Juvenile Comedy
Let me just put it out there: I have disliked Tosh.0 from the start.
I find him nothing but mean-spirited, getting cheap laughs from teasing just about everyone he can. Many people think that since he is an “equal opportunity basher” his comedy is OK. I, however, find it is NOT funny to slam anybody or anything just to get “laughs.” He rips on blacks, stupid teens, fat people, the poor, ugly, etc. This time, though, he has simply gone TOO far.
Wednesday, I awoke and did my usual AM internet rounds to Yahoo!, Discovery News and then, finally, Facebook. I found out that this picture had been put up on his website, inviting his followers to write “funny” captions.
I was horrified that the picture was there. I was even MORE horrified by a handful of the hateful comments (out of 2,000 of them) like :
Beneath all of that skin is a beautiful vagina, waiting to be fucked….and waiting….and waiting
She’ll get picked up soon, I see a garbage truck coming.
Quick get me to occupy Wall Street, I hear they are raping people down there.
Never mind the rape and slut-shaming jokes, but the very worst thing was HOW they got this picture. It belongs to fat activist and artist Substantia Jones, and is a part of her Adipositivity Project.
This just makes my blood boil.
HOW DARE THEY!!!!
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Fat, Families, and Government Fear
Trigger warning: Discussion of a child whose mother tried to make him lose weight and the people who most recently made him lose weight.
Last November, the never-ending panic over childhood obesity was fueled further by the story of an 8 year-old Cleveland, Ohio boy who was taken away from his mother and placed into protective care by the Department of Children and Family Services because he weighed over 200 pounds. Medical experts who examined the child said his weight was not the result of a medical condition, but of poor diet. The mother, who said she was actively trying to decrease his weight to no avail, fought to keep her son and failed.
Following the story, it seemed everyone in the medical community and the media had an opinion on whether fat children should be taken away from their parents. While many agreed with the decision the DCFS made, many also thought it was wrong (although not for entirely altruistic reasons).
Well, just last week, that same third grade boy was returned to his mother after his weight decreased to 166 pounds (173 at the time the article was written). DCFS agreed to close their case and the mother’s lawyer was pleased, saying,
We are happy the county terminated protective services. We think the case was ill-advised. Our plan was to get him out of the system as soon as possible. This whole thing has been about his weight with no concern to his emotional state.
That’s something that a lot of us in this community always stress when it comes to fat shaming.
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I Hate Confrontations
About three weeks ago, I bought a new-to-me bicycle at a local resale shop. It’s a Schwinn 21 Speed Mountain bike. It’s a higher-end model, one with the shocks on both the front and rear axles and gear changers in the handle bars. It’s a sweet bike, and I’m looking forward to riding it.
When I bought it, it had two flat tires, and one of the tires had to be completely replaced because it was in that bad shape. Also, as it is a 21 speed (and the highest speed bike I’d ever owned before was a 10 speed), the hubby and I decided to take it to the nearest bike shop that does repairs and have it checked out. While Conall checked it out when we bought it (checked the gear change mechanism, brakes, the chain to make sure it wasn’t about to break, that type of thing), he hasn’t had a bike since the 1970s, and that was a 10 speed as well.
The bike was so inexpensive we figured that even if we had to invest $400 for it to be in tip top shape, I’d still be getting an awesome deal. And if we overlooked a major problem that would be too expensive to repair, we weren’t out anything.
So, a week after I bought the bike, I called the bike shop to see about taking it in. The bike shop had a two-week wait, and they could schedule me for an appointment for May 17, last Thursday. Of course, I made the appointment.
On Wednesday, Conall and I took the bike to the shop.
As soon as we walked in, we were greeted, which was nice. The young man at the front counter then engaged Conall in a discussion of the bike. Every time I said something, he ignored me. At one point he even talked over me so he could ask Conall a question, the answer of which I was already telling him. It wasn’t until the employee (referred to from now on as DE, for Douchebag Employee) saw that the appointment was in my name that he started to talk to me, and that was at the very end of the encounter.
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What’s Happenin’ —
It occurred to me that perhaps we need an introduction page for our little community for those who fall into our clutches without expectations, including our various policies that are scattered throughout our vast archives.
We’ve had a few people pop in who blurt out random bigotry and/or ignorance, and it may help the dimmer among us to stay focused if we installed some sort of How To manual to set expectations.
Let’s start with the name: why Fierce, Freethinking Fatties?
