issue about age and eligibility been raised because Team USA earned the silver medal instead of gold? Or is this age-ineligibility issue a valid concern?

Do the Chinese athletes look younger than they are because they are Asian? Or do you think they are underage? And if in fact Chinese women’s gymnastics team members are underage, what would the appropriate recourse be?

UPDATE: The International Olympic Committee has ordered a probe on Chinese double gold medalist He Kexin after new evidence arose. He won team gold and a gold in asymmetric bars.