The Critical Condition Of Critical Thinking

I've always sub-titled this blog "The random rants of a critical independent thinker."**  What does this critical thinker moniker mean to me?

First, I now realize it means I've been using an extra, unnecessary word for a lot of years, because true critical thinking is always independent.  It's should not be affected by race, gender, religious or political affiliation, or any pre-conceived notion that would alter one's perspective.

Critical thinking is actively assessing factual information, and then drawing a conclusion.  In other words, it's the opposite of most thinking today, in which people seek out information to support their already drawn conclusions (a/k/a confirmation bias).

Note that I said "factual" information.  Critical thinkers don't just assume everything they hear and read is true.  This is a real problem for most people today, who seem to swallow anything they hear from their neighbor, or read on the internet.  Critical thinkers not only question the rationality of the information, but also the reliability of the source providing it.

As for that sourcing, critical thinkers absorb information from a wide variety of people and places.  You can't call yourself a critical thinker if you only read the same, single newspaper / web site year-round.  Or watch the same broadcast network year-round.  Or talk to only people with the same background.

Based on that basic summary, it follows that I believe there's at least one other truth about critical thinkers:  These days, they are in short supply.

**Due to the second paragraph, as of today, it's "The random rants of a critical thinker."

Calling Mr. Murrow

Edward R. Murrow was a broadcaster for CBS radio and (later) television.  He first gained fame for his radio broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States.   However, Murrow is perhaps more well-known for later producing a series of TV reports that helped expose and discredit then-Senator Joseph McCarthy for his reckless, anti-communist rhetoric.

Murrow is still considered one of the greatest journalists ever, noted for his honesty and integrity in delivering the news.  Although he died in 1965 at age 57, he left us a lot of great phrases from which to quote.

One of Murrow's most famous quotes is, "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."  This takes on new meaning with the current 'fake news' epidemic on the internet -- but more on that another time.

Now take a look at the following quotes, all attributable to him, and ask yourself how much they fit now -- over 50 years later -- with our country's current state of affairs:

No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.

Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.

We will not walk in fear, one of another.

Good night, and good luck.

2016

It's once again time to review my 2015 list of things I'd like to see happen, and lay out my hopes for 2016.  Here's the 2015 list, with new notes in ALL CAPS:

-Less glorification of big butts.
I'M DECLARING VICTORY ON THIS, BECAUSE IT MOVED FROM A 9 TO AN 8 ON A SCALE OF 1-10.

-A Final Four for Iowa State men's basketball, and an NCAA tournament berth for both Iowa and Northern Iowa men's basketball.
OH, SO CLOSE.  THAT IS, IF YOU CAN CALL ISU LOSING IN THEIR FIRST NCAA TOURNAMENT GAME AS A 3 SEED 'CLOSE'

-More action, less inaction by the U.S. Congress.
A PERPETUALLY WASTED HOPE.

-Stephen Colbert dominating late night television, with Conan and Fallon and Stewart right behind.
OTHER THAN JON STEWART RETIRING, I FEEL THIS IS STARTING TO HAPPEN.

-Common use of Apple Pay.
NOT AS COMMON YET AS IT SHOULD BE.

-Might as well go for it again -- at least medicinal marijuana legalization in Iowa.
C'MON, MAN! PROGRESS IN SOME OTHER STATES, BUT NOT IN IOWA.

-A vaccine against Ebola.
DID NOT HAPPEN, STILL WORKING ON IT.

-A week-long vacation for me.
DID NOT HAPPEN, STILL WORKING ON IT.

For 2016 I'd like to see:

At least some progress, not regress, on medicinal marijuana legalization in Iowa.

Chris Christie versus Hillary Clinton for president, with ? winning.

A higher stock market.

Just one actual, even very minor piece of legislation to make it slightly more difficult to buy a gun.

The personal, financial, and political implosion of Donald Trump.

A way to charge devices without a wire.

An à la carte option for cable and satellite TV channels.

More time for eating right, less time for exercise.

Golf 24/7

An historic event (or is it a historic event?) in my life occurred this week.  After many years of abstinence, I allowed myself to indulge in a long-waited, premium desire.

I got the Golf Channel.

A little background here:  I have cable, bundled with internet service.  I could do that with satellite TV, but I’m happy with the broadband internet speed I have, and that’s keeping me tethered to cable TV for now.

