By PETER S. FERRARA
Columnist
—
How is it that two egg farms in the Midwest could be responsible for so many outbreaks of Salmonella that over half a Billion eggs have been recalled so far? Evidence seems to be pointing at what the chickens were fed. This gives a new and dangerous meaning to the idea of working for "chicken feed."
It also reminds me of the old story about the fellow who was complaining about his brother to a friend. "He's crazy," the fellow says.
The friend replies: "What makes you say that?"
"Because he thinks he's a chicken. He clucks around all day. He only eats seeds and grain we sprinkle on the floor. Even then he just pecks at his food. He sleeps in a little nest we built for him up on a shelf. He just totally thinks he's a chicken."
The friend ponders this for a moment, then asks: "Why don't you send him to a psychiatric facility?"
To which the fellow replies: "We would, but we need the eggs."
Okay, that's a yolk, I mean joke. But here's something that is no laughing matter. I was in a restaurant the other day and I saw a couple sitting opposite each other in a nearby booth. They were pretty much ignoring their food while both were on their cell phones. I could hear them chatting away and suddenly realized that they were talking to each other. Why, I wondered, didn't they just put their cell phones away and speak directly?
Are we coming to a place where we would much rather relate to each other at a distance than face to face? If that is true, why is it happening? What I have noticed is more and more people, especially kids and young adults, who never seem to be away from an electronic device. There are millions -- maybe billions -- of folks out there who are constantly talking on cell phones, texting, "sexting," surfing the world wide web, playing video games, posting "tweets" on Twitter, or following "Facebook friends" on the cell phones, laptops, notebooks, and whatever other techno gadget the electronics wizards can come up with.
If you are around young people at all, you can't help but notice how permanently fatigued many of them are. They doze through the day and take long naps in the afternoon. Then their body clocks seem to kick into the "Awake and Alert" mode around seven or eight pm. From then on, they are on their cell phones or related info technology equipment until the wee hours of the morning.
They go to school not having done their homework and doze and nod their way through the day's classes, I call this sleep deprived crowd "Generation Zombie" because they seem to be constantly in a fog. Worse than having no energy, however, is that they are losing the ability to deal with each other effectively face to face. Unfiltered, direct interpersonal communication seems to have become something millions would just as soon avoid. Modern and evolving technology has made such avoidance both easy and inevitable.
Does it matter? Yes. Most of what we learn about each other comes from how we talk and hold ourselves during conversation. If you remove the opportunity to see up close and personal the person you're talking to, you lose the ability to receive vital information based on looking right at the person.
Another and more important thing lost is humanity -- the codes, signals, and signs we get from just being close to each other. Where are today's "techno prisoners" going to learn to read and interpret body language and tone of voice if they avoid being in each other's actual company and not just connected electronically? If you were in a car crash, who would you rather have come upon your predicament: a person comfortable being with other people or a person who experiences the world through some hand held gadget? I'll take the former over the latter every time.
Leaving behind the diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, and lean or slow-cooked meats that kept our grandparents' generation healthy has had serious consequences. Today we are fatter and lazier than ever before. We have the diabetes infected round bodies to prove it. We are also paying a huge price in our health and in what our health care is costing us. The easy thing to do is throw rocks at the government for trying to help us eat better and stay more fit. Look at the body shape of many of today's loudest protestors against "Nanny State" government. They may be mad at what they consider government intrusion into what and how they eat, but left to their own choices they have become huge caricatures of the lean folks I grew up with.
Maybe I'm the only person in the country who cringed while watching from the sidelines at the ground breaking ceremony for a McDonald's being built in Whitley City. I don't mean to offend those who are thrilled to add another junk food emporium to the many we already have. Maybe more minimum wage paying low skilled jobs is the best we can expect from our ravaged modern economy. Sorry to sound harsh and again, I mean no disrespect to all those involved. But let’s face it: McDonald's sells junk food full of fat and sugar to an audience already unhealthily out of condition. Is that really what we need?
A glance across the street to the nearby Arby's reveals far more folks in the Drive-Thru lane than inside eating with each other. Suppertime in America seldom happens around a dinner table anymore. Call me a stick in the mud or a "buzzkill," but I can't see the progress in our losing the desire to deal with each other face to face.
My face appears on every column I write. That's how people know what I look like when we meet in the supermarket or at the post office. People come right up to me and have something to say about something I wrote. I'm not bothered by this at all. In fact. it's why I have my picture on this Opinion Page. I prefer face to face communication over all other forms..So my current battle cry is: "Get off your electronic devices and mingle with real people up close and personal! And while you're at it, put down that bag full of junk food and have a meal around the dinner table -- no phones allowed." Just like grandpa and grandma did — and look at the shape they were in!
