a world without him? bah!

So the Today show, my morning source for watered down news from all corners of the world, has really drawn the line this time. No, they haven't crossed it just yet.

My USA Today television equivalent has shared some of the lamest news stories in the world, and covered some of the most random events. It's been host to so many replacement-anchors so often that I really have no idea who any of them are from one day to the next. Bottom line for me: as long as Ann Curry is telling me the headlines for five minutes out of the hour, then my morning's complete. When she's not there it's like staying at an aunt's house when you're a kid. Your lunch isn't packed quite the same, and you think that something about how you dressed is wrong, but you can't place it, so you go through your day assuming that something is anonymously wrong.

I heard Ann whispering sweet headlines about war and famine in my ear this morning as I poured my cereal into the bowl and added milk. Afterwards I sat down to see what other dribble was on so that I could play current events when I ran out of things to talk with strangers about at work. After some bit about fashion and some candy store that made dresses out of those annoying paper-ed dot-candies, Matt went to a satellite feed to California. Matt Lauer will remain my morningtime hero for his bit with Thom Cruise-- and yes, I added the "h" because he's gotten so mad that he will probably add it later himself-- so I don't begrudge him for covering the story at all. But Maria Shriver and Lance Armstrong took the screen (together!), I was an inch away from dying over breakfast.

California was hosting an obesity summit on this morning, and I couldn't be more shocked at the whole thing. To think you'd organize an entire summit to thwart the evil beast of obesity. Sure, you have your G8 and UN summits, but they're obviously bogus, because fat is where it's at. Shriver, who is the closest consolation prize to craziest political wife, since John Kerry lost the election, was talking about obesity as a rampant disease that is infecting our country. She seemed really disgusted by the whole thing and it was really disturbing, on my part, to watch her piss and moan about fat people while I was trying to down my Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

Then Lance Armstrong came in. I gotta say, between you and me, a world famous biker who underwent chemo cannot talk about fat people. First of all, he's been conditioned to be an athlete since childhood. And we all know the effects of chemo on your appetite. So Matt, our hard-nosed newsman who likes to play the other side, asks how they expect kids to get up and get out there if they have video games and all that jazz right at their fat-stubby fingertips? Lance said they need to make exercise fun. 1) It's not. I can think of one thing that makes you sweaty that can be considered fun, and that's not appropriate for public discussion. 2) They didn't have cool video games when Lance Armstrong was growing up. What? Atari at best. And even that was late-70's/early-80's, so Lance was already entering triathlons by 13, so he probably didn't even know what these newfangled joysticks were all about.

As I cried into my cinnamonny milk for the tubby kids with character that always get screwed over because of jerks like these two, I started to think about how stupid Armstrong and Shriver really were. The only positive I could see in Shriver was that if there were less fat people in California, maybe it would sink into the ocean that much slower. Past that, fat people die faster, and California, as well as America as a whole, is having its resources sucked dry. Maybe obesity is the form of a great plague from the bible. If we tried to save every fat person then they'll just live to be old, thereby screwing social security that much faster. Am I the only person thinking about the greater good here? You don't see me on the Today show or getting my own doomed show on FX where I try new things for 30 days.

Imagine the world without fat people. I can do this very well because I am/was the fat kid. More people tell me today that I'm not the fat kid, while they grasp at straws for friendlier versions of chubby. Still, you need some meat on the bones people. If I was in New Orleans, I'd probably last a little longer on my stock-piled flesh. Worst case, you could eat me-- what would you do if there were no fat people though? You're not going to eat Kate Moss, are you? You'd also have to pick apart people for another reason besides being fat. Fat people can get thicker skin because they've been ridiculed their entire life, but when you run out of fat people, then you have to go back to blonde jokes or something else ridiculously mundane. Also, who would the insanely skinny trailer park men marry if there were no fat women? Hip-hop would be out the door because there would've been no butt-shaking. And God save the world without Fat Albert. Medium-build Albert? I think not.

And women? When I hear a woman say they like a chubby guy it brings the most untrusting smile to my face, because I guess it just doesn't sound right. Of course at some point people scrap their whole "hot-bod" days and start to look for intelligence, respectability, and stability. That's when the tubby man comes back and gets to settle down. Problem is it's way past the early-twenties, when people are allegedly in their sexual prime. Of course, when all the divorcees come around, broken from uncaring and hapless marriages, that's when the fat people welcome with open arms.

And men? Men love "thick" women nowadays, don't they? Look at all those rap videos and Sir Mix-a-Lot. He's still cool, right? But seriously, bones are like old or dying people, and while it's generally the smell that turns you off to a corpse, the look isn't all that good either. A woman with some weight shows that they aren't so zealous that they frantically work out to maintain some sort of perfection, because who needs baggage like that to deal with? Sure you have people that work out for fun, but those people get to eat what they want too, which leaves them with a dash of loving on the body. The only plus about fat and men in a relationship is that it's an ultimate kill switch. The guy can say, "You're getting fat," and be out of that relationship in no time.

And if we can revisit the Today show for a minute, remember when they had those normal-sized women on those underwear or lotion ads? They were good looking women, but the Today show had to cart them all out and ask how they felt being big and in the ads. Of course the whole goal of that story was to glorify the public's acceptance of normally proportioned people. Now we have coverage of the Obesity Summit, which, I would like to add, I would've let go if they didn't say "overweight and obese" because I don't think I'm obese, but who isn't overweight?

Basically, the world needs fat people. That's the nuts and bolts of all of this. If it's not because they are the subject of so much ridicule that they become social rejects and actually accomplish things in their spare time because they're not out boinking the world and chilling at bars. I wonder how many fat people cured real diseases or lent a helping hand to the homeless? Oh who cares how many, they're fatties and maybe when they come down to a normal weight we'll glorify them for contributions to humanity. Until then, we'll let California blow $25 million on obesity prevention because natural energy alternatives is no problem out there. Damn people and their shitty priorities...