moose

One thing I hear far too often is the idea that if you don't treat fat people like garbage, shame them, and make sure they know that they're beyond contempt, you are "encouraging obesity." (Sometimes they say "promoting obesity.")

Tell a fat person they can like themselves as they are? You're encouraging obesity!

Letting fat people be fashion models? You're encouraging obesity!

Telling fat people that it's ok to enjoy a donut? You're encouraging obesity!

Apparently the reason for the "obesity epidemic" is making obesity acceptable. If we don't shun fat people, they'll never have a reason to want to lose weight! We can't have that!

I've decided I need to create and hand out pamphlets.

The cover will say:

ENCOURAGING OBESITY

Inside:

Then I can go knocking door to door.

 

And if they say yes, I can ask if they have accepted Cheesus Crust as their one true lord and savior of all Foodkind.

And then pray with them.

Our dinner, who art on table
Hollow be our tummies
Your lunch is late, in bowl or plate
In kitchen or on the couch

Lead us straight to temptation
That ice cream in the fridge won't eat itself

Ordering groceries online, for delivery, is life saving. It's nice to be able to poke a few buttons on a website or app and poof! A few hours later, groceries arrive.

However, if you're not careful, you can wind up with more than you intended.

In my last delivery I apparently ordered five pounds of chicken wings. I skimmed the order before hitting 'submit' but apparently missed it.

Five pounds of chicken wings is a lot. They're whole wings, too.

Today I made my first attempt at cooking some wings in the microwave. (Using the stove/oven is not an option.) It did not go so well.

I read a bunch of recipes online that more or less said, cut up wings, add sauce, nuke on high for 5-9 minutes until cooked through.

The wings cooked thoroughly but the skin was chewy and sometimes simply gross and inedible.

I think next time I will try cooking for 12-15 minutes at half power with a few extra minutes on high for the sauce/finishing.

I know they're not going to wind up as crispy as if they were done in the oven, but I'm hoping to find a way to get them to at least be fully edible.

Although using this stuff has become passe', and after 239 weeks (according to the site), I'm going to try to start using this thing again. I need a place to write up the rants that rattle around inside my head, and this is easier than setting up shop elsewhere.

I have a thing for ethics.

I've found a few ethics-related blogs and columns I like, or did. The New York Times has a weekly column called The Ethicist. I really liked the first guy who wrote it, but he moved on a bit ago. Plus the NYT has moved to a "only N articles in a month are free" model which, ya know, bite me.

Some people who write about ethics don't really seem to understand what ethics are. Ethical issues does not mean "this person said something I find grossly offensive." Ethical issues are more like, "this person did something that is in gross violation of the standards of their profession."

I ran across this: Unethical Quote of the Week - CNN Morning Anchor Carol Costello.

The tl;dr is: This woman commented on the choice of Jim Lehrer as the moderator for the presidential debate, saying, "another white guy, he's too old to be doing this." [Actually the quote has her claiming other people said it. But still.]

The writer of the blog maintains this is an ethical violation because it is a) ageist and b) racist, and insists Costello should be fired due to this.

Is what she said ageist? Yes, yes it is.

Is it racist? Hahaha No. There's nothing I love more than the white guy crying "Why are they bringing up race when it doesn't matter!" when it's all about the white people who, as we all know, constantly suffer great indignities due to their race. Oh, wait, they don't.

I suspect that she brought up race to point out, yet again, that the television news screens are full of white people.

The writer then sticks his foot further down his throat by insisting that a previous moderator, who was African-American, neglected to reveal the parts of her life/background that would show her biased towards Obama. He then shoves further by stating that there's a high chance that any African-American moderator would come with a pre-made bias towards Obama.

Because, you know, there are only two races out there: Black and White. Everyone else must be invisible to this guy.

My comment pointed out that I'm amazed he didn't call her sexist for pointing out that Lehrer is a man.

I dunno if this guy will post my comment and, if he does, whether I'll get flamed for it. Should be interesting.

Back in April I got notified by the iTunes store that I had bought a pile of iPhone or iPod apps and in-game items to go with them.

There's one catch -- I don't own an iPhone and my iPod is a 3rd generation shuffle. It doesn't even have a screen.

I promptly notified both Apple and PayPal, changed the passwords to both accounts, disabled the link between the two, and filed fraud charges with both, with as many details as I could provide, and then some.

Both sent a form letter acknowledgement. Then, nothing.

