One of them is that Rudy Giuliani is a very stupid man.
Beware of bursting cans
The fun food season continues: Canned food products from Castleberry Foods are literally bursting with botulism. The label is not a familiar one to me; it seems to be found at smaller mom and pop stores, as well as grocers like Food Lion, Kroger, and Piggly Wiggly.
The bursting cans were among those being held by Castleberry's Food Co., which last week announced a massive recall that now includes more than 90 potentially contaminated products, including chili sauces and dog foods.News about the bursting cans gives new urgency to warnings from federal health officials to get rid of the recalled cans from pantries and store shelves. [...]
Four people have been sickened and hospitalized by the contaminated food, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The recall covers potentially tens of millions of cans of food; officials fear the tally will grow.
FDA investigators believe Castleberry Food failed to properly cook some or all the products, allowing the Clostridium botulinum bacteria to survive the canning process.
The bacteria produce a toxin that causes botulism, a muscle-paralyzing disease.
"We're not talking here about a bug that lands you in the bathroom for a few days with diarrhea. We're talking about a toxin that puts you in the intensive care unit," said Dr. David Acheson, the FDA's lead food safety expert. "This is foodborne illness with an extra kick in it, big time."
A word to the wise regarding handling:
As the bacteria grow and reproduce, they produce gases that can cause contaminated cans to swell and burst. Health officials say the extremely potent toxin can infect people if it is inhaled, swallowed or absorbed through the eye or breaks in the skin."The longer this stuff stays in the can, the worse it gets," Acheson said.
A Slashfood post links to several lists of recalled Castleberry products. The list at the food company's website seems to be the most inclusive.
(Cross-posted.)
Surf the Crimson Wave With Me, Baby
Jezebel's got a post about "period sex," which includes a poll asking readers whether they're into it, which on one hand I find very cool and progressive, and on the other, I find sort of aggravating in that—with the self-deprecation that's somehow meant to make "women's stuff" tolerable and is infuriatingly endemic to Jezebel and sites like it—I nonetheless had to read something about how doodz who don't like period sex are probably gay, how like totally grody menses smells, and how at least one dood enjoys period sex because "It's like my dick killed something!"
One: Of the gay men I've known who have had sex with women (hey—everyone experiments in college!), none of them were of the opinion that sex with women was fine, but sex with menstruating women was icky. And all the straight men I've been with have had exactly the same attitude. I don't really know to what an aversion to period sex is attributable, but I do know that it doesn't have diddly-shit to do with one's sexuality, so casting a man who doesn't like it as "gay" is just an unjustified smear against gay men. Anyway, maybe I'll inquire further regarding the origins of the aversion after I emerge from my menstruation hut. (Which has awesome wi-fi, btw.)
Two: I'm tired of reading that anything having to do with vaginas smells bad. First of all, vaginas don't even all smell alike; they differ based on body chemistry and diet just like other parts of the body. Secondly, some wo/men love the smell of cunt, and the taste, even or (gasp!) especially when it's not just-out-of-the-shower fresh or (double gasp!) bloody. Yes, that's right—there are actually people who respond to the muskiness of sex organs in precisely the way our evolution has designed us to respond to them! Nutty! And some of us even don't feel ashamed by our refusal to succumb to the narrative with which our culture tries to deaden each of us to sex by psychologically imprinting the notion that our nether regions (especially girls'—eww!) are gross and smell yucky. So I'd be ever so appreciative if we could all be grown-ups and can the horseshit that treats as an empirical fact the assertion that vaginas and/or any/everything that comes out of them smell bad.
Three: Grrls, if a guy ever gleefully says he enjoys period sex because it's like his "dick killed something," run. Run like the wind. And don't look back. That is all.
