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                    <td width="938"><p><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:18pt;"><b>May 
                        2007 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="http://www.fatshadow.com">Home</a></b></span></font></p>
<p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1272"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">May 
                                    1 
                         
                          </font></a><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">2007 
                                                9:43 P<font size="1">M</font></font></span><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></font><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1274"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></a></span></p>
                                    <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1274" href="http://www.fatshadow.com/May2007.htm#e1274"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">Permalink</font></a><a id="e1274"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1"> 
                                     
                                     </font><font face="Lucida Sans" size="1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></a></span></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> 
                                    I hate missing the bus by one minute and 
                                        that's exactly what happened to me twice 
                                        today. </span></font></p>
                                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I'm 
                                        not sure why but both times I've walked 
                                        out of the pool and towards the bus 
                        stop, 
                                        just as I arrive&nbsp;at the corner 
                                        the bus is pulling up across the street. 
                                        I wave my pass but the drivers is ruthless. 
                                        It doesn't matter a fig because I'm 
                                        totally early and there is always another 
                                        one coming on that particular line. 
                                        I could miss three more and still get 
                                        to the train on time. </span></font></p>
                                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">And 
                                        then at night, I take a bus and as I'm 
                                        coming around the corner I look to see 
                                        if the other bus is there. If it is 
                                        I wait for it at the next stop. If it's 
                                        not, I walk. Again, not a big deal. 
                                        Except my knees were tired and the second 
                                        bus saves me from walking three long 
                                        blocks. </span></font></p>
                                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Drag. 
                                        </span></font></p>
                                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">All 
                                        day I've been thinking about this time 
                                        when I used the word akimbo to describe 
                                        a shopping cart in a grocery store and one of 
                                        my workshop mates asked me how a cart 
                                        could be <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/akimbo">akimbo.</a> 
                                        It seems she had looked up the word 
                                        and only found definitions referring 
                                        to arms. I frantically looked for others 
                                        but&nbsp;found none and reluctantly 
                                        changed the word. </span></font></p>
                                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Some 
                                        time later another friend used the word in 
                                        reference to cars. I was so happy. Somehow 
                                        her use of the word gave me some kind 
                                        of permission. But I never used the 
                                        word again. </span></font></p>
                                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Akimbo: 
                                         </span></font></p>
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                                                <td width="483"><span class="foreign" style="font-size:11pt;"><font face="Arial">in kenebowe,</font></span><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> perhaps from phrase </span></font><span class="foreign" style="font-size:11pt;"><font face="Arial">in keen bow</font></span><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> &quot;at a sharp angle,&quot; or from a Scand. word akin to Icelandic </span></font><span class="foreign" style="font-size:11pt;"><font face="Arial">kengboginn</font></span><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> &quot;bow-bent.&quot; </span></font></td>
                                            </tr>
                                        </table>
                                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">It 
                                        works. I could use it to describe a 
                                        shopping cart. It works when describing 
                                        cars at a sharp angle. I&nbsp;love the 
                                        feeling of being on. I hate feeling 
                                        off. I over react. Somehow I interpret 
                                        things in a global way. It means something 
                                        about me. No amount of reason works. 
                                           </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">It's 
                        just kooky. </span></font></p>
<p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><SCRIPT type="text/javascript">get_comment_link(1576)</script> <noscript></span><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/yaccs/commentsn/b=90000008560_and_e_is_1576"><span style="font-size:10pt;">comment</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;"></noscript></span></font></p>                                                                        
                        <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">&nbsp;</p>
<p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1273"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">May 
                                    6 
                         
                          </font></a><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">2007 
                                                12:30 P<font size="1">M</font></font></span><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></font><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1275"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></a></span></p>
                                    <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1275" href="http://www.fatshadow.com/May2007.htm#e1275"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">Permalink</font></a><a id="e1275"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1"> 
                                     
                                     </font><font face="Lucida Sans" size="1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></a></span></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> 
                                    I heard the best fat joke the other day. 
                        </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Not 
                        a sentence you'd imagine coming out of my mouth, I'm 
                        sure. What made the joke good was that it was weak and 
                        dimwitted being delivered by a weak and dimwitted character. 
