Ahem

36 Replies to “Ahem”

1. Does this mean Opra is less than average?

2. Would it work if the words “obese” and “fat” were replaced with fluffy or extra cuddly or some such term.

3. it’s all the MAN’s fault. He can’t answer the following;
   “Honey, how do I look in this?”

4. Oh great. So now when my better half asks how she looks in those new jeans, I have to say average??.Lovely. Just what I need. Another smack upside the head! Thanks Kathy.

5. no honey, that dress dosen’t make you look fat…

6. If most of them are fat – then they can say they are average.
   Overfed populations – what a terrible, horrible thing. In ‘the good old days’ people were always worried about starving.
   People have the freedom to eat, starve, exercise, sit – whatever…

7. No its Bush’s fault. He hasn’t provided enough money for enough black doctors for fat black women to go to. If Dr Whitey says you’re fat, black, he’s really just making a racist comment, the honky pig.

8. I meant “phat”, with a “P – H”. Like the kids say.

9. I don’t know but it might just be a cultural thing that black, big and booty equate to beautiful.

10. they’re not fat, just in hibernate mode

11. What does the average Klansman think about all this?

12. I dont’ know lberia – why don’t you tell us? You’re the one with the Democrat connections.

13. What is Shaidle’s point, then? That black women should somehow be forced to lose weight? Isn’t that a nanny statism? When I read things like that it’s obvious some political blogs are more philosophically consistent than others.
    I have to say, Kate, the majority of what you post is well thought out and a pleasure to read, (even though I tend to disagree with half of it) but when you post things like this it just lowers the overall quality of your blog.

14. I don’t know any Democrats, Kate. Or any Klansmen.

15. Doesn’t matter, you hold the same beliefs. That’s what’s important in this case.

16. “What is Shaidle’s point, then? That black women should somehow be forced to lose weight? ”
    ****
    I’m curious. How did you manage to arrive at that “conclusion”?
    Kathy didn’t write the text – she’s quoting Debra Dickerson in Salon. The quotation marks should have been a tip off, even if the linked text wasn’t.
    If you don’t know who Dickerson is, I won’t spoil the surprise for you.
    You know – if you have this much difficulty with basic reading comprehension, then it might be wise to institute a practice of clicking on the links provided when in doubt.
    (Which, I suspect, is often.)
    Here’s another:
    http://obesityusa.org/subs/fastfacts/Obesity_Minority_Pop.shtml
    “For women, the black (non-Hispanic) population has the highest prevalence of overweight (78 percent) and obesity (50.8 percent).”
    How’s that for the “quality” of my blog? To state that an overweight African American woman is “average” is a simple statement of fact. Only the intellectually dishonest allow enhanced levels of melanin to trump the truth.

17. Stun:
    If you have to ask the question, you wouldn’t understand the answer…
    Iberia:
    Please note that that the original Slate article was written by… a black woman.
    And I happen to agree with her that a cultural attachment to an unhealthy status quo, one that seems to value inertia rather than initiative, and that refuses to accept scientific facts if they don’t jibe with this colourful if counterproductive worldview (take as just one exmple the OJ Simpson jury, which couldn’t even spell “DNA” let alone accept its irrefutable conclusions) — such a culture needs to be challenged rather than celebrated.
    And if the members of this culture aren’t prepared to do the hard work required to better themselves, I have no obligation to support them either.

18. Obviously Iberia should make a trip south of the border, probably way south, where the term comfort food means good cooking in large quantities. It is hard enough to keep one’s girlish figure with chicken fried steak, biscuits & gravy, fried chicken, deep fried turkey, pecan pie, barbeque, chitterlings and hog maws, but when you add second helpings, it is down right near impossible. In some cultures, turning away food is an insult. Add to that the western phenomina of fast(unhealthy)foods and you can see that barring a physical job that burns 3,000+ calories/day, an obese population is the logical conclusion.