However, our cable provider, Mediacom, sucks when it comes to its basic cable TV channel lineup.  This is true for a lot of cable companies, still fighting against the a la carte model that internet TV inevitably will provide.  Still, I’ve been to plenty of other places that have different cable providers, and Mediacom’s basic cable channels are not robust by comparison.

This means that the basic cable service I’ve had for years is missing ‘premium’ channels that other providers consider basic.  This includes Golf Channel, ESPNU, and a few others.  (One of the others is Fox Business News, a/k/a the 1% Channel.  It’s beyond strange how this is considered a premium channel, while CNBC isn’t.)

Cheap bastard that I am, I’ve never paid the extra dough for home access to those so-called premium channels.  That ended this week with the effort of one phone call, in which I agreed to pay another $100 a year ($8 per month) for a premium sports and information package.

Ironically, I did this primarily for the ESPNU channel, because I don’t want to miss another bunch of good college basketball games this winter.  And I did it secondarily for The NFL Network, so I don’t miss those games this winter, either.

But the long-term crown jewel for me will be the Golf Channel.  A new ‘go-to’ for when there’s nothing else good to watch.  It’s already paying for itself with end-to-end coverage of the Australia Masters and next week’s Australian Open – two events I couldn’t have cared less about a few days ago!

Fore!

Bad TV

I hate my cable TV provider.

My cable TV provider is Mediacom.  They've had the Des Moines cable TV franchise for as long as I can remember.  Why, I don't know.  With luck, they'll get bought out by another provider soon.

I've been to enough other places in Iowa and beyond to know that Mediacom offers the worst basic channel selection compared to its competitors.  At the same cost, maybe more.  And their service is so-so at best.

Last week, they raised my monthly charge by 25%, because apparently my contract agreement expired.  Now I'm going to get the same, for more.  Great.

So why don't I do something about it?  Why don't I switch to satellite?

Because switching would be an even bigger pain in the neck.  Providers like Mediacom know this.  And regardless of whether I switch or not, I'm still stuck getting a bundle of channels I don't want, just to have the ones I do want.

It's hard to believe that in 2014, nobody has à la carte TV choices.  It's a conspiracy.

If I'm so lucky to live another 10 or so years to live, I look forward to having just the TV shows I want delivered to me, on demand, via my computer-TV.

Until then, I'll hate my cable TV provider.

April Fools

In honor of April Fool's Day (or is it April Fools' Day?), I wanted to set out a list of a few facts that should be April Fool's/Fools' Day jokes, but aren't:

* There are now successful reality TV shows based on hoarding, pawn shops, doomsday prepping, housewives, duck whistles, alligator catching, arm wrestling, dance moms, teen moms, naked survivalists, and other narcissistic freaks.

* Climate change.

* Most Major League Baseball teams start the year with virtually no chance of making the playoffs, and this is supposed to keep sports fans occupied all summer.

* A full jumbo jet was lost in the south China Sea and no one has the faintest clue exactly how or where.

* Fox News.

* This winter wasn't the coldest and windiest on record.

* Steve King is a U.S. Congressman.

* [This one gets added effective on April 2, 2014:  The U.S. Supreme Court again rules that there is a First Amendment protection given to those who want to make unlimited financial donations to political campaigns, and that said protection won't corrupt politics.]

The Late Shows

Four years ago, I wrote about my disdain over NBC's handling of Conan O'Brien's short stint as the host of The Tonight Show.  Conan was robbed, and he eventually ended up on TBS at 10pm central time, where I dutifully DVR his shows.

Now four years later, Leno is leaving again, this time 'agreeing' to leave so that NBC can move in a younger guy, Jimmy Fallon. Where have we seen this before?

I like Fallon and what he's done on the Late Night show, as I did with Conan.  And as with Conan, I'll probably start watching the Tonight Show again, (I gave it up in disgust after Leno came back), although in the 10:30pm half-hour I prefer watching The Colbert Report.  I haven't watched much of The Late Show with David Letterman over the past few years - used to watch it religiously, but we've both gotten too old for his show.

Good-bye again, Jay.  You should have stayed away.

2014

As with last year, let's review the things I said I'd like to see in 2013, with my new notes in ALL CAPS:

-Me take more time off.  A repeat.  Hoping it happens this time.
(I'M GOING TO STOP WRITING THIS ONE.)

-Compromise in the U.S. Congress.  After all, it's not an election year.
(NOT COUNTING THE ALLEGED DECEMBER BUDGET COMPROMISE, TEA PARTY REPUBLICANS TOOK US FARTHER FROM COMPROMISE, NOT CLOSER.)

