An American Lion

Friday

Jul302010

I Don't Call it Fatass Nation for Nothing

Friday, July 30, 2010

I would rather not see your muu muu riding up like that, Ma'am.Are there still some sensitive souls out there who don't want to hear the truth? We are living in Fatass Nation. A self-centered, overfed country full of chattering boobs is slouching toward a self-amused rendezvous with oblivion. We need to slim down, toughen up, think of the common good, and put an end to tomfoolery, grabassing, and spirited hijinks. No more excuses. Start walking!

Why am I thinking that the use of the word "cranky" here is intended to defend a useless generation from criticism?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a former Eagle Scout, addressed the Boy Scout jamboree being held at Virginia’s Fort A.P. Hill.—and struck a decidedly cranky tone.

In his Wednesday speech, Gates said that young Americans are “increasingly physically unfit,” and cast doubts their character, too. QuotingWalter Lippman, Gates said he sees daily “the disaster of the character of men” and “the catastrophe of the soul.”

But, he was quick to add, not among Boy Scouts.

“At a time when many American young people are turning into couch potatoes, and too often much worse, scouting continues to challenge boys and young men, preparing you for leadership,” Gates said.

Gates praised scouting for pushing young people into the wilderness to learn both about nature and self reliance. He also said the Boy Scout’s great contribution was encouraging public service. “The scouting movement shows dramatically that service, public service, still beckons the best among us to do battle with complacency, neglect, intolerance, and the emptiness of the spirit that are the common enemies of social peace and justice,” he said.

The Boy Scouts are just another paramilitary organization, you know.

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Wednesday

Jul282010

This is Not the Blizzard I Want

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Forget the veal; have a Pecan Blizzard, CletusDairy Queen is one of those great American companies that loves to serve up crap so that their customers drop dead once they ingest the processed food. You can trace the bodies to the front door--well, not literally, but still. It's Fatass Nation, and Wal-Mart sells a lot of "Dairy Queen" ready clothing to the hoi polloi. Did you know grey shorts with a drawstring come in size XXXXL? What's that worth to you?

It's a case that has left Dairy Queen cold.

The fast food and ice cream chain has asked a court to stop a southern California rival from selling a frozen yogurt with a name similar to Blizzard, its biggest-selling menu item.

Yogubliz Inc had on May 17 filed a lawsuit seeking an order that would "eliminate any doubt" its sale of Blizzberry and Blizz Frozen Yogurt products did not infringe any Dairy Queen trademark and was not likely to confuse customers.

The Downey, California-based company said it sued after receiving a letter from Dairy Queen lawyers threatening litigation if it did not stop using "Blizz" and surrender its "Blizzberry" trademark, effectively putting it "out of business."

But in a 30-page response filed Monday in Los Angeles federal court, Dairy Queen said Yogubliz was causing confusion with the Blizzard, a soft-serve ice cream also blended with candy, cookie pieces and other mix-ins.

I don't know how this case has any merit, but I'm not surprised it was filed. The Blizzard has only been around for 25 years. That's really not that long. Since ice cream is cold, and since blizzards are made up of a whirlwind of snow, how can you say that you've "trademarked" the term Blizzard? McDonald's affixed their ever-present "Mc" to the "McFlurry" and those things are just disgusting. Did Dairy Queen go after Mickey D's? Or did someone laugh their evil laugh and let it go?

What's doing damage to the companies who make this food is not trademark infringement; it's the fact that their customers are becoming overfed lardasses who are exploding in size and rampaging through society, food dribbling from their fifth chin. They roll around town on wax-like cankles and shove through double-doors into a Dairy Queen and eat six or seven of these things after wandering out of The Honey Baked Ham store. When someone finally rings the dinner bell, they hoist up their waistband, huff through a few breathless steps, and then collapse on the ground outside of the restaurant, their blubbery eye sockets fixed on the sky as they expire on the pavement.