Quote of the Day
"They want to destroy [Scott Thomas Beauchamp] for describing things that have been described in war reporting since Homer so they can worship 'the troops' without having to admit that the whole endeavor is a bloody, horrible mess that only briefly, and rarely, offers opportunity for heroic battlefield courage (which, of course, it sometimes does as well.) Why are so many of these people such children in these matters? Rod Dreyer read All Quiet On The Western Front a couple of weeks ago and was so moved that he actually felt compelled to write a column about it. (I did too. In the eight grade—only I called it a book report.)"—Digby, in a must-read post, in honor of Scott, and Pat, and especially LaVena, on her birthday.
Please sign the petition.
Ten thousand birthday wishes
Today, July 27th, marks what should have been a joyous celebration, perhaps including a party filled with family and friends. Today would have been LaVena Lynn Johnson’s 22nd birthday.
The month of July also marks another solemn milestone.
Two years ago this month the body of PFC Johnson was returned to her family and laid to rest, but there can be no rest for her family and friends. The military continues to claim that LaVena took her own life while serving in Iraq, despite several indications to the contrary.
The details of LaVena's death have been shrouded in lies and deception - the kind of official obfuscation that surrounds the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman and other fallen soldiers. Let’s honor PFC LaVena Johnson with a push for ten thousand signatures on the petition to reopen the investigation into her death.GOP Bailing on CNN/YouTube Debate
Sully: "Rudy won't bite, apparently. Romney's decidedly cool to the idea. The others are getting iffy. … Ducking YouTube after the Dems did so well will look like a party uncomfortable with the culture and uncomfortable with democracy. But then, we kind of knew that already, I guess, didn't we?"
I guess we did. I particularly like Romney's haughty sniff that "the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman," referring to a questioner during the Dem debate having used a silly animated snowman to ask a serious question about global warming. Quite a spectacular obfuscation when what he's actually saying is that he simply doesn't think Important Men like him should have to subject themselves to a rumble with the hoi polloi. And after his last fumbled excursion among the great unwashed, I can understand his hesitation. Answering questions asked by reg'ler folks about what an asshole you are can be uncomfortable, I suppose.
Josh notes that "GOP party functionary Hugh Hewitt is already laying down a line of covering fire for the retreat, arguing that CNN and YouTube are biased against Republicans." Hewitt is basing that argument in part on the partisan nature of the questions handed to the Dems and chalking that up to evidence of ever-presupposed liberal media bias. But of course CNN/YouTube would present a lot of conservatively biased questions to the GOP candidates (i.e. softballs) just like the Dems got, and then give them a bunch of questions about global warming and the war and other nonpartisan concerns that only seem partisan because Bush conservatism (to which all the current crop of GOP candidates subscribe to one degree or another) is intellectually bankrupt.
And, as Mustang Bobby said over at his place, "This reluctance to face questions from the people via the tubes tells you something about the Republicans. Whereas the Democrats not only took on the challenge, they seemed to enjoy themselves, even if the audience found that the questions were more pointed than the answers. But I imagine that the GOP candidates are afraid of having to field questions such as the ones the Democrats got about Iraq and gay marriage, and I'm sure there will be at least one questioner who will want to know why anyone should trust the Republicans after eight years of the Bush administration and twelve years of them in charge of Congress. And since the Republicans have a hard time working in an environment that isn't hermetically sealed with only their worshippers inside the biosphere, they can't allow themselves to be exposed to the real views of the American electorate."
To paraphrase our conservative friends, if they can't face Americans, how will they ever face the terrorists…?
[H/T for Sully link to Oddjob.]
New Details on Pat Tillman's Death
From the time Army Ranger Cpl. Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan in April 2004, the government's investigation, cover-ups, trickled lies, and invocations of security and privilege have made for a giant clusterfuck of a barrier to anything resembling the truth of what happened to him.
First, he was declared a hero, with the Army Special Ops claiming his unit had been ambushed by hostiles. Tillman was posthumously awarded a promotion, a Purple Heart, and a Silver Star, all based on a detailed account of a battle that never occurred, but had been invented out of whole cloth to solidify the myth that the well-known Tillman, who had given up a lucrative NFL career to join the military, had died a hero at the hands of the enemy.
