We blame Lance Armstrong
If Lance Armstrong taught us anything, it’s that people love to put things on their wrist to show that they’re healthy. Literally anything. In the early aughts, hoards of people spent their hard-earned dollars on yellow pieces of rubber to show the world that they too care about healthy lifestyles. (Livestrong bro!) Sure, maybe some of those dollars also went to cancer research, or at least that’s what Armstrong led us to believe after he won all those bike contests — high on “life,” wink wink.
The newest craze is basically just a pedometer bracelet. You remember pedometers? Those things your parents clipped on their belt to prove to each other that those five extra pounds they put on weren’t due to lack of exercise. Well now they come in a variety of colors, with apps, accessories, a pony, and all those modern doodads you convince yourself you need, then find discarded in a drawer a few months later. These new fangled fitness trackers are a great way to remind yourself just how short of a walk it is from your desk to the kitchen to get a bagel. (“Aw, come on, it’s gotta be more steps than that!”)
All those bracelet-wearing “athletes” must have been very disappointed to hear that those fitness trackers actually lead to less weight loss than those with bare wrists. A new study found that those who didn’t wear a fitness tracker, and followed a low-calorie diet, lost 13 lbs. over two years, while those who wore one lost 7.7 lbs. Bummer, man. I guess they got distracted by all of the pretty colors and charts tracking all their steps that they forgot they were on a diet and ordered that double fudge sundae. Oops.
We can’t just watch
There are times in this life where you just can’t believe what you are hearing and seeing. Times that make you feel like screaming or moving to Costa Rica and disconnecting yourself from the internet, TV and basically the world. The recent bombing of a U.N aid convoy in Syria is one of those times for many reasons.
Let’s start with what that convoy was doing there. The murdered aid workers were taking food and medical supplies to innocent men, women and children who are starving to death in between having their limbs blown off and burying their loved ones.
So a bunch of gutless murdering assholes, using airplanes and missiles, killed all the aid workers and destroyed all the supplies. And now the whole damn world is pointing fingers and denying any involvement. This isn’t rocket science folks. Russia and Syria have planes and missiles in the area. The U.S. and Turkey have planes and missiles in the area. Wow, guess that means we just can’t ever know who did it. At least that’s the idea you’d get if you listened to all the governments playing war in Syria these days. But it’s absolute B.S.
There is not plane, helicopter or even a damn buzzard flying in Syrian airspace that isn’t being fully monitored by a U.S. AWACS plane and/or satellite. We know exactly who killed those aid workers and destroyed their life-giving cargo. We know where the flights were launched from and where the aircraft returned after the strike. We know where the missiles were fired from and most likely exactly what kind they were. So why is our government sitting in silence as these war crimes are carried out day after day? Politics.
Our handling of Syria is a sad day for this country. Our lack of action to assist the millions of Syrians who are dying as a result of lack of food and shelter and a place to turn for help is one of the most shameful moments in America’s history. Our silence when it comes to telling and showing the world who is responsible for the attacks on aid workers and Doctors Without Borders’ clinics is beyond disgusting. We deserve the truth, no matter how hard it may be to deal with.
If we just sit by and watch we are responsible for what unfolds before our eyes. We don’t have to go to war to help Syrians. But we do have to feed them, treat their injuries and give them asylum. And then sanction the living hell out of every country responsible for their harm. That is also the best way to fight terrorism in case you haven’t figured that out by now.
