We're All Fat... Maybe

On the way to work I hear this story about how we are fat. Well, honestly I know that I'm fat. Not fat guy big, well I guess that term is relative. I'm not like those fat people they show on TV or in print. If that means anything. They also lauded Colorado, because it had the lowest percentage of fat, or obese people. I feel somewhat accosted by all of this. I'm 6'4" and 275 lbs. Do you know how much weight I'd have to lose? About 75 pounds (that is to be considered "normal" 25 pounds if I just want to be "overweight"). Now I know I could stand to lose 10-20 pounds, but I don't see how in the hell I could ever lose 75.

I'd be miserable. I only eat twice a day (yes I know, that messes up my metabolism) because I'm a type 1 diabetic. I have to account for every carbohydrate ingested. So I just don't know what to think about being fat, if I'm listening to someone who may or may not suffer from the same condition.

Back to Colorado. I've lived there, specifically the Denver area. It gets hot there, but it is a dry heat. Right now we've been under a heat advisory since April, or whatever (yes I meant it in jest, but it is hot in the south). And though I see plenty of walking trails... or sidewalks, who the hell would walk on them in the heat of the day? I know it will not be me. I've been a heat casualty before, I don't want to go through that again.

I don't look fat, I mean, I look big, I am big, but aside from a bit of a pooch around my belly (probably a little too much beer) I look normal, no triple chin, no thunder thighs, I don't need a horn to back up, I can see my feet, with the exception of the beer gut, I seem to be normal, hell I test normal too my cholesterol is 154 (with the help of cholesterol meds because of my stroke, I'll always take it).

Which brings me to the whole cost thing, well according to the BMI thing, I have been overweight for some time. So this is to blame for my diabetes? I thought it was because my white blood cells saw my pancreas as an enemy. Now I know it was just because I was fat. The stroke too, I think it was because I gave myself too much insulin. Nope it was because I was fat... Whatever.

It goes on to talk about kids. All of my kids are normal to underweight and they eat the exact same stuff I eat. Do I think that there is a problem with obesity? Surely. But unless we can look at it from just a perspective of numbers and charts we will never solve this problem. And really I have a problem with the numbers anyway, my kids are underweight, while I am obese, I know that it really doesn't add up, so I take it with a grain of salt, but still the problem, if there is one, won't be fixed by only looking to lower BMI.

In fact I've done a little hurting around and I found this site and this site (politics aside) seem to have a much different take on the "obesity epidemic". So now I'm even more confused then when I heard the story on the radio. I am, I am not... who cares at this point? All this is really doing is elevating my anxiety level, and that is never good.

FEMA trailers

Ok this story hits close to home... sort of. FEMA has said the deadline for returning the trailers is May 1. Well as you may have already guessed, some people are having a hard time with that. Here's the story. I can understand that people have been ripped off, or mishandled the money or whatever. My grandmother lived in a trailer, she received it after Hurricane Betsy in 1965. And was still living in it some 30 years later.

I don't think today's "travel trailers" are quite like my grandma's (mawh mawh if your from New Orleans) trailer. It was a two bedroom, one bathroom deal, and it had been moved three or four times in those 30 years. Then again, maybe it was, I really don't know.

You could say, "hey why did your grandmother live in that trailer so long?" She liked it there, and really didn't mind it at all. She was also opposed to the color TV, I can remember going with my father to seek out a black and white TV set, because otherwise my father would be over at her house adjusting the color everyday.

So what am I trying to say? Home is what you make of it, my mawh mawh appreciated what she had and didn't ask for anything more. Maybe that trailer is still in use today, My father sold her trailer and the one he was living in along with 6 acres of land to move into a more citified manufactured home on 1 acre of land. I miss the trailer, the land, and especially my mawh mawh.

My Politicalness

I've been feeling kind of strange lately, like everybody just go away and leave me alone. But that's not very realistic of me is it? So anyway I find myself becoming violently ill when I think about the whole presidential race. First off, I don't really hold true to the vote down party lines thing. I think I would be a Republican, if they weren't festering with evangelical bullshit, also they haven't exactly been conservative with spending. Which might lead me to the Democrats, except I just think they're full of shit too. Exactly how is one man going to affect so much change? And would it really be any better? It seems like it will certainly cost me more.

Maybe that's the whole problem with politics. It costs somebody. The right puts it on everybody, and the left on the richest amongst us. I'm in that percentage of wealthiest. Though I can't believe it. We, my wife and I, make just over $100,000 annually. I can't even imagine how people making less do it... at least around here.

But I'm trying to stay neutral in this diatribe... seriously. I just don't know how inspiration is going to fix our problems. I can't even bring myself to check any websites, fact checking anybody right now because I believe, as hard as this might be to imagine, that the government only muddies the water. I can't say I was better off when so and so was in office, because there's just too many variables to try to pin down. Your job, your cost of living, your personal choices, and the litany of choices for everyone else. Is one man in charge of all of this?

