Can we agree on some basic concepts, please?

For example, can we agree that Americans eat too much? Is that really up for debate? Don't we live in a culture of face-stuffers? Face-stuffers who love fast food and bacon? Isn't that, like, totally apparent to every single person with five brain cells?

And don't we, as a nation, use up resources five times as fast as everyone else? Don't we suck up natural resources and fossil fuels and hardwoods like a mega-consuming caterpillar working on its metamorphisis into the Titanic?

Look. The calories I consume each day could probably sustain a pachyderm for a week. I'll admit it. I have an eating problem. I enjoy eating, and it's really easy for me to eat. If I'm too lazy to haul my big ass over to the grocery store, there's myriad opportunities to feast in other places. Like 7-11 or all these damn Coney Island joints; in a mile radius around my home, there are six--SIX--diners in which I can order one four-egg sausage and cheese omelette with a side of hashbrowns and toast. And every weekend, I eat at one of those establishments.

And here we are, a nation of overwieght people with poor self-esteem, eating ourselves right into a food crisis. We eat and then feel guilty about it, and then we go buy clothing to fit our big butts. And then, we feel worse, so we drive our big cars over to our big supercenters where we buy diet food in bulk and when we're all done eating warmed-up cardboard, we poop in mega-toilets.

I didn't think this was, like, news. Apparently, not everyone agrees with me.

Over at Slate, this uber-hip news/commentary blog thingy (I don't know, I just found out about it yesterday), some scrotal sac has condemned the movie Wall-E because it equivocates laziness with fat people and the end of the world. He claims that people who are fat are innocent bystanders in their self-destruction. It's all controlled by genetics! Just because we're fat doesn't mean we're guilty of massive consumption! Fat people aren't to blame! Wall-E mocks fat people! "The new Pixar movie goes out of its way to equate obesity with environmental collapse!"

Um, actually, it talks about people being so lazy, they don't notice all the garbage they are creating until one day, when it's obvious that the trash ain't going away. But because they're so lazy, they decide to go into space and litter up there. And then people get used to sitting around and letting other little robot things do stuff for them, so folks don't really have a need to walk or move heavy objects and then....dum dum dum...humans get fat.

I'm sorry, I thought this was an animated film. Seems pretty true to life to me, yeah?

Do we really have the time to convince ourselves that we are not to blame for the state we're in? Can we ignore our failing bodies and lack of health precautions, blaming big bones and bad genes? Or shouldn't we take some action now, and stop consuming so much, and start taking longer walks, and eat really good, really yummy, really healthy food?

We cannot afford to make excuses for the way we live, and the destruction we're wreaking on our land? And if one stupid, silly animated movie makes us think about the future, then how can it be a bad thing?

Thanks,
One of those Fatties