Seriously! STOP ALREADY! The world is turning into a bunch of whining crybabies who spend all of their time looking for litigation handouts, and I am SICK of it!
In the span of two days, we have been treated to the following related yet opposing news stories that have convinced me that the world is doomed to die in the fires of its own stupidity.
First, fat people now have a new excuse for being fat – not because they have no brakes on their fork, not because they powerslam 4 Quarter Pounders for lunch every day or have pizza delivered every night because they can’t hoist their oversized asses off the couch anymore, but because they have a “fat virus.” This article claims that there is a virus called AD 36 that can cause an accelerated growth of fat cells. Great, one more reason for people to (attempt to) cross their flabby arms and insist that it isn’t their fault that they take up an entire row in a movie theater. We used to hear “I don’t have a problem, you have the problem,” now we get to hear “it’s not my fault, it’s a virus.” Yes I understand that there are people who legitimately DO have medical reasons for obesity (thyroid, for example) but this just cheapens it. If everyone just sits back and claims “medical reasons” for their own lack of discipline, it makes it harder for the people who really DO need the help to actually get it. Doctor’s offices are clogged with people demanding the latest in gastric bypass or weight loss drugs because they just cannot be bothered to cut down on their food intake, meanwhile you’re running a fever of 103 but can’t get in to see anyone for four weeks. Yeah, so much for the priorities. I wonder, who is funding this guy’s research, Jenny Craig or Dunkin Donuts?
For the record, I am overweight. I accept responsibility for it – lack of activity, rich foods. I don’t blame my parents for “enabling me” with cookie rewards as a child, nor do I say it’s the marketing geniuses at Burger King. No one is forcing me to eat that Chicken Fried Rice. No one whispers in my ears while I am sleeping, “You will eat four donuts tomorrow.” I have free will. I can control my eating. Most of the time, however, I choose not to. And my reward for this? Type II Diabetes. Diagnosed right before I started attendance at a Culinary School. Ah, the irony of it all.
Then today, another article crosses my screen: Apple recently started a new line of iMacs that are extremely thin. Their slogan was “You can’t be too thin. Or too powerful.” Well, apparently a bunch of people with low self-esteem saw this and decided to get the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness involved. Yes, for every overweight slob who spends their time looking for excuses they eat too much, there is a skinny person looking for an excuse to stop eating altogether. So off they go to the media, demanding that Apple revise their campaign because it promotes the idea that “thin = powerful” and there are just so many impressionable teens out there who might take that too seriously. Did anyone ever consider that if all it takes is a headline to rush someone off to the bathroom to purge that Tic-Tac they just swallowed, perhaps they already had other issues? As if we don’t have enough other stupid things to worry about, now we have to watch out for a bunch of Emo Kids who might extend their hunger strikes because Apple came out with a new line of computers? This falls into the same category as Senators blaming video games for violence – if some kid plays a marathon session of Grand Theft Auto and then goes out and shoots up his school, A) the kid had violent tendencies long before he played the game, as evident by the fact that he either already had guns or knew where to get them in short order, and B) exactly where were his parents? Do they think they can just shrug off their responsibility in this and say “it’s all those evil games, they raised him, not us!” So now we have yet another “national interest” group looking to gain awareness by jumping on the “There is Always Someone Else to Blame” bandwagon. “We can’t control the problem, but hey we found something to blame it on!” And in the end, does anyone really come out ahead? (Other than the lawyers, I mean.)
Could everyone PLEASE just STOP it already? Every time something happens, there has to be someone who looks at it carefully and says “how can I make this about me?” If they find a way, the next question is, “can I make money from this?” The problem used to be corporate greed, but sadly greed hit the private sector. Now we are a nation of two classes – lawyers, and people looking for lawyers. There is always someone else to blame, regardless of whose fault it really is. I didn’t overeat, I fell victim to McDonald’s marketing. A steam pipe explodes in NY and blows off manhole covers, someone has to file a lawsuit because someone told them they could pretend to have flashbacks of 9/11. Suddenly everyone has to be a victim, and I believe that started when celebrities started blaming their drug habits on lousy upbringing. These are your role models, kids! Do drugs and alcohol, get caught, and blame your parents! Just hope they aren’t alive to see what a disappointment you became.