American culture...or is that an oxymoron (long)

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 23, 2003, 1:09 pm

This is a pretty good read, and has spawned a long-ass chain of emails between me & my friends discussing it.

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Big and Blue in the USA
by James Howard Kunstler

Having just returned from a week in England where, among other things,
walking more than ten yards a day is quite normal, I was once again
startled by the crypto-human land whales waddling down the aisles of my
local supermarket in search of Nabisco Snack-Wells, Wow chips, and
other fraudulent inducements to "diet" by overindulgence in "low-fat"
carbohydrate-laden treats. And they did not look happy.

To say that Americans are shockingly obese is hardly a novel
observation, yet it is discouraging to see so many of your fellow
citizens in such a desperate and unhealthy condition, and I'm sure it
is even more discouraging to be in such a state. Related to this is the
recent disclosure that one-third of all Americans are taking prescribed
antidepressant medications, specifically the SSRIs of the Prozac family
(Selective Seratonin Re-uptake Inhibitors, including Zoloft, Paxil, and
Celexa). That's one out of every three men, women, and children! The
American media routinely regard the scandalous levels of both obesity
and emotional distress here with befuddlement and even indignation, as
though it were inexplicable and even unfair that such a friendly,
generous, valiant, humorous, and enterprising folk as we should be so
mysteriously afflicted with The Blues.

Have any reporters noticed how we actually live here in America? With
very few exceptions, our cities are hollowed out ruins. Our towns have
committed ritualized suicide in thrall to the WalMart God. Most
Americans live in suburban habitats that are isolating, disaggregated,
and neurologically punishing, and from which every last human quality
unrelated to shopping convenience and personal hygiene has been
expunged. We live in places where virtually no activity or service can
be accessed without driving a car, and the (usually solo) journey past
horrifying vistas of on-ramps and off-ramps offers no chance of a
social encounter along the way. Our suburban environments have by
definition destroyed the transition between the urban habitat and the
rural hinterlands. In other words, we can't walk out of town into the
countryside anywhere. Our "homes," as we have taken to calling mere
mass-produced vinyl boxes at the prompting of the realtors, exist in
settings leached of meaningful public space or connection to civic
amenity, with all activity focused inward to the canned entertainments
piped into giant receivers -- where the children especially sprawl in
masturbatory trances, fondling joysticks and keyboards, engorged on
cheez doodles and taco chips.

Placed in such an environment even a theoretically healthy individual
would sooner or later succumb to the kind of despair and anomie that we
have labeled "depression" in our less than honest attempt to shift the
blame for these predictable responses from our own behavioral choices
and national philosophy to some more random "disease" process. But the
misery is multiplied when these very behavioral choices -- inactivity,
isolation, and overeating sugary foods -- lead to disfiguring obesity
on top of despair. And it must be obvious that I am describing a
self-reinforcing feedback loop that generates evermore personal misery
and self-destruction.

Another way of looking at our predicament is as the result of a high
entropy economy -- entropy being provoked by huge "free" energy
"inputs" in the form of a hundred years of cheap oil, and entropy being
expressed in forms as varied as toxic waste, ruined soils, and
buildings so remorselessly ugly that the pain of living with them
corrodes our souls. Depression (despair and anomie) and obesity are as
much expressions of high entropy as the commercial highway strips, the
Big Box stores, the housing subdivisions, the hamburger chains, and all
the other accessories of the wished-for drive-in Utopia.

It doesn't help, of course, that this entropic fiasco of
self-reinforcing feedback loops, and diminishing returns have been
labeled the American Dream -- because neither patriotism nor all the
Prozac in the world will immunize us from the consequences of our own
behavior, our foolish choices, and our self-destructive beliefs. This
particular American Dream more and more looks suspiciously like a
previous investment trap -- we've sunk so much of our national wealth
into a particular way of doing things that we're psychologically
compelled to defend it even if it drives us crazy and kills us.