19. It’s impressive how you can justify the whole thing as intellectually neutral when there is a definite mocking tone to the post in question. (as evidenced by the title shaidle used.)
    I don’t expect either of you to change how and what you write about but when you have these kind of posts all it does is highlight the not so reasonable facets of your thinking. The problem with blogs in general is they seem to be home to thoughts and opinions that aren’t properly followed through. And this isn’t just a feature of right wing blogs either. The petty complaints found in yours and Shaidle’s blog are identical to the ones in liberal blogs like Big City Liberal’s and Warren Kinsella. I think you would all benefit by sitting down and thinking through your personal philosophies so you have some consistency in your writing.
    Don’t quit writing, though. You provide a valuable service. (This is directed to Kate. I haven’t decided what service Shaidle’s blog provides, other than being a bold example of what kind of damage a person can do to themselves when they write without any mental filters of any kind.) And despite whatever insults you hurl my way your blog is interesting enough that I will keep dropping by.

20. Put some blame here too on doctors that get, what, an hour of nutrition in med school. Then, buying into the pc of nailing your mouth shut for fear of being called a racist, they refuse to hold blacks to a normal standard.
    Enter any supermarket in the US, get in line behind any of these black tonnage queen’s grocery cart and your cholesteral goes up just looking at it.
    Their kids are fat.
    Even in the financially lean years of my life, we ate balanced humble meals from scratch. You don’t need a college degree to figure out that your grocery cart is turning your offspring into fat couch potatoes. It’s laziness.

21. Put some blame here too on doctors that get, what, an hour of nutrition in med school. Then, buying into the pc of nailing your mouth shut for fear of being called a racist, they refuse to hold blacks to a normal standard.
    Enter any supermarket in the US, get in line behind any of these black tonnage queen’s grocery cart and your cholesteral goes up just looking at it.
    Their kids are fat.
    Even in the financially lean years of my life, we ate balanced humble meals from scratch. You don’t need a college degree to figure out that your grocery cart is turning your offspring into fat couch potatoes. It’s laziness.

22. Don’t quit writing, though. You provide a valuable service.
    Come on, Stun, how disingenuious can you get? A group that collectively abuses their bodies, worse their kids, with life shortening obesity isn’t exactly a neutral event.
    You don’t like the tone. You don’t like the comments. Too bad. I detect the morally superior virtucrat bore muzzled by their pc indoctrination in your objections.
    I doubt Kate or Kathy Shaidle will close their blogs.

23. Stun,
    [QUOTE]”I don’t expect either of you to change how and what you write about but when you have these kind of posts all it does is highlight the not so reasonable facets of your thinking.”[/QUOTE]
    Everything you wrote past this is words with no meaning. Not good enough. You cannot accuse another of error in critical thinking, without providing justification of your opinion. (This is where it gets difficult for you)
    All in the spirit of intelectual neutrality of course.

24. This is probably due to the culture of self-esteem. If you’re of ordinary intelligence, you’re brilliant, if you’re below the line you’re average. If you have average looks, you’re gorgeous, if you’re below the line, you’re average. Thankfully, I am both brilliant and gorgeous.

25. Stun: please elaborate on the “damage I do to myself”. I suspect you really mean the damage I do to your preconceived, old fashioned notions of what constitutes a) acceptable subject for public discussion and b) the appropriate “tone” for same.
    The last person to complain about my “tone” was an elderly nun. You’re not with the Sisters of St. Joseph are you?

26. The term you are looking for to describe Mr Stun’s response is “apologist”. Ignore the elephant in the room (pun intended), segregate the facts from the responsibilities, problem solved.

27. i don’t care how fat anyone gets as long as i’m not buying the food

28. “i don’t care how fat anyone gets as long as i’m not buying the food”.
    I would have to add: sitting next to them while flying, trying to get around two of them in a hallway and behind them in an all you can eat buffet.
    The thing I find most distressing (besides influencing their children)is the denial and justification for their obesity.

29. Stun, I think you might be STUNned if you ever had to actually deal with the kind of woman the item on Kathy’s blog was talking about. Regarding a number of them, their lack of comprehension or ability to reasonably deal with FACTS are, well, stunning.
    Their children often exhibit the same “time out” from reality. One student of mine, in particular–his mom has one of those “no exercise for me hairdos”–has two imaginary friends, who figure regularly and prominently in his excuses. Their names? “Somebody and nobody”, as in, “Somebody must have taken my pencil” and “Nobody told me about that [despite numerous notices—all lost—and reminders].” His mother is a fine role model for this kind of irresponsible, always-blame-someone-else, magical thinking. Indeed, those responsible for genuine acts of generosity to this family, e.g., gifts of books and markers sent home for a younger sibling, the cost of outings, etc., have not once been either acknowledged or thanked.
    So, Stun, smarten up and take your supercilious, vapid meanderings somewhere else.
    Also–and I mean this–why not go to a ghetto near you and actually deal with these entitled, out-of-touch-with-reality (but we’re not allowed to say it) con artists? (The con artists sit and do nothing and simply wait for one agency or another to do it for them. I won’t play this game. But the public school administrators virtually fall all over themselves to fill the vacuum. Chumps. But then, that’s what they make the rest of us because we’re the ones who pay . . . and pay . . . and pay . . . )
    Thanks, Kathy, for calling a spade a sp . . . whoops . . . for telling it like it is, as in truth.