The truth is, many of these "cease and desist" lawsuits are just for show. Some companies go nuts trying to find out if their trademarks or patents have been infringed upon--it has the added advantage of giving them free advertising in the newspaper (and now on my wonderful blog).

Whatever the case may be, let's not forget that the product in question is sugar and very little else, injected into the bloated belly fat of people eating and slouching and stumbling their way to an early death. Is there a healthy version of the Blizzard out there? Go check the Blizzard Blog.

I'm simply not that pathetic yet.

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Friday

Jul162010

Nothing Makes it Easier to Date Girls Than Walking Around Nude in Public

Friday, July 16, 2010

Crissy Moran is nude beach approvedTrust me on this one, I know of which I speak.

When a man can walk around naked, unencumbered by the censorship of clothing and fashion, it demonstrates to the available women out there what you're all about. As soon as I figure out how to carry my clothes in a fashionable bag when I'm visiting a nudity-approved area here in Germany, I'll get back to you on how things shake out:

Any traveler to Europe who's visited a bath, perused a newsstand, hung out at a beach or park on a sunny day, or channel-surfed broadcast TV late at night has noticed that Europeans are more relaxed than Americans about nudity.

In the south of France, sunbathing grandmothers have no tan lines. In Norway, young children play naked in fountains. On summer days, accountants in Munich head to the park on their lunch break to grin and bare it, trading corporate suits for birthday suits.

It's quite a shock to Americans (they're the ones riding their bikes into the river and trees).

In Belgium, huge billboards advertise soap by showing a woman's lathered-up breasts. A Copenhagen student tourist center welcomes visitors with a bowl of free condoms at their info desk.

I'm not comfortable with all of this, though I do think Americans tend to be overly prudish. But if you can leave your inhibitions at home, you can better appreciate some of the amazing experiences Europehas to offer. In Finland, a trip to a public sauna -- warmed by a wood-fired stove topped with rocks -- not only feels good, but is a living slice of this culture.

Being 65 is sort of a drawback. Things do tend to sag. Fortunately, I've had enough surgery to help the "problem areas" where sagging makes people look at you like an old sandwich that's been folded the wrong way (we use a doctor on St. Thomas who stopped drinking a few years ago and decided to specialize in cosmetic surgery for older people).

In my case, a lifetime of being tall and slim has certainly helped. Walking has turned my legs into hickory limbs. The hardest part about public nudity for me is to give up my duck pants; I need to have pockets and I need to stay organized. What do you do with car keys when you're butt naked? Do you get a lanyard and wear them around your neck?

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Wednesday

Jun302010

Today's Most Obvious Headline

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Now THAT'S a butt crackAmericans are getting fatter? No kidding?

A study released Tuesday by the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that obesity rates increased in 28 states last year. Mississippi continued its six-year reign as the country's fattest state in the study's yearly rankings, along with the highest rates of physical inactivity and hypertension. The state also has the second highest rate of diabetes.

And while most parents think childhood obesity is a problem, they don't believe it affects their own children.

The annual obesity report by two public health groups includes a new survey of parental attitudes about the issue. The survey shows an increasing awareness of obesity and its threat to public health.

"This report shows that the country has taken bold steps to address the obesity crisis in recent years, but the nation's response has yet to fully match the magnitude of the problem," said Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the Trust for America's Health, which writes the annual report with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Welcome to Fatass Nation. We all need to walk more and eat less. If you can run, please do. If you can't because your cankles are rolling up and down and slapping your kneecap and your big toe, start walking back and forth to the trash can to throw out some of that processed food you've been ramming into your gullet for days on end.

I'm afraid that it's going to take a war where we get beaten because none of our troops could run fast enough to get to the helicopter to get the bullets they needed to stop the enemy from stealing all of their food. Humiliation seems to be the only thing that motivates people to do what they're supposed to be doing in the first place and that's trying to find a healthier way to live. Oh, I do believe in freedom. You're free to eat yourself into a coma and roll onto the floor and die there. I'm free to look away and talk about the benefits of walking, eating better, and then having a great deal of sex with women I barely know.

