Hey, What's That Elephant Doing In Here?

Mississippi has been ruled the "fattest state", and Time magazine can't pass up the opportunity to sneer:

People from Mississippi are fat. With an adult obesity rate of 33%, Mississippi has gobbled its way to the "chubbiest state" crown for the fifth year in a row...

Yeah!  We should definitely explore this, as we would the peculiar tribal tendencies of Amazon tree dwellers.

In fact, eight of the 10 fattest states are in the South. The region famous for its biscuits, barbecue and pecan pies has been struggling with its weight for years — but then again, so has the rest of the country.

An alternative explanation, then?

So why is the South so portly?

For one thing, it's poor. Mississippi is not only the fattest state in the nation, but also the poorest, with 21% of its residents living below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Alabama and West Virginia, the second and third fattest states, are tied for fifth poorest. With a poverty rate of 14%, the South is easily the most impoverished region in the country.

Yeah!  We're all poor and stuff.  Wait, what?

But although poverty puts people at risk for obesity, it doesn't determine their fate. A number of impoverished states — including Montana, Texas and New Mexico — have relatively low levels of obesity. There must be something else.

Hmm.  What could possibly distinguish Mississippi and Alabama on the one hand, and Montana and New Mexico on the other?  It's a mystery.

...David Bassett, co-director of the University of Tennessee's Obesity Research Center. "We're definitely in what I like to call the 'Stroke Belt,' " he says, referring to Southeastern states' high percentage of heart disease and hypertension...

Hmm.  Strokes and heart disease are more common here, too?  Is there maybe some demographic feature of the region that could account for this? 

So there you have it. Southerners have little access to healthy food and limited means with which to purchase it. It's hard for them to exercise outdoors, and even when they do have the opportunity, it's so hot, they don't want to.

Apparently not, huh?  So, I guess that's the last word on that. 

From The "You Should Get Out More" Files

Memo to David Brooks:

Not everyone lives in a weepy, post-American coastal metropolis or the social equivalent thereof. In fact most Americans struggle mightily to maintain our dignity in the face of challenges that coddled cosmopolitans cannot begin to understand.

I'd happily place the soon-to-be-ex-Gov. Palin in the latter category.  She and her family have been the subject of the vilest of personal attacks by the supposed luminaries of our culture and politics. And this is to say nothing of the financially ruinous barrage of frivolous ethics complaints against her.  Who the Hell is David Brooks (a man in the paid employ of Ms. Palin's persecutors) to lecture this woman about the demands of "dignity"? It's risible.

The notion that America is filled with "people who simply have no social norms to guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions" is true --- if and only if you define "America" as "a handful of social spaces wherein the liberal project is nearly complete."  If Brooks lives in one of these, well, there's no shame in that.  But if he wants to understand how America actually is, he needs to get out more.

Gentlemen: Stay Away From The Crazy B*tches. They Will Kill You.

The death of Titans great Steve McNair gets sadder by the day:

A Tennessee state medical examiner says preliminary testing suggests the deaths of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair and girlfriend Sahel Kazemi were a murder-suicide, The (Nashville) Tennessean reported Wednesday.

There's just one holdup:

Tennessee's state medical examiner had said investigators had been hesitant to conclude that Kazemi killed the three-time Pro Bowl quarterback and herself because she didn't appear to have a motive, but that murder-suicide is the most likely scenario.

The crazy b*tches have no need of motive.  You might say motive is intrinsic to the subspecies:

Kazemi's family told reporters that the woman was so confident McNair was divorcing his wife of 12 years that she was preparing to sell her furniture and move in with the former quarterback.

Elsewhere, one hears talk that Kazemi dressed like slut, pursued men relentlessly, and was universally disliked by women.  (I can't link cause I saw it on CNN the other day and can't find a print story.)  This is the kind of thing that sets a normal man's crazy-b*tch-o-meter a-squawking. 

The whole story is sad and depressing.  Don't let this happen to you: stay away from the crazy b*tches.

THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

So I'm at the gym yesterday, walking briskly up a steep hill to nowhere. On the TV above me is CNN coverage of the Michael Jackson funeral/memorial/spectacular/circus/whatever.  In the subtitles a single phrase keeps repeating: The Greatest Entertainer of All Time. Apparently everyone who stood at the lectern said this of Jackson, and everyone in the audience enthusiastically agreed.

