Thank you Michael Phelps …
Thank you Michael Phelps: for providing people everywhere with a chance to witness your magnificent sports achievement; for representing our America in world-class Olympic competition, for filling us with American pride, for personally demonstrating what it actually takes to become a world-class athlete and for inspiring us in our daily endeavors.
So why is Phelps being attacked?
So why is the media allowing Michael Phelps to be personally attacked for capitalizing on his opportunity to earn a living through marketing endorsements?
Here is an outstanding athlete with an astounding 8 Olympic Gold medals being assailed by a shrill liberal harpy admonishing Phelps for going for the “marketing gold” -- which is certainly his due after his phenomenal performance.
Is Michael Phelps a sports icon? – Yes!
Is Michael Phelps an Instant Role Model? Possibly to some people.
But is he representative of the type of life that most ordinary people will achieve. No, he is that rare one-in-a-billion or so who now stands at the peak of personal performance. And one whose achievements are likely to be eclipsed in the future. (Hopefully by himself in 2012)
Imagine living a life of rigid controlled discipline and denial, where each and every training transgression is met with sharp criticism from any one of a number of specialized trainers and amplified by your personal coach as he trains your body and mind for the mental and physical toughness needed to compete at world-class levels.
There are few people, outside of inspired Olympic and professional athletes, who would willingly trade their lives and undertake the years of hard work, discipline and continual pain for even a single Gold medal – even if they were that statistical one-in-a-billion with the physical and mental characteristics to perform at this level.
Who appointed YOU to dictate how I should live my life?
No, I am not angry at Phelps. I am annoyed when the media features liberal harpies, in this case Meme Roth, the loud-mouthed founder of National Action Against Obesity, to assail Phelps for advertising Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Sugar Frosted Flakes.
Appearing on the Fox Network, Roth, a manic wide-eyed blond with a toothy smile vigorously saying …
“… And really what we don’t want is these newly-minted celebrities, celebrity-athletes, coming straight out of the Olympics and doing nothing but pushing more hazardous calories, more sugar on to the very children who are idolizing them. Kellogg, Coca-Cola, McDonalds are all buying in to this. We even not only have Michael Phelps on the Frosted Flakes box; today the picture had Michael Phelps leading these unsuspecting Chinese kids into McDonalds for burgers and fries. It’s a lifetime of obesity and Michael Phelps should not be pushing this.”
Even if you have a morally defensible opinion, you have little or no right to publicly criticize someone for the way they choose to earn their income. If your position were all that popular with the people, perhaps you could raise the millions necessary to outbid other competing sponsors for Phelp’s endorsement. Until that time comes when Phelp’s opening and willingly supports your cause – shut up!
Piggybacking on the news …
It is a common tactic to immediately capitalize on news, especially if you are in opposition to the subject matter being featured by the media.
But it is especially galling that spokespeople of all stripes are out pushing their viewpoints by capitalizing on Phelp’s celebrity.
And especially galling are these small foundations, little more than fundraising machines designed to provide employment, personal prestige, power and profits to their leadership while they live high-profile lifestyles, who are telling America what values they must adopt and how they must live their lives.
Roth’s site, National Action Against Obesity is little more than a personal blog representing her personal crusade. I have no problem with Roth and her position. But when she attacks a noted celebrity and can possibly affect his endorsement income, then I have something to say.
It is one thing for these organizations, both liberal and conservative, to state their positions and provide support materials; but it is quite another to mount a personal attack on an individual who is capitalizing on their own achievements.
Are parents so weak?
Does anyone really think that by eating the endorsed cereal that they will become a world-class athlete? Not really! The sole purpose of a celebrity endorsement is to gain attention to separate the sponsor’s product from others in the same or similar categories.
If it allows people to momentarily daydream and wonder what it must be like to stand at the pinnacle of your chosen profession, then that is just an added benefit. But few choose to emulate the lifestyles of the people “on the packaging.” And even fewer will remember their childhood heroes as a marketing device.
