L., the group fitness instructor I wrote of when I took an aqua class she subbed, gives the kickboxing class well-integrated homilies on health concerns. Mainly, obesity and inactivity. A New York Times Magazine had a feature article on tactics by the snack divisions of the food companies and I felt like my tropey little kid. L. had indeed heard of this article and while one can probably get it on line I got to present it to her shiny paper, cover and all.

Lunchables were a major product focus of the article, but its main point was reflected in the packaging of these as well as the chips, cookies and other things which don't quite match the glory of a piece of fruit. This was to sell in smaller packages and intimate the purchaser was in on this and other cool ideas. The gent who developed Lunchables, and his family, do not have them in the household. The produce items L. vaunts are more like it.

L. did not "go to town" over the article. We are not in parochial school a half century ago; she made good points from it once or twice over months and kept with the tenor of being "hot, sweaty and uncomfortable" and being dedicated to fitness and choice. I found the article compelling though not as frightening as an article on social injustice and persecution.

And I suppose there's a point: this is about what goes through the in-box, approximately as Alan Watts once put it, and is about immediate and easy gratification. It's not about one source, one addressing, one classroom assignment. Things good and bad keep turning up; they can be turned off or on.

Litter, debris-as-self-expression and alleged innovation. The jaws of society and industry chew away.