                        You could, I certainly would, say that about all fat 
                        jokes. This one was written to sound that way. When 
                        someone on Will and Grace talks about how many garbage 
                        bags it took for the ashes of the dead, fat husband, 
                        we are supposed to laugh about the guy. And when we 
                        object we are told that everyone gets made fun of on 
                        the show and they do but they are also there to push 
                        back at the humor. The husband is one of the absent 
                        fatsos about which <a href="http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2003/01/26/the-absent-fatso/">Amp 
                        wrote so eloquently</a>. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The 
                        joke to which I refer was on <a href="http://abc.go.com/primetime/uglybetty/index.html">Ugly 
                        Betty</a>, a show I like. I don't love it but I like 
                        lots of things about it. I started watching it because 
                        I liked <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1065229/">the 
                        actor</a> in Real Woman Have Curves. It is more than 
                        a little frustrating for me because she is one of the 
                        actors representing for fat and ... she's not fat. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I'm 
                        uncomfortable saying that. I used to swim on Sundays 
                        with a group of fat women. There was an&nbsp;established 
                        size range in which you had to fit to attend the swim 
                        and the friend I often went with was&nbsp;at the low 
                        end of the range. As a result she was made to feel unwelcome, 
                        which I resented more than she did. One woman told me 
                        that she &quot;would kill&quot; to be the size of my 
                        friend. To be fair she knew it wasn't the most fat positive 
                        thing to say but my question was - why, when you feel 
                        something like that, do you not seek to deconstruct 
                        it in yourself? Why do you want to make the other person 
                        go away? It was ironic because my friend was sometimes 
                        called fat by people outside of the swim. Too fat outside 
                        the swim, not fat enough for the swim. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Who 
                        gets to be fat? I am often bewildered by who is considered 
                        fat. I work with a young man who is&nbsp;regularly told 
                        he has to lose weight by the soccer league for which 
                        he works as a referee. He does not, in my opinion, need 
                        to lose weight. He runs miles keeping up with the players 
                        and does actually lose ten pounds, or more, on a day 
                        when he works. Imagine if he didn't have those pounds. 
                        His body would cannibalize his muscles, one of which 
                        would be his heart. Real healthy, huh? The point is, 
                        he is able to do the job and the people who hire him 
                        again and again must think so. He has missed some opportunities 
                        and he thinks it may have been because of their opinion 
                        of his size. That's discrimination.</span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">But 
                        what am I suggesting when I say these people aren't 
                        fat? Am I saying that being fat is something you don't 
                        want to be and so you have to be really fat before I 
                        will believe you are suffering the kinds of oppression 
                        I suffer? I have been and am critical of the fat political 
                        community that puts the smaller, more active, not food 
                        addicted members in the front. I think I spend too much 
                        time talking about what I don't eat and how much I exercise. 
                        Breaking stereotypes is good but we cross a line into 
                        intellectual dishonesty when we don't allow the facts 
                        of everyone's experience. At that same swim I talked 
                        to women with compulsive over eating disorders who felt 
                        they couldn't talk about them there. It was impolitic 
                        and they were silenced just as my friend was made to 
                        feel unwelcome. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The 
                        push to <a href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/164/5/708">pathologize 
                        obesity</a> is badly framed. Compulsive over eating 
                        is an issue for some people and some of those people 
                        are fat. Let's be able to talk about that. It's not 
                        my issue. Which is not to say that I have never compulsively 
                        over eaten. I have. I may again. But I'm not driven 
                        to on a daily basis. And, here again, I begin to talk 
                        about myself as a fat person but distance myself from 
                        those &quot;bad&quot; over eating fat people. Why? Is 
                        it truly useful?</span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Years 
                        ago, at&nbsp;a <a href="http://www.naafa.org/">NAAFA</a> 
                        weekend I had lots of conversations with people who 
                        would whisper furtively to me about wanting to lose 
                        weight. Why did they pick me? Maybe because I was willing 
                        to hear it. I wasn't going to encourage it. I was going 
                        to challenge the thinking but I was willing to allow 
                        for the process. On the other hand I found myself frustrated 
                        by people who had the surgery but were still fat and 
                        were angry that they were no longer welcome in fat community. 
                        I felt that they wanted the comfort of fat positive 
                        messages but had chosen away from the rigour of what 
                        it takes to process the complex issues of life in a 
                        fat body. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I 
                        always want to be willing to allow for process. I want 
                        people to tell the truth and I want them to be willing 
                        to have the difficult conversations. It's not easy. 
                        It should not be easy. Life is complex. In all revolutions 
                        there have been people who silenced what they considered 
                        counter revolutionary ideas. For me, a true revolution 
                        embraces complexity.  </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The 
                        whole notion of ugly confuses me. It seems if you take 
                        a really beautiful woman, dress her in clothes that 
                        don't match, put braces on her teeth, give her glasses 
                        that are too big for her face, you can call her ugly. 
