Obesity: One of the Many Problems We Refuse to Discuss that is Killing Many of Us.

I'm convinced that misguided empathy running amok is preventing us from dealing with many serious issues, even issues that are killing us. Here's an example: The problem with obesity.

Fifteen years ago, there was a lot of talk about the obesity epidemic. In 2008, Michelle Obama started a government program called “Let’s Move!” that sought to reduce childhood obesity. You might remember the First Lady teaming up with everyone from Beyonce to Big Bird to promote exercise and better eating habits. Unfortunately, the program was largely a failure. And the obesity statistics continued to rise.

74% of Americans today are either obese or overweight. And yet, we’re no longer talking about it. The national conversation around health and weight has turned away from things like good nutrition, weight loss and the importance of physical fitness, and instead adopted phrases like “fat acceptance” and “healthy at any size.” In some circles, there’s even blanket denial that there is anything unhealthy at all about being obese.

Shaming people for being overweight is unequivocally wrong. But in our attempt to not offend, we’ve lost sight of the very real fact that there’s a problem. Americans are heavier than ever, sicker than ever, dying earlier than ever, and it’s all preventable. So today, a conversation with Dr. Casey Means, a Stanford trained physician who left the traditional medical system behind to solve the one problem that she says is going to ruin us all: bad food.

This entire podcast episode hosted by Bari Weiss is riveting, filled with shocking statistics and demoralizing because this is a problem we can solve but won't.

Continue ReadingObesity: One of the Many Problems We Refuse to Discuss that is Killing Many of Us.

“It’s About a Breakdown in the Basic Logic of Civilizaton.”

Brett Weinstein's prophetic 2019 statement: It's about a breakdown in the basic logic of civilization and it's spreading." Brett explains that we let these ideas fester in:

phony fields that act as a kind of analytical affirmative action, where ideas that do not deserve to survive are given sustenance ... To the extent that these ideas are allowed to hold sway [it's as if] one truth is equal to every other truth, right? My truth is as good as your truth... We have to fight this.

Brett's full discussion, which occurred in the aftermath of the insanity that forced Brett and his wife Heather Heying out of Evergreen State University.

Continue Reading“It’s About a Breakdown in the Basic Logic of Civilizaton.”

Self-Imploding Woke-Permeated Organizations

Can Woke people even get along with each other? Apparently not. Aaron Sibarium reports on "Women Against Abuse." 

"One of the largest domestic violence groups in the United States offered to pay "BIPOC" employees more than white ones; asked white staffers to sign a statement affirming their innate racism; and discouraged black abuse victims from calling the cops."

There are many more examples. Woke workplaces tend to destroy the ability to do meaningful work. A recent example is the meltdown at The Washington Post, featuring Felicia Sonmez. Here's what tends to happen when social justice warriors invade the workplace, as reported by Ricki Schlott.  And if you'd like a lot more example of woeness destroying morale, check out this article by Ryan Grimm at The Intercept:

ELEPHANT IN THE ZOOM: Meltdowns Have Brought Progressive Advocacy Groups to a Standstill at a Critical Moment in World History. Here is an excerpt:

A Prism reporter reached a widely respected Guttmacher board member, Pamela Merritt, a Black woman and a leading reproductive justice activist, while the Supreme Court oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization were going on last December, a year and a half after the Floyd meeting. She offered the most delicate rebuttal of the staff complaints possible.

“I have been in this movement space long enough to respect how people choose to describe their personal experience and validate that experience, even if I don’t necessarily agree that that’s what they experienced,” Merritt said. “It seems like there’s a conflation between not reaching the conclusion that people want and not doing due diligence on the allegations, which simply is not true.” Boonstra did not respond to a request to talk from either Prism or The Intercept.

The six months since then have only seen a ratcheting up of the tension, with more internal disputes spilling into public and amplified by a well-funded, anonymous operation called ReproJobs, whose Twitter and Instagram feeds have pounded away at the organization’s management. “If your reproductive justice organization isn’t Black and brown it’s white supremacy in heels co-opting a WOC movement,” blared a typical missive submitted to and republished on one of its Instagram stories. The news, in May 2022, that Roe v. Wade would almost certainly be overturned did nothing to temper the raging battle. (ReproJobs told The Intercept its current budget is around $275,000.)

That the institute has spent the course of the Biden administration paralyzed makes it typical of not just the abortion rights community — Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and other reproductive health organizations had similarly been locked in knock-down, drag-out fights between competing factions of their organizations, most often breaking down along staff-versus-management lines. It’s also true of the progressive advocacy space across the board, which has, more or less, effectively ceased to function. The Sierra Club, Demos, the American Civil Liberties Union, Color of Change, the Movement for Black Lives, Human Rights Campaign, Time’s Up, the Sunrise Movement, and many other organizations have seen wrenching and debilitating turmoil in the past couple years.

In fact, it’s hard to find a Washington-based progressive organization that hasn’t been in tumult, or isn’t currently in tumult. It even reached the National Audubon Society . . .

[More . . . ]

Continue ReadingSelf-Imploding Woke-Permeated Organizations

Bari Weiss Invites All of Us to Become “Founders”

Bari Weiss is one of my heroes. She was forced off the staff of New York Times a few years ago because she refused to be muzzled on important issues of the day. She is now building her own media institution. I don't agree with her on everything, but I do see eye to eye with her on most of the topics of this podcast, an address she recently gave to a brand new college. One of her themes is that we need to bravely tell the truth, even when it causes people to dislike us. Even when they call us names. And we should never feel compelled to say things we don't believe to placate the mob. She invites each of us to avoid cynicism and to become "Founders."

Continue ReadingBari Weiss Invites All of Us to Become “Founders”