fattypatties

I've had a few people ask me if I can reveal more about what happened. I will give you an update, but there is an investigation and I am in the process of small claims so at the moment I cannot reveal all.

The scam was a local mobile mechanic who claims to be licensed and insured but is not. He came to my home to look at my van. I described the repair work that had been done. He told me that something needed to be done that I found out later was just another way of saying what had already been done. He asked for cash up front. I paid. He removed a part from my van to be rebuilt. Then he disappeared for 9 days giving me all kinds of lame excuses as to why he could not come back.

I became suspicious and finally confronted him and told him if he didn't come and fix my van by noon the next day, I would be calling my lawyer and then whoever the lawyer suggested.

He showed up at 2p the next day and installed what turned out to be the same thing he took off only spray painted with a non-fuel-resistent paint sprayed OVER dirt (it was gritty). He didn't even put it back together correctly because it didn't work and it was working before. The van was running when he started work on it and he left it not running and demanding that I pay him more money to redo a repair that I had already told him had been done.

He didn't count on the fact that I knew more about cars than most laypersons (especially most women), though I obviously didn't know enough and got scammed anyway. He left saying I had to redo a repair that only had 5K miles on it or he wouldn't honor the "warranty." There was no warranty I have a receipt.

Now that I know what he did, he is insisting that because I had someone else clean up his mess that he cannot give me my money back because he cannot honor the warranty. Again, what warranty? He claims it was rebuilt by a "specialist" and he cannot get his money back, but, of course, he's not offering me the difference between what he claims to have paid for the rebuild and what he charged me for the installation. He has offered no proof that this specialist exists or offered to do anything to make this right.

I have reported him to the DMV investigative division(in Nevada, all mechanic and garage fraud cases are investigated by the DMV) and it turns out they have a case file on him already. From what I can gather from the net, he preys on stranded motorists, women and disabled persons. I have a disabled tag on my van.

I think his scam is to do a series of repairs with the last one fixing the vehicle and the person usually paying many times more than they should for the thing that needed to be done. Not knowing they have been duped, they write glowing reports about him on the net (of course some of those reports could be written by him and his friends). I think I messed him up by calling him on it before he could fix it finally.

I gave him $470 to do the spray paint job on something that didn't need fixing. Because he re-assembled it incorrectly, I had to pay another $135 to fix what he did. So I'm suing him for $605. Not much in some people's world but that's about 2/3of the extra money I made this semester that I set aside to have the van repaired. So to me it was a lot of money and summer is THE worst time to have a set back as I do not have any work right now and can't draw unemployment as a summer break teacher. (Subject for another rant.)

So once I am done with the legal entanglements with this guy I will definitely (if I'm allowed to do so) tell everyone his name. Hopefully, though, when all this is over he will be behind bars where he belongs. At the very least, he will not be out on the road taking advantage of vulnerable people.

By the way, on the emotional side of this, as soon as I heard from the DMV that they knew him and were investigating him, I felt vindicated. I know that if someone like me could be taken in by this guy (and he is a smooth talker until you call him on his shit, then he is a mean sonofabitch), that almost anyone could be taken. I couldn't sit back and let him keep doing this.

I've moved from embarrassed and feeling stupid to kick-ass mad-as-hell. Oh, and it feels a lot better.

======================
If you live in southern Nevada (or northwest AZ or southeast CA) and are considering a mobile mechanic, please email me and I will let you know who he is and also give you a recommendation for the guy who helped me fix this mess and get my van to pass smog and get back on the road.

A friend of mine gave me a card that still sits on the fridge. On the front it says "dare to be naive." Over the years I've contemplated a myriad of meanings for the card. This is the meaning I'm contemplating tonight.

The world is absurd, and yet, I am naive enough to want to find its meaning.

I naively think that when people say they want freedom, they know what that means, that trying to contain or control the chaos usually results in less freedom.

I naively think that people will take me at face value. But a false dichotomy grips this land called America. "If you're not for us, then you're agin' us." Can't I just be "for" something without having to take up a whole side. I don't fit. I don't want to fit into this neat box. I like fractals.



I naively think that in order there is chaos and in chaos there is order.

I naively think that I am a free person and that holding an idea that overlaps with one side of this artificial, false divide does not limit me from holding an idea that overlaps with the other side. I am free to have my own side, as I see it.

I naively think that my having a brain is a good thing. Apparently, the world sees it as an inconvenience.

I hold little power. I have no money. My opinion does not count and is not sought. Others decide for me. I am constructed by others and then made to suffer the consequences of the construction as if it were my own doing. I am naive enough to believe I might get to have say in my own identity.

