I have been thinking a lot about my final research project.  I have also been thinking about how I feel regarding New York Mayor Bloomberg's crusade to ban gigantic soft drink cup sizes.  Having a strong science background, I feel sympathy for these unfortunate researchers:

There is something to be said about the fact that First Lady Michelle Obama has made curbing obesity in America her mission.  It seems as though government is straddling the fence on where authority to regulate people's diets resides.  On one hand, they enforce school-wide nutrition guidelines.  I for one, however, do not understand how the thin layer of pizza sauce on cafeteria frozen pizza constitutes a vegetable serving.  So there are rules, but these rules do not actually effect change in the American diet.   Obesity is an epidemic, and that is scientific fact.  Children are impressionable, and I believe that if the family cannot be relied upon to monitor a child's nutrition, then the government must set a positive and assertive example. 

 I believe media outreach is a crucial component to tipping the scales (pun intended) toward fostering healthy eating habits in children.  Efforts of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, the Food Network, Cooking Channel, etc. all represent a positive force in our busy society.  They mark strides toward improvement of this frankly embarrassing characteristic that helps to define America abroad as a nation of overweight gluttons.  

I also believe that curbing obesity does not necessitate sacrificing GOOD food.  There is a blooming food culture growing in America, evidenced by food blogs, the examples mentioned above, food trucks, farmer's markets, Yelp, and many more enticing resources.  There are increasing numbers of scares about studies done that report cancer-promoting qualities of foods Americans love—such as Boba in tumor-promoting, milk preservative carageenan in cancer-causing, steric acid in pill capsules in causing cancer, and dairy itself in contributing to heart disease.  Is there a proper balance between eating with utter disregard for one's nutritional health and eating living on aloe vera concentrate and avoiding everything that's not organic?  I think there is a balance, and I think the media will play a critical role in steering our nation in the right direction.  How do we make eating healthy a positive thing people want to do and not a disdainful freedom-hating, hippy-loving, tree-hugging, conspiracy-promoting foreign commodity that we fear will destroy the fabric of America?  According to economist Tyler Cowen, "If you are a foodie today you have more options than ever before. But there’s also more bad food than ever before. There’s more obesity. There’s more junk food. The food world is getting a lot worse and a lot better at the same time. That’s one way to think about the crisis. "

These are just things to think about, I suppose.  I think I have plenty to research!

Reading this article about tension between art, artist, and viewer, I am in search of ideas for my next paper.  The art world is filled with provocative statements just screaming at us to assess the question: what defines art?  In the article, a painting depicting a pipe is on display at an exhibit.  "This is not a pipe" is written on the painting.  The point is that it's a painting of a pipe.  Cursorily, this seems like a very meaningless debate of semantics, but I will give this some more thought.

More related to my sphere of music, I learned recently that one of my favorite musical artists, City and Colour (which actually consists of just one person), also played in another band called alexisonfire.  The two musical styles could not be more diverse, as can be distinguished in the following music videos:


This is alexis on fire's hardcore sound. Contrast that loud, harsh, aggressive sound with this song by City and Colour:

I believe there is definitely something to be researched here regarding the artist's intention with his music.  There is such a dichotomy of tone and style that I would like to read more about what fans say. I personally am lop-sidedly a fan of the more pleasant incarnation of Dallas Green (the name of the artist in question) over the other.  But maybe I should give alexisonfire a closer listen to see if I can glean as much value from them as I do from City and Colour's music.