quote:I don't think you meant it that way, but this feels like a personal attack. It's true that it's difficult to find some produce in MN, and that that may influence the shape of people here, but by saying something like that, you negate the personal choice edict that you yourself introduced! You implied that if people were overweight, it was because of choices that they had made that they were responsible for. How can you reconcile that with the comments you're making about the Midwest?
It's a little bit of this, and a little bit of that. If your parents don't eat well, don't feed you well, and don't encourage healthy habits and a general respect for your body, everyone in your class is overweight, and it's hard to get fresh produce, I'm not going to blame a 17 year old who is morbidly overweight, that's like trying a kid for a felony.
quote:That said, the reason that, as you say, people in the midwest are bigger than people in California or what have you is that generally speaking we come from similar genetic stock, people that were all from colder countries in Europe and were therefore more likely to stand up to the cold climates we have in the midwest.
You can talk all that jive about genetic stock, but from what I saw, it seemed that more people ate like s***, the weather kept people inside, and it was harder to get produce. All of these are reasons, and none of them are excuses.
posted
I don't know how much s*** you talk, I am never going to look like this, and it's not because of how I live.
Being very thin necessitates a certain bodytype, one that I don't and that no one in my family has. The cold truth is that some people have dark skin because they come from sunny climates, and some people have larger body types and more fat deposits because they come from cold climates.
I personally find that I get a lot of use out of my scandinavian heritage. I can live fairly comfortably with an indoor temperature of 60. I'm not often cold when others around me complain of it. I also have more muscle than many of the men around me.
I hope you understand how ridiculous it is to deny the genetic portion of weight composition.
LadyDove- I love how when you go to the link, the women on the page aren't even nearly obese, and I doubt that most of them are even overweight.
posted
Irami, cold changes the metabolism a lot, and it *does* change the body type across the continent. People are often thinner in AZ and CA than in the midwest because the warmer weather causes major differences in metabolism. If it is cold, your body goes into "hibernation" mode and tries to store more fat to keep warm. And it directly affects your activity levels too. And peoples bodies change to accomodate the difference. It isn't unhealthy, its the way we evolved to live in cold climates. In AZ people are thin because the less fat you have the cooler your body stays.
posted
The further from the equator you are, the less sunlight you get and thus you are more prone to craving carbs for the insulin/seratonin/melatonin cycle. On that same note, "freshman forty" could be related to the sleep deprivation college students subject themselves too.
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The "freshman forty," that's a regional difference. At Cal, it was the freshman fifteen, and that was a joke.
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There is a reason why the rest of the country views CA as a bunch of stuck up beautiful people and health nut wackos, "fruits, flakes and nuts" Sadly many of the stereotypes of my native state are actually true. I realize how many of my friends in CA had various eating disorders, actually more guys than girls, and it makes me sad. Particularly because it was the most attractive people that never thought they were good enough.
quote: I remember seeing Ariel Sharon, Dick Cheney, and another world leader with a Sharon sized belly at conference, and I remember thinking, "These fat guys are going to go into a room and divvy up the world."
As long as you recognize your own prejudice, Irami, you can start dealing with it. (FWIW, it was the "freshman fifteen" when I was in college in Ohio, too. I'd never even heard of a "freshman forty.")
posted
It was the Freshman Fifteen when I was in school, but this new phrase might shed light on exactly why doctors are now concerned with the epidemic of obesity in America.
quote:Probably 20 of it was muscle mass - I weighed 125 when I went to school and I was just about 6'.
If you are 6' feet tall and 125 pounds, I imagine that you can put on 50 pounds and your body would probably thank you for it.
Kat,
I didn't know I had a thesis and an argument, but if I had one, it would be too many people are obese owing to their poor habits, choices, and priorities, and some people should feel bad about their size, owing to their poor habits, choices, and priorities, and be motivated to do something about it.
I imagine my feeling is akin to the anxiousness Mrs.M feels anytime she sees someone wearing white shoes in December. _______
As an aside, personal responsibility isn't just for poor inner city kids. The same principles I'm trying to get kids to appreciate would do well in helping out obese America. The same part of me that wonders what went wrong when I see a 15 year old who can't read, wonders what went wrong when I see a 40 year old who is obese.
posted
Irami: You are conveniently leaving out the uglier parts of what you have said, which includes that running a business is undignified and inhumane, that people wearing suits are dangerous, that being overweight is a sign of a degenerate moral character, and that white people are automatically not to be trusted.