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No More Excuses
In the minds of fat-hating trolls, fat people are always looking for excuses to be fat and Fat Acceptance enables them to do just this. Fat Acceptance itself is the ultimate excuse for the massive human failure that is being fat.
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Life in Flashing Neon
Our final blogger for Autism Week certainly needs no introduction — the indomitable Shaunta of Live Once, Juicy.
When I was 22 years old, I went into the hospital one December day and was sent home the next with a gorgeous bundle of never-quiet, never-sleeping baby boy I called Nicholas. Now, I’m 40 and that boy is 18. Still Nicholas. Still never quiet. Still rarely sleeps. Still gorgeous.
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The Blame Game
Today’s post is from regular reader and commenter Karen, whose comments on the media’s coverage of the obesity/autism research inspired this week.
I am known by many labels: daughter, sister (both biological and adopted), wife, mother, lover, friend, blog wife, singer, musician, geek, and, yes, FAT. I may hold some labels closer to my heart than others, but they are all me. The most important ones for this exercise are mother and fat.
Perhaps a bit of explanation is needed. My beautiful, funny, looks-exactly-like-his-father-so-I-question-if-I-even-donated-any-DNA, incredibly sweet, amazingly smart, and (for the sake of this post) autistic son was diagnosed as such when he was 4 years old.
That was 5 years ago.
Unlike many parents, upon hearing this diagnosis, I didn’t burst into tears.
I didn’t shake.
I didn’t panic.
I didn’t even scream to the heavens, “WHY US?!?”
I quietly nodded and started working on the next step: getting him the best education we could afford, given our incredibly limited resources.
I was damned lucky. At the time, my mother was a special needs elementary school teacher and my mother-in-law taught regular elementary education. So I had some pretty freaking awesome backup for this new journey. My unexpected trip to Holland wasn’t going to turn me into a contestant on my own personal episode of Fear Factor because I had (and have) awesomeness on my side. Sure, there were questions of what the hell we do from our position, but that’s what research is for. That’s what experts are for. I was on a roll!
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Speaking for Myself
The following post is by CC, a regular reader and commenter who also has Asperger’s syndrome.
Imagine, if you will, that there’s a group called, say, Fatties Speak. On the surface, they seem to support Health at Every Size (HAES), and the idea that fat people aren’t freaks of nature, but rather people born into a different phenotype. Imagine, though, that its actual aim was not to reach out to fat people, but to their family members, to say that they understood their “grief” and that they knew what was best for these poor, sad fat people. Imagine that members of this group’s leadership gave TV and radio interviews, produced web videos, and, as a result, raised millions of dollars (in corporate sponsorships alone, including $12 million in donations through Toys R Us) to speak out against the epidemic of fatness and how it needs to be completely eradicated (not really a huge stretch).
That is exactly what Autism Speaks does to us. And by us, I mean the living, breathing human beings who happen to have some variety of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
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Today’s Autism Week post comes from Kala, a friend and regular reader and commenter on Fierce Fatties, who’s grasp on statistical analysis I frequently rely on to ensure that I’m accurately describing the research I’ve analyzed. I’ve asked Kala to read this study and comment on it because this issue is too important for amateurs to handle.
Disclosure: It is not my purpose today to debunk this study, or to nitpick the methods used, because I personally believe it to be a good study, written by responsible scientists. I feel that the bulk of the problem surrounding the title issue is the attention it caught from the media, and the misinterpretations that reverberated through many circles because of that attention.
What I hope to accomplish with this article is to inform readers on the study that was released in early April in the journal of Pediatrics, which examined maternal obesity, among other variables, during pregnancy as a risk factor for autism and developmental delays. This paper spurred a sudden outbreak of media attention on the connection between obesity and autism. You may remember such pithy headlines as:
- “Mom’s obesity tied to child’s autism, development: study” (Reuters)
- “Autism may be linked to obesity during pregnancy” (USA Today)
- “Study finds link between autism and obesity during pregnancy” (Los Angeles Times)
Such headlines might seem at first glance to indicate that maternal obesity and autism are inextricably linked, but further reading of the actual articles showed a more nuanced, if not complete, understanding. (Warning: The vast bulk of the comments on any of these articles were unenlightened, and I don’t recommend reading them for those who are triggered by insulting language and general negativity).
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Staring at Goats —
If you’ve spent any time observing the media, you already know that obesity will destroy the world.
In fact, based on a highly-technical series of studies, scientists have estimated that our collective obesity will cause a rotational imbalance in the Earth’s orbit on December 21, 2012, as predicted by the Mayans.