This culture, this place, this 235 year old experiment is falling apart because of this false divide. Turns out that a house divided against itself just collapses.
I am naive enough to think something better might emerge from the implosion (maybe that's just what Vegas taught me).

You may be wondering what triggered this contemplation and its underlying anger, disgust and sadness.

Nothing and everything.

I'm naive enough to speculate and wait around to see what's next. I am naive enough to believe that there has to be a better way.

I've been a little out of sorts for the past three days. It's probably nothing. I worked on two big projects immediately after teaching a summer intensive course so I basically spent about 6 weeks running full blast with little rest. It is not unusual for me to deflate a bit after such a busy time.

But when I do, I get a little down about the world. I try to keep that to myself. After all, it is probably more physical than anything else. So why make a big deal.

But it is also a time of introspection and pondering about things. Yesterday, I watched a documentary called The Age of Stupid and today I watched a documentary called For All Mankind. An interesting pairing. The first is about global warming and how we are ignoring the danger signals and proceeding to a point of no return. The second was a look back at the moon landings, narrated by several of the men who have actually walked on the moon.

I am old enough to remember the moon landing and how positive it made me feel about the world and country I lived in. I was aware of other things at the time as well, though both my assessment of the moon and my awareness of troubling social stress like the Vietnam War and racial tensions were naive. I was 11 years old.

But I do remember that I had hope.

I'm not so hopeful any more.

In fact, my feelings about the world around me are usually a high level of skepticism coupled with an overwhelming sense of sorrow. I have found in the ensuing 42 years that the position of disbelief is usually the truest position to take. I just frankly don't think much happens at face value anymore. There is always an agenda.

Of course when Kennedy made the above speech there was an agenda then as well. And it wasn't the explicit agenda. The cold war was on. The race to the moon was as much about military and ideological dominance as it was about exploration and expansion. It was inspirational but it was also devious.

Still, I think the quality has changed some how. I don't think our "leaders," if you want to call them that, rarely bother to cover up their motives or seek to take any kind of high road. We live in an uninspired age.

Yeah, I had a little hope when Obama gave wonderful speeches. But his words have not been met with action. That is partly because Washington and maybe the country (who can tell with the media lies) is deeply divided. But it is also because Obama is a politician first and foremost. We do not need politicians right now. We do not need politics right now.

There are some who would write for the next line that we need reason, but I do not even believe we need reason.

We need soul. We need to understand our nature and the nature of our planet and to feel the damage that our greed, hate and callousness are creating. We need to breath with the earth and feel her pain. We need to get out of our cities and look at the stars and understand our place in the cosmos. We need to feel the full impact in our guts and know that something must change and must change soon.

If I were Mother Earth, I think I'd be putting my collective children into a major "time-out" right now. It isn't that there are not things to be done. We should be doing things. We should be changing things.


But we are not:



We continue consuming, drilling, exploiting, and "expanding wealth" as if no piper was coming to demand payment.

But the piper is sounding the warning and the payment is not far away.

WE could make different choices.

I say "WE" but more and more I feel disenfranchised from that "WEness."

I do not feel the power.

In fact, I see very little in politics or in society that is being devoted to anything more than posturing. Those few of us who want to really see change are co-opted by politics or ignored.

It was present in the Age of Stupid video. I do not live in a large house, drive a large car or consume at anywhere near the level of my fellow Americans. I do not have the smallest ecological footprint, but I do not have the largest either. Yet the filmmakers chose to illustrate how much Americans were out-consuming the rest of the world by putting various cartoon fat bodies up. Yes, no matter what I do for the ecology, the greenies don't want a fat American on their side. Obama's escalation of the War on Obesity represents politics as usual. It is popular on the left to demonize fat people while crying loudly about other "isms." Never mind, the inherent contradiction of promoting one form of hate while claiming to fight another. Never mind, the promise of a different kind of politics while still using "war" both literally and figuratively in just the exact same way as those who came before.


Being disabled doesn't help either. As someone who runs into barriers every day of my life, I am keenly aware that technological advances mean nothing without a will to act and build. The "WE" often does not include the weakest among us.

So when I say "We Choose..." I really mean our so-called Leaders choose. I don't mean politicians, btw, when I say "leaders." I mean the people with power, the Power Elite.

The Power Elite chooses.

Can something be done about all this?

Well, yes. The "can" question is not the "will" question though. WE can do a lot. WE can make up our minds to go to the moon and put the resources towards that end and then get there. WE can end war. WE can end poverty. WE can live more in harmony with our environment.

But WE will most likely not do so.

Unfortunately, the we in the next sentence does include me and you: WE will pay a price for ignoring the truth. We will pay that price even if we knew the truth and were not heard by the Power Elite.