                        For me she looks likes someone with a quirky style that 
                        I rather like but none of it&nbsp;matters because the 
                        clincher on ugly is when you call her fat. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I 
                        am fat but I am not ugly and I never have been. I've 
                        always been in the &quot;such a pretty face&quot; camp 
                        and, as such, get some amount of privilege. And I think 
                        I've internalized a lot of bad fat psychology.</span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">In 
                        almost every episode of Ugly Betty the questioned is 
                        posed: can Betty have what she wants? She is the problem 
                        solver, the helper, the one who will sacrifice herself 
                        for her boss and her family. In many ways this is an 
                        apt psychological portrait of many fat women. We are 
                        already &quot;a problem&quot; so what can we do to make 
                        up for that? We can fall dutifully in line with service 
                        to those who truly deserve happiness. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">After 
                        the fat joke, a love interest of Betty's tries to come 
                        to her defense but fails. It is Betty who ends up defending 
                        herself. It was quite satisfying. I also like the relationship 
                        between Betty and her boss. It is the relationship that 
                        seems to bring out the best of him. I like that they 
                        aren't a love match. But then again, there's that fat 
                        girl role: be the reason someone else gets to grow. 
                        So I struggle a&nbsp;bit with all of the ideas and I 
                        think that's a good thing. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Who 
                        gets to be fat? In a nation where the average size is 
                        considered fat, my body is an extreme. I'm actually 
                        OK with that. I've been less fat. I was OK with that. 
                        I have the body I want because I want the body I have. 
                        I have the body that reflects the life I have lived, 
                        the family from which I come and the values I want to 
                        empower. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Interesting 
                        <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/books/review/Bazelon.t.html?ex=1179115200&en=683047a72def6b2e&ei=5070&emc=eta1">article</a> 
                        in the NYT today. Could be the fodder for another whole 
                        post but I think I just want to call out the opening 
                        paragraph.</span></font></p>
                        <table align="center" border="0" width="518">
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                                    <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">I<font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt;">f you had to choose, would you rather be fat or blind? When a
researcher asked that question of a group of formerly obese people, 89
percent said they would prefer to lose their sight than their hard-won
slimness. �When you�re blind, people want to help you. No one wants to
help you when you�re fat,� one explained. Ninety-one percent of the
group also chose having a leg amputated over a return to obesity.</span></font></td>
                            </tr>
                        </table>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Who 
                        gets to be fat? With so many people willing to be anything 
                        but, who gets to be? </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I 
                        wish fat actors had work. I wish I could look at television 
                        and see a representation of me and my life and not simulacrum. 
                        I wish all the fat jokes on all the shows were written 
                        to demonstrate idiocy. I wish there were no fat jokes 
                        because being fat was understood a natural expression 
                        of diversity and not something to cure. Until then I'll 
                        root for Betty.  </span></font></p>
<p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><SCRIPT type="text/javascript">get_comment_link(1577)</script> <noscript></span><a href="http://rateyourmusic.com/yaccs/commentsn/b=90000008560_and_e_is_1577"><span style="font-size:10pt;">comment</span></a><span style="font-size:10pt;"></noscript></span></font></p>                                                                        
                        <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">&nbsp;</p>
                        <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">&nbsp;</p>
<p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1274"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">May 
                                    9 
                         
                          </font></a><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">2007 
                                                11:20 P<font size="1">M</font></font></span><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></font><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1276"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></a></span></p>
                                    <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><span class="rss:item"><a id="e1276" href="http://www.fatshadow.com/May2007.htm#e1276"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1">Permalink</font></a><a id="e1276"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode" size="1"> 
                                     
                                     </font><font face="Lucida Sans" size="1">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></a></span></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> 
                                    I just got home from dinner with <a href="http://www.bigfatblog.com/about">Paul</a>. 
                        </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">We're 
                        going to try and make a monthly habit of it and I hope 
                        we succeed because I come home happy and wound up. I 
                        am so wound up, in fact, that I'm going to write a post 
                        because I'm too wound up to sleep. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The 
                        post is something I've been thinking about all day. 
                        I checked my g-mail, which I don't do often enough. 
                        Someone sent me a link to a thread by Andrew Sullivan, 
                        who, by the way, I have seen on CSPAN and thought was 
                        smart. Don't agree with him on lots of stuff but, he's 
                        old school Republican. I can deal with that. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The 
                        thread begins <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/04/lesbians_and_ob.html">here</a> 
                        and goes on <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/obesity_and_les.html">here</a> 
                        and there may be more. Anything that uses obesity, serious 
                        and health problem in a sentence immediately makes my 
                        eyes glaze over. Sometimes it makes me angry but these 
                        days it's just too ubiquitous. It's the least original 
                        thinking possible. It's used on the right. It's used 
                        more on the left.  Which makes his comment that no one 
                        is allowed to talk about it confusing. IT, being the 
                        terrible problem of obesity, is talked about all day 
                        everywhere. Where does he live? </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">And 
                        ya know, if anyone feels the need to leave me a comment 
                        in which they remind me that people eat crap food and 
                        don't get enough exercise, please resist the urge. I 
                        agree. People do. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Sullivan 
                        says something so full of problems that it makes my 
                        head hurt. </span></font></p>
                        <table align="center" border="0" width="473">
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                                    <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt;">My hunch is that without shallow, physically-oriented men to appeal to,
many lesbians feel even less need to stay in shape than many straight
women do.</span></font></td>
                            </tr>
                        </table>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Um. 