It seems to me that this has wandered very far from reality.  "The Greatest Entertainer of All Time" is (thus far) indisputably Elvis, who mastered every communications medium in ways that Jackson never even attempted. Of course I understand the temptation to embellish in a eulogy.  But I don't think you can honor a man by calling him what he is not. And in any event, was the universally-accepted title "King of Pop" really insufficiently grandiose?

Long Way Down

You have to follow the spiral into self-parody a long way before you get top "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off". 

The story:  Woman's marriage dies after she cheats on her artsy, effete husband.  Woman then discovers that her friends' marriages are similarly dying because their artsy, effete husbands ("Picture him in bike shorts (he's a cyclist), hovering over a mandala of pots that are always simmering, quietly simmering.") are something less than stunningly virile.  Woman forsakes the obvious conclusion (ie, she and her friends married a pack of snivelling SWPL pussies) and skips straight to a broad pseudo-sociological conclusion on the obsolescence of marriage in general. 

Is there like a handbook for this kind of thing?

Step 1: Detect some commonality in the pack of self-indulgent SWPLs you surround yourself with.
Step 2: Extrapolate to the vastness of the US population, the overwhelming majority of whom are not self-indulgent SWPLs.
Step 3: Dress it all up in pop-psych bullshit and send it to The Atlantic.
Step 4: Profit!

Will it ever stop?  Probably not so long as idiots like me bite on it...


UPDATE: In the margin of that article, you'll see a link to "She's Just Not That Into You", written by the same author in 2007. I think it makes a fine see-if-you-can-read-this-with-a-straight-face companion piece to "Let's Call The Whole Thing Off."

I'm especially fond of the way Ms. Loh and her subject (one Joan Sewell) pretend to be confounded by Sewell's disinterest in sex with her husband, who is "working as hard as he can to be the model postfeminist husband." This is apparently made all the more shocking by Sewell's admission that likes to "imagine these knights from the Middle Ages would ravish" her. It's a mystery!

Cheap Shots

People are linking this post, where one Felix Salmon has compiled a table of "haves and have-nots", in the sense of "People who get California IOUs"  vs. "People California pays in cash".  If you click through, what you'll find is that in the IOU column you'll find mostly the beneficiaries of spending programs, while in the Cash column you'll find mostly state employees. 

I guess this is supposed to piss us off; at Megan McArdle's, one wag cracks:

Who does the government of the state of California exist to serve? Hopefully it will be obvious now.

Which is pretty nasty.  And of course there's that title on Salmon's post.

To me, it all feels like a cheap shot.  The fact is that the State of CA owes money to its employees.  Meanwhile, the State of CA gives money to, for instance, "aged, blind, or disabled persons."  I don't think it's big news that CA, like any organization, has more latitude with people to whom it gives money than it does with people to whom it owes money. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

If you're in Minnesota, picture me pointing and laughing at you.  Senator Al Franken.  Jackasses.

Believe It Or Not, I Have Edited This Post Three Times And Made It Less Aggressive With Each Pass

I followed the wrong link and now I'm shaking with rage.  Here's the story in the LA Times:

President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don't stand to gain from the extra care.

In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don't unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."

The notion that people "unthinkingly" approve care for their probably-terminal loved ones makes me want to punch Obama in his idiot face.  Who the Hell is he, to suggest such a thing?

We get his answer to that question when goes on to talk about his grandmother needing a hip replacement while she was a cancer patient whose doctors gave her 9 months to live:

Obama said he has personal familiarity with such a dilemma. His grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given less than nine months to live, he said.

She fell and broke her hip, "and the question was, does she get hip replacement surgery, even though she was fragile enough they were not sure how long she would last?"

Obama's grandmother died two days before he was elected president in November. It was unclear whether she underwent the hip-replacement surgery.

Now, pardon me while I do the work the LA Times couldn't be bothered to do.  From the New York Times, dated 24 October 2008:

At the Punahou Circle Apartments, a place of his own childhood, Madelyn Dunham, his grandmother, lay gravely ill. For weeks, Mr. Obama has talked to doctors and tracked her condition. When she was released from the hospital last week after surgery to repair a broken hip, he received word that he should not wait until after the election to make what he believes is most likely a final visit. [link in original; boldface mine]

So.  Obama's grandmother and/or her family did in fact decide to have her hip surgically repaired. (And his decision to elide this fact is totally lighting up the Weasel-O-Meter, isn't it?)  Ms. Dunham then died on 2 November 2008; ie, she didn't "last" a month after her surgery. 