But Tillman's family pressed for more details, probably because Pat's brother Kevin, also an Army Ranger and serving with Pat in the 2nd Platoon, A Company, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, knew immediately, as did the other Rangers present that day, that Pat was killed by friendly fire. And so a new narrative began to emerge, one that had Tillman tragically falling at the hands of his comrades while desperately but futilely shouting that he was a "friendly," that he was "Pat fucking Tillman, damn it!"
Congressional hearings began on the cover-up, as the Tillman family pressed on for the whole truth; in his April 2007 testimony to the House Reform and Oversight Committee, Kevin Tillman explained: "We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public. … Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed."
And now, slowly, does the truth nonetheless push its way into the sunlight.
Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.In other words, it appears that Tillman was not simply killed in a tragic accident by friendly fire, but killed deliberately by his fellow soldiers.
"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The medical examiners' suspicions were found in over 2,000 pages of testimony acquired from the Defense Department by the AP via a Freedom of Information Act request. Also found, most damningly, was the total absence of evidence of enemy fire at the scene—"no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck"—and congratulatory emails sent between Army attorneys for "keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments." Details of the day Pat died, long treated as truth, have also been undermined:
It has been widely reported by the AP and others that Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was at Tillman's side as he was killed, told investigators that Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again.Nothing Pat's family—nor the public—has been told can be presumed to be true.
But the latest documents give a different account from a chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman was killed.
The chaplain said that O'Neal told him he was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, "crying out to God, help us. And Tillman says to him, `Would you shut your (expletive) mouth? God's not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling ..."
Congress is preparing for another hearing next week, with "questions lingering about how high in the Bush administration the deception reached." The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has requested documents detailing communications between the White House and the Pentagon immediately after Tillman's death, but the White House refuses to comply, citing, naturally, executive privilege.
The White House has refused to give Congress documents about the death of former NFL player Pat Tillman, with White House counsel Fred F. Fielding saying that certain papers relating to discussion of the friendly-fire shooting "implicate Executive Branch confidentiality interests."Never mind that unassailable "confidentiality interests" seems simply to be, in this case (and countless others), shorthand for "the ability to lie with impunity to protect our asses," which is not a guaranteed right of the White House.
"The bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away." This soldier was very likely murdered. Our White House doesn't seem to care, except insomuch as its attempts to cover up his murder may be exposed. And, meanwhile, justice for Pat Tillman—atheist, Chomsky fan, avid reader, liberal—isn't of much interest to the war-supporting shouters of "Support the troops!" who themselves are busily trying to destroy another solider who doesn't conveniently fit their definition of what an American soldier should be.
Justice for Pat Tillman, and the truth being told to a nation who mourns him, seems, curiously, to be a uniquely progressive pursuit.
Jailhouse Shooting
Fred Grimm of the Miami Herald reports on a hardened criminal case that recently stood trial in Broward County, Florida.
[Ken] Jenne, as sheriff and chief jailer in Broward County, has launched a crackdown on self-abusing miscreants. It's no longer enough to warn hairy-palmed drooling deviants that self-indulgence risks stunted growth, blindness, sallow skin, slackened jaws, amnesia, shrunken testicles, impotence and, for Catholics in particular, eternal damnation. Jenne wants jail time.If this was in Canada, they would say that Sheriff Jenne laid charges against Mr. Alexander, but that's cutting awfully close to the bone.
And, late Wednesday afternoon, in a triumph of creative law enforcement, masturbation in the county jail became a criminal pleasure. Good for another 60 days behind bars.
Sheriff Jenne, with help from the office of State Attorney Mike Satz, who has taken on additional duties as Broward's dean of boys, notched a law enforcement triumph when a county court jury convicted Terry Lee Alexander, 20, of going at it in his cell last November.