I wish I had an answer for the rest of us. I wish I could figure out what exactly those of us who see the impending disaster could do to get the powers that be to change. But today, right now, I feel like a passenger in a car who knows we should be putting the brakes on and is putting her foot through the floorboard trying to make it stop when it is the driver who has to brake. My imaginary brake won't save us and we are going to crash. It is a slow-mo feeling of impending disaster and a strong sense of helplessness.

That sense of helplessness won't keep me from screaming: "Look Out! Stop!" But ultimately it is not my call. Ultimately some other people are going to have to do something different. Ultimately they will have to make a choice and the consequences of that choice will have a deep impact.

I do have hope. I have the hope of someone who knows what it means to hit a bottom and learn. I fear for us as a species. There was a saying among 12-step programs -- "Don't let your bottom be lower than death."

I believe in Mother Earth. I think she will find a way to restore balance. I believe she will re-order what needs to be re-ordered. I can hear her motherly voice. "We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way."

Please, let's choose the easy way.

So I'm excited that there is a new resource on the web for People of Size.

And I'm very exited to be blogging there:

Why Are We Letting Michelle Obama Off So Easy?

I'm going to try to blog over there at least once a month.

I highly recommend the website.

I wrote in Taking Up Space that I am a reluctant warrior in the War on Obesity.

I don't like the idea of being a professional fat person.

I don't like the idea of being a fat activist.

I don't like the idea of defining myself as "that fat woman."

There are a thousand things I'd rather being doing, thinking about, playing with.

So I took a break for a while. I stopped writing about it. I stopped hanging out in forums. I stopped interacting with the fat activist community on a daily basis.

Then last summer I found Face Book and there was all this beautiful fat positive, fat activism going on and I was back in touch.

Also, last year The Fat Studies Reader was published. I co-authored the final article in the book. Actually, I authored an article that got combined with three other articles into one article. The book is getting a lot of attention. I sense a change and that change is actually interesting for me personally because it is opening up academic spaces that I might could wonder into. I have re-discovered a love for teaching at CSN over the past two years and I am feeling positive about the future as a fat woman and as a writer and as a teacher and maybe even as an academic.

But two incidences over the past few days have got me thinking about this and reminding me why I really dreaded.

First, there was a misunderstanding on one of the FB groups I post to and I felt like once again I was being treated like the angry one. Then later an FB friend posted about how great community is for addressing fat hatred and then as several people (including me) responded with anger about hateful comments we were scolded for not being more tolerant. Tolerant of hate? Being careful to not make a bully or a bigot feel shame. Wow. I'm very confused.

There seems to be a fear among activists regarding anger that I frankly don't understand. It is like many of them are waiting for permission from the powers that be to critique the powers that be. I'm reminded of Audre Lorde's article about the master's tools cannot be used to dismantle the master's house.

My anger is part of the deal. And I have lots of anger. Anger at being pushed into corners I don't want. Anger at being told that it is my responsibility to break out of those corners without holding the people who pushed me there responsible. Anger that the people I turn to to help me push back are too busy criticizing me to be of any help.

Someone said that they are happy to be a fat activist. I'm happy that I've met some incredible people and that I've found some incredible support. But I have to tell you that even with all the good stuff going on, I'm still getting this lack of true community and lack of anything effective being done. Okay, I've written that and I don't like saying that. It isn't exactly true. But the sad part is that it is closer to the truth than the opposite.

I don't want there to be a fat community, per se. I want the need for that community to end.

I want there to be freedom. I want people to be able to be themselves without fear. I want people to have a healthy intolerance for injustice, for hatred, for wrong. I want being right to be respected. I want human rights to be respected. Mostly I want to travel and make art and write and play with animals and take great photographs and move freely in the world without fear. And I want that and more for you too.

The key for me is how to do that and once again I'm faced with the question as to whether activism is the answer.

I cannot escape my fat body. I cannot escape the hatred and stigma that is placed upon that body. I am a reluctant warrior in the war on that body. I have to defend. I cannot have what I want otherwise.

So, here's my answer for now (and I am really just coming to this conclusion as I write):

We have to find some new tools. There is no other way to do it. Failure is not an option. I cannot forget all this. So I got to find someone, somewhere who want to forge these new tools with me. It's an adventure. It's new territory (something I love to explore). I cannot go back to this without something new and I cannot NOT go back to it because I cannot live silently. Something, somewhere has to give and right soon.

Help this video go viral by going to youtube and commenting and/or rating. This is an important documentary. We need to hear the voices of fat people in all media.

I spent about 40 minutes of my life yesterday watching Kevin Smith's SModcast about his fiasco with Southwest Airlines. I didn't have time to watch all 24 minisodes on the playlist, but I saw enough to let my heart grow warmer for him and to respect him a little more.