Want to increase your stamina? Don't drink Red Bull. Walk four or five miles a day and throw down something with salad in it or on it. Makes a huge difference, sir. And remember to shave. I can't stress this enough. Having stubble on your chin ruins your chances of intimacy with certain types of women. Always shave and keep things clean and serviceable.

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Thursday

Jun242010

Find a Way to Cut the Salt Any Way You Can

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Yes, it's salt

Your uncle Norman likes to preach, and I preach a mean gospel. Walk a lot. I've started a blog about walking; you should already have it bookmarked. I think people should be prodded into walking in any way possible. Walk yourself to fitness; do not eat yourself thinner. And, for Pete's sake--find a way to cut the salt out of your diet:

Nine out of 10 Americans eat too much salt with most of them getting more than twice the recommended amount, according to a survey by U.S. government researchers.

They said an estimated 77 percent of dietary sodium comes from processed foods and restaurant foods.

"Sodium has become so pervasive in our food supply that it's difficult for the vast majority of Americans to stay within recommended limits," said Janelle Peralez Gunn, public health analyst with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who led the study of salt consumption.

"Public health professionals, together with food manufacturers, retailers and healthcare providers, must take action now to help support people's efforts to reduce their sodium consumption," Peralez Gunn said in a statement.

The study said most Americans consume 3,466 milligrams of sodium a day, more than twice the recommended limit. Much of the excess sodium comes from foods like pizza, cookies and meats, it said.

Want to know what will really change your outlook?

Leave the United States. Briefly. Or, do what I'm doing and hide out overseas until the Census workers stop trying to find me. Get out and see the world. See how the people in wherever the heck do things. Eat the food. Drink the water. Live among them. Explore, walk, and eat better. It will do wonders for you. I love America. But the food will kill you. In April, I had a conniption when some fool said that people should be free to receive their poison through the over-salted food they are served. What a false belief in liberty. No one has the right to poison you, sir. It will bloat you and kill you as sure as I'm sitting here feeling ten times better than I did a year ago.

Where I am living right now, there are dozens of walking paths and trails going in all directions for miles on end. The food is fabulous. The food will make you cry it's so good. Why, two weeks ago I had a cut of pork covered in a white cream sauce with portobello mushrooms. It was shake-the-table and holler at the ceiling good. Eat the bread overseas. Go and pull an onion up out of the ground and crunch on it with your teeth and taste the onion and little bit of the dirt. Oh, don't be scared.

It will revive you.

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Friday

May282010

A Five Hour Golf Game?

Friday, May 28, 2010

This is an old story, freshly linked today at the otherwise unreadable Drudge Report, but it is useful to remember:

The First Golfer brought his duffer’s game to Martha’s Vineyard this week [August, 2009]. By Thursday, Mr. Obama had logged three golf games in four days, appearing at one island course after another. He spent five hours on Monday afternoon playing 18 holes at the Farm Neck Golf Club here, two and a half hours on Tuesday playing nine holes at Mink Meadows Golf Club in Vineyard Haven, and several hours playing Thursday afternoon at the Vineyard Golf Club in Edgartown.

While Mr. Obama has indulged in other vacation activities — he took his family bike riding Thursday morning, went to the beach on Wednesday and took his wife to dinner Tuesday night — golf has been the only recurring one.

So, clearly, the president likes to hit the links. But is he any good at it, especially compared with his predecessors?

“His golf games are long because he’s not very good,” said Don Van Natta Jr., a reporter for The New York Times who wrote “First Off the Tee: Presidential Hackers, Duffers and Cheaters From Taft to Bush” (PublicAffairs, 2003).

I mean, it's good to know. It's not like spending five hours playing golf means anything anymore, what with all of this peace and prosperity America is drowning in.

