What the?
I’m not sure what to say about this little chunck of insanity… Except maybe VIVA McDONALD’S!!
Mike Ivey: Should Madison ban the drive-through?
First it was a proposed ban on plastic bags.
Now, a member of the influential Madison Plan Commission wants to ban the restaurant drive-through — or at least restrict the ubiquitous symbol of America’s auto-centric lifestyle.
“Given the concern about all the carbon going into the atmosphere, I’m not sure we should be building more places for people to sit idling in their cars,” says Eric Sundquist, who was appointed to the citizen panel by Mayor Dave Cieslewicz this spring.
A former newspaper reporter in Atlanta now working as a researcher at the UW-Madison’s Center on Wisconsin Strategy, Sundquist notes that several cities in Canada have recently moved to ban the drive-through coffee shop or stand-alone fast food restaurant (www.ecospace.cc/culture/drive-thru-ban.htm).
“Bans haven’t gotten as far in the U.S., although I know San Luis Obispo, Calif., has one,” he says.
The issue came up last week during discussions over a conditional use permit for a new Starbucks coffee shop along a congested frontage road across from East Towne Mall.
The site at 4302 E. Washington Ave., in front of the Crowne Plaza Hotel, formerly housed the Frame Workshop retail store but has been vacant for more than a year. Property owner Tim Neitzel now wants to lease half of the 3,300 square foot retail building for a Starbucks that will also feature indoor and outdoor seating.
To facilitate the drive-through, developers are using a portion of the Crowne Plaza parking lot. Drivers picking up their morning coffee will have to make a circle route through the property to avoid potential traffic backups.
But nearby business owners are concerned about bringing more cars through the already congested intersection of East Washington and Continental Lane. The owner of a gas station on the frontage road said it’s not uncommon for cars to wait through three traffic signal cycles to get across East Washington.
East Towne area Ald. Joe Clausius admitted the intersection is a problem and said with the Starbucks it “could get very backed up.” Still, he said the corridor is badly in need of some redevelopment.
“I’m constantly getting peppered with questions from people about what is happening there and when will it happen,” he says.
City officials have given their lukewarm support to the Starbucks, which is scheduled for a November opening. They say it could help create a more pedestrian-friendly atmosphere near the Crowne Plaza.
“While many future customers will likely be driving automobiles, hotel guests and residents to the north represent a potential walking customer,” says city planner Heather Stouder.
Sundquist is planning to bring the issue up before the city’s Long Range Transportation Planning Commission on which he also serves.
“I know a ban might be difficult so a better approach might be to restrict them,” he says, noting an ordinance in Davis, Calif., puts a number of restrictions on drive-throughs, including one relating to air pollution.
When Government Gets Scary!
What happens when the “compassionate” fingers of government get too involved in public health?
For those of you who are familiar with the pre-WW2 Nazi-era medical programs that were designed with the “common good” in mind (read “The Nazi Doctors” if you’re interested), this sounds eerily familiar:
Oregon Offers to Pay to Kill, but Not to Treat Cancer Patient
By Tim Waggoner
SALEM, Oregon, June 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Lung cancer patient, Barbara Wagner, was recently notified that her oncologist-prescribed medication that would slow the growth of cancer would not be covered by the Oregon Health Plan; the plan, however, she was informed, would cover doctor-assisted suicide should she wish to kill herself.
“Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan,” read the letter notifying Wagner of the health plan’s decision.
Wagner says she was shocked by the decision. “To say to someone, we’ll pay for you to die, but not pay for you to live, it’s cruel,” she told the Register-Guard. “I get angry. Who do they think they are?”
This past Monday morning, however, Wagner had reason to rejoice. A representative from the company that manufactures the treatment called the cancer patient to say they would give her the medication for free.
“I am just so thrilled,” she said. “I am so relieved and so happy.”
Dr. Walter Shaffer, medical director of the state Division of Medical Assistance Programs, which administers the Oregon Health Plan, attempted to defend the health plan’s decision. “We can’t cover everything for everyone,” he said. “We try to come up with polices that provide the most good for the most people.” Shaffer then addressed a priority list that had been developed to ration health care. “There’s some desire on the part of the framers of this list to not cover treatments that are futile,” he said, “or where the potential benefit to the patient is minimal in relation to the expense of providing the care.”
According to an AP story on Wagner’s case, local oncologists in Oregon have said that, despite the Health Services Commission’s assertion that they were just clarifying policies already in place, healthcare practitioners have observed a sizable shift in policy in the way recurrent cancer is treated in the state. Increasingly, say local oncologists, sufferers of recurrent cancer are not receiving coverage for chemotherapy. They are always, however, eligible for state-funded assisted suicide.
Wesley J. Smith, a prominent conservative bioethicist, says that he was not surprised by the events.
“We have been warning for years that this was a possibility in Oregon. Medicaid is rationed, meaning that some treatments are not covered. But assisted suicide is always covered. And now, Barbara Wagner was faced with that very scenario.”
Smith also mentioned a similar circumstance that had occurred in the past: “This isn’t the first time this has happened either. A few years ago a patient who needed a double organ transplant was denied the treatment but would have been eligible for state-financed assisted suicide.”
Don’t doubt us when we say that tobacco control in the name of public health is a slippery slope. Once the government feels empowered to run your life and your business, essentially suspending the Constitution in the name of public health, it’s not long before it stats to spin out of control. Should some desk jockey get to decide who lives and who dies in the state? And under what rationale is this decision made?
Consider this a wake-up call.