At the time of the offense, Alexander was punished with 30 days without TV, music, exercise time and other jail house perks. But obviously self-abuse demands a criminal charge and a full-blown jury trial, and two prosecutors, and a court-appointed taxpayer-paid defense lawyer and six jurors (and an alternate), and a judge, and a court reporter, and a couple bailiffs, and a pretrial deposition, and a daylong trial.It sounds like Mr. Alexander isn't the only person who faces a stiff penalty.
Not that any of the time and expense of a trial would have any actual effect on the life of the defendant. Alexander was already looking at 10 years for a robbery conviction. But the trial was clearly intended to send a message from the sheriff and state attorney to other sex fiends lurking in their lock-up.
The sheriff's critics, of course, might find the prosecution of a masturbation case curious given the burst of violent crimes that has beset the county lately. They might also point out that Sheriff Jenne, who's feeling the heat of a federal criminal investigation himself, may come to appreciate the sexual needs of a lonely inmate.
What's ironic is that during the trial, the deputy that popped in on Mr. Alexander while he was, shall we say, at his leisure had to describe exactly what was going on that perpetrated the charges.
In the course of the one-day trial, prosecutor Cynthia Lauriston and Veal managed to describe Alexander's offense in startling detail, eight times, once with Lauriston approximating the action with arm motions. It was hard to imagine the original act could have had a much more lascivious effect than the lurid stuff those poor women had to utter, over and over, in Courtroom 417 Wednesday.I know people who have worked with Mr. Jenne, and to a person they say he's a bit of a jerkwad.
''It was very vulgar. Very indecent,'' Veal testified.
She was describing the crime but she could have been characterizing the prosecution, the trial, the verdict and the obscene, indecent, vulgar, lascivious, downright stupid waste of time and money.
If you have any forthcoming thoughts on this matter, shoot.
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Caption This Photo
Don't it make your Turd Blossom Blue...
* * *
Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to the President Karl Rove is illuminated by reflected blue light while U.S. President George W. Bush speaks to the American Legislative Exchange Council at the Marriott Downtown in Philadelphia, July 26, 2007. The chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said on Thursday he had subpoenaed two more White House aides, including Rove, in the probe of fired federal prosecutors. (Larry Downing/Reuters)
"Baghdad Diarist" Update
[Background here.]
LeMew: "Scott Thomas issues a defense of his TNR Diary. The fact that he's willing to open himself up to the inevitable wingnut smear jobs does give me more confidence in the veracity of his accounts. ...and the smears begin."
Steve Benen: "This hasn’t improved the situation; in fact, the right is now pursuing Beauchamp with renewed vigor. Malkin has gone so far as to post personal information about Beauchamp. On National Review, they seem to be having a contest to see who can hate this soldier the most."
I don't know that I agree with LeMew that Scott Thomas' self-exposure gives me more confidence in the veracity of his accounts; he clearly knew how TNR and their audience would react to his tales (whether they're true or not), so he's surely wise enough to know how the Right would react to his revealing himself, too (they're nothing if not predictable), and that their maniacal screeching would likely quickly eclipse concerns about authenticity. But, then again, maybe LeMew's right, and I'm just too cynical.
In any case, and irrespective of the truth of his stories, I still think Franklin Foer made a big mistake with his original limp defense. He should have kept his mouth shut until he was certain, and then unyieldingly stood his ground and defended the pieces, or admitted he was scammed and apologized. The muddy middle was a bad idea; any hint of vulnerability encourages the rightwing smear machine.
Yglesias seems to disagree with me on that point, and also notes that the rightwingers now attacking Scott Thomas "need to think a bit about the epistemic situation they're creating where information about Iraq that they don't want to hear—even when published in a pro-war publication—can just be immediately dismissed as fraudulent even though the misconduct it described was far, far less severe than all sorts of other well-document misconduct in Iraq."
Well, yeah. They do need to think about that. But they won't. As Steve notes, they're too preoccupied with their "need to destroy this American soldier immediately to help demonstrate how much they love the troops."
