Pop Tarts And the Olympics

With the Olympics winding down and world records falling like oil executive's popularity ratings, we have the potential for some of the most lucrative product endorsement contracts in history on the horizon.


I have heard that Michael Phelps is already endorsing Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, much to the chagrin of the Food Police who suggested he endorse healthier products like steel cut oatmeal (...as opposed to perhaps what? lead cut oatmeal, laser cut oatmeal or radioactive waste cut oatmeal?), free range chicken veggie omelettes, or nine grain dry toast with half a cup of black coffee. Kids will go for that. Or perhaps he could convince kids to eat HIS breakfast: Three sandwiches of fried eggs, cheese, lettuce, tomato, fried onions and mayonnaise, add one omelet, a bowl of grits, and three slices of french toast with powdered sugar, then wash down with three chocolate chip pancakes."


I grew up in an era where a "healthy breakfast" meant you drank ALL the milk in the bottom of your bowl of Froot Loops, Cocoa Krispies, or Cap'n Crunch and perhaps had a glass of Tang on the side so you could get your vitamin C like the astronauts. I don't recall childhood obesity being an issue even though our diets allegedly are the cause of present day issue among a generation of kids who are waiting for the Playstation II version of "Kick the Can" or "Hide and Seek".



But, all that aside, I'm still waiting for Kellogg's to contact me for a celebrity endorsement of my favorite breakfast food: Yes,




Of course they might be a little ticked off at me for my previous outrage at the news that they were planning on introducing "healthier Pop Tarts". But at least I'm passionate about their products and that should count for something.

Speaking of "healthy breakfast food"... here is the quintessential good mom making a politically correct, Food Police approved breakfast for her kids... her obese, sugar amped, ADD Tasmanian Devils. Ah, yes...orange juice.

Maybe Kelloggs can make an "orange juice Pop Tart", or you could put orange juice on your steel cut oatmeal ... that would solve the calorie/sugar problems, right? Guess again.

Frosted flakes? Sugar 12g, Calories 114

Froot Loops? Sugar 13g, Calories 100

Pop Tart Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon? Sugar 14 g., Calories 210

Orange juice? Guess....

Calories 122

AND: (Drum roll, please) Grams of sugar 29.5 over twice that of demon cereal or Pop Tarts.

No wonder kids are fat and hyper. It all started with Anita Bryant.

Yep, Tony the Tiger and Michael Phelps, two American heroes! Ahoy Cap'n Crunch! Cocoa Krispies all around! Oh yeah, Sugar Bear is my best friend once again!

So, really, we don't need to pay a whole branch of government salaries to serve us up nutritional propoganda. We don't need PC food websites that point their fingers in their "Hall of Shame" at places like Cinnabon for not disclosing their nutritional information to them...as if ANYONE who eats at these places cares about grams of sugar and fat in a Cinnabon, or a Cheesecake factory dessert, or a Waffle House double pecan waffle with bacon and a Coke (oh yeah...an extra butter please!)

We just need parents that will unplug the X-Box, kick their kids out the door with an empty orange juice can at dusk and take their cell phones away so they can't text someone and tell them where their friends are hiding. Just think, after a hard night of kick the can, mom won't have to get up extra early to squeeze orange juice, fry eggs, cook oatmeal and toast bread... she can throw a box of Cocoa Krispies and a jar of Tang on the table and go back to bed guilt free.

(Oh by the way...please don't inundate my comment box with nutritional information on processed sugars, red dye #2, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil etc. I have a good wife for that.)

Who Am I in the Darkness?

Most of us have "spiritual awakenings" throughout our lives. We all struggle. We all fail. The enormity and depth of understanding of failure is often softened by youth and the illusions of immortality and invulnerability. It seems around middle age when we begin feeling our mortality and we've screwed up enough people with our stupidity and narcissism, a light finally goes on (or more accurately the light goes off) and we confront our darkness. It is in that darkness that God dwells (Psalm 18:11) and we see Him and ourselves most clearly. It is then that repentance becomes not an act, but an obsession.

I rarely cross post other people's stuff, but Anastasia's poem is worthy.

Zaccheus Cried Himself to Sleep that Night

When you begin to understand
(begin, because you never can, fully)
how hugely you have damaged and deformed yourself,
how deeply you have wounded others,

when you get a true glimpse
of the aching beauty you have missed,
the True Love you have scorned,
and trashed what is most to be cherished,

when you truly know the reality
of how ugly are the pleasures you grasp,
and how ruinous, and hateful,

and when you see, right there,
immediately next to your heart,
forgiveness, healing, a new start, real life,
all yours for the taking,

that’s when the tears come,
in a flood, all by themselves, guaranteed.