Did you ever wonder why we know so much about some things and almost nothing about other things? It all depends upon who is able to secure a research grant to find out. I know you have heard it from me before but here again it depends upon the man’s world in which mostly men set research agendas. If you want to read research about whether Pluto is a real planet, you can find plenty on that subject. Even if you are looking for investigation on the tensile strength of cookies you will find it easily. After all, some corporation wanted to produce a cookie that would hold up well under packaging and transportation from factory to consumer and so this study came about.

But try and find out what effect soda drinks have on young children and you may have a problem. The big companies who distribute their soda drinks around the world don’t want anyone to know that such drinks are not hydrating and that soda in excess is not healthful. Children sitting in front of TV and other screens sipping such drinks mean big bucks to the cola corporations.

The result has given our president’s wife her cause of curbing childhood obesity. I must say it is probably a more important concern than beautifying highways was for Lynden Johnson’s wife or Just Saying No was for Ronald Reagan’s wife.

Perhaps in future the presidential candidate’s wife should run jointly on the same ticket with her plan for improving the nation revealed. The slogan for the Obamas could have been “Hope for a Slimmer Nation.” Well, with the economy so bad people will automatically be pushing themselves away from the dinner table more quickly so that in itself will be a calorie reducer, right?

But life doesn’t totally rely on what one eats. It depends also on the driving habits of citizens. Research has revealed that the deadliest drivers are men turning left. After all, men aren’t always the best at multitasking so to expect them to notice a pedestrian walking across the crosswalk while putting on the turn signal may be too complex.

Recently I noted that those people working at front desks are mostly women. After all, women who are expected to balance pregnancy, bearing children, and careers are used to multitasking. I checked in at my dentist’s office and there were the usual women answering phones, doing paperwork and greeting customers without a glitch. I jokingly remarked, “You ought to have a bonus for all this.”

But young men have other problems that women don’t have. They must live their lives with one thought in the back of their minds: If there is a war I may be expected to kill or be killed. With that always in their thoughts how can they be expected to take care of all the little details that women assume? That is why they must practice their role expectation by experiencing pseudo war as they watch football and other pseudo-war games. Crunching on those chips and drinking that beer probably helps them reduce their stress over their awesome responsibility to society.

Maybe we can all work together to decide that war is no longer the answer. Without war we could live life without the male fear of being killed in battle or the female fear of being raped by the victor. Then all the football stadiums could become great family centers and the Pentagon could be turned into a great indoor park.

Georgie Bright Kunkel is a freelance writer who can be reached at gnkunkel@comcast.net. or 206-935-8663