Stacy Bias wrote on Facebook that it really stuck in her craw (as it did in mine) that much of the rhetoric has centered around the fact that he wasnt "fat-fat."

I am fat-fat. I've flown a number of times in the past 15 years as a very fat person and as a disabled person and I can tell you that it isn't fun even when you have more than one seat.

I wrote about the two seat option on another blog some time ago after a trip cross country with two seats. My experience was about as humiliating as being asked to leave the plane. In addition, having a second seat does not make for a comfortable trip because the arm rest is in my back or the seat divider is rubbing my hip the entire trip.

But I want to suggest that this is a question of will and engineering and not a question of who is fit to fly.

Here's what I wrote then:

I have an idea in mind for an adjustable bench seat that allows for a sliding arm so that people could buy all of the bench, 1/2 of the bench or 1/3 of bench. the problem with this idea isn't its implementation. The problem is that airlines sell seats in convoluted ways that would make such configurations (and fair pricing of them) difficult. So not only would the physical environment have to be redesigned, but so would the marketing and billing systems. A major overhaul for the existing airlines. But an upstart has a great opportunity here to take the big guys out. Southwest Airlines (imagining me hissing as I say their name) is making the big bucks on uniform service. They get the lions share of the market because they are cheap and people who can conform for the price. But there is a limit to this strategy. At some point you run out of people who can fit into the narrow (literally and figuratively) world that Southwest is creating. So other ways to expand the market will have to be addressed.

So I'm putting this out there. Some clever engineer/inventor could really make a name for herself or himself by designing an adjustable seat that accommodates almost anyone. It can be done and doing it now while the media cares for a brief moment would make for awesome publicity!

Then some innovative competitor who wants to give Southwest a run for their ill-gotten gains could implement the invention and make flying a comfortable and fun experience again.

All it takes in ingenuity and will:

From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon. And it's not a miracle, we just decided to go. -- Jim Lovell (Tom Hanks, Apollo 13)

The Obamas are following the Clintons down the road of Health Care Reform and while I had hopes that it was not true this time and I've been impressed with how much further they have gotten, I'm have a feeling of deja vu all over again. I fear that if the stalled health insurance reform does ever get restarted again, it will end up being exactly what the monied interest in health care want: mandatory purchase of health care without or with few restrictions on profit-making at the expense of our health.

But what really is giving me the willies is last week's "Let's Move" campaign "targeting childhood obesity." Does anyone remember the timing of the "Shape Up America"? There stood Hilary Clinton standing behind C. Everett Koop near the end of 1994 while he announced that what America's health care needed the most was for doctors to tell their patients to lose weight like no doctor before 1994 had ever suggested to a patient that weight loss was a good idea. Wait. 1994! Hilary Clinton! Could it be that this was a smoke screen to take the focus off her and her husband's failure to fight the monied interest and give Americans a universal health care system?

Now we have a stalled health care reform that has been watered down to create the same racket we have with car insurance, except that living is something we have a right to and driving a car is a privilege (remember the Declaration of Independence? LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness). So either way, I smell smoke and I see mirrors -- don't look over here where deals have been made with the profiteers. Let us misdirect your attention to the horrors of fatness. Except this time, we'll add the good old, "do it for the kids" line and that way you don't have to worry about the fact that after 16 years of telling Americans to diet and most Americans trying to diet, we still have fat people. What's worse, we managed to kill a bunch of people from the drugs and surgeries in the name of losing that fat along the way.

My more liberal friends are taking a gentle approach. They see something well-meaning-ed in Michelle Obama's motherhood and are gently asking her to consider alternatives. I'm not so inclined to let her off that easily. There's too much data and too much history and too much context to just assume that she is miguided. This is the same ole, same ole and I think it's time to shout from the roof tops: "The Emperor and (the Emperess, in this case) have NO CLOTHES!"

But I don't want to stop there. I do not like negative politics and I do not want to echo the Nopublicans in their negativity about everything these days. So on the off chance that Michelle Obama is sincere in her desire to make life better for the next generation and the generations to come, let me put 7 practical and feasible alternatives on the table that would be better at improving the lives of our children than putting them on a diet and making them exercise to the point that they forget how much fun it is to just play:

7 PRACTICAL IDEAS THAT WOULD MAKE LIFE BETTER FOR GENERATIONS TO COME

1. SAFER FOOD AND DRUGS

Our food system is superior in many ways, but the ever growing greed in food production is leading to more and more mishaps from contaminated food to preservatives that are bad for us to frankenfood to the lack of basic foods in poorer neighborhoods with less nutritious foods in their place. In fact, I suspect that many of the sins laid on the doorsteps of "obesity" have more to do with safety of our food than it does with how much we are consuming of it. In addition, more and more people are dying from their medications, including children. Reform at the FDA is needed and I haven't heard one word out of the administration regarding this.

