Is the current “obesity” obsession really about health? If you look at the data, it isn’t.

Yesterday at lunch a coworker of mine told me that he was at a part with a lot of rich people. I asked how he could tell they were rich and he replies “they were all so fit”. In our culture weight has become a class marker.

It can be very difficult for working people to find time to exercise an hour every day and eat right. And it is impossible for them to afford trainers and nutritionists. And if you don’t have time to cook and you can’t spend more than $5 on a meal your choices are limited to fast food. So poorer people are more likely to be obese or overweight. The culture has picked up on this and decided that obese people are lower class people. And then in order to provide some kind of moral cover we have all decided that there is an “obesity epidemic” and that all these people are so unhealthy because of their moral failings, when in reality they are unhealthy because they are poor.

via

Sometimes I feel like we get a little too pessimistic on this website (as do other leftist bloggers). So, I just want to remind us of some of the positive, progressive, creative things that people are doing, because they offer us glimpses of a better future (and we need to oppose the neoliberal utopian vision with our own utopias).
First, there’s lots of cool, progressive stuff going on in science, especially projects that integrate science with art and architecture, such as ‘crowd farms’
and ’sustainable dance clubs’. (Both of these are pursuing a similar principle as that of the ‘power-producing backpack’ (our friend Louis Flynn worked on this)).

Second, of course there’s a ton of cool stuff going on in art. For an example of a cross-over between found sound and found video, check out one of my favorite music videos: The Books - “Take Time.” (Also, “Smells Like Content” - both of these are from The Books’ new DVD, Playall - when they play their instruments at concerts, they project these images on a huge screen behind them - making for one of the most awesome concerts I’ve ever seen.)
Also, I think we need more coordination between art and politics (toward that end, check out The Journal of Aesthetics and Protest).

Check out this disconcerting story about the $27 million, new Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky: Adam and Eve in the Land of Dinosaurs.
Some of my favorite exerpts:

Outside the museum scientists may assert that the universe is billions of years old, that fossils are the remains of animals living hundreds of millions of years ago, and that life’s diversity is the result of evolution by natural selection. But inside the museum the Earth is barely 6,000 years old, dinosaurs were created on the sixth day, and Jesus is the savior who will one day repair the trauma of man’s fall.
…
Whether you are willing to grant the premises of this museum almost becomes irrelevant as you are drawn into its mixture of spectacle and narrative. Its 60,000 square feet of exhibits are often stunningly designed by Patrick Marsh, who, like the entire museum staff, declares adherence to the ministry’s views; he evidently also knows the lure of secular sensations, since he designed the “Jaws” and “King Kong” attractions at Universal Studios in Florida.

Ah, spectacle, where would religions be without you? To see the fucked-up and scary lows to which evangelical preachers will go in their use of spectacle to indoctrinate children with ass-backwards religious beliefs, watch the stellar movie, Jesus Camp.