Posted on 02/13/2011 4:29:15 AM PST by Walter Scott Hudson
"Clerks" director Kevin Smith has lost 65 pounds after an embarrassing incident where he was deemed too heavy to fly last year.Why, if I may be so bold as to ask, would anyone ever have “mixed feelings” about healthy weight loss? What is an “advocate for overweight people?” What is this disenfranchised constituency which needs Kevin Smith to speak on its behalf?In an interview with Joy Behar on her "HLN" show last Tuesday, Smith shared that the moment made him angry and spurred him to lose weight. He said: "I felt at that moment, I was like, 'You know what? I'll lose the weight, but I'm not putting on thinner clothes.' Because why? I'm still the same person I was when I was 65 lbs. heavier.”
He added that the incident made him a more forceful advocate for overweight people, noting: "I feel mixed feelings about losing the weight. I sympathize far more with heavier people than I ever will with thin. I'll never be thin."
Smith, whose latest film is “about vicious [Christian] extremists running amok in America,” seems here to have further demonstrated his leftist worldview. The idea that overweight people need an advocate implies they are being somehow cheated without one. We are left to wonder what an advocate for overweight people would argue for.
Presumably, as Smith did after being kicked off that plane last year, an advocate of overweight people would argue that they are somehow entitled to fly and should not be discriminated against for being overweight.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
yup, Liberalism is a mental illness
Kevin Smith is a liberal, but he is correct, many people take a snobbish view of the overweight and want to relegate them to second-class citizenship, much the same way they treat smokers.
There was a time when he wasn’t as political. His movies were actually funny back then.
Political beliefs don’t matter as much as whether or not the man puts out a decent product, and he is failing on that account.
I was seated between two extremely overweight people on an airplane once and was almost crushed to death...........I wanted to go to the back of the plane and sit with the smokers but they had already banned smoking years before.
“Kevin Smith Loses Weight, Feels Bad About It”
If he wants to feel bad about something, how about inflicting the crapfest that was “Dogma” on millions (well okay, a couple hundred) of movie goers?
next time, take the bus...
If I am in an enclosed space such as an office or airplane...I want breathable air. I don't care if a restaurant or bar allows smoking...I can choose not to go into that establishment. Everything can be taken to an extreme...a little common sense goes a long way with smoking as with excess weight. If I pay for my seat on a bus, train or plain I want to use that seat. I do not want another person leaking onto MY seat. Do I have compassion for them? Of course. Should they pay for 2 seats if they NEED 2 seats? OF COURSE.
I am a thin woman who is constantly being sought out on planes by the obese. I am serious. I pay for my seat...I always sit by the window so I can have a bit of personal space...but nearly every time a massive person will spot me and sit next to me because they know they can use part of my area. I'm not trying to come off as rude or insulting...Just speaking from my perspective. Mr. Smith, a question: Who is going to be MY advocate?
I don't care if another smokes or eats until they are obese. Just don't blow the smoke in my face or take half of the seat I paid full price for.
If the overweight demonstrate that they have no self-respect, then where do they get off demanding respect from others?
In an interview with Joy Behar on her "HLN" show
Lol, yet another loser.
Ah, the old liberal argument.
With your line of thinking, Americans consume too much, so the rest of the world should have no respect for them and should punish them for their over-indulgence.
And that is what we are talking about here....punishment, not respect.
I'm 6'-0", 260#, wear a 54" jacket, and have a hard time sitting in airline seats with the thinnest person next to me. My shoulders are wider than the arm rests.
I'm in the aisle seat, and the woman next to me, HAS TO BE my size.
Her husband, in the window seat, was probably 6'-4", 350-375ish lbs.
I spent the ENTIRE flight leaning out into the aisle, getting bumped by the beverage cart, or passengers going to the restroom.
MISERABLE flight.
I do think it’s a matter of time before you get weighed at the terminal and your ticket price gets ‘adjusted’ due to your weight.
...and for people that don’t like the policy, they can (and will) simply have to buy a ‘full-figured’ ticket, or fly on an airline that doesn’t care (i.e., gets all of the big people).
They are the libs new target now that so many have stopped smoking...have to have a new group to demonize and tax more.
Fly business or first class and you solve the problem. I used to suffer through economy class and then realized I was worth the extra expense to be comfortable.
There are two ways to approach this.
The author assumes that Smith wants to change laws to make oppressing overweight people against the law. This may be the case.
However, the opposite may also be true. That many people feel it is acceptable to annoy, disparage or discriminate against other people because they are overweight.
The airline has a right to deny service to someone who can’t fit in their seat, or who will cost them extra money to transport. But it would also be a good idea for an airline to provide extra large seating at a higher price, as well. There are enough overweight people to do so.
However, if Smith walks up to an airline ticket office, that has no official policy about overweight people, and the clerk tells him that he can’t have a ticket because he isn’t attractively slender, that is a different situation entirely.
