As I was driving to work this morning, I was thinking about the current round of reality shows. Now, I don't normally watch a lot of them, but the one about Superheroes is rather amusing. Last night one of the participants was eliminated, as happens on these things, and in his post-elimination rant he made a comment about one of the other participants that went something along the lines of "Like a fat woman is any kind of superhero? Puhleez!"

That gave me pause.

Why can't a fat woman be a superhero? Fat people in America deal with adversity and discrimination on a daily basis. Obesity is the last acceptable prejudice in our culture, and those who are afflicted with it face humiliation constantly. Seats in movie theatres and sporting arenas are too small to fit into, aisles on buses and planes are narrow, and we won't even go into the narrowness of airplane seats. I can tell you, however, that while you are sitting in your seat on the plane, dreading the flight because the person sitting next to you is large, they are not exactly having a picnic either. That person knows exactly what you're thinking. They knew it before they even got on the plane, and the look of fear on the faces of everyone with an empty seat next to them as they came down the aisle was repetitive torture. They're contorting themselves as best they can to keep from squashing you, knowing the whole time that it's a futile gesture, and that you probably don't know or care that their hips are bruising and numb from the seat arms and their legs have fallen asleep because they don't dare even shift for fear of infringing on your space even more.

Going to the grocery store or a restaurant brings even more judgement from others. There are people who will openly criticize the food choices of complete strangers. It can range from disapproving looks as the waiter brings food to the fat person's table, to loud "meant to be overheard" comments about how someone like that should be having a salad, not a steak. In grocery stores, a fat person's cart is routinely inspected by others as they pass by. There have even been instances of so-called helpful people actually taking items out of carts with words to the effect of "You don't need that, you should be eating healthier food."

Our culture implants shame and self-hatred at every turn when it comes to being overweight. Fat jokes are the last acceptable bastion of the comedians and the last socially acceptable sight gag in the movies. The derogatory images of blacks, women, and other minorities are slowly being removed from the realm of allowed but the images of the slovenly fat man in the stained t-shirt who sits in front of the television and chugs beer is still around and showing no signs of leaving. The fat chick is always the butt of the jokes, shown wearing muumuus and thick glasses, with bad hair and a pint of ice cream in her hand.

Is it any wonder that we have people spending millions of dollars on wonder pills as they try desperately to find a quick fix to their problem? Is it any wonder that we have children starving themselves and complaining about how fat they are at ages as young as six and seven?

The next time that you look at an overweight person and automatically assume that they're a slob who has no willpower, take a moment to realize what you are doing. If you just change a couple of words in that thought, you might find yourself shocked at your own thinking. (Examples of prejudices that are horrifying to most people: fat=black / slob=stupid / willpower=brains, fat=woman / slob=intelligence / willpower=sense).

Then there's the fact that, like the other prejudices mentioned, it's probably not true. It's much more likely that the person you are judging so harshly is just a person, like you or anyone else, who reacts to food differently than you do. There's a good chance that they're much more aware of their weight than you could ever be, and odds are that they're catching sight of themselves in that store window even as you look at them, and they're thinking thoughts about themselves that you would be appalled to hear.

Life as a fat person isn't all bon bons and luxuriating in your couch potato-ness. The real picture is that it's a study in self-hatred, self-abuse, and constantly being told by society at large that you're sub-human. Think about it the next time that you watch a movie and see the fat sight gag, because maybe it won't be quite so funny.

Are your phone calls safe? Phone records have always been available to government agencies when there is cause to access them. However, that has changed in the post 9/11 world, and now the government has carte blanche to access whatever information they so choose, without having to go through the bother of showing cause or necessity. I'm not sure about how others feel, but I know that this kind of Big Brother approach to government makes me very, very nervous.

I have no doubt that there will be people out there who say that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. No offense, my friends with the rose-coloured view, but that point of view is a fallacy. As is the thought that it is unpatriotic to question your government. The Founding Fathers are probably crying tears of disappointment wherever they are right now, because the principles that they fought for are slowly being eroded.

Take this masterpiece of wordplay presented by our Commander-in-Chief today:

"We are not mining or trolling through the personal lives of innocent Americans,"

So apparently the tens of millions of persons whose phone records they have accessed, mined and trolled through, and otherwise commandeered from the phone companies, those people are obviously not innocent Americans. If they were innocent, their records wouldn't have been accessed.

Again, if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Right? Riiiiiight...

I end this with another quote, one that I find to be more and more applicable in our times:

The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve, nor will he ever receive, either. - Benjamin Franklin

Say it again, Ben. You got it right.

So I've started a blog here. I already have a LiveJournal account, but I figured that I'd try it over here too as a lot of people seem to like this site. So we'll see how this goes. I'm trying to decide what to use this particular blog for. It's tempting to use it as a political blog, commentary on the modern world and all that rot. I wonder, though, who would find that even remotely interesting, though. After all, I'm not a famous political pundit. I'm just an average person trying to survive in rather insane times.

Then again, maybe more of us average folke need to speak up about these so-called "interesting times" that we live in. More voices need to be heard when the government seems to be going from "by the people, for the people" to "by the profit, for the bottom line", and when the President of the United States is more concerned about whether his oil buddies are making the most profit possible than he is about whether the average person can afford to get to work every day because gas prices are so high.

I warn you now, I lean strongly toward the left, though I have moments when I suddenly arch back toward the conservative side. I do enjoy a good debate, though, as long as it remains a debate rather than an argument.

So...if you're not already bored, then I look forward to a fun ride together. Let's explore this world we're in, and see what we can see.

If you are bored, well then I doubt you've read this far anyway. :)