Anyone here, that suggests being fat is some sort of "life-choice" is in the same logic, telling me that the same is so for annorexia, drug-addiction, or serial rape. I know, I know, "That's extreme, those things aren't the same." Well smart guy, they are relative. How are they? Well you are killing yourself? What difference is it if a person shots themself in the head or slowly drinks themself to death? That they might be able to pass a few laws before the later takes effect on their life...as in ending it? Does it make them any more in control of their impulses or depression?

Bill Maher made a great point "Don't be so tolerant that you tolerant intolerance." Telling a drug addict to clean up isn't being insensitive, and telling an obese person to put down the fried-chicken isn't being intolerant, it's being a friend. Most people are afraid of "laying down the law" on their friends because they don't want to "offend" them, or be "mean." Is it less mean to let your friends and family kill themselves? What do you value more, their friendship or their life? If you were to have to give up the prior for the later, would you? What if being someone's "friend" means they die a miserable death and live a horrible life? But hey, at least they aren't mad at you for what you said...

This may sounds silly to even mention, but I'm probably as liberal as they come. I walk to work, car-pool to school, strictly eat Vegan, buy no processed foods, use only recycled paper, bring a canvus bag to the grocery store, read all religious texts, learn the languages of foreigners that I work with while speaking plain English to them in responce to their broken, and I spend only a thrid of my income, saving and donating the other two-thirds respectively. To hear that being critical to destruction is being insensitive makes me reconsider my political affiliation.

I understand the humor of the article we are still discussing, I just didn't find it funny. Half a million liberal people driving miles to San Francisco in order to protest a War that they claim is only about oil, now that is funny. An Anarchist complaining about getting tear gased during a protest in which they destroyed hard working citizen's store fronts and property, now that's funny. And so called enlightened people blaiming they eating habits on the media or culture, now that's funny! Step up people, God gave us free will, don't piss him off by selling it to the first person to offer you a cheeseburger.

A dedicated Garrison Keillor fan, it was with a sense of fun that I read of his remarks on body image and leadership. While everyone cringed at the body image in Israel, none of us has ever doubted that the man lived to love his country.

Contrast this with the picture we get of the recent Supreme Court nominee's cold and clammy, slithering personality. The game is being played fast and furious as with the truth, glimpsed only occasionally all too clearly right between the eyes: our President gets personal fitness/image, but not the message of suffering from the beginning in New Orleans ("You're doing a great job, Brownie") or the big picture of the strange mishandling of the "War on Terror": intelligence misleading, the real prisoner saga and its ramifications world-wide, strange lack of strategy and tactical planning in Iraq...the list is endless, really endless in Washington, and still, we the people don't seem to "get it". We need more informed discernment at the grass roots.

Just stuff a croissant and let us know you are in there somewhere!

No one is in charge but the calorie counter, for heaven's sake! Ya gotta laugh at the top three in government today or else you'd cry for sure.

Thanks, Garrison, for truly funny humor with depth, once again.

My friend is fat. It's true. I've known him since we were thirteen, we are twenty-five now. He use to be in shape. He played basketball, skateboarded and actually left his house other than to go to work. Now he drinks, eats, sleeps and, from what I've observed, waits to die. That what a lot of people do these days, they give up, they except death and with their sloth, work to make it come sooner than later.

Indulging in food, drugs and sex are the syndroms of a person with low-self esteem. Someone who does not feel they deserve nothing more than to die. Someone who has given up on changing, on bettering themselves. And yes, being healthy is better than being unhealthy. Being able to run a mile is better than having to fight to get out of bed. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables is better than eating a quart of ice-cream and a cheese platter. Being sober is better than being a drug addict. And having a healthy sex life is better than sleeping-around. Deal with it.

If we were to ever model our leaders after the majority of population how would we ever better ourselves? By definition, leaders must be stronger, must be healthier and must have more self-drive than their followers, otherwise they would not be leaders...they would be followers, and they would have no one to lead them out of the muck. Yes, the muck, the primordial ooze that we all come from where greed, lust, hate, and sloth over rule thought and reason. This is a place where sin wins over virtue, becasue the desire to know more, see more and experience more is destroyed by the thought that it doesn't matter, that no matter what we do, we are all going to die.

A leader is someone who laughs at the fear of death and instead enjoys the gift of life. A leader is someone who realizes they are over-weight and makes the concious decision to excersize and eat healthier. A leader is someone who takes the harder road, becasue he knows, not beleives, that the outcome will be...dare I say it again..."better."

What you will see, that this train of throught will lead mankind, is into two different sub-species. One that eats out of boxes, worships money, travels but pushing pedals and dies a horrible death at the age of 60, the other, eats from the ground, worships all life, travels by moving one leg in front of the other and dies in a peaceful rest at the age of 120. Slowly the prior will become extinct, as anyone who studies evolution could tell you, when part of a species is no longer able to live long and healthy enough to breed and protect its young, they die out. Our next step in evolution won't come from a sixth finger, some aquatic lungs or thicker skin to protect us from the sun, it will come from the genuine acknowledgement that life is good, and that there is no point in which we are allowed to stop learning, and to stop bettering ourselves. Life is not good to those who wake up every morning, fearing what they see in the mirror. Fearing the fat, fearing the weather look in the eyes, fearing themselves. Love yourself, love life. I wouldn't ask for anything less out of our leaders. If one can't lead themselves to a life they know is better, how can they lead our county to a similar place?