Now: I would never second guess Ms. Dunham's decision in this matter.  If Barack Obama, as Dunham's grandson, had made this decision on Dunham's behalf, I would never second guess him about it either. And yet when a similar situation arises with your grandmother (to say nothing of your mother, your brother, your husband or --- yes --- your daughter), Barack Obama wants very much to second guess your decisions. 

Well, to Hell with that.  Barack Obama can take his "better information" and shove it.

A Break From Michael Jackson News

Whether you're sad that Michael Jackson has died or mad that he's being posthumously lionized, this story about Stevie Wonder will cure what ails you.  Do yourself a favor: read it. 

ESPN's Dream Come True

Two perennial contenders in the prestigious "Schools Most Beloved By The National Media Despite Being Populated Entirely By Insufferable Jackasses" contest will meet tonight to determine the College World Series championship.  ESPN feels like Chris Mathews at an Obama rally.  Me, I feel like THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS!

I Will Not Like Kobe Bryant And I Don't Give A Damn

Here's a case in point on the Reilly thing.  Watch as Reilly spins and dissembles on Kobe's behalf, insults everyone who doesn't agree with him, and then elides a really, really obvious point for the apparent reason that it wouldn't be that easy to spin away.

Near as I can tell, there are five reasons most of America finds it impossible to be happy for Kobe Bryant (and why they're wrong):

1) They think he threw Shaq off the Lakers -- and people like Shaq better. (Actually, Bryant doesn't own the Lakers. It was Jerry Buss who was fed up with Shaq, tired of him reporting to training camp out of shape and infuriated when he scheduled toe surgery just weeks before camp started. The team was staler than last Christmas' fruitcake. Somebody had to go. And, yes, Shaq is more fun. He acts 10 years younger than his age and Bryant 10 years older. But John Stockton makes Bryant look like a stand-up comedian and nobody hates on him.)

Is Reilly really trying to suggest that star players have no impact at all on teams' personnel decisions?  That Bryant's need to be The Man played no role whatsoever in the breakup of the early-aught Lakers?  That is patently absurd.

2) They think he has the refs in his pocket. (Actually, Bryant led all players in technical fouls in 2007-2008. He was ninth this season, tied with Shaq and a few others.)

I wonder if Reilly has actually watched Kobe play; let's just say the man comes by his Ts honestly.  In any case, People who gripe about that "Kobe has the refs in his pocket" are talking about personal fouls, not technical fouls.  I'm pretty sure Reilly knows this. 

3) They think he's a lousy teammate who hogs the ball. (Actually, Bryant set personal bests for assists in these playoffs. And watch the tapes of the Lakers celebration. You can't fake bonds like that.)

"In these playoffs", Bryant took more shots per game than he did in last year's playoffs.  In fact, he took more shots per game in these playoffs than he did in 12 of his 13 NBA seasons.  Meanwhile, the assertion that "you can't fake bonds like that" would be news to Bill Simmons, who incidentally is rapidly becoming the must-read sports columnist that Rick Reilly used to be.

4) They think he's a threat to their god, Michael Jordan, as Greatest Player Ever. (Actually, Bryant and Jordan are friends. They talk and text a lot. Jordan has helped Bryant with his game and his public life. If Jordan doesn't resent him, why should you?)

In all the world, there is exactly one person who thinks Kobe Bryant is a threat to dethrone Michael Jordan as the Greatest Player Ever.  This elusive character's name is...Kobe Bryant.  By contrast (and to borrow the "John Stockton" formulation above), lots of people think LeBron James is a threat to Jordan's Greatest Player Ever status, and nobody hates on James.

5) They think he's a sourpuss who never smiles. (Actually, they're right. But now, with his fourth and by far most important championship, maybe he can lighten up. This title should take years off his face and tons off his shoulders. Maybe now he can start showing the world his sense of humor, his good heart and his upper row of teeth instead of just the bottoms.)

This last point is fair enough.  But is it the last point, really?  Or is there maybe something else?  Something about Colorado, a giant diamond, and the nauseating stench of fakery every time he ostentatiously embraces his wife after a win?  Hmmm....