From NYT

Full Article.

SANTIAGO, Chile — They killed Tony the Tiger. They did away with Cheetos’ Chester Cheetah. They banned Kinder Surprise, the chocolate eggs with a hidden toy.

The Chilean government, facing skyrocketing rates of obesity, is waging war on unhealthy foods with a phalanx of marketing restrictions, mandatory packaging redesigns and labeling rules aimed at transforming the eating habits of 18 million people.

Nutrition experts say the measures are the world’s most ambitious attempt to remake a country’s food culture, and could be a model for how to turn the tide on a global obesity epidemic that researchers say contributes to four million premature deaths a year.

“It’s hard to overstate how significant Chile’s actions are — or how hard it has been to get there in the face of the usual pressures,” said Stephen Simpson, director of the Charles Perkins Centre, an organization of scholars focused on nutrition and obesity science and policy. The multibillion dollar food and soda industries have exerted those pressures to successfully stave off regulation in many other countries.

Probably worth a fortune each.

From LAT

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-immigration-sign-20180210-story.html

“While politicians are embroiled in a polarized national debate over immigration, an iconic road sign cautioning drivers near the San Diego border to watch for migrants running across the freeway has quietly disappeared.”

Rory’s going to Coloma next week, for two nights stay near Sutter’s Mill.  Big school trip.  And parents are allowed to send along “secret” letters to the kids, expressing love and support during the children’s time away from home alone.  Of course, the Pierces don’t play those games . . .

Lots of word problems to be solved in 4th grade.  Here’s one from a test that Rory got right.

“A store has DVDs on sale. The store has 5 racks of cartoons with 13 in each rack. It has 3 racks of movies with 12 in each rack. There were 25 cartoons sold in the first hour of the sale. How many cartoons and movies are left in all?”

We tell him he is good a math because he is a good reader.

Robert, of course, gets lost half way through.

Rory is in fourth grade, so it must be time to study that California gold rush!

In a few short weeks, he’ll be in Coloma at the historical gold rush camp with his entire class.  Hope he finds a fortune!

Here’s the camp.

Here’s Huell’s take on Coloma.

Robert is pretty sure that the couple in Southern California who were recently found to have kept 13 of their children shackled and starving in a fetid suburban house are, in fact, worse parents than he is.  The Pierces never shackle. Hmm.  Are manacles the same as shackles? A subset?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-perris-children-shackled-20180115-story.html#nt=inbody-1

The Pierces don’t watch much commercial television. That’s generally a good thing . . . we think.  But it does mean that we don’t get to be current with all the funny commercials that everyone else in the United States gets to see and laugh at.

But January is when the Pierce no-TV rule breaks down.  That’s because our network provider, Comcast, either by design or by some lapse in its programming, let’s the Pierces watch the Australian Open on ESPN.  For free!  Woo hoo!

Now, to the point. During streaming coverage of the Australian Open, ESPN plays the same ads, over and over and over.

There appears to be an unsettling disagreement between Robert and Mira.  Robert loves this ad.  He has seen it 1000 times and still laughs. Mira hates it.  Robert thinks it is because Mira does not understand it. Or, perhaps, her taste is brutish. Not subtle as is Robert’s. What say you?  A marriage hangs in the balance.