The underlying theme is that a life that differs from yours - deliberately low income, devotion to looks and your body, purposefully placing sharp criticism to a theoretical ideal above caring for other people - is morally suspect.
posted
I've read only the first page, I'm in my comp science lab so i can't read it all so I'll say this. Being a lightly over wieght and big boned person I agree with any effort that takes the pressure off of me. However I do agree with health excersise and out door activities to be generally healthy. I'm helping my friends to form our schools new LARP club my char will be a Samurai, I intend to lose 20 pounds by next semester so I can get over my shyness and get a girlfriend.
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quote:You are conveniently leaving out the uglier parts of what you have said, which includes that running a business is undignified and inhumane, that people wearing suits are dangerous, that being overweight is a sign of a degenerate moral character, and that white people are automatically not to be trusted.
I'm not going to say that I stand by this sentence, but in a general sense, it's not inaccurate. Each clause has qualifiers, of course, but the one about white people not to be automatically trusted is darn near perfect. Nobody should be automatically trusted, and for the most part, nobody else is.
posted
But the sentence above doesn't say that white people are not to be automatically trusted, it says that white people are automatically not to be trusted, a semantic difference that has a large impact.
Would you or anyone you know take offense if I said that black people were automatically not to be trusted? Or native american? Or asian? I think your logic is completely ridiculous and hypocritical.
posted
The way you phrased it above really didn't seem like clarifying. I apologize if I mistook your speech.
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Irami, when people judge you, they're racist? But you get a free pass to judge everyone??? Whatever, dude...nice consistency there. Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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quote:Irami, when people judge you, they're racist?
The funny thing is, I've called people fat, evil, shameful, guilty, sinister, jackasses, worthless,and any number of contemptuous epithets, but I don't think I've ever called anyone a racist and meant it as a pejorative. People have assumed I have, despite everything I've ever said to the opposite.
If anyone had ever thought to ask, I'd be perfectly willing to say that there is a time and a place to judge solely based on race. For scientific reasons, "Should I wear a 15 sunblock or a 45 sunblock"? or for sociological reasons, as there are huge differences in priorities, it almost goes down to the phenomenological level, that are inspired by disparate racial legacies and narratives. I don't know why some white people are so intent on being stupidly color-blind that they can't see what's in their face. Howard Dean was right about the hotel staff at the RNC. Chris Rock was right about the Oscars, and to an extent, OSC was right when he said:
quote:"When black people know they're the majority of the audience, they don't follow all those white-people rules about prim audience behavior...It's like going to church. In African-American culture, most folks don't think that church is about sitting silently while the preacher edifies them and the choir sings. They answer the preacher all the time; they sing along or move to the music.
It only makes sense that they respond to movies the same way -- out loud, exuberantly. American blacks don't show respect by being silent -- they show love by opening up their hearts and making noise about it.
Don't think for a minute that when Tyler Perry wrote Diary and Darren Grant directed it that they weren't absolutely counting on the audience being part of the show.
I know there are plenty of white folks who would absolutely love this movie -- but who probably won't go because it makes them uncomfortable to be the only white people in a huge, enthusiastic crowd of blacks.
This is not racism per se, it's human nature. Whenever you feel yourself to be in a minority, it makes you edgy and less comfortable.[Irami's take: I don't think this is human nature. I think it's the result of having a society that worships and abuses the slim virtues of majority rule. If we could trust people to abide by a sense of decency rather glorifying the institutionalized rape of 49% or fewer, this wouldn't be an issue.]
The thing to remember is, that's how black people feel all the time when they are out in the white-dominated world. If they can handle it, so can you.
Is that racist, sure. Is it an appropriate observation. It should be taken seriously. It should be thought about. I don't know if I wholly agree, but I think it's a fine stab.
For example, there was an article in the nytimes on how Jews and black women are slow to vote for the death penalty, and so prosecution lawyers kick them off of the jury, and you know what, defense lawyers get rid of WASPs with the same vigor. Is that racist? Sure. Is it perfectly appropriate? You bet.
If anybody wants to understand my complicated views on racial profiling, start another thread.
posted
Ryuko--My sweet girl, I have always thought you were the most beutiful creation I have ever seen or made.
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Welcome welcome Aunty Eem! You might want to start your own "Hi, I'm new here, and thought I'd introduce myself" thread. If you want to. You're still welcome either way. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Thanx, quidscribis, for the advice I am very new at this. Ryuko has been bugging me for years, it seems, to join the forum.
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quote:I don't think I've ever called anyone a racist and meant it as a pejorative.
Irami
quote: Legacy admits weren't enough, white people needed to put in a legacy section on the test. I'm not convinced either test [the old SAT or the new SAT] tests more than ones willingness to jump through the Man's hoops, the Jim Crow excuses are what's ridiculous.
Irami, on the Tricknology thread, complaining about bias for whites, and against blacks and asians. True, you never used the word 'racist' on that thread. But you might as well have.
