Fat America

78 Million people in the United States in 2010 were obese.

  

The majority of people are surprised by this number, I'm not.

   How can we be surprised that we're all overweight and lazy when we have resources like this, where our grocery stores shop for us and deliver our groceries.  Now if you are 90 years old and in a wheel chair I understand, Call them up, have them bring it to you please by all means, thats why they are there. But if you are just fat.. and should probably be walking anyway... Get up lazy and walk your ass around the store and get your own groceries.  

And that brings us to the next issue, the scooters at the groceries stores.

Example A:

Your kids are going to be fat lazy fat asses, thank you for letting them use the handicap scooters.

Example B:

You should be walking around anyway, you aren't doing yourself any favors.

Now please don't get me wrong, I like to snack. As a matter of fact I'm eating a bowl of popcorn as I'm typing this up, but I'm by no means over weight either.  I like to exercise moderately, maybe a little Michelle Obama inspired, maybe a little "I care about my health inspired." Either way you won't catch me having anything but my mail delivered and if you see me riding anything around the store it will be a segway because... well that's always been a dream of mine. 

With all the body conscience stuff out there today my biggest pet peeve is when I'm standing in my doctors office and my overweight nurse is talking about how important being healthy is.  Well when you're 200 pounds heavier then I am you have no reason to lecture me, I'm positive I'm healthier then you. 

 

 It doesn't take much, maybe if you put down the remote control a few hours a day it would make a difference.  People have become have so lazy, kids have become so lazy. When people would rather stay inside when its beautiful outside and go on facebook or watch their DVR'd show.  It's pathetic, go for a walk, plant a garden, swim a little, put down the remote.  Lose a pound or two and maybe millions of people wouldn't be obese. 

  

Social Mediaitis

* Note: I know the irony in this blog, and I continue to write it because what better way to to exploit social media then on a social media site?

"Don't say anything online that you wouldn't want plastered on a billboard with your face on it."
-Erin Bury

As I was waiting in line for my daily caffeine fix, I over heard an obnoxiously loud voice coming from behind me.  My initial thought was, my god it is too early for this and my second was to turn around and glare at the bleach blonde standing in the door of the college cafe.  

"I don't understand why he doesn't respect and trust me, what have I ever done to him?!?"

I don't understand why you have to borderline screech at 7 a.m when I haven't had my coffee yet, but I'm not broadcasting that. As I stared at her I realized I recognized her from one of my Facebook friends pictures, and then it started to click.  This girl is one of those girls who has 500 pictures of her drunk and sloppy scattered across various friends pages.  She isn't a friend of mine, only a friend of a friend and I felt like saying well from seeing you on so and so's page I can think of about 50 reasons why he and your parents and your friends should be embarrassed, let alone not trust or respect you. 

Now I can't say there aren't a few dozen pictures on the internet of myself that I wish weren't there, or didn't exist at all. But I can say that there aren't pictures in the triple digits of me getting inebriated.  Today it is so easy to share every part of your life, or to create your own reality, or connect with people thousands of miles away.  We all have that friend who has to update their status every hour or half hour, you log on to Facebook and your news feed is clogged with every detail of their life.  I always thought why not just get a Twitter and stop plastering your business all over my news feed? I don't care that you just took a shower and now your going grocery shopping and I can promise you I'm not going to care when you get to the grocery store and they are out of blueberry coffee, ok maybe I might slightly care about that if you go to the same store as I do.  But then I realize that substituting one social network for another is just enabling, you're still clogging someones news feed with useless updates of your life, Twitter is just more excepting. 

65 Million out of the 200 million active Facebook users access the site through there mobile devices. Because we cant go 8 hours at work without checking in and see who's going to the grocery store, or who got drunk and had a video posted about it.  Companies use it for Marketing, News Channels use it for broadcasting, Musicians use it for promoting events, teenagers use it to ruin their lives, newly weds use it to ruin their marriages and older people use it to check in on their teenage grandchildren who are ruining their lives.  

Both of my parents are on Facebook, neither one of them are my friends.  Not because I have something to hide like most but because I don't need to see my mom joking with her friends and I would like to try to keep her thinking I know how to watch my mouth around mine.  Anyway, they argue over who is on Facebook too much, my opinion? If you are arguing about it then I am going to say...um.. both of you. 

I'm going to say, just about all of the 200 million users on Facebook do.

 

Society's potenital for Change.

"To live a creative life, we must lose the fear of being wrong."

-Joseph Chilton Pearce

We are told everyday that as a society we are progressing, breakthrough here, new technology there. But are we really progressing? In 2011, 23% of California was lacking basic literacy skills... 23% doesn't sound like much so let me put it this way, by May 2012 California residency should be approximately 38 million, 23% of 38 Million is 8,740,000, that's 8,740,000 people walking around California lacking basic literacy skills... Hello progression! I guess we can thank the Internet for that but shhh, we don't want Big Brother to think we don't appreciate the Internet, they may try to, I don't know, censor it or something. 

Anyway, I'm not a pessimist, I like to think I am a "social cynic." Let me break this down for the 23% percent ;) Cynicism is, briefly, when you think the world is solely selfish people looking out for themselves, there is no such thing as a random act of kindness and no selfless act, basically you're doing it for you're own benefit.  Now social cynicism is a little different, I don't totally believe in a cynics outlook, I believe there are, in fact, generally kind people out there.  Social cynicism is when, essentially, you've lost all hope that society itself has any chance in hell for change. 

We all want to change the world, when we're 15 years old and are on the High School Debate team. But what happens when you start paying taxes and you realize what's really going on? You're just angry, you sit on your couch and yell at the commercials with the little kids in Zimbabwe starving, there's homeless, starving people all over the United States and we waste time and money on people in other countries. I'm not giving 50 cents to the little girl on the TV screen, why doesn't Alyssa Milano donate some of her hefty salary to the starving kids overseas, I'll worry about the little girl down the road from me.  We can't be every one's hero, clearly we can't even fix own own problems so why do we go meddling in everyone else's?  Oh, there's an outbreak of malaria in Africa? Let's go take care of that and let the average 18,000 people that die from AIDS each year hang out for a bit. 

The other day I saw a teenage boy hold the door open for his girlfriend, and then continue to hold it open for the slowly moving old lady behind her.  I believe in random acts of kindness, I am not a cynic.  I have also watched the Presidential Debates as the candidates slam each other and do nothing but put each other down as well as point out each others flaws.  I don't believe in our government, I am a social cynic.

"The life which is not examined is not worth living."

-Plato

 

Found a fellow social cynic: http://socialworkcynic.blogspot.com/