2. SAFER PLAYGROUNDS AND STREETS

Children still grow up in areas where staying at home and watching television helps them live longer than being out in a playground or playing in the streets near where they live because it is dangerous to be in the streets. (Last time I checked, gunshot wounds or being assaulted were not good for your health.) Schools are closing earlier and earlier. In a world where ecommuting and working at home is more possible than ever, we are still insisting that the 9 to 5 work day is optimal and thus we have latchkey kids with no place to go and no safe adults to be near. This is not a matter of playing police. This is a matter of it takes a village to raise a child. Our communities are not child-oriented. They are profit-oriented. If we wanted to create a village where children could move, they would move. Children do not need to be told to play. When they are safe to do so, they move. And by the way, targeting fat kids is going to make this worse, not better. Bullying kids that are different is one of the ways that the streets are unsafe. Blaming fat kids for their health problems is going to fuel those differences and give ammunition to those bullies. In fact, it turns the federal government into one of those bullies.

3. STOP POSTPONING PAYING THE BILLS UNTIL THEY GROW UP

Deficit spending is putting a burden on the next generation and the ones after that. I'm not just talking about government debt. We had a major meltdown of the "credit industry" 2 years ago and our response was to patch it up and keep it. We have been sold a pack of lies about credit, especially long-term debt. Debt used to be something we entered into until the crops were harvested and then we paid it back with an eye on savings in bumper crop years. Now we are told it is okay to buy our toys on credit. The wake up call is that some day it has to be paid. We hit the snooze button instead of making the hard decisions. That has delayed the collapse of an unsustainable system, not fixed it or bailed it out. All of these things means that it is just going to be a bigger problem for our children. If we really loved our children we'd be re-examining this entire economic system and making some deep and abiding changes in our economy.

4. SPEAKING OF DEBT, GET RID OF BORROWING FOR STUDENTS

Nothing screams "I hate my kids" more than student debt. We put pressure on kids to go to school. We design jobs so that a high school education isn't good enough. Then we make it impossible for them to pay for that schooling without first putting themselves in debt. They leave the starting gate with a burden to carry. This burden makes them wage slaves, pure and simple. Now we are adding to this burden by making it impossible for them to finish the "4-year" degree in 4 years. Overcrowding and cutting back on teaching continues to create a system where students will have to borrow more to finish that degree.

5. SPEAKING OF EDUCATION, MAYBE TEACHING SOMETHING OF VALUE

Student debt isn't even the biggest problem in education. With the "No Child Left Behind" legislation we have made schools less about learning and more about test-taking. Our educational system is creating automaton sheeple, not critical thinking citizenry who question systems in order to improve them. If we really wanted life to be better for our kids we'd teach them how to think about their lives and the social systems within which they live so that they could improve things. Nothing belies the fear that adults have of their kids' brains than the way we do education and nothing points out the lie of "doing it for the children" than this fear. If we truly want them to have a better life than we have, then we should prepare them to be reflective thinkers instead of sheeple.

6. STOP STARVING THE CHILDREN

The real tragedy of the "Let's Move" campaign is the extent to which America's children still are suffering from malnutrition, starvation and lack of food security. Children are dying from lack of food and we are emphasizing starving the ones who have food? How crazy is that?!?

7. REAL UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE

It is long past the time for America to provide health care to its citizens. Children growing up under the "for-profit" health care system are not going to be as health as they would be if they were able to see a doctor without fear of breaking the family bank. There are plenty of preventative measures that will ensure they grow up health that have nothing to do with the size of their bodies that need to be available universally. The hodgepodge, committee-fied bills that are being "reconciled" in committee right now are not going to cut it without a public option. As long as health care is a "for-profit" enterprise, money is going to be more important than our children.

Let's be clear about some things:

I voted for Obama. I did not vote in 2000 or 2004 presidential elections because I saw no viable candidates for whom to cast my vote. I liked Obama's message of change and wanted to give him a try. I had hope that he might be different and I think there are some ways that he has been different.

But I am not as pleased as I hoped I would be and this latest campaign weakens my hope even more. This is nothing new. This is business as usual in Washington and all those things he said in his campaign about continuing down the path of business as usual will come true, even if it is cloaked in the language of change.

We pay a price for those things we believe that are not true. Taking public resources and emphasizing weight loss for children is going to have a heavy price tag. We are going to raise a generation who fear their own bodies, who stigmatize fatness and fat people and who will spend their adulthoods sorting out food issues instead of solving more important challenges. In addition, spending these public resources on this means that we take away resources from more important challenges facing us now. We pay now. They pay later.

