Taking a leave

Hi all...

So I'm on leave from my teaching job, and I guess I've unintentionally taken a leave from this blog. I didn't mean to, but now that it's happened, I thought I'd write a quick post and kind of make it official that I am taking a break.

Since my last post in December, I'd have to say that the state of affairs vis a vis the fat stuff has probably gotten worse. I have always been in favor of healthcare reform in general, but I am worried about what will happen to fat people under the policy that was passed by the Congress yesterday. Apparently now that insurance companies can no longer deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, they will instead be allowed to jack up premiums for people with pre-existing conditions, including the "condition" of being fat. If true, this is deeply uncool. I am also pissed off about Michelle Obama's new "childhood obesity" initiative. I think it is nice to want to improve nutrition for kids, but I wish this wasn't being promoted on the backs of fat children. It is hard enough being a fat kid without there being a nationwide effort spearheaded by the first lady to eradicate your kind. And I am not even going to get started on Jamie Oliver and his patronizing attempt to educate the citizens of Huntington, West Virginia about the proper way to live. There was that cool moment when Kevin Smith gave a big F-U to Southwest Airlines for kicking him off a plane because he's fat -- but who knows if that will have any lasting effect. Maybe it will empower fat people in the future to make a fuss when these things happen and make it more uncomfortable for airline employees to single them out, thereby inhibiting them from doing so. That would be cool. But in general I feel kind of discouraged. I think that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, and although I think things have to improve over the long term, it would make my blog posts significantly more negative and bitchy for a while if I were to keep up with everything here.

In any case, I'm going to check out for a while and observe the proceedings (or perhaps try in my own small ways to influence them) without commenting on them here.