-A reduction in U.S. government spending and subsidies
(SMALL REDUCTION OF WIND AND ETHANOL SPENDING, BUT THIS IS A FAIRY TALE.)

-Fewer reality TV shows starring hillbillys.
(COULD NOT HAVE GONE MORE IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.  THEY ARE MORE POPULAR THAN EVER.  JUST LOOK AT MY PREVIOUS POST.)

-Successful planning and execution of all family weddings.
(NAILED IT.)

-An end to the central U.S. drought.

(A LESSER DROUGHT IS NOT AN END TO THE DROUGHT - BUT FARMERS BROUGHT IN A RECORD CROP SO I GUESS IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT MUCH ANYMORE.)

-The siding on my house to be repaired.
(GOT DONE IN OCTOBER, BUT ONLY THANKS TO MULTIPLE CALLS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR.)

For 2014 I'd like to see:

The (continued) fall of the so-called Tea Party conservatives.

Less Kanye / Less Miley.

Apple TV.

NCAA basketball Sweet 16 trips for either Iowa and Iowa State.

Better football from the Cyclones and Vikings - the bar is incredibly low.

Warmer Spring weather, at least where it doesn't snow again in May.

More legalization of marijuana beyond what's happening in Colorado on 1/1/2014.

A la carte cable TV channels.  It's only a matter of time before cable providers will have to do this to compete with computer streaming.  Why not in 2014?

If It Walks Like A Duck.....

There are so many reality shows on TV these days, nobody could possibly watch them all.  I'll watch one or two, but I don't watch any that glorify the dumb hillbilly persona, such as Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Moonshiners, or everybody's current favorite, Duck Dynasty.

Today, Duck Dynasty is in trouble because the patriarchal member was openly quoted in GQ magazine saying some bad things about "homosexuals" and the gay lifestyle.  The show's network (A & E) is distancing itself from the comments, acting shocked (shocked! I tell you) that he would say such insensitive things. Conversely, the Duck Dynasty family and thousands of the show's fans are rallying around him, claiming he has a right to express his religious beliefs.

There are so many great things about this:

1) Screw A & E.  They struck gold by signing up and making famous a bunch of dumb Louisiana hillbillies, and they didn't consider that eventually, one or more of these idiots would say something insensitive?  They deserve all of the bad publicity they get, from both sides.

2) Screw the Duck Dynasty family.  They've had way beyond their 15 minutes of fame, and have been made rich by their stupidity.  Now the same thing that made them famous, their back-ways hillbilly-ness, is going to crucify them.  No one should feel sorry for them, and they probably don't want that from anyone, which leads me to.....

3) Screw the show's supportive fans.  No one would be complaining if this guy had simply said his religious beliefs did not support gay lifestyle, and that was his opinion.  But what he said in GQ (plus what has also been released on video from a church speech he gave) was completely mean-spirited and intolerant.  It's the real(ity) him, not the fake media version of him, and likely what the rest of the family believes.

At least one good thing might come from all of this - one less hillbilly reality TV show!

More East Coast Media Bias

I've written before about how weather events affecting the major east coast cities get so much more media coverage than if they occur in other major cities.  Today I'm writing about a similar phenomenon that impacts sports.

Why does it seem that whenever a pro sports team from New York or Boston wins a title, it's treated by the media as bigger than when it happens anywhere else?  It's happening again now, after Boston won the World Series yesterday.

That's fine, congrats to them, but just like the two other times they won in the last decade, it's getting so much more media coverage than it deserves.  Let's just admit, it's a lot less than when San Francisco or St. Louis each won it twice recently.

Today, national sportswriters and broadcasters are saying Boston's win 'transcended' sports and "defined' the city, while also fawning over the fact that while they've won it before, it had been almost 90 years since they won it at home.  The thing is, no one outside the northeastern seaboard thinks nor cares about those things, especially for a baseball team that finished last in their division last year.

This media self-infatuation carries over to football, too.  In the past decade or so, when Boston (New England) or New York (Giants) won a combined 5 Super Bowls, the media coverage is both breathless and endless.  But when a place like Indianapolis or New Orleans or Green Bay wins it, the coverage is much more muted.

We can only hope no Boston or New York teams win any pro sports titles again in our lifetime.  Meanwhile, this once again proves my theory that for all of the so-called toughness of the major east coast cities, they really are drama queens when it comes to wanting more national attention for events that happen everywhere.