Which is why I think we should hold Foer and TNR to some account. It was obvious how all this would play out. Any of us on the Left who share the stories of antiwar soldiers, or soldiers just telling the ugly truth of war, need to be prepared. Better prepared than that, anyway.
UPDATE: Also, great post from Hilzoy.
Rape Case Dropped for Lack of Translator
A judge in Maryland has dropped "nine counts of rape, sex abuse, and child abuse against a man because the court was unable to find a translator" quickly enough, and despite the accused rapist having graduated from an English-speaking high school and attended community college in Maryland.
Mahamu Kanneh, a Liberian immigrant, was accused of raping and repeatedly molesting a 7-year-old girl and was set to go on trial early next week. Circuit Court Judge Katherine Savage, however, found that the difficulties the court experienced over the past three years trying to find a translator who speaks the West African language Vai -- a language spoken by only some 100,000 people in the world -- were interfering with Kanneh's right to a speedy trial. Over Kanneh's span in the Maryland legal system, three interpreters participated, but all left due to various reasons.That opinion is shared, as it happens, by many Liberian immigrants, who are disgusted that the charges against Kanneh have been dropped on this basis, noting that English is Liberia's official language and is "spoken even in villages."
Prosecutors in the case have decided to pursue an appeal in the state Court of Special Appeals. In addition to the successful location of three interpreters, plus a fourth who was present during the judge's dismissal of the case, prosecutors allege that Kanneh does not even need a translator and is requesting one to delay the trial's process.
"If he went to school in Liberia and is literate he should speak English," said Rev. Albert Nebo of Atlanta, Ga., one of many immigrants who called local officials and the Liberian embassy to decry the dismissal of charges against Kanneh.The thing is, even if Kanneh didn't go to school in Liberia and doesn't speak English and somehow managed to graduate from an English-speaking Maryland high school and attend an English-speaking community college nonetheless, even if all that is true, there was a translator in the courtroom as the charges were dismissed, so the case could have thusly moved forward next week as planned. But Judge Savage chose instead to rule the prosecution had taken too long and dropped the charges, commenting: "This is one of the most difficult decisions I've had to make in a long time [because I am mindful of] the gravity of this case and the community's concern about offenses of this type."
All right then.
So, now prosecutors have to appeal because they cannot refile the charges. And Kanneh goes free, all for the want of a competent interpreter of Vai.
Forgive me if I feel like justice was not served.
Alcohol, the right stuff
In all fairness, if I was going to be sealed in a can and boosted into friggin' outer space at a velocity approaching 17,000 miles per hour, I'd want to down a couple of Jack and Cokes before liftoff myself. It still doesn't qualify as a best practice, though it seems to be more common than you'd expect among space shuttle astronauts.
An independent health panel studying NASA astronauts found "heavy use of alcohol" before launch, according to a published report Thursday.Aviation Week & Space Technology, a weekly trade journal, reported the finding from the panel on its Web site. The weekly said that the committee found that on at least two occasions, astronauts were allowed to fly after flight surgeons and other astronauts warned they were so intoxicated that they posed a flight-safety risk.
The alcohol use by astronauts was within the standard 12-hour "bottle-to-throttle" rule applied to NASA flight crew members, Aviation Week reported.
Hard to say which is more awesome - the title of the CNN headline ("Report: Drunk astronauts allowed on shuttle") or the concept of a twelve-hour "bottle-to-throttle" rule.
(Cross-posted.)
Didn't like I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry?
Well, how about You Don't Mess with the Zohan, then?
Plot Outline: A Mossad agent fakes his death so he can re-emerge in New York City as a hair stylist.
Seriously.
Starring, naturally, Adam Sandler. But wait! There's more: Supposedly Mariah Carey is the female lead. Really. I'm not kidding. It's filming now. Here are some HOTT pictures of Sandler in action:
Why is he seemingly* trying to make sure I can never enjoy Punch-Drunk Love again? Why?