So we come to this, the democratic convention. I see Ted Kennedy made a speech, they were saying and showing how it was like his speech in 1980. Does anyone else find that amusing? Almost 30 years in-between speeches, and nothing has changed? hmmmmmmm... It sounds and smells like pipe dreams to me.

So again I ask, instead of all this crap, this pomp, you know this one came from a single parent home, or that one was a POW in Vietnam, can we get to the task at hand? Or is there nothing left to talk about? Can we not talk of how things can be or should be, and start talking about real difference that we can make now? And just what has been done in year or so that either candidate can hang his hat on? Nothing.

If that's all we're about, the speeches, then why register to vote? It's pretty ridiculous when you think about it.

Got Media?

I read something the other day about the media, and how we are better off (or not) by having this kind of 24/7 news cycle. I think it's probably closer to not simply because I don't think my life is better with it. Sure I can watch or read whatever I want, and I do but just the other day I was getting a hair cut, and the TV was tuned in to MSNBC and they had some lady spouting off how Barack Obama was good and how John McCain was evil. And this is news? I don't think either candidate is very good, but I wouldn't put somebody who basically is a supporter on TV. Or at least put two opposing views instead of just one. And I'm sure it happened on the right side too.

I know we have a right to know any and everything in our world, but what do you do when you get so many different views you just say "fuck it" and don't listen to any of them? I've taken nightly news out of my programing, really for the most part any and all news. And I'm no worse off for it. The newspapers around here... well I've already taken them to task and really they haven't talked back. Now I understand that this is a small town, but there could be so much better reporting. So what to do?

I think this is wear I get in my sail boat or get away to the mountains and never look back. Of course I still have 20-30 years until retirement so that's how much longer I'm going to be stuck listening to all of that partisan, space-brained, bullshit. I wish somebody would really take a deep breath, try to do what is right and all that jazz. But I can't see it.

First Day

Today kicks off the school season. My wife works for a year-round calender and has been at work for over a week. There is a planned "pep rally" again. This time it's taking place in Bluffton, and training is going along with said mandatory cheering. It's said to be different as south of the Broad (SOB) are going to train in the morning and north of the Broad (NOB) are training in the afternoon. With the big pep rally right in the middle. Interesting is that only the NOB is getting a lunch, the SOB's will just have to suck it up. Not that a district provided lunch is all that great anyway.

But it does make me wonder how all this works, how much the north and south has "come together" as it were. I'm thinking that it really hasn't come together at all, but that's just me. We'll see. Meanwhile the rumor mill has been churning up some rather juicy bits.

It seems that Valerie Truesdale might in fact run for State Superintendent of Education. Which is fine... for her, but yet another changing of the guard at Beaufort County. Which means they'll have to find someone else, and everyone will change around... again. Aye Yi Yi. Maybe it's just a rumor and we'll hear nothing more about it. The Election is in 2010. Traditional Calendar School starts in another 3 weeks.

Newspapers and Fluff

So the Bluffton Today did a 2 page piece on the school referendum. But they really didn't mention why we might want to vote no. That's too bad, but I really don't expect anything less from that rag. Adjust the damn attendance zones... For everybody in the county, and instantly you have relief. I don't know how much clearer I can make it. They mention their 5 year plan, hell mine would take days.

But I wonder where the money for the staff, and the money to stock each room full of supplies, money for buses, and a cacophony of other issues crop up. This really is just too much. And they just now got Red Cedar Elementary, or will have in a few weeks, going scheduled to complete the spring of 2009 (hah!). This was an emergency. A 3 year emergency? Meanwhile the schools fill up with mobiles.

We have all kinds of room NOB, and I really don't understand why maintenance issues (like a leaky roof, or doors thet don't close) are even on this referendum but I do know that the school district and board take us all for fools ...and apparently the newspaper too. I know that my blog doesn't reach as many people as THAT paper, and I know too that I'm not even the "expert" when it comes to the school district failings, but at least I've started. I ask that anyone who wants to post anything on this issue either email me or post in the comments. There is a whole lot of reasons to say no, and only the feeling of maybe doing good (maybe... and that a big maybe) if you say yes.

How About a Fake News Conference?

As if media outlets making up the news wasn’t bad enough, who can you trust when the government plays both sides of the field? For those that don’t know, FEMA orchestrated its own fake news conference in relation to the wild fires in California. Since no actual news agencies were available (mainly because it gave such short notice) FEMA staffers played the roll of interviewers.

Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff promised “appropriate disciplinary action”. I hope that includes canning the brazen idiot who thought he was smarter than the rest of the world. Let’s bump our collective bullshit alert system up to fuchsia.

Just don’t depend on the inconsistent news organizations to help you stay informed.