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It is tempting to say that George Orwell had it wrong
when he predicted that Big Brother would be watching
everyone by 1984. That temptation should be resisted
because Orwell originally wanted the novel's title to be
1948.
His publisher feared that 1948
would
make the book appear out-of-date quickly; it became
1984
for a longer shelf life.
(The commercial aspect of book titles has other effects
on our vernacular. Catch-22
began as
Catch-18,
but Joseph Heller shared a publisher with
Leon Uris, whose Mila 18
was also published in 1961.
The publisher wanted to avoid confusion among book buyers,
and Heller was the lesser-known author, so his novel's
title was changed.)
Anyway, if Orwell had been a better prophet, 1991
would have been the year of Big Brother's triumph. The new
and improved holistic Big Brother cares little about what
you think, but he does worry about what enters your
body.
Consider Janice Bone, who had just been promoted to payroll clerk at the Ford Meter Box Co. in Wabash, Ind. She took a urine test, which showed nicotine. She was fired. Her company wasn't satisfied just to forbid smoking at the workplace -- she lost her job for engaging in a legal activity while off duty.
U-Haul fines employees for off-hours smoking and for being overweight, and other companies regulate the cholesterol, saturated fats, coffee and fast food their employees eat.
In America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, no one seriously argues that you have any rights whatsoever while you're on company time. When employers regulate off-duty behavior, they are really saving money -- they control you for 168 hours a week, but pay you for only 40. Even at minimum wage, $4.25 an hour, that's a substantial saving. There is $170 of regular time that you get paid for, and 128 hours of time and half, or $816 a week, that doesn't show up on your paycheck.
So that we all might eat in such a fashion as to reduce
health-insurance premiums, the Physicians Committee for
Responsible Medicine has proposed a new Four Basic Food
Groups.
Instead of meat, dairy, grains and vegetables,
they prefer grains, vegetables, legumes and fruits.
Obviously, they don't realize that the Four Basic Food Groups change through life. When you're a teenager, it's hamburgers, pizza, fries and Coke. In college, the four essential foods are free, beer, beer and beer. In maturity, people vary greatly. Computer programmers tell me their Four Basic Food Groups are Jolt Cola, take-out Chinese, No-Doz and Morning Thunder tea. One woman told me hers were chocolate, carob, caramel and cocoa; another said it's more like coffee, cigarettes, Pepsi and Sinutabs.
But that variety will vanish. Big Brother is watching. It's for our own good, of course.
My dad used to tell me that When they tell you
they're doing something for your own good, keep your hand
over your wallet. It isn't your good they're worried
about.
Somewhere, Henry David Thoreau wrote to the
effect that If a man should come to my house to do me
good, I should bar the door.
But I can't find it. I did
encounter another Thoreau observation: There is no more
fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of
his life getting his living.
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