A Whole bunch of Fat People

Evidently, by some estimates, by 2015 roughly 4 in 10 US adults will be considered obese. Now, that's a whole lot of fat people walking around. Well, probably scooting around in motor assisted little vehicles. Beating Obesity is a recent feature article in the May '10 Atlantic and it gives a rather interesting and in depth perspective on the history of obesity in the US and the various ramifications of it and the difficulty combating it.

The key bit of information that I've seen repeated in various forms is that, basically, bad, fatty, carb-intensive, sugar-rich foods are just cheaper and more readily available than good, wholesome nutritious foods. As many of you know (the 4 people who read this, at least, hi mom), I keep myself on a pretty rigid diet, myself. Green vegetables make up the bulk of it, some fruits (grapes and cherries are particularly kind to me), with some breads and then meat, nuts, etc. make up the remainder. Now, I have my own reasons for this, but I can tell you, cooking for myself and eating healthily, with fresh produce, costs me a good 20% more (not including time for preparation and shopping) than it used to when I could eat pretty much anything I wanted.

A big part of this is due to how cheap corn (and corn products, by extension) are. A number of people and activist groups have been lobbying hard for the removal of high fructose corn syrup and have, recently, won a semi-symbolic victory. Honestly, the research I've read shows that HFCS is probably slightly worse for you than sugar, but the science is still pretty inconclusive and I fear we may be spending time and energy demonizing the wrong thing. The fact of the matter is that fresh vegetables and produce, despite being grown in relative abundance, are just too damned expensive. Corn and rice and other starchy foods (things that have a tendency to spike your blood sugar) are relatively cheap, but lettuce, tomatoes, and broccoli are still quite expensive by comparison. One point "Beating Obesity" made was that the strategy of the reformers has been backwards. It's not about removing subsidies for corn, it's about adding subsidies for tomatoes. In politics it's always easier to give a gift than to retract one.

In other news, I'm fairly certain (well, I was before, but now I have more proof) that the conservative pundits on Fox news are, in fact, quite insane. Or stupid. Or both. When Glenn fucking Beck shows up on your talk show and advocates for constitutional rights for a terror suspect and the show's commentators call him out on it something is seriously wrong. In case you missed it, some pakistani dude tried to blow up a Nissan in NYC last week. He failed miserably. And 50 some odd hours later he was arrested. And the conservatives are all up in arms because he was read his miranda rights.

Listen, people, he is a United States Citizen. He has rights. The same damn rights that we're in Iraq and Afghanistan (supposedly) fighting to protect. Just because you try to blow up a bunch of people doesn't mean those rights are immediately abrogated. Rights, as a matter of law and due process, are, in fact, only abrogated after having been tried and found guilty in a court of law.

Yes, you can now thank the liberal elite for not trashing the constitution out of blood lust and fear. Fuckers.

Actually, personally, I have a hunch that the segment with Glenn Beck was a carefully scripted piece of propaganda. Having watched the piece it just reads like a bit of rehearsed back and forth under the guise of confrontational controversy. It basically served to say "Ok, sure, in this instance the suspect deserved to be read a Miranda warning, but other foreign suspects should be thrown in a hole until we figure out what do with them, which will likely involve erecting an out house on top of said hole."

American Exceptionalism at one time purported to mean that America was exceptional in the history of the world because it bestowed certain, basic inalienable rights on all people. It has since come to mean "We're America and we're better than you."

In reality, we're just heavier.