Columnist Susan Snyder: It’s folly to sugarcoat junk issues

Tuesday, June 17, 2003 | 8:18 a.m.

Tell us how badly we're eating but don't make us pay for it.

A poll presented at a Harvard School of Public Health meeting last week says 62 percent of us want restaurants to be required to list calorie and other nutrition information on menus, but 59 percent oppose taxing junk food.

We have a better chance of taxing breathing. I figure 99 percent of us would never agree on a definition of junk food, let alone come up with a tax structure. One can only imagine the congressional hearings.

"So, a raw banana wouldn't be considered junk food, but a frozen banana would?"

"That's right, senator. A banana would not be taxed unless it was covered in chocolate and frozen."

"What if it were being taken home raw in order to be cut up and placed atop a bowl of chocolate ice cream as big as my head?"

"My understanding, senator, is that the banana would be exempt, but the ice cream would not, depending on its fat content, its use of hydrogenated oils and whether it contained sugar or a substitute."

"Whipped cream?"

"Definitely, senator."

"The cherry?"

"Depends, sir. Raw or maraschino?"

We'll die of old age first.

Honestly, life was far less complicated before the junk e-mail, but at least the screaming meemies have found a voice.

Among the five screens of dreck that greet me each Monday morning was an offer for the "Deck of Hillary" playing cards, "the perfect antidote to the liberal media's Hillary love fest."

"Love fest"? Nah. We're just human. We also want to read the juicy details in Hillary Rodham Clinton's newly released "Living History" memoir.

The playing cards are one of the lures NewsMax.com is using to hook people into paying $50 for a subscription to its printed NewsMax Magazine. (Advent of the magazine subscription has saved an entire generation of salesmen from hawking cure-all remedies from the trunks of their cars.)

The backs of the cards show a picture of the Statue of Liberty with Clinton's face. The other sides show pictures of her with quotes pulled from past interviews, books, articles and speeches.

The three of hearts shows Clinton with former President Bill Clinton's head barely visible behind her left shoulder. The caption includes, "This is not going to be proven true," a comment she reportedly made on the "Today" show in 1998 about Bill's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

A subscription ordered today also includes "The United Nations Deck of Weasels" and the "Most Wanted Deck of Death" cards.

Ah, well. Buy Newsweek. Playing cards aren't included, but you'll be too busy reading to play anyway.

A naked woman painted with tiger stripes will stand caged in front of The Mirage at noon today in protest of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus that opens Friday.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says Ringling uses inhumane tactics to force wild animals to perform -- to say nothing of caging a naked woman outdoors in the desert.

Does body paint double for sunscreen?