Swimmer's fall from grace is good for Kellogg's

The Michael Phelps controversy is entirely remarkable. That a famous and wealthy young man would choose to indulge in recreational drug use is, of course, unprecedented and unforgivable - yet while the weak-willed Phelps has consigned himself to the teeming dustbin of dishonored druggies, the American people have shown themselves to be of sterner stuff. As our country teeters on the brink of (further) economic catastrophe and unprecedented socialism, it is truly admirable that our nation is still soldiering onward with their indomitable celebrity cravings. The British stiff upper lip has nothing at all on the American lower mind!

Yet, despite the sadness we all feel over Phelps' fall from grace, the Kellogg Company's actions herein are a bright spot in a dark time. There is much to be admired in the way that the company immediately dropped Phelps' endorsements and stonewalled the sorry 23-year-old, refusing to answer his calls. When pressed for comment, the Cornflake Co. simply said, "Michael's most recent behavior is not consistent with the image of Kellogg." Of course, Kelloggs had endorsed Phelps despite his previous arrest for drunk driving, but that, naturally, was consistent with the company's image. Though, I admit I find it strange, if there were any company that would heartily endorse the act of acquiring the munchies, one would think it to be Kellogg's, the lucrative Lucifer of nutrition and the fallen angel of fortified foods!

But perhaps the munchie-manufacturer's stand against the evils of marijuana is a promising sign of change. The firm's sternness is, after all, only a return to its roots. It is truly sobering to consider the rise and fall of the Kellogg Company - and so perhaps Phelps should try it, particularly before going for a drive.

The Kellogg Company was the outgrowth of the Sanitas Food Company, founded in 1897 by the devout John Harvey Kellogg, the renown operator of the Michigan-based Battle Creek Sanitarium. Kellogg devoted his efforts, and those of his Sanitarium, to righting the wrongs of the world through healthy action and a wholesome diet. Kellogg perceived that most of ills, psychological and physical, were due to poor habits, and he knew that he had the answers. For example, the cause of a lingering malaise was surely the festering swamp of intestinal flora to be found in the intestines of those gluttons who chose to indulge in sweet, salty, spicy, peppery, fatty, vinegary, mustard-laden or cinnamon-spiced foods. His answer was, naturally, the replacement of such ill flora through the comprehensive application of healthful, microbiotic yogurt to the sufferers' intestines from the top-down, via oral consumption, and the bottom-up, via viscous enema.

It was at the Sanitarium that Kellogg's now-infamous cornflakes were developed, as an affordable, whole-wheat, sugar-and-spice free way to deliver healthful nutrition to the world - a role that Kellogg's now, obviously, no longer fulfills.

The nasty little film, "Road to Wellville," disseminated in 1994 with Anthony Hopkins as John Kellogg, it is not to be believed in its assertion that the health-food pioneer caused the deaths of a great many patients; surely, he did no such thing. Kellogg was a simple health practitioner who acted through simple avenues. Up there with poor diet in Kellogg's litany of unhealthful influences was the pervasive seduction of autoeroticism, which could tempt even the wholly abstinent. The methods Kellogg took to annihilate the appeal of onanism were as effective as they were unlikely to kill. For who could die from simply having their foreskin sewn shut? No one. And while it is true that carbolic acid is a potent neurotoxin, the application of the pure compound but a few times to the female clitoris was unlikely to provoke anything more than the permanent disablement of that decadent organ, as well-intended.

So how did Kellogg's fall so far from its moral high ground as a purveyor of all things healthful under the guidance of such a sure hand? Simple: it didn't. Sanitas Food Company never produced anything other than the original, unadulterated cornflakes. It was John Kellogg's scheming brother, Will, who split from his sibling and took the concept of the cornflake down the road of sugary abandon, and it was Will who founded the Kellogg Company; John stuck to Sanitas.

So now, friends, you know the sorry tale - though there is, as you are aware, a glimmer of light at the end of Kellogg's tunnel. Perhaps the firm's courageous denial of Phelps and his marijuana-abusing ways is a step on the path home by the prodigal corporation.