We do need a change. The "Let's Move" campaign is not change.

Well the good news is that I haven't had hives a lot, the black cohosh & progesterone cream are helping (not totally, but the hot flashes are down to only a couple a day and not constantly) and I have more work than I know what to do with.

The bad news is I find myself neglecting the fun stuff like writing here and journaling at home and taking a moment to care for myself or spend time with my husband. Oh yeah, and, well, more work doesn't seem to equal more money. But what's new with that.

Here's the big news of the month. My husband finally had a doctor tell him what's been wrong for the past year. He has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It is good to know what it is. It is good to finally have a doctor take him seriously. But after the initial relief of having a name, we are now coping with the fact that this isn't going to go away easily and the quick karma that comes with fibromyalgia.

I was diagnosed with this condition in 1997. I've done a lot of reading and a lot of research and I've learned to understand my own body better. In the past couple of years I've come to understand the underlying conditions that led to my condition -- specifically, I have come to believe that the source of much of my problems has been hypothyrodism. I was originally diagnosed with lupus and had many of the symptoms associated with lupus when I started getting ill. But now that I am testing positive for hypothyroidism and have read more and discussed the situation with my doctors, I think the lupus was a misdiagnosis. I believe I had subclinical hypothyrodism.

Our conditions lead me to ponder two big stigmas in health care & health research in this country.

First, is fatness. No one regarded my gaining a considerable amount of weight in a small amount of time in 1997 as a sign that my thyroid was growing weaker. It was decided then that because I was in pain most of the time and had lost the energy to ride my bike the 20 miles a week that I had before, that my lack of exercise led to the 90 pound weight gain in 5 months. Looking back with more critical eyes (it wasn't until 2000 that I started questioning so-called medical science regarding weight), I now realize that probably didn't make much sense. Because hypothyroidism is connected with weight gain it is under-reasearched and under-treated.

Second is gender. Deciding that because something is predominantly diagnosed by one gender or another it becomes a "woman's disease" or a "man's disease" is problemmatic, espcially if doctors remain misinformed. It took 4 months for me to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It took Carl 12 months to have the same diagnosis even though his symptoms were much more clearly defined and obvious (especially in retrospect). Expectations of pain and manhood along with the decision that fibromyalgia is a woman's condition really got in the way of what is a very simple diagnosis--a touch test of 18 points on the body. It was a year of negative tests and being told he was just "getting older" before a doctor did the test. The eventual diagnosis took less than 2 minutes.

As we contemplate health care reform in this country, a lot of debate has taken on a "blame the victim" tone. I actually heard a doctor today say on "Talk of the Nation" that health care professionals would take better care of their own bodies if they weren't so busy taking care of lazy people who do not do what they should to prevent their health conditions. Yep, doctors are too busy doing important stuff to eat right and exercise, but the rest of us are just lazy. I turned off the radio at that point, screaming a few explitives.

Stigma doesn't help anyone. Lifestyle and prevention methods have their place, but they are not the solution nor the problem. Stigma will do more to kill than these other issues and the answer isn't to shame others into a better lifestyle.

Carl has a list of books he'll never write which includes one called the "Mononarrative," which would be about the trend in American public discourse that has been going on for 20 or 30 years. The idea seems to be that we should all be repeating the same narrative and that composing a text or subtext that doesn't confirm to this one, true narrative is unacceptable. It's not that everyone agrees upon the content of the mononarrative, but everyone seems to agree that there should be a mononarrative.

"Since coming up with the term, I've seen the expression 'monomind' in my readings," explains Carl, "and it parallels what I've been thinking very well."

Of late, Carl has been suggesting that there is a new discourse afoot -- he has called it the "No-No Narrative." Those in power no longer want anyone talking, including themselves. They just want to shut down discourse.

"The motto of the 80s and 90s was 'You're not supposed to say that,'" Carl further elaborates, "while the motto in this decade has been 'NO talking.'"

I couldn't help notice over the weekend how eerily similar the "spontaneous protests" popping up at town hall meetings on health care were to the "Brooks Brothers Riot" from the 2000 election. I went looking on YouTube for videos of both events and found that Rachel Haddow beat me to the proverbial punch:




I agree with Rachel's take at the end. The best way to fight this stupid form of shouting down politics is to point it out for the orchestrated power mongering that it is and make it so obvious that no one will want to do it again. Shouting down is not debate and shouting back isn't the way to create a debate. We must fight the no-no narrative by telling our own stories and by unmarking and taking away the incentive for this kind of government by riot.