Overly Dramatic TV

In my most recent attempt to stay in touch with pop culture, I had to spend the past few weeks getting caught up on, to the extent possible, with TV's Breaking Bad.  I even watched the main cast appear together on Conan.

Not having seen all of the episodes, there's no way for me qualify how good it really was, but it made me consider some of the other TV dramas shows that everyone seems to think are so great:

Lost - It was great.  Saw all but the first few episode.  Finale was a bit of a downer though.

Mad Men - It is great.

The X-Files - Became must-see TV for me, and I don't even like science fiction.

The Walking Dead - hasn't been on long enough to know for sure yet.

Boardwalk Empire, Homeland, Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, The Wire - These are/were all on premium cable which I don't get, and I haven't rented the DVDs, so there's no way to know.  I know The Sopranos finale disappointed, and I'm just going to say Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones are overrated, and Homeland and The Wire are underrated.

So there you go.

R.I.P. MLB

The Major League Baseball season ended this week, with the crowning of the World Series champion.  Oh, you didn't know?  That's because only a few people in America care about baseball after late August, and most of the rest of them stop caring after September, much less late October.

How is this possible?  Because as I've previously written, baseball sucks, and it has been sucking for a while.  The games are too long, the season is too long, the players are too forgettable, the teams have too much disparity between them.  What other reasons do we need to not be interested?

This is all exacerbated by America's love affair with college and pro football.  When Labor Day rolls around, we care about football a lot more than we do baseball.

You'd think baseball would figure all of this out someday.  Maybe invoke some type of salary cap like the other pro sports, so every franchise feels like it could be a contender.  And/or maybe end the season earlier rather than later.  Instead, they watch as the ratings for the World Series go down the tubes.

Nice job, baseball.  You suck.

Here's What Is The Matter With People

Lately I've been boiling down my frustration with the actions of others through a simple statement of, "What's the matter with people?"

I've finally decided that, for the betterment of humanity, I will try to answer this question.  I think it comes down to three overarching items:

1)  People want attention.  It doesn't even matter whether it's for good or bad reasons, as long as those who seek attention get it.  This is both the cause and effect of reality television.  It's bad enough that people want to make their entire lives a show for the public, but then that's further encouraged by compensating (and even making celebrities out of) people for their asinine behavior.

2)  People are stupid.  I wrote about this a few years ago, and it's only gotten worse.  Most people will believe anything they read or hear.  They have no filter, no ability to discern whether something passes the 'smell' test.  The internet / social media make this problem worse, because people are constantly relying on it for all of their information.  If the United States could devise a way to tax anyone who forwards an electronic message that has little or no basis in fact, we would quickly solve our deficit problem.

3)  People are slackers.  The children and grandchildren of the 'greatest generation' are not nearly as motivated as their ancestors.  It seems that for every two Americans who try to make an honest living, there is one who doesn't give a damn.  Sometimes to avoid life, that one will use extreme measures, e.g. unqualified government assistance, illegal activity, or even living with their too-coddling parents, to avoid getting a real job.  On the minimally plus side, I always say that we need people in the service industry too, to take care of me when I'm on vacation.

So that's what's the matter with people.  Now that I've provided the answers, someone please come up with the solutions.

How March Madness Used To Be

Some of my early memories of the NCAA basketball tournament, and college basketball in general, circa late 1970s:

*Only 40 teams - 8 first-round games, with the winners joining 24 others in the round of 32.  Went to 48 teams soon after.  (Then 64, 68...)

*Only one TV network showing games - and it was NBC.  There was no such thing as cable or satellite TV, come on!

*No national TV for the early round games, nor the elite eight games.  Hell, it wasn't even called the elite eight then, it was called the 'quarterfinal round' if you can believe that.

*No shot clock; no three-point line.

*Duke went to the Final Four in 1978, and no one knew who they were.

*Really long socks.  Really short shorts.  Really long hair.

*The NCAA had just started to allow dunking.  It had been a techincal foul.  I am not making this up.

*Magic v. Bird, 1979 championship game, the most watched one ever.  Real time: As hyped as it might have been then, nobody really knew if either of them would be a good professional player.

Still More Things For Which I'm Not Thankful

For the third consecutive year, I present my contrarian Thanksgiving week entry, listing in random order those things for which I'm not thankful.  (If you want to catch up on the prior versions, see 2009 here and 2010 here.)