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Wednesday

May192010

This Thing Is Going to Kill a Lot of People in Fatass Nation

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The KFC Double DownI have, in the past, sung the praises of Kentucky Fried Chicken's grilled yardbird. I know what the common people like, and I know what I like, and I do like good food.

You should have the right to eat things that are bad for you. I have no qualms about that. America, though, has become Fatass Nation, and, what that means is, the freedom to eat horrible things has turned America into a loathesome land of simpering blubber butts. And that's not really what bothers me; what bothers me is the whining about that. The pathetic whining, insert reference to Oprah here, about something that, in all but a few cases, is simply about being conscientious and careful about what a person eats. If you're fat, and you have a medical condition that causes it, no harm no foul. I hope you get well. If you're fat and don't care if you're fat, so be it. If you're fat and you carp and whine about it and blame it on anyone or anything except your own propensity to dip taco shells into Crisco for a midnight snack, please. Please.

Have some dignity.

That being said, there's no excuse for this thing:

KFC says Americans are gobbling down so many Double Down sandwiches that the fast-food chain will offer the bunless, meaty sandwich longer than it had planned.

Originally the sandwich — bacon and cheese surrounded by chicken filets — was to have been available through Sunday.

It's really a matter of serving up something unwittingly unhealthy, and maybe someone needs to take a look at this sort of practice.

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Wednesday

May192010

Campbell Brown Gets Out of the Way

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Give the people what they want--Jennifer Aniston's crotch!I love it when failure makes a person tell the truth*:

Campbell Brown, pretending to be a journalistOnce again, a star anchor is leaving CNN. This time it is Campbell Brown, and she is leaving with an extraordinary amount of candor.

In a heartfelt statement on Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Brown said she was leaving on her own accord, having concluded that she was unable to compete with the opinion-mongers that dominate cable news in prime time.

“The simple fact is that not enough people want to watch my program, and I owe it to myself and to CNN to get out of the way so that CNN can try something else,” she wrote. “CNN will have to figure out what that is.”

CNN, a unit of Time Warner, announced no immediate plan to replace Ms. Brown, who said she would remain during a transition period.

In a little more than six months, the channel has also lost the controversial anchor Lou Dobbs and the foreign correspondent and anchor Christiane Amanpour.

For the last two years, Ms. Brown has tried to hold down the toughest time slot in cable news, 8 p.m. Eastern, the same time that Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC go head-to-head.

Compared with those bombastic opinion shows, her weeknight news program, titled “Campbell Brown,” has struggled to gain an audience. It has attracted an average of 591,000 viewers so far this year, while “Countdown” on MSNBC has averaged one million, and “The O’Reilly Factor” from Fox, 3.34 million.

The numbers are deceiving, however. The millions who watch O'Reilly are usually old, futzy, and broke. Advertisers can't really sell anything to old, futzy and broke. The million or so who watch Olbermann are so angry they don't know where their money is anymore. They're walking around in a stumbling, blind rage. The only thing they're buying is Advil and weed.

What Brown should have done is offer the exact opposite of what Olbermann and O'Reilly are offering. She should have offered something that would confirm our worst suspicions about ourselves--we're a bunch of tubby fat baby dumb heads. She should have hosted an hour long infomercial on butt toning and gut busting situps. She should have sold Americans on the idea that they can look like Jennifer Aniston after Jennifer Aniston has possibly used Ex-Lax for eight straight days trying to lose enough weight to appear in a staged photograph used to sell water to idiots. She should have done a show about helping fatties hide their cellulite. She should have focused on the lowest possible common denominator--fear of being humiliated for being a lardass.

That's how you succeed in America now. Don't offer entertainment, news, or information. Offer an unrealistic way of looking like Jennifer Aniston to people who look like oversized futons being rolled through the snack aisle at Wal-Mart in boiled meat.

*even for me, this is pretty bad

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