Oh, yes, we really can pin the blame on the food industry, along with a complicit government.
Personally I have very healthy eating habits. My blood pressure, weight, cholesterol and blood sugar all smack dab in the middle of normal. I almost never eat processed foods. I walk about a mile to the market nearly everyday and buy fresh produce and fish. I also grow a lot of things in my back yard including avocados, limes, oranges, plums, as well as vegetables and herbs. The key to a healthy diet, as with everything else, is moderation. Obese people usually consume quite a few thousand more calories than they burn off each day. That is a decision that they make for themselves, but they are often in denial about their obesity with excuses like hormone imbalance or genetics. Both usually false. Eating smaller portions, more vegetables and getting more exercise is the way to go in my opinion.
You can't expect the US government to ban foods for lack of nutrition. They can regulate which foods are served in the cafeteria at public schools but that is about it. You're not likely to get lawmakers to declare sugar, carbohydrates and alcohol are poisons. In the US at least, people have the right to eat whatever they want, if they can afford it.
I always fly first class and I never see any obese people up there, but I pity the person who has to sit next to an obese person in coach. The airlines should make them buy two seats rather than let their blubber overflow onto another passenger.
""but they are often in denial about their obesity with excuses like hormone imbalance or genetics.""
Actually genetics is a big factor with regard to some types of obesity, it is pretty ignorant to suggest otherwise. Likewise medication prescribed to an individual can be a huge factor. I'd be the first to admit that a good portion of the population is on the pathway to obesity of their own free will, but it is really dick behavior to say that there is no genetic factor here or that causes out of a persons control are not an issue.
What data do you provide that backs up your claim that a significant portion of the US fat population are fat due to a genetic disorder, and not due to their caloric surplus compared to their total daily energy expenditure?
There really is no way to gloss over the fact that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is a root cause of nearly half of U.S. healthcare costs. Just as cigarets should cost $25/pack to cover the associated healthcare burden, a Big Mac should cost $25 a pop, too. Slow poison is what McDonald's sells.
You really can't blame American fast food chains for the poor dietary choices Americans make. There is nothing particularly unhealthy about a Big Mac. The problem starts when a person eats three per day, everyday, along with sodas and fries. If you only ate one McDonald's meal a week and the rest of the time fresh fruits and vegetables, you'd be fine. Obesity, is for the most part, a personal choice.
As far as cigarette usage is concerned, America is much lower than Eastern Europe and Russia. Nicotine is a difficult addiction to break but at least in the US there are programs that work, so again it is a personal choice. As long as you are talking about unhealthy habits, I would rank alcohol use right up there with the others and the worst countries are again Eastern Europe and Russia.
Yup, alcohol is a carbohydrate, too, in the same class of slow poisons as table sugar and corn syrup and even fruit juice. Even moderate drinking is unhealthy.
[...]
Knowledge is power.
Incorrect. Alcohol is not a carbohydrate macronutrient. It is not a macronutrient yet it contains macros such as fat and carbs in it. But it’s its own thing and has energy calories not sourced from those macros.
I am sure those who can less afford a filet mignon and farmers’ markets have taken your deep concerns for them under advisement.
You’re so intelligent about other things but you literally push the absolute fucking bullshit of “healthy food costs more”? Really? What the fuck? And not even that, a reducto ad absurdum, too. Go price a 25 lb. bag of basmati and tell me that fast food is cheaper than something that isn’t designed to be poison.
I dislike condescension. Except when done in jest. :-)
That design is completely antithetical to the anti-health products (nee "food") McDonald's sells. There really is no way to gloss over the fact that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is a root cause of nearly half of U.S. healthcare costs. Just as cigarets should cost $25/pack to cover the associated healthcare burden, a Big Mac should cost $25 a pop, too. Slow poison is what McDonald's sells.
Cigs cost $35 in Australia for exactly that reason. I guess you'd be happy here.