Plus Model Magazine interviewed Peggy Elam, the owner, operator, editor and publisher extraordinaire (yeah, I'm biased) at Pearlsong Press. A great interview with lots of good information about Health at Every Size. Peggy is also the host of a weekly radio show called, unsurprisingly, The Health at Every Size Show, which is simulcasted via Radio Free Nashville, every Monday at 11am ET.

So in the article, Peggy mentions something I have never seen before (guess I drop out of sight for a couple of years ago and good stuff goes one without me): Fat Hatred Bingo and Fat Hatred Bingo 2. Oh yeah, and this week alone, I made Bingo on both cards. It's fun. You should try it too!

I've been amused and frustrated at the discussion about last week's Paul Campos interview over at Alas, a Blog and I've thought about several responses.

I could get in on the discussion about the politics of fatness. Personally, I don't think any mainstream political perspective is doing right by fat people. Liberals blame so-called "Big Agriculture" or "Big Food" for fatness, which is essentially painting fat people as mega-consumers, who mindlessly obey their mental and physical impulses. This paternalistic attitude fundamentally sees fatness as an illness, or at least, a social ill. The fact that they don't directly blame fat people is irrelevant. We are still stigmatized and flawed for being fat. That is not fat acceptance. Conservatives are perfectly happy to ignore the health and well-being of fat people while using us to support opposition to the liberals, specifically, staying in the pockets of Big Ag, Big Food, Big Pharm and Big Insurance, by suggesting that our being fat is all our fault -- "personal responsibility versus public interest." So fat people will cost too much for the health care system, so let's not reform health care. Libertarians have questioned some of the methodologies for demonizing fat and have even provided forums for fat acceptance writers to share their points of view, but in the end, the stance of the Libertarian is not usually fat acceptance but rather that the government has no business telling us to not be fat. They still mark fat people as being flawed, they just support our right to be flawed.

I could join in the discussion about what is and isn't fat acceptance. Personally, I believe fat acceptance is fundamentally the belief that people come in diverse sizes and that fat, in and of itself, is not a sign of illness, mental deficiency, moral deficiency or lack of fortitude (will-power). Fat is fat. Some human beings have more than others. It is a physical characteristic and shouldn't be debated or discussed any more than we would if we were talking about eye color. Fat should not be the basis for discrimination as much as any other physical characteristic should not be the basis. Just treatment of people involves not judging on the basis of the how they look, period. Thus, deciding that whether people who look one way will cost the system more than "beautiful people" is a basically unjust discussion.

But I haven't posted these thoughts there because I can't get past one little aspect of the whole discussion: Debating costs is a smoke screen.

While we continue to debate the questions of cost, we continue to pretend that cost is immutable, fixed objectively without any room for scrutiny. That it is just is. After all, people in the medical system have to be paid, don't they?

The BILL for my little surgery in June has grown to around $4500. This is what I'm being BILLED, NOT what it COST. Why was the hospital emergency room the only place this could be addressed? Why did I have to see several doctors to have it addressed? Why did I have to come back to the hospital to have the bandages changed and see a burn unit nurse twice? Why did my just stepping into a hospital mean I was going to be billed over $1000?

When we have discussions about health care costs, we keep confusing billings with cost. Right now hospitals bill whatever they want (as do clinics, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, laboratories, testing centers, and so forth). They often do not get what they bill because the HMO, insurance company or government program says, this is what it should cost and pay only that. Then the hospital tries to get the difference from the patient. Sometimes they do, more often they do not. That is part of the why the bill is so high in the first place.

You people who have health care coverage think you are paying for your own care only? You are already paying for all the people who can't afford it and you are doing it in a system that allows the medical provider to decide how much they want to charge in the first place. You already subsidize others, you are just doing it in the most inefficient and costly way possible and making the health care oligopoly rich in the meantime.

Let's be clear. No market forces are going on in health care. A market requires the ability for consumers to walk away. When you or your loved ones are sick, you cannot shop around. You aren't able to pick and choose. You can't decide to delay purchase until later. You can't buy low. If you can't get the health care that you need at a doctor's office or clinic, you head down to the emergency room where you know that you most likely will not be turned away. The hospital knows this as well and that is why they charge $4500 to lance an infection. They know that I'm there because I have no where else to go. This is a decided advantage of which they take are only too happy to take. In any other economic circumstances, we would label this "price gouging" and make it illegal. This is why traditionally health care providers have only been too happy to have a number us not have access to funding. We are the reason they can price gouge. We are desperate enough that they can charge what they want.

I heard someone say one intelligent thing the other day in the health care "debate": In all other instances in the Western world where health care reform has occurred, it historically had to be done in spite of the cost. Once it was done, the costs were reduced BECAUSE of the reform. There used to be a time in this country when government or public control of natural monopolies was a good thing. Health care is a natural monopoly and it can and should be regulated just like electricity, gas and water used to be.