Republican presidential candidates stumping in Iowa, and their related advertising and robo-calls.

The cold and darkness. (To avoid confusion, here I’m referring to the weather, not the Republican presidential candidates again.)

The curerent state of the economy.

Any TV reality series based solely on cameras following people living their ‘normal’ lives. (I’m looking at you Kardashians, Duggars, teen moms, hoarders, and housewives)

Dreamers without pragmatism, a/k/a leaderless political movements.  (Tea partiers and Occupiers, go away, your 15 minutes is up.)

Paying people to not work.

That the NBA lockout is keeping EJ, Kenny, and Charles off the air.

The politically far right and the politically far left.

Anyone who thinks insurance should be used as an investment vehicle.

Speaking when not speaking would have been just as good.

[This list gets longer every year.  That's either a bad omen, or a sign that I'm quickly becoming a malevolent old man, or both.]

It's Easy To Be Number 3

For as long as I've lived in Des Moines, the ABC-TV affiliate, WOI, has been a distant 3rd in local TV ratings.  Basically, no one watches their news at 5, 6, or 10pm.  This is despite the fact that over the past 10 years they may have had the best weather director and sports director of all three broacast affiliates.

One thing they've consistently had during this time, however, is dumb management.  They changed general managers earlier this year, but it apparently only made them dumber.

This link will tell you why, by way of another very funny Colbert Report clip:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/394521/august-11-2011/colbert-super-pac---confused-by-rick-parry-with-an--a--for-america

The Wimpiest Generation

So there's a heatwave gripping the Midwest. Near 100 degrees all week with stifling humidity. Can't walk three steps without somebody complaining about the weather and asking, "Is it hot enough for you?" Constant media alerts about the heat index, and how dangerous it is to be outside too long.

Gimme a break. Would somebody please tell me what the big deal is? (Alert: I'm about to go off on an "I remember when....." rant.)

When I was really young, heat like this didn't stop us from going outside to play all afternoon - and not at the swimming pool, either. We had no real alternative, other than watching soap operas on one of the three TV stations from which we could choose, but we did it without complaining. And we didn't stop every five minutes to take a drink either.

When I was a teenager, it was the same deal, except instead of playing outside I was doing farmwork outside. Day after day after day. It seemed like the hottest days were reserved for baling hay or straw (a task equally as itchy as it was hot). And we're not talking about the labor-saving round bales they make today, either. I mean the rectangular ones that you had to lift and stack. Of course, since we operated a livestock farm, if we had nothing better to do we could always haul manure (a task equally as smelly as it was hot). Oh, and we didn't stop every five minutes to take a drink then, either.

Needless to say, when I became an adult with a wimpy office job, I didn't complain about the heat. Still don't.

But the current city-fied, under 30 generation, now they are a different story. This is the sedentary generation, a group raised on cable TV and video games. Anything above a climate-controlled 80 degrees is enough for them to start bitching, maybe even take the day off. The media coddling doesn't help, alerting us to take breaks, stay indoors, and of course, make sure our pets aren't outside. (Somewhere up there, my old dog Teddy is shaking his head.)

I get that each generation lives better than the one before it, and I don't expect people to be outdoors if they don't have to be. But please, please stop complaining about the heat. It makes you and the country look like a bunch of wimps

Bad Business

Years ago when I worked for a trade association, the powers-that-be (?) insisted that the annual meeting begin with a prayer. This might have been harmless except for the fact that the prayer was never non-denominational - the prayer-giver always invoked the name of Jesus Christ.

I always complained about this, not because I'm not Christian, but because it was ignorant. We were not a Christian organization - why assume everyone else was? It was pretty simple to conclude that not everyone in the room believed in JC, much less in God, and to throw this prayer in their face was just plain bad business.

With this as a backdrop, over the past few years I've paid particular attention to businesses that show their religious and/or political colors. Of course, it's OK for a private business to do that, but it is also relentlessly dumb to offend potential customers.

My best contemporary example of this has to be those businesses who insist on showing Fox TV in their public areas. First, let's agree on what Fox TV is - a conservative, Republican-leaning broadcast network. Everyone knows this. Fox is to 'fair and balanced' journalism as 'The Beverly Hillbillies' is to a fair and balanced depiction of life in Beverly Hills.