30. jmorrison said:
    “i don’t care how fat anyone gets as long as i’m not buying the food”
    Er-r-r-r… sadly, in a high percentage of instances, YOU are paying for that food.

31. Dear Texas Canuck,
    Iberia doesn’t have to go far south of the Canadian border. In fact, all he has to do is travel north from Windsor to Detroit. I worked for Blue Cross Blue Shields of Michigan in downtown Detroit for 8 months in 1999. Every day, I was astounded by the size of the black women I saw. (Not that the white women were svelte young things by any stretch, but they were merely obese; the black women were morbidly obese. I saw women who needed two chairs at a cafeteria table; women so large they could not be passed on an escalator built for two; and women who had to stop and draw breath after climbing two or three steps in the lobby. And these were women who worked for a health insurance company, for heaven’s sake.
    I’m not pretending to be a paragon of virtue here; I ate most of my lunches at a lunch counter in Greektown – two cheeseburgers, fries, and a coke for $3.99, surrounded by cops and guards from the jailhouse and courthouse nearby, weapons hanging out of their holsters as they ate. To a Canadian, somewhat surreal…
    I put on over 25 lbs while working in Detroit, and shortly after returning to Canada, was diagnosed with type II diabetes, YAY! In the next seven years, I have lost 65 lbs., helped get my blood sugar under control, and completely changed my eating habits. And I will share that the pictures of those giant women in Detroit remain etched in my memory as a warning sign of what cheeseburgers and fries as a daily routine will do to me.

32. Supersize me!

33. I understand that Hamilton Ontario is the fattest city in Canada. True, we do have some large people around here.
    But if you want to go whale watching, just duck over the border to Buffalo. More fun by the ton!
    Still, the most gawd awful fatness I ever came across was working in a hospital in Mt. Vernon NY. We had patients that got weighed on the loading dock. As in more than one. Yeah, all black. No surprise there, almost everybody in Mt. Vernon is black.
    The one that sticks in my mind the worst was the 450+ pounder that came in with “breathing problems”. This woman’s thigh was as big around as my waist. (One of the things in life I wish I could un-see.) She had muscles like a friggin’ grizzly bear. Her family kept up a constant stream of McDonald’s take out to feed the fires. Big Mac and fries every two hours.
    Second day she was there some genius doctor decided she needed to be walked. They brought her down to the PT room in the biggest wheelchair I ever saw. The -entire- PT staff had a go at walking her, two on each arm, two in front and one more to follow with the chair. She made ten feet with vast wailing and gnashing of teeth. Four days later she strolled out of the hospital, no walker, no cane, no wheel chair.
    Largest average size in my experience was Marshall Minnesota. Corn fed! The high school cheerleaders averaged 185+ lbs. All white, of course. No surprise there, almost everybody in town was white. All the humongous black people live in Minneapolis.
    So yeah, 5’4″ and 275 lbs at 25 years old IS average in some parts of the US. If you want slim and healthy go to Arizona. Heat drives fat people away. Its like kryptonite.

34. Yo Phantom: you’ve met my relatives back home, huh?!

35. Blame welfare, or the sexual revolution, or both. The (big) bottom line is that the lack of stable relationships, two-parent families, fathers, etc. in the community leaves these women trying to satisfy emotional needs with food. Doesn’t work.

36. Dunno Kathy. Do they look like manatees, and do they hang out on Barton Street? I’ve seen some major sea mammals down that part of town. I take it you fled to Hogtown to get away from the joys of Hamilton?
    Three major body types in down town Hamilton these days. There’s skinny, scrawny squirrel-on-crack type, the wasted wino type which is also scrawny but moves reeaalllll slllloooooowwwwwww, and the majestic sea mammal of enormous proportions.
    Thank God for the Mountain. ~:D