If an overweight person wants to eat in a restaurant, and is mistreated by their staff because of his weight, he has every reason in the world to be upset about it. It is not their job to tell him how to live his life, or pester him. They can butt out. And this is not a question of taking his business elsewhere.
I once had to fly to NYC to make a mid-morning presentation. My flight was canceled and I managed to book a middle seat on another airline. I was headed from the Newark airport straight to the client's in Manhattan, wearing a mid-gray suit, prepared for the presentation.
I boarded the plane and just as it seemed we were about to close the doors a sweating, corpulent, Frigidaire-sized couple jiggled their way onto the plane, having apparent rushed from a connecting Orlando flight, carrying Disney shopping bags and wearing Goofy ear hats, flip-flops, shorts, and tank tops.
Yeah, the woman sat in the window seat next to me and the man, the aisle.
They were so large, bless their hearts, that their bare, sweating, cellulitic thighs thrust against mine under the armrests, their sweating calves pressed against mine even as I placed my cap-toed oxfords together, and my shoulders and torso were squeezed between their two sweating sets of shoulders and arms.
They were friendly - from Queens - but, with my apologies to the morbidly obese, despite turning the air vents on high, sweat poured out of them throughout the flight.
I first felt it on my thighs and calves through my pants, then, through my lined suit coat, shirt, and undershirt.
It glistened with a viscous quality like the fat that oozes out of the top of a fine pork loin after twenty minutes on a BBQ.
Of any color suit to get wet, mid-gray is not the choice. It turns dark gray, near-black, when soaked.
When the plane landed, I was striped. From my shoulders to my cuffs my suit was a dripping black, and the shirt inside was no less wet. My pants had a shiny, wet black 8" dripping stripe down each side. My shoes squished when I walked.
I felt nauseous.
I was still wearing a trendy two-tone suit when I arrived at the client's office.
The suit smelled like a locker room the next morning when I took it to the cleaners. I finally gave it to Goodwill because I couldn't wear it again, comfortably.
I've put on quite a few pounds since that day. All I have to say is, if you're large? Really large? PLEASE don't wear a tank top and short shorts on an airplane, particularly if you tend to sweat profusely.
Thank you.
Kevin Smith is a dork.
And MANY (not ALL) overweight people or smokers demand special consideration that relegate others to a lessor class than themselves.
I was in a restaurant one time, before smoking bans were around. The restaurant had a smoking and non smoking section. And the restaurant was full. I was in the non-smoking section, and at a table by me was somebody smoking, and by the looks of others, they were really irritated by it.
I asked the waitress for the manager, and asked the manager to take care of the situation, but he politely and sympathetically said there was nothing he could do.
When he left, I got up with my glass of water, went over to the "smokers" table, where the "smoker" had his cigarette on a saucer, as this was the NON-SMOKING section and no ashtrays, and extinguished his cigarette. A few harsh words were exchanged back and forth, but I explained that it would be in his best interest NOT to light up again, and inconvenience those around him.
I got a lot of smiles and nods from people, and a couple of people stopped and gave me thanks as they were leaving.
I also had a buddy, in college, who was a pretty heavy smoker. One of the most considerate people I have ever met. If he got in your car for the first time, he'd ask if he could smoke. If you said no, or preferred he didn't, HE NEVER asked again. At a restaurant he was ALWAYS amiable in taking the non smoking section. If he was smoking by you, he always made a conscious effort to blow his smoke away from others. And if he saw his cigarette smoke rising by somebody and (even maybe) irritating them, he'd move his cigarette, or stand or sit at a different position.
I find smokers (in general) to be the most ignorant people. I work in construction, where sometimes buses have to be taken into job sites. Often times the buses are chock full of cigarettes smoke. On the job site, there are often break trailers for smokers and non smokers. Its QUITE COMMON for a smoker to come in and talk to his buddy, and try to "sneak" a cigarette. Smokers take smoke breaks anytime they want. Non smokers just get a regular coffee and lunch break. Smokers have higher instances of cancer, which translate into more insurance expenditures, which is distributed to the premiums of non smokers to carry smokers.
So that BS about smokers being second class is bull shiite.
And fat people being second class is horse pucky to. How many times are fat people given special privilege? They're given handicapped parking, riding scooters in stores. And again, like smokers, obesity has its own set of diseases which the expenses must be born by others.
Kevin Smith wasn't singled "simply" because he was fat. The airlines sell specified space on an airplane, called a seat. He purchased a specified amount of space that was not adequate for his mass.
Well, if this guy finds any measure of success with his obesity advocacy, you’ll see first class seat widths throughout the cabin by force of law because narrower seats discriminate, thereby driving the cost of flying through the roof.
Sound silly? Look at the costs imposed upon every business and pubic facility to accomodate handicapped individuals. Bathrooms stalls are huge now so the wheelchair bound have space to get from the wheelchair to the toilet. Ramps, door thresholds, elevators ... the cost has been immense.
So, there’s a precedent. Don’t get me wrong, attempting to accomodate the handicapped was and is a good thing, but it’s a precedent that like all precedents will be extended by force of law. We’re talking about the government after all.
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