There really is no way to gloss over the fact that the Standard American Diet (SAD) is a root cause of nearly half of U.S. healthcare costs. Just as cigarets should cost $25/pack to cover the associated healthcare burden, a Big Mac should cost $25 a pop, too. Slow poison is what McDonald's sells.
You really can't blame American fast food chains for the poor dietary choices Americans make. There is nothing particularly unhealthy about a Big Mac. The problem starts when a person eats three per day, everyday, along with sodas and fries. If you only ate one McDonald's meal a week and the rest of the time fresh fruits and vegetables, you'd be fine. Obesity, is for the most part, a personal choice.
As far as cigarette usage is concerned, America is much lower than Eastern Europe and Russia. Nicotine is a difficult addiction to break but at least in the US there are programs that work, so again it is a personal choice. As long as you are talking about unhealthy habits, I would rank alcohol use right up there with the others and the worst countries are again Eastern Europe and Russia.
Yup, alcohol is a carbohydrate, too, in the same class of slow poisons as table sugar and corn syrup and even fruit juice. Even moderate drinking is unhealthy.
[...]
Knowledge is power.
Incorrect. Alcohol is not a carbohydrate macronutrient. It is not a macronutrient yet it contains macros such as fat and carbs in it. But it’s its own thing and has energy calories not sourced from those macros.
The idea that wood and glass architecture was a unique creation of Apple is absurd. The Apple aesthetic while extremely well done and beautiful, is not unique to Apple. Others did it decades prior to Apple.
Paul Harding FAIA Harding Partners Architects Chicago
The idea that wood and glass architecture was a unique creation of Apple is absurd. The Apple aesthetic while extremely well done and beautiful, is not unique to Apple. Others did it decades prior to Apple.
Paul Harding FAIA Harding Partners Architects Chicago
1. This is a modernist aesthetic that exposes structural elements, something referred to as structural honesty. Apple does not employee this type of aesthetic.
2. All glass systems were around decades before Apple started using them. This particular McDonald's uses a structural mullion system for the glass, something Apple has not done for a long time since they first went to a structural glass system in New York City at the Cube.
3. No one would mistake this interior for Apple.
It is quite a stretch to say that this McDonald's is copying their aesthetic of Apple Stores.
The idea that wood and glass architecture was a unique creation of Apple is absurd. The Apple aesthetic while extremely well done and beautiful, is not unique to Apple. Others did it decades prior to Apple.
Paul Harding FAIA Harding Partners Architects Chicago
Stephen, no offense, this article pretty insulting to the architectural heritage of Chicago, and it’s pretty sexist as well.
The new Michigan Avenue Apple Store was designed by Sir Norman Foster (definitely not a local), and while it’s a very good design, Foster has explicitly stated that the design of the roof was inspired by the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright, specifically the deep, shallow roof overhang of Wright’s Robie House in Hyde Park, Chicago:
If we’re going to talk about “copycat designs”, perhaps an explicitly derivative design isn’t the best starting point?
Second, Apple and Foster hardly have a monopoly on glass boxes. In fact, Mies van der Rohe, arguably the father of glass boxes, spent the balance of his career in Chicago after fleeing Nazi Germany. Some of Mies’s most iconic designs are glass boxes around Chicago:
The Farnsworth House is arguably the purest example of glass box architecture in the entire world, and is located outside Chicago:
Unlike Phillip Johnson’s Glass House, or either the Fifth Avenue or Michigan Avenue Apple Stores, which are really entrances to subterranean buildings, the Farnsworth House is a pure glass box, suspended above the ground, with nothing above or below.
Another iconic Mies glass box is S. R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Chicago, built to house IIT’s school of architecture while Mies was the director of the school:
Unlike the Michigan Avenue Apple Store, Crown Hall has no interior columns or structural walls. The roof of Crown Hall is supported entirely by girders held up by slender, almost invisible steel columns at the perimeter. Sir Norman Foster’s Michigan Avenue Apple Store “cheats” by using aluminum-clad interior columns, and the result is not nearly as magical as either the Farnsworth House or Crown Hall.