So if a business has Fox on their TVs, one can safely assume they are conservative, Republican-leaning folks. That's fine, but that also tacitly means they don't care to have non-conformists as customers. At least that's what it means to me, and I'm happy to oblige them. It's crazy. Just put the TV on the Food Network or some other benign channel, and I won't think twice about patronizing your business.

Take this weekend, in which I spent time in a corporate tent at a golf outing. The Golf Channel was on every TV but one - which was on Fox. Now, I'm certain I was around a bunch of Republican-leaning folks, but to assume all of the clients there were of the same political/conservative bent is dumb. If people want the news, the can go somewhere else, or use their smart phones.

I don't know, maybe I'm making too much of this, but I think there is a lesson here for businesses: Don't assume everyone else believes the same things that you do.

Post #100

When TV shows reach their 100th episode, they usually have a retrospective show that replays some memorable clips. Since this is my 100th blog post, it seems a good time for a retrospective of some of the themes of this blog.

Let's start with this one, from Post #1 on July 26, 2009: "Too many people simply believe what others tell them, with the unfortunate consequence of allowing those who control the message to also control them.....Think about it, then make up your own mind."

Since then, I've tried to get you to think about how taxes, obesity, commissions, and political parties and fringe politicians are bad. On the other hand, medicinal marijuana, some lyrics, fee-based advice, and Caddyshack are good.

Speaking of Caddyshack - in honor not only of the 100th post, but of this weekend's 75th Masters golf tounament, here's my post from February 3, 2010: [standing in an ornamental flowerbed] What an incredible Cinderella story! This unknown, comes out of nowhere, to lead the pack at Augusta. He's at the final hole. He's about 455 yards away, he's gonna hit about a 2-iron, I think... [swings, pulverizes a flower] Oh, he got all of that! The crowd is standing on its feet here at Augusta. The normally reserved crowd is going wild...for this young Cinderella who's come out of nowhere. He's got about 350 yards left, he's going to hit about a 5-iron, it looks like, don't you think? He's got a beautiful backswing... [swings, pulverizes another flower] That's...oh, he got all of that one! He's gotta be pleased with that! The crowd is just on its feet here. He's a Cinderella boy. Tears in his eyes, I guess, as he lines up this last shot. He's got about 195 yards left, and he's got a, looks like he's got about an 8-iron. This crowd has gone deadly silent... Cinderella story, out of nowhere, former greenskeeper, now about to become the Masters champion... [swings, pulverizes yet another flower] It looks like a mirac- it's in the hole! It's in the hole!

Here's to the next 100 posts!

The Biggest Loser Losers

I don't watch much reality television, which come to think of it, is fairly limiting. However, I watch enough to know that some reality shows are more watchable (e.g. The Amazing Race) than others (e.g. anything on MTV or VH1).

There's one reality TV show that many would consider to be more watchable, but that I consider to be a blight on the nation - The Biggest Loser. Obese people from across America who go to a fat ranch to learn how to eat right and exercise, the 'winner' being the person who loses the highest percentage weight, and also happens not to tick off other contestants who might vote them out along the way. (It even sounds boring, doesn't it?)

What kills me about this show is how it's framed as a 'feel good' story for everyone. Basically, each contestant has a reason why they are fat, something that no mere mortal could possbly have overcome. It's usually blamed on a rough upbringing, or death, or depression, or genetics, or whatever, and apparently they tried to cope with their problems by doing little else but eating. How could you blame them, right?

Let me try. I have a certain disdain for obesity, something that goes way beyond just the gross-ness of it. To wit, fat people cost society money, ergo fat people cost me money. I've blogged about this before (http://streffblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/tax-on-fat-people.html).

While there may be a few exceptions, the vast majority of obese people are that way by choice. Genetics and childhood environment may have something to do with it, but let's face it, it also takes a big dose of lazy. It's a mindset, the kind that takes the easy way out. Most Americans are like that, it just that most Americans also muster up the will to move, to take control of their life, to do what's right instead of what's lazy. On most days.

But The Biggest Loser doesn't want people to think about that. They want viewers to root for their poor, common sense-challenged contestants, who have suddenly decided to try to lose weight with the help of network television. Why those same contestants can't try to exercise and eat right without millions of other people watching, I don't know. Apparently some people aren't motivated by trying to not be a replusive-looking burden on society, they also need to be motivated by money and attention.

Dear Obese People - Stop trying to become a reality show freak, set down the Twinkies, roll off of the couch, look in the mirror, and stop living your life in a way that makes everyone else pay for your poor choices.