                        Let's see. Interesting what he does there. He talks 
                        about shallow, physically - oriented men. Because I 
                        guess there are no shallow, physically - oriented women. 
                        <a href="http://www.sho.com/site/lword/home.do">Case 
                        in point</a>. Where are the fat lesbians? There's a 
                        lot of shallow, physically - oriented images. And it's 
                        a huge hit. Loved by some of the most radical feminists 
                        I know. Why? I have been bewildered by that fact. Except. 
                        I understand that when you don't see your life in the 
                        media anything is better that nothing. Even a cartoon 
                        that I <a href="http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/cast-biographies/">LOVE</a> 
                        has only a few fat characters. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">And 
                        then there's the conflation of staying in shape with 
                        thinness. Makes me wanna say, dude, (because now I say 
                        dude all the time) there are thin people who are not 
                        fit. There are fat people who are fit. Fit is not about 
                        size. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">And 
                        then. There's the idea that being unfit (read fat because 
                        that's what he's really saying) is unappealing&nbsp;to 
                        all men. Wrong again. It's so tired I can't even work 
                        up any outrage, the lack of which he notes in his second 
                        post. The comments in that post made me more angry than 
                        the post and the fact that he can conclude that the 
                        lesbian community is not PC since there are lesbians 
                        who don't want to be fat and don't want fatness in a 
                        partner and who are also worried about how fat the lesbian 
                        community is. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I 
                        hate the use of PC. It's code for &quot;anything that 
                        challenges my assumptions too much.&quot; </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Here's 
                        some political thought that I hope is correct. I don't 
                        care if you're on a diet. I don't want to hear about 
                        it because it bores me and it's proven wrong headed 
                        <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08fat.html?ex=1179374400&en=7110e33dfd14cc66&ei=5070&emc=eta1">again 
                        and again and again</a>. &nbsp;But I don't care. Do 
                        your thing. I don't care if you wish you were thin. 
                        Here's what I care about. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Do 
                        you have access to non biased heath care? Do your health 
                        care professionals have the equipment to diagnose you 
                        correctly? Do your doctors focus on your weight and 
                        ignore potentially life threatening issues? Because 
                        even the doctors who do the studies say the darndest 
                        things. </span></font></p>
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                                    <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt;">�Those who doubt the power of basic drives, however, might note that
although one can hold one�s breath, this conscious act is soon overcome
by the compulsion to breathe,� Dr. Friedman wrote. �The feeling of
hunger is intense and, if not as potent as the drive to breathe, is
probably no less powerful than the drive to drink when one is thirsty.
This is the feeling the obese must resist after they have lost a
significant amount of weight.�</span></font></td>
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                        </table>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">When 
                        he suggests that people resist the urge to take a breath 
                        will people think he's kinda kooky? </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Do 
                        you have access to public facilities? Can you find a 
                        place to sit in which you are not in pain? Can you fly 
                        for work, or for family concerns, without being charged 
                        for the space you need? </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Will 
                        your children be taken away from you because some idiot 
                        public health official will determine that their weight 
                        is a sign of abuse? </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Will 
                        you be harassed at work, or fired because of your weight?</span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Wanna 
                        hear some outrage Andrew? </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The 
                        doctor again.</span></font></p>
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                                    <p align="justify" style="line-height:100%; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;"><font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt;">The results did not mean that people are completely helpless to control
their weight, Dr. Stunkard said. But, he said, it did mean that those
who tend to be fat will have to constantly battle their genetic
inheritance if they want to reach and maintain a significantly lower
weight.</span></font></td>
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                        </table>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Imagine 
                        if we chose to battle social injustice and put in the 
                        same energy that we put into battling the size of our 
                        ass. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Lesbians 
                        come in all sizes and are as capable of buying into 
                        fat bigotry as any straight, white, man. Sadly. Is there 
                        an obesity epidemic specific to lesbians? Gee. I dunno. 
                        Kids are fatter. Dogs and cats are fatter. It gets talked 
                        about all the time, everywhere. Obesity. Serious. Health 
                        problem. Yadda yadda. </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Yawn. 
                        </span></font></p>
                        <p align="justify"><font face="Lucida Sans Unicode"><span style="font-size:11pt;">OK. 
                        I think I can go to sleep now.  </span></font></p>
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                                    <p><img src="dinner.jpg" width="410" height="308" border="0"></p>
                                    <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<font face="Arial"><span style="font-size:10pt;">&nbsp;photo: 
                                    Paul McAleer</span></font></p>
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Anon7 - 2021