Salted Nuts

Who said the NYC's health commissioner wasn't worth his salt? In Roman days, salt was so valuable that it was used as currency-hence, when someone, usually a slave, was said that he wasn't worth his salt, it meant he had little value. But now, when salt is being devalued into the new public health enemy du jour, we can say without fear of contradiction that Dr. Tom Farley is really worth his salt.

Here's the latest Bloomberg-enabled Farley crusade-against the dangers of the salinization of our diets: "Mayor Bloomberg's latest health campaign -- cutting salt intake -- has targeted soup as one of the big sodium offenders to be taken down with new city ads. The ads, which will be plastered on subways for the next two months, feature a half-opened can of soup with a geyser of salt spewing from the top and forming a heap around the can. Trying to put fear into the hearts of salt-aholics, the ads will warn that excessive sodium "can lead to heart attack and stroke" and list average amounts of salt in various foods, such as salad dressing and frozen pizza."

Another misuse of public funds-as well as a further example of the misguided intrusiveness of the Bloombergistas. And consider another story this morning in the NY Post, one that highlights the outrageous sums that the city's tax payers are forced to shell out for public employees who pay zilch for their own health costs-in essence gorging on the wages of the hard working shlubs who pick up the tab for this excess.

Now, as far  as we're concerned, this is what is truly unhealthy in the City of New York-and if the mayor was paying better attention to the overall health of the city's economy and budget, and not distracted by all of this Nanny mishogos, he wouldn't have been larding the city's payroll with thousands of additional workers who all benefit from nice pensions and free health care.

It's really time that the mayor and his running fool from New Orleans backed off-they're really butting into our lives, in places where they have no business being. And given the state of the city's small businesses-overtaxed and over-regulated to death-his latest foray into telling us what's good for us is just puring salt into our wounds.