Both the Farnsworth House and Crown Hall are among the most iconic buildings of the 20th century. Both are listed on the US National Register of Historic Places, and both are US National Historic Landmarks. It’s pretty insulting when people from the coasts think that Chicago has no architecture, when Chicago was home to arguably the most iconic modern architect of the 20th century.
Anyway, if you’re going to talk about “copycat architecture”, maybe you should find a different starting point than a building explicitly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright, a glass box in the city that *invented* glass boxes.
Further, if you’re choosing architects to insult, you should choose someone other than Carol Ross Barney, the architect who designed the new flagship McDonald’s. Ross Barney is one of the most esteemed living architects in Chicago, and in 2017 she was awarded the AIA Chicago Lifetime Achievement Award. This January, Metropolis Magazine pronounced that “Carol Ross Barney is Chicago’s New Daniel Burnham”:
Here’s Carol Ross Barney standing on the Chicago Riverwalk (that she designed), about four blocks from the new Apple Store:
The Michigan Avenue Apple Store is lauded for its location on the Chicago Riverwalk... which was designed by Carol Ross Barney, who spent a decade pushing the project through federal bureaucracy. Without Carol Ross Barney, there most likely wouldn’t be an Apple Store on the Riverwalk in the first place.
Furthermore, while I doubt that you thought much about the identity of the architect of the flagship McDonald’s, it certainly leaves a sour taste in the mouth that you give Foster, a man, a free pass for an explicitly derivative design, but you accuse Ross Barney, a woman, of “copying” Foster’s derivative design. That sour taste is sexism of course.
Needless to say, Ross Barney didn’t “copy” Foster any more than Foster “copied” Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe (or, for that matter, Phillip Johnson). And from an architecture history standpoint, there are much more obvious antecedents for the new flagship McDonald’s than the new Michigan Avenue Apple Store. For example, I would argue that the floating roof of the new McDonald’s more strongly resembles the floating roof of Renzo Piano’s Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago than it resembles anything Apple or Foster have designed:
For comparison:
I’m also going to point out that, ignoring the roof and the glass box, the Apple Store is a combination of stone steps and theater seats leading down to the Riverwalk:
And the concept is eerily similar to the “River Theater” just a few blocks the river, which opened on the Riverwalk two years earlier, and was designed by none other than Carol Ross Barney, the architect of the new McDonald's!
So maybe you’re right, maybe this is a case of “copycat architecture”... only you got it backwards, because it looks a whole lot more like Sir Norman Foster copied Carol Ross Barney, and not the other way around!
P.S. the Riverwalk also gets bonus points for actually being a public space, instead of being a commercial space (although there are concessionaires). Unlike nearby Millennium Park, the Riverwalk has no corporate sponsorships or naming rights!
Despite the roof, glass box, and steps all being derivative, the new Apple Store is generally well designed, and the most interesting thing about the design is actually the rounded glass corners of the glass and of the roof. So, while Apple did in fact invent the rounded rectangle (https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt), neither Apple nor Sir Norman Foster invented glass boxes, floating roofs, nor theater seat steps down to the Chicago River.
Please research these things better in the future before writing insulting articles like these again. I would even argue that this insult warrants a retraction because of the sexism inherent in accusing a female architect of “copying” a male architect’s explicitly derivative design.
DavidJHupp said: I would even argue that this insult warrants a retraction because of the sexism inherent in accusing a female architect of “copying” a male architect’s explicitly derivative design.
Bravo. 10/10. Spectacular satire. I honestly don’t laugh much anymore, but I actually laughed out loud at this.
Comments
Eagerly awaiting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_macronutrients
Also, moderate alcohol consumption is linked to lower mortality rates than those with zero intake.
Paul Harding FAIA
Harding Partners Architects
Chicago
https://www.archdaily.com/777769/chicagos-new-apple-store-is-inspired-by-frank-lloyd-wrights-prairie-homes
Please research these things better in the future before writing insulting articles like these again. I would even argue that this insult warrants a retraction because of the sexism inherent in accusing a female architect of “copying” a male architect’s explicitly derivative design.
David Hupp