Eventually PayPal said, "yep, this is fraud" and gave me back my money. Apple was like, "Yeah, ok, there was a problem."


Fast forward to yesterday. I fired up iTunes on the newly restored Toshiba and it said it couldn't play any iTunes-purchased songs unless I gave them payment info. Since I don't have a real credit card, I (stupidly) re-linked the PayPal account.

Within 30 seconds I got email from PayPal "confirming" my purchase for $34.90 from the iTunes store. No receipt from Apple, no idea where this purchase came from.

I promptly unlinked PayPal and Apple, changed both passwords AGAIN, and notified Apple, including the order number that was in the email from PayPal.

Apple promptly sent me a letter telling me, "When you update your billing information, the iTunes Store will place an authorization hold on your credit card to verify your account information.. Except that PayPal had removed any balance I had in the account and then taken money from my debit card. In short, this was a charge. I told Apple so, and included screenshots of the email from PayPal that included the order number.

This morning, I got a copy of the receipt for my iTunes "purchase". It was vague, but going onto the iTunes store (in iTunes) showed the details -- it was for an app called Derby Days, and for coins to use in-game. The date of the purchase was 4/29, the same date as the original fraud.

As best as I can tell, the purchase was in-progress when I discovered the problem and modified both accounts. Despite reporting the fraud to Apple, Apple let the transaction sit in a waiting state until it got the money for the apps, which may mean that wherever this app is, it may just have been validated. Isn't that fun?

I sent this info back to Apple. Apple then demanded to know the order number. You know, the order number I'd now given them twice? I sent it a 3rd time.

I got email from Apple saying that they determined this was fraud and they were refunding my money. And then they told me that none of this is their fault, and implied that I might be trying to cheat them:

"Thank you for providing the oder(sic) number of the unauthorized purchase. To prevent further purchasing, I have disabled your account. I urge you to contact PayPal as soon as possible to request an investigation into the security of your account.

We have issued a refund for the items purchased without your permission. The decision to issue a refund was made after a careful review of your case. Please note that this refund is an exception to the iTunes Store Terms and Conditions, which state that all sales are final. A refund in the amount of $32.92 has been issued to the payment method that were used to pay for the items.

Despite this, they did refund the full amount of $34.90. But I love the idea that my PayPal account is insecure because Apple put through a 3+ month old charge, and that "all sales are final", even when it's fraud, and this is a special exception. I must be lying and trying to cheat them.

I sent back that I was fine with my account being disabled, I will not be buying an Apple product ever again. And if I can't play iTunes-purchased songs, I'm sure I can purchase them elsewhere to replace them, even if I have to buy a blinkin' cd.

A picture showed up in a friend's Facebook feed of a woman wearing a bathing suit, who clearly weighs more than what society tells us is "normal."

The comments with the most "likes" are things like:
"I have no pity for fat people, they are simply too lazy to bother to diet."
"There's no excuse to be this fat."
"What a porker!"
"She's bigger than the water she's standing in."
"Fat people are to blame for their own situation, and we pay for it with our tax dollars."

Yeah. All you people out there whining about the bigotry in your life? STFU. I'm tired of hearing it. Whether it's gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, whatever it is, there is pretty much nothing in this country that is more tolerated and supported by people in the US than hatred against fat people.

One study found that up to 60% of women would have an abortion if they knew the baby was going to be a fat person. Fat women are regularly told to abort rather than "risk the baby", despite there being zero actual proof that fat women can't have health pregnancies and children. [One of the blogs I read is by a midwife who supports and writes about fat mothers.]

Health myths about fat run strong, often supported by misinformed doctors. Dieting does not work. You can lose weight, but it will only stay off for more than 10 yrs for 5% of the people who lose. You do not regain because you "got lazy again" but because your body adapts to changes. This is most frequently seen in Weight Loss Surgery victims. Their body can only accept a few calories at a time. The weight loss is rapid, too rapid. If they survive the horrific health implications of that (gall stones and heart muscle damage, to name a few), they'll have nutritional problems from the lack of variety in the diet. After a while, the body will adapt to lower calories and lower the metabolism. If the person is able, at all, to eat a more flexible, nutritious diet, the body will eagerly pack on pounds. People who have had WLS often gain weight back after the initial, rapid loss, and then get to deal with blame and guilt for "obviously cheating and overeating" when they don't do either.