For children, it’s all a matter of parenting…
Are parents so weak that they will automatically give-in to their children, especially those with health issues, because the child happens to admire the hero on the box of cereal?
For adults, it’s all about choice …
Is Phelps so different from the legions of heroes who appeared on Wheaties boxes? Will he be the deciding factor in pushing me to buy Kellogg’s Corn Flakes over Frosted Flakes or Froot Loops? Not unless that was what I intended to buy.
Misplaced energy?
While I definitely need to lose weight, I do not want some thin blond celebrity-wannabe dictating what I can and cannot buy in the free marketplace. Or who can appear on the packaging.
One could easily make the point that Phelps is irrelevant when measured against the authority of responsible parents or dedicated adults. So instead of attacking an individual of accomplishment for his heroic achievements on the basis of his endorsements, perhaps Roth should spend her time pushing parenting skills. Where the benefits to children and the community are of tangible and lasting benefit.
IN CASE YOU DIDN’T MARK THE OCCASION …
According to the New York Post’s famous "Page Six celebrity gossip feature …
“Cher helped Bill Clinton celebrate his 62nd birthday Monday night in Las Vegas, where the ex-president was attending an energy summit. Clinton also dined at Craftsteak in the MGM Grand with oilman T. Boone Pickens and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). Cher, a lifelong Democrat, is playing Caesars Palace through October. Before he flew west, Clinton, whose actual birthday was Tuesday, celebrated at new restaurant Allegretti on West 22nd Street with Hillary, Chelsea and her beau, Marc Mezvinsky. “
All I could think was: A gathering of grifters dividing up the global warming spoils to be looted from the public treasury?
… AND SPEAKING OF GLOBAL WARMING …
According to published reports, The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has declared that the first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years.
Given their comments in the World Climate News publication that: “Globally, 2007 was amongst the 10 warmest years on record,” one cannot help but wonder if this is just another cyclical variation in the climate or an inflection point indicating that we are now going to regress towards an unknown, but cooler, global mean temperature.
Unfortunately, as with most weather phenomena, one cannot correctly assess its short term impact on longer term climate patterns. Which is one of the almost insurmountable problems with using models with managed “time frames” that seemingly correspond to either historical records, such as they are, or climate proxies like ice core and tree-ring data.
According to Reuters …
“Global temperatures vary annually according to natural cycles. For example, they are driven by shifting ocean currents, and dips do not undermine the case that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing long-term global warming, climate scientists say.”
“Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.”
“The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000.”
“The past decade ending in 2007 was the hottest since reliable records began around 1850, according to the WMO. World temperatures are about 0.74 Celsius (1.2 F) higher than a century ago.”
While it is nice to see an article which cites one of the gross underlying causes of weather, such as those effects attributed to ocean currents, it is still disheartening to see that they even mention “man-made greenhouse gas emissions which are causing long-term global warming.
But, they do make three interesting points.
One, they cite 1850 as the beginning of reliable weather records, but do not mention that the world and instrumentation has greatly changed in the subsequent years which skews comparability and that most climate models used adjusted and smoothed data.
Two, they always use an extremely limited 30-year date range (1961-1990) for their “global” trend pronouncements which is less than a blink of an eye in geological times.
And third, they note that temperatures have only risen about 1.2-degrees Fahrenheit over the last 100 years, not exactly the global emergency which requires fast action by politicians who are seeking to change the world through their legislation – when, in truth, they are just expanding government, raising taxes, and re-distributing wealth into their own pockets and those of their special interest friends.
Which only goes to prove, that artificial panics over the science covering millennia is as crazy as the Goracle and his profit machine that depends on government grants, tax allowances and direct subsidies.
-- steve
Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals had been beaten to death by the mainstream media before the end of the Beijing Olympics, a new Phelps-centric story was needed to capitalize on his fame. Unfortunately, most of the swimming events were completed, leaving the media no more opportunities to reference Phelps save for some far-fetched comparisons to Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter with multiple medals and world records.
Posted by: Remi | August 27, 2008 at 12:21 AM