[H/T Michael K.]
-----------
* I know. It could be Teh Greatest Movie Evah. And if it is, I'll happily admit I was wrong to prejudge it.
Leahy on Subpoenas
To add to Jeff's post below, Raw Story has part of Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy's statement on the subpoenas:
"The Bush-Cheney White House continues to place great strains on our constitutional system of checks and balances," Leahy said in issuing the subpoenas. "Not since the darkest days of the Nixon Administration have we seen efforts to corrupt federal law enforcement for partisan political gain and such efforts to avoid accountability."Right fucking on.
Petulant grabbed video of Leahy on the Senate Floor reminding us that members of the administration swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, not to protect the president.
[I'm trying to find a transcript...]
Senate Dems Call for Special Counsel to Investigate Gonzo
Petulant: "Senate Democrats call for Special Counsel for Alberto Gonzales' repeated lies during various appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee. This is partial footage [of Senator Chuck Schumer] from the press conference."
Thursday Morning Conchords
(Since I forgot to do it Monday—d'oh!)
Okay, this week's episode nearly slayed me. I was laughing so hard, it was making Mr. Shakes laugh, who was downstairs on the computer, prompting this shouted conversation:
Me: Hahahaha! Omigod, I love this show! Hahahaha!
Him: Hahahaha! Ye doon't say, ye wee nutter! Hahahaha!
Anyway… You know how I love Morrissey? Well, noodge that back just a titch, and that's how much I love David Bowie. (The episode of Extras featuring Bowie singing to Ricky Gervais kills me well and truly every time I see it, btw.) So that this episode of Flight of the Conchords featured Jemaine doing multiple hilarious Bowie impressions and their "Bowie's in Space" song—well, I was in heaven.
And there was the usual awesomeness, as well—which, I have to say, seemed a little more extra awesome this week. Murray aka Gingerballs was absurdly hilarious, and Mel was droolingly brill. Plus…BOWIE!
The full episode in three parts is below the fold.
Warning: If You Read This, You Might Get Fat
So yesterday, I posted my immediate response to the "Fat Is Contagious!!!!" story on a fatty e-mail list. And someone there rightly pointed out that I ignored one crucial point: we do know how to make people fat.
Just put them on a diet.
Now, I do stand by what I wrote, which was that we don't know how to make a naturally thin person fat. I was thinking specifically of the prisoner study, where a bunch of men ate ridiculous amounts of food and stopped exercising in order to deliberately gain weight, but the weight gain didn't last; as soon as they went back to eating normally, they went back to right around their original weights.
A smug asshole could point to that study as evidence that all fat people must be sitting on the couch stuffing their faces 24/7, and if they just knocked it off, they'd get thin -- but of course that's not the case, and if one attempted to support such an argument with science instead of smugness, one would fail rather spectacularly.
What that study does point to is the existence of a stubborn natural weight range in every individual. Anyone who's dieted and gained it back (i.e., pretty much everyone more than 5 years out from the last diet) will recognize an incredibly familiar pattern in the prisoner study -- it's the reverse of what we've lived out, but the elements are all the same. They tried to push their bodies beyond their natural weight ranges, and their bodies resisted mightily. Their metabolisms changed to account for the changes in diet and exercise and try to force them back into their natural weight ranges. And as soon as they stopped the unnatural diet, their bodies returned to what was normal for them.
That's exactly what happens to dieters.
But because it's a weight range we're talking about, and because dieting is akin to starvation as far as the body's concerned, when dieters go back to normal, they often end up fatter than they were -- presumably at the top of their natural weight ranges. Dieting, as a rule, not only doesn't make you permanently thin -- it makes you fatter.
