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Feb. 8th, 2010 03:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oThey've just upgraded the predictions for tomorrow's snowstorm: 10-20 inches.
I have absolutely no enthusiasm -- none -- for figuring out how to get myself into work tomorrow. If the Metro operates above ground, then I'll be fine, but if not the car is a no-go; we're parked behind our house, and the alley does not get plowed, and even if we did manage to shovel down to the end of the alley, the street at the end of the alley has not been plowed. And our Honda Civic Hybrid, though I love it so, is not designed for snow.
This (Paul Campos on fat and identity politics) is the third thing I meant to post the other day. There are several separate aspects of his argument that I find troubling, but it's nonetheless thought-provoking, and I like the way he talks.
(Thing 1: I don't know how I feel about comparing federal policy on fat to sexuality "reprogramming"; it feels a little oppression Olympics-y, and also reminds me of when I read a book published in the '30s by the NAACP condemning lynching that argued it's as bad as rape, and then saw that same book cited in a feminist book written 40 years later to make the case that rape is as bad as lynching.)
(Thing 2: He notes in passing the relationship between poverty and health and overweight, but doesn't get into the rising incidence of type II diabetes among (mostly poor, often African American or American Indian) teenagers. He makes the argument that just because there's a correlation between yellow teeth and lung cancer, doesn't mean whitening your teeth will reduce your risk of lung cancer. Which, yes -- but stopping smoking *will* both whiten your teeth and reduce your risk of lung cancer, and to the extent that federal anti-obesity policy, which he dings more than once, involves making it possible for poor people to eat more healthily, which is not the same as encouraging people to diet, it is more properly compared to smoking cessation than to teeth-whitening.)
I have absolutely no enthusiasm -- none -- for figuring out how to get myself into work tomorrow. If the Metro operates above ground, then I'll be fine, but if not the car is a no-go; we're parked behind our house, and the alley does not get plowed, and even if we did manage to shovel down to the end of the alley, the street at the end of the alley has not been plowed. And our Honda Civic Hybrid, though I love it so, is not designed for snow.
This (Paul Campos on fat and identity politics) is the third thing I meant to post the other day. There are several separate aspects of his argument that I find troubling, but it's nonetheless thought-provoking, and I like the way he talks.
(Thing 1: I don't know how I feel about comparing federal policy on fat to sexuality "reprogramming"; it feels a little oppression Olympics-y, and also reminds me of when I read a book published in the '30s by the NAACP condemning lynching that argued it's as bad as rape, and then saw that same book cited in a feminist book written 40 years later to make the case that rape is as bad as lynching.)
(Thing 2: He notes in passing the relationship between poverty and health and overweight, but doesn't get into the rising incidence of type II diabetes among (mostly poor, often African American or American Indian) teenagers. He makes the argument that just because there's a correlation between yellow teeth and lung cancer, doesn't mean whitening your teeth will reduce your risk of lung cancer. Which, yes -- but stopping smoking *will* both whiten your teeth and reduce your risk of lung cancer, and to the extent that federal anti-obesity policy, which he dings more than once, involves making it possible for poor people to eat more healthily, which is not the same as encouraging people to diet, it is more properly compared to smoking cessation than to teeth-whitening.)