Cheers & Jeers
Cheers: We applaud the Fayette Living Well Coalition for offering year-round healthy activities to residents of the community. Recognizing that cold weather is not always conducive to outdoor workouts, the group, building on its Walk Your Way to Wellness and Wednesday Walks initiatives, is offering a series of indoor activities to try, including cycling, yoga and kickboxing classes. “We are trying to promote health year-round,” said Rita Masi, who co-chairs the coalition’s Physical Health Work Group with Melissa Miner. The coalition will move back outside in May, when its Wednesday Walks series resumes.
Cheers: In the fourth season of “Seinfeld,” when the beloved sitcom was at the height of its powers, there’s an episode where Jerry Seinfeld takes a call from a telemarketer for a long-distance provider. Seinfeld tells the telemarketer that he can’t talk, but asks for their phone number so he can call back. When told by the telemarketer that he can’t give out his number, Seinfeld replies, “Oh, I guess you don’t want people calling you at home?” The telemarketer says no, he does not. This leads Seinfeld to respond, “Well, now you know how I feel.” A state senator in New Jersey is tipping his hat to that “Seinfeld” moment by introducing legislation in his state that’s been nicknamed the “Seinfeld bill.” It would mandate telemarketers say what they are selling within 30 seconds of the start of the call, the business they are representing and a phone number where they can be reached. Telemarketers would also be obliged to put their mailing addresses on their website. This is an idea other states should also explore. Jon Bramnick, the Republican who introduced the bill, explained his legislation “requires more transparency from telemarketers and punishes those who lie and misrepresent information on sales calls.”
Jeers: When the news broke Monday night that there had been a mass shooting at Michigan State University, it all seemed numbingly familiar to most Americans — students having to run and take cover, reports of injuries and deaths and a gunman on the loose. Fortunately, most of us will never be in a situation where a mass shooting is unfolding around us. However, there was at least one student at Michigan State who was experiencing a mass shooting for the second time. The Washington Post reported that 18-year-old Emma Riddle, a freshman at Michigan State, was a student at Oxford High School outside Detroit when a sophomore opened fire on her classmates and left four dead. Riddle has had to go through therapy in the months since the shooting at her high school, and on Monday night she tweeted, “14 months ago, I had to evacuate from Oxford High School when a 15-year-old opened fire and killed four of my classmates and injured seven more. Tonight, I am sitting under my desk at Michigan State University, once again texting everyone, ‘I love you.’ When will this end?” That’s a good question.