Worse, the mental health problems of being fat are the most ignored. Children are killing themselves from being bullied for being fat, but nobody runs out to make videos telling kids it will stop. Why should they? The problem isn't seen as the bullies, but the parents who "allow" their children to be fat. Adults are just lazy and useless. Fat people are more likely to be unemployed -- after all, if you're too lazy to diet you must be too lazy to be a good worker.

There's this perception that since the population is getting fatter, we're all sicker. Except, percentage-wise, it's not true. The only diabetes "epidemic" comes from changing the diagnosis definition for the disease. If you catch diabetes earlier, you prevent long-term complications. Therefore people who were once called "pre-diabetic" are now aggressively treated. Voila, instant "epidemic." Same for things like heart disease -- which, mind you, is well known to NOT be related to weight. There's an ancient myth that is still spouted, even by doctors, that fat people's hearts "have to work harder" than thin people's hearts. It doesn't work that way.

A lot of the epidemics are touted as "thousands of more cases per year" without any real guidelines to where they come from. Has the percentage to population changed? Are there thousands of more cases when there are tens of thousands of more people? Has the criteria for diagnosis changed? It's all how you phrase it -- and it's usually phrased for panic and encouraging bullying.

People are living longer than ever, yet articles fill the mass media about how today's fat children are going to die earlier than we are. [Note: When they say "today's life expectancy is N years", they take into account *all* living people, not just adults.] The one that worries me most -- and I've mentioned this before -- is the attempts to measure "high cholesterol" in young children's blood. CHILDREN NEED CHOLESTEROL!! Their brains are developing; brains are mostly cholesterol. Until very recently they never measured serum cholesterol in children, so they're basing the idea of "high" on values for adults. They then are trying to restrict the fat intake in even the youngest of children. Our children aren't going to die earlier than we are, but they're surely going to be far stupider.

Recently I saw something that mocked fat kids, pointing out that it's not "their fault" because you never see a fat kid "without one fat parent." The conclusion you were supposed to draw is that fat parents are eating too much so they're overfeeding their kids. All of other potential issues, such as poverty or genetics, were ignored. It's much better to teach children that bullying fat people -- even children -- is normal, ok, and supported by society.

In the end, even if you are going to insist that being fat is a "health problem" -- does that really excuse treating fat people like 3rd class citizens? Does it excuse teaching children, often by example, of how we should mock fat people for being "ugly" and "different" and "wrong"? Is this the world you want to live in, where people are accepted, except for the fatties?

The other day I had yet another person tell me, "I can't call any woman 'Moose'."

I prefer to be called "Moose," something that many people seem very uncomfortable with. I find it ironic that more females than males have problems with it.

Female management at my former job was uncomfortable with it until, in a meeting with many of them, one refered to it as "your nickname." I looked them dead in the eye and said, "It's only a nickname until I get it legally changed."  After that they all were still a little uncomfortable but more willing to make the effort of using my prefered name.

In part, I suspect it has to do with the fact that I'm a short, very fat disabled person.  They must somehow relate "moose" to "fat" which is amusing.  Moose are large animals, but they are not fat.  The rest of it seems related to gender.

Although I am a big proponent of size acceptance, it's the gender-related problem that offends me most.  Who gets to decide what is appropriate for women?  Even for other women?

Even more to the point, who gets to decide my gender?  Why do I have to fit into the cookie-cutter mold of "male" or "female"?  While most people do fit directly into one or the other, there are many others who fit into neither, or both.  When you want to be, or become, a different gender full time, that's called transgendered.  When you don't fit into the gender cookie cutter, you're gender queer.

The first time I told a room full of GLBT people that I was gender queer, someone called it "a different kind of queer" and the room laughed.   Even GLBT people don't quite get it.

I often wear skirts -- because it's easier to get into and out of than pants.  (Try putting on a pair of pants when you can't bend over.)  I haven't worn makeup in 25 years, at least.  I prefer action movies and generally can't stand "chick flicks", and I enjoy the humour of things like ATHF.  I sometimes long for the days when I could wear jeans and heavy work boots and carried a big wrench in my back pocket.  [Hey, it saved me from getting mugged once.]  Yet once in a while I remember how putting on makeup could be like putting on a mask and becoming someone else, how nifty high heels could be, how nice a dress could look.

Sometimes I'm girly.  Sometimes I'm more of a boy.  Sometimes I'm neither.  Always, I'm Moose.  You don't have to like it. You just have to accept it.