But one part of the health care reform debate to remember is that discussions of "costs" always have to be tempered with the knowledge that what we call "costs" are essentially price gouging. The best way to reduce those costs is to regulate the market so that those who are in a position to gouge will not be allowed to do so.

Regina Benjamin's Nomination Sparks Sexist Commentary

I haven't commented or blogged about this yet because, well, Fox News (the bastion of desperate causes) & Karolchyk (the world's most well known school yard bully) aren't worth much of my time or effort. I usually just ignore them. I don't like to feed their fuel. They live off the anger. (Q: What did the sadist do to fight the masochist? A: Nothing.)

However, this article caught my eye though because of quote from ABC News 3 paragraphs in the article:

Dr. Clyde Yancy, president of the American Heart Association, said "for the surgeon general to fulfill her responsibility goes beyond anything such as a physical metric. What we need are health care leaders who are qualified, passionate, results-oriented and part of a team for the great good. She is all that."

Wow, fat as physical metric. I like that. That's all it is, you know, a measurement of the physical body.

Fat is a descriptive term regarding size. Not a measure of intelligence or health or fitness or strength or morality or diligence or education or beauty or sexuality or emotional stability. Just a physical metric.

I think one of the most succinct indicators of how screwed up the United States is when it comes to health is that we are even discussing Dr. Benjamin's size while Congress drags its feet regarding passage of health care reform. Talk about fiddling while Rome is burning.

Skin Deep: Tossing Out the Diet and Embracing the Fat

(Of course they had to quote Willet, but nothing's perfect)

And this is not a bad description of the movement:

This movement — a loose alliance of therapists, scientists and others — holds that all people, “even” fat people, can eat whatever they want and, in the process, improve their physical and mental health and stabilize their weight. The aim is to behave as if you have reached your “goal weight” and to act on ambitions postponed while trying to become thin, everything from buying new clothes to changing careers. Regular exercise should be for fun, not for slimming.

But I'd like to go on record, once again. THE AIM of the FAT ACCEPTANCE movement is to end stigma against fat people, thus ACCEPTING FAT PEOPLE for themselves, not rejecting them because of how they look. The extent to which people miss this point continues to amaze, but not surprise me.

(Thanks to Kate Harding for sharing this article on FaceBook.)

So the good news is the upcoming anthology, Fat Studies Reader, has already got press, which makes me happy because I am one of the authors. (It is scheduled to be out in November.)

The bad news is that the New Yorker article is less than I would have liked and pretty typical in its focus on weight loss as the only issue important when it comes to body size and, of course, its all about how much we eat. (There is also some serious problems with her selectivity in bringing up Katherine Flegal's work since she later amended that work as being incorrect and incomplete in its understanding of the consequences of being fat.)

Read it and comment here about it if you'd like. Below is what I wrote to them:

Only a handful of people have seriously asked the question posed in the title of Elizabeth Kolbert’s article. Most scientists since the 1920s have assumed that fat is merely a consequence of eating poorly and lack of exercise in every case. THE question has been "How do we get rid of fat?", not "why?" As an author in the upcoming Fat Studies Reader, I was also pleased to see the volume gain some attention. Certainly, this anthology is timely and important and I am proud to be a part of the project.

However, overall, I was disappointed with the article, especially the representation of the fat acceptance movement as allying "with McDonald’s and the rest of the processed-food industry, while opposing the sorts of groups that advocate better school-lunch programs and more public parks."

People making the "big food" argument never pay attention to the so called "diet foods" as one of the most unnecessary and wasteful offender of processed food. It is so easy to cry about the fast food industry with little regard for the complexity of everyday choices that families have to make. It is not a simple matter and those who want to make it so are not really paying attention to the world around them.

But more importantly, since this was essentially a book review, it should be pointed out that most Health at Every Size advocates believe that eating good foods, exercising regularly and taking care of one's body is an important and worthy goal. We believe that good health can be achieved by anyone at any size.
In addition, we not only advocate more public parks, we advocate that those who wish to use such public facilities to enjoy movement will not be harassed, bullied or injured because of their size. We not only advocate healthier choices for students in school lunches, but that school lunch will be a time of pleasantries for all children no matter how they look or what their size is.

Equating the promotion of size tolerance and body diversity with a lack of care for health is one of the stereotypes that leads to stigmatization that justifies bullying and hate crimes against fat people.
It is my hope that in the future when Kolbert reviews a book, she will actually read it and comprehend its message, rather than set it up for a straw-person for her predetermined argument. I encourage your readers to read the book when it comes out in the Fall and see for themselves