Oh No, It's Mr. Creosote!

The video in the following link is gross, disgusting, disturbed, not-meant-for-delicate eyes, and is outrageously funny. It contains material that some might consider offensive.

The Flying Curmudgeon disavows all responsibility for those readers that are offended by mature or outrageous humor. Click at your own risk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlK62rjQWLk&feature=related

The above clip is from Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life." Like all of the British comedy team's frequently bizarre films, it delved into many subjects - some taboo, some outrageous, and some just downright funny.

Cleese and Company had to have been on some kind of drug (or drugs) when they wrote this film. How else to explain the bizzare half-man/half-elephant creature?

Nevertheless, the brilliance of Monty Python was their ability to use humor to deal with controversial subjects, as with the topic of gluttony/obesity, in the above clip.

Also out of the UK, comes the story of a woman being denied an entry visa from the government of New Zealand because she is too fat.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=494616&in_page_id=1770&ct=5

According to the Kiwi's, allowing fat people to immigrate will put an undue strain on the nation's health care system. In the above link, a spokesperson for a New Zealand organization known as "Fight the Obesity Epidemic," stated the country's health system can not afford to deal with overweight immigrants, as there is "...significant health cost associated with (these individuals)..."

Don't you just love the Kiwis? What's not to love about a country that is even more "down under" than Australia? Kiwis make Aussies seem tame - they're like Aussies, only on steroids. In a country where sheep outnumber humans, they don't have time for nonsense.

(BTW, for those readers planning a trip, here's a link to some interesting info on New Zealand's tourist attractions:) http://blog.washingtonpost.com/vagablog/2006/05/top_10_things_we_forgot_to_men.html

Anyway, let's face it, folks.

The Western World is fat and getting fatter. And we are "spreading," as it were, our influence around the globe. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/356/3/213

In the U.S., according to recent statistics, 34% of all Americans are "overweight," that is, having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 25.0 to 29.9. 30.5% are classified as obese, or having a BMI of 30.0 or higher. http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/1031002183.html

That's nearly "two-thirds" of all Americans who are either overweight or obese. Pretty scary stuff, if you think about it.

We are victims of our own affluence.

Back when The Flying Curmudgeon was an Officer Candidate, he had an instructor we'll call "Major S." Major S had a unique way of putting things. When one of his charges complained about not having enough time to do something, Major S would launch into his "168-Hours-in-a-Week" speech.

As in: "You know what your problem is, Ladies? (He would be addressing a room full of college-aged males.) You don't know how to party right. There are 168 hours in a week, okay? How many hours a day are you in class? Three to four? All right. You need to study about an hour, for each hour in class. That's another three to four. You need seven to eight hours of sleep a night, right? Worst case, that's 16 hours. That leaves eight hours a day, times five days - that gives you 40 extra hours a week, plus weekends."

"Ladies, you don't know how to party right."

Another speech he was famous for was his "Fat Poor People" speech.

It went something like this: "We have a phenomenon in this country called 'Fat Poor People.' You go around the world and everyone else's poor people are skinny. Not in this country - our poor people are fat. We must be doing something wrong."

We loved Major S.

He was a man who, as a young officer candidate himself, dropped out of college and enlisted, because he was afraid, in 1966, he would miss the Vietnam War. (He later finished school and returned to Vietnam for a second tour - leading a special forces platoon.)

That was 25 years ago.

In the quarter century since, our "Fat Poor People" haven't gotten any skinnier, and they are all riding around on commercial aircraft.

Believe it or not, as Americans have become heavier, so have the rise in fuel costs for U.S. air carriers. http://www.livescience.com/health/obesity_airlines_041105.html

With oil hovering around $100/barrel, it's only a matter of time until the airlines start passing the costs along to their customers.

Something to think about before grabbing that extra helping of mashed potatoes and gravy at the holiday dinner table this year.

TFC