If you want a source on the above, take the advice I've given you eleventy billion times and read Rethinking Thin. I know a lot of people are mad at Gina Kolata right now for the Times article yesterday, and I don't blame you. (I also don't blame you for making me fat, despite the stupid fucking headline, which of course she didn't write.) But at the same time, she is the only journalist I've seen covering this lunacy who made an effort to sincerely question the findings, talk to people like Kelly Brownell and Stephen O'Rahilly for opposing viewpoints, and end on an appropriately skeptical note. The fact that the article began on a press release-regurgitating note is probably not her fault -- though Fillyjonk's point that maybe she should have known better than to take the assignment in the first place is not a bad one. (On the other hand, if she hadn't, we'd have ended up with one more totally uncritical article exactly like all the others. So...) In any case, I still like Gina Kolata, and gettin' caught in the rain, and her book explains exactly what I'm talking about here in all the scientific detail you could hope for.
Now back to the important point here: this fact that I overlooked offers one simple, plausible explanation for the "fat is contagious" findings: friends recommend diets to each other. And diets ultimately make people fatter. And if those people started out at the top of the "overweight" BMI category, dieting could very easily have pushed them into the "obese" one.
It's unlikely that that fully explains the correlation they found -- but frankly, it's a much more plausible theory than the one that has fat people calling each other up and saying, "Hey, you know what? I overeat and never exercise, and I feel great! You should try it!"
So far, I've avoided getting into personal anecdotes with regard to this story, because I wanted to discuss the absurdity of it without opening myself up to "The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data!'" criticisms. And of course, that's true. The plural of "anecdote" is "anecdotes." I have an English degree; I'm pretty sure about that one.
And here are a few anecdotes I think are relevant.
Before I got into fat activism, I never had many fat friends. In fact, I can only think of 2 fat people I considered good friends over the long term before I started writing this blog. And I only talked to one of them once or twice a year. None of us got fatter for knowing each other.
I've had three fat boyfriends, one skinny one, one insanely buff one, and one completely average one.
My best girlfriend since high school is a mad foodie who would probably rather give up sex, books, dog snuggles and her firstborn than quit cooking rich, flavorful food. She's thin, always has been.
I'm still friends with several other people I went to high school with, too. They're all thin.
My best friends from college? Thin.
The friends I hung out with regularly in Toronto? Thin.
The majority of my best friends from grad school? Thin.
I've never had a problem making friends with thin people, Dr. Christakis, you fucking knob. It doesn't rub off.
And not a one of them has gained weight from talking to me, even since I started actively telling people that it is okay to be fat, and it is sensible to stop dieting -- exactly the things you seem to fear.
Most of the friends I've made in the last year have been internet friends, and most of those are fat, for obvious reasons. As far as I know, I haven't made any of them fatter. At least one reports having lost weight in the time we've known each other (and it should be noted, we're keeping our fingers crossed that that's not because of a goddamned intestinal disorder).
If I actually wanted to make my friends fatter? I would tell them to diet. Of course, most of them have already figured out for themselves that that's the best known way to make yourself permanently fatter. They don't need me to tell them.
And, despite what these recent findings suggest, I have no interest in telling people how to get fat. That's not what I do. What I do is this: I tell people that dieting will almost certainly not improve their health in the long term and might very well harm it. I tell them they don't have to hate themselves because they're fat. I tell them how much I love yoga and walking and swimming, and broccoli and spinach and asparagus -- and burgers and fries and bacon. I tell them that a Health at Every Size approach has been proven to have much longer lasting physical and mental health benefits than dieting, and the only "drawback" is, it probably won't make you thin. I tell them that fat is largely genetic, and if they have fat genes, it's better to work on loving themselves the way they are than forcing their round bodies into square holes. I tell them that being fat does not mean no one will ever love them. I tell them that they don't need to wait to start living their lives until they magically become thin. I tell them they are welcome anywhere I am. I tell them they are awesome people.
And if those new fat friends are listening intently to every word I say, taking it all to heart, and changing their lives accordingly? I'm okay with that. I can sleep pretty fucking well at night, actually.
(Cross-posted.)