And you seem very judgemental to me, certainly on this thread.
But I agree that my comment above was unfair in that your attitude towards racism is complex and nuanced, and I couldn't find a post where you called anyone racist. So I am sorry. I almost deleted my post right after I made it, then someone quoted it, so I left it. Then the quoter deleted theirs! Oh well.
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posted
I think the new SAT idioms section is a tool devised by white people too mitigate the butt-whooping asians are giving them on the SAT. In this case, racism is merely the vehicle for them to express their tendency toward a-hole.
I figured out my problem with "on the contrary" v. "to the contrary." I was tutoring someone on the test, and I missed the question, and I couldn't figure out why. And it bugged me. Well, the answer is "on the contrary," despite my telling the kid an answer to the contrary.
So why are both of them on my tongue, "on the contrary" is an idiom born from Doyle's Sherlock homles, and "to the contrary" is perfectly adequate English, but since this is an idioms section, they wanted the student to have been touched by Doyle's writing. Give me all of the excuses you want about how a passing familiarity with a Doyle coined idiom is appropriate for the SAT, and I'll still say that it's a bunch of bull, devised by white people because they were tired watching the increasing tide of high-scoring immigrants surpass their kids.
posted
Kids don't read Sherlock Holmes these days anyway. I'm amazed they still had it in the kids section (even if I had to blow the dust off of it to read it) considering the amount of drug usage in that book.
posted
You see, Scott, all white kids go to a secret room where men in suits give them the answers and make them promise to share with anybody black.
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posted
I would have said "to the contrary" most likely. Of course, now that I've read them both they both sound right. I'll have to wait and catch myself in casual converation to see which pops out of my mouth.
I also don't like the weighting of the verbal (though this is the first I've heard of it) and I think an Idiom section of the test is nonsense.
But then, I'm a math and science girl. A weighting of Verbal and an Idiot section of the test would have really messed up my score.
Good thing I only ever took the ACT...
Wait.. come to think of it... Was that why there were so many more Verbal sections on the GRE than Math and Analysis?????? Aren't they done by the same people???
"On the contrary" follows the same language pattern as "on the other hand". Add "side" to the end of the phrase, and you can see why it reads that way. An antithecal statement contradicts the thesis said before, so it is on the contrary side.
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Comfort with idioms come from, and almost exclusively from, reading everything, and a wide variety of everything. All those sections - idioms, vocabulary, reading comprehension - those all measure how much someone reads and how much they pay attention when they do.
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But I've noticed that Irami has pulled his time-honored of, when backed into a corner and proven wrong, slinging around reasons why everyone but him is guilty.
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quote:Kids don't read Sherlock Holmes these days anyway. I'm amazed they still had it in the kids section (even if I had to blow the dust off of it to read it) considering the amount of drug usage in that book.
AJ, that's kind of the issue. Kids don't read Holmes like they used to. White kids or black kids, but the phrase, "On the contrary, my dear Watson," is common currency in institutionally white circles because there was a time when exclusively white kids did read Holmes, so even if Buffy and Biff are familiar with the idiom because they heard their uncle use it while ribbing their dad or they heard Chandler use it while ribbing Joey on an episode of Friends, that's still one more question they are going to get right that Pei and Vijay are going to miss for a stupid reason.
Scott,
quote: The really amazing part of all this? You seem to actually believe white kids will know the difference.
Yes. There is a huge "achievement" gap that manifests around fourth grade for this exact issue.
kat/Javert/Lady Jane/FriscoProofKatAlias,
quote:But I've noticed that Irami has pulled his time-honored of, when backed into a corner and proven wrong, slinging around reasons why everyone but him is guilty.
I thought morbo raised the issue of why I think everyone but me is guilty.
________ Ward Churchill got in a lot of trouble for calling the inhabitants of the trade center "little Eichmanns." I may not agree with his characterization of those particular people in the trade center, but I sympathize with his reasons and I think that Eichmanns abound, willfully ignorant while sloppily brandishing their privilege and "just following orders."
posted
You are right, Tom, I misspoke. But I do think I'm more aware than most, though, and I do believe that that quality is a virtue. I think think a small cadre of white people proposed this section because they couldn't stand the increasing number of immigrants dominating a "merit" based test, and a huge swath of white people decided fall in step and make excuses for the obvious impropriety in the test.
I don't mind the small cadre. That they exist isn't a big deal, that they are in positions to decide what "merit" is isn't a big deal, but I'm laying blame and shame upon people who are making excuses to accept this standard.
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my char will be a Samurai, I intend to lose 20 pounds by next semester so I can get over my shyness and get a girlfriend.
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