It was interesting to note over in England how many people were out
enjoying themselves in the public realm, with other people. By public
realm I mean in the streets, the cafes, the pubs, the parks, the
riverside promenades and other places explicitly designed for humans to
enact their hard-wired social proclivities. Everywhere I went in
Oxford, Cambridge, and London I was amazed at the hordes of young
people so obviously enjoying the company of groups of their friends,
and what a contrast this was to the current culture back home where you
hardly ever see anything but a couple, or perhaps two couples, out in a
bar or restaurant, and where the Starbucks cafes are filled with
solitary individuals, and the streets are for cars only, usually with
lone occupants. It was also startling in England to see groups of old
people walking together in the streets or sitting on a blanket in the
park, because in America old people have been conditioned to go about
outside of home only in cars. Today's older Americans have spent their
entire lives in a car-obsessed culture in which walking is seen as
uncomfortable at least and at worst socially stigmatizing, something
only winos do.

In Europe, people make 33% of their trips by foot or bicycle, compared
with 9.4% for Americans. American suburbanites weigh on average 6
pounds more than their counterparts in walkable cities. They have
higher blood pressure, are more susceptible to diabetes, and live two
years fewer on average than Europeans. Pedestrians in the US are three
times more likely to be killed in traffic than in Germany, six times
more likely than in Holland. Bicyclists here are twice as likely to be
killed in traffic than Germans, three times as likely as Dutch.

Statistics hardly tell the whole story, though. The emotional toll of
the American Dream is steep. What we see all over our nation is a
situational loneliness of the most extreme kind; and it is sometimes
only recognizable in contrast to the ways that people behave in other
countries. Any culture, after all, is an immersive environment, and I
suspect that most Americans are unaware of how socially isolated they
are among the strip malls and the gated apartment complexes. Or, to put
it another way, of what an effort it takes to put themselves in the
company of other people.

This pervasive situational loneliness, of being stuck alone in your
car, alone in your work cubicle, alone in your apartment, alone at the
supermarket, alone at the video rental shop -- because that's how
American daily life has come to be organized -- is the injury to which
the insult of living in degrading, ugly, frightening, and monotonous
surroundings is added. Is it any wonder that Americans resort to the
few things available that afford even a semblance of contentment:
eating easily obtainable and cheap junk food and popping a daily dose
of Paxil or Prozac to stave off feelings of despair that might actually
be a predictable response to settings and circumstances of our lives?
(I'd add pornography to the list also, a substitute for sex with other
real people who cannot be accessed in the condition of pervasive
situational loneliness).

How depressing.

If it's any consolation, I repeat what I have said in this space in
previous rants: that we are headed into a social and economic maelstrom
so severe, as the people on this earth contest over the remaining oil
and gas supplies, that everything about contemporary life in America
will have to be rearranged, reorganized, reformed, and re-scaled. The
infrastructure of suburbia just won't work without utterly dependable
supplies of reliably cheap oil and natural gas. No combination of
alternative fuels or energy systems will permit us to run what we are
currently running, or even close to it. The vaunted hydrogen economy
is, at this stage, a complete fantasy, and at the very least there is
going to be an interlude of severe disorder and economic discontinuity
between the unwinding of the cheap oil age and anything that might
plausibly follow it.

We will be driving a lot less than we do now and cars will generally be
a diminished presence in our lives. The automakers and the oil
companies can lobby all they like, but history has a velocity of its
own, and it is taking us into uncharted territory where the GM Yukons
and Ford Excursions will be useless. When the suburbs tank, they will
go down hard and fast. The loss of hallucinated wealth is going to
shock us to our socks, and the fight over the table scraps of the 20th
century is liable to entail a lot of political mischief here in the USA.

The physical arrangements for daily living will have to be revised and
re-ordered accordingly. We're going to have to return to traditional
human habitats: towns, villages, cities, and agricultural landscapes.
We will have to walk out of necessity, or at least ride some places
with other people. We may be too busy to indulge in the blandishments
of television and the other entertainment narcotics we've become
addicted to, and even the Internet may be made irrelevant in a world of
regular brownouts. We may have to grow more of our food closer to home
and do some of the physical work ourselves. As far as I know, there is
no such thing as a Cheez Doodle bush. We are going to be living a lot
more locally and thrown on our own resources.

We're going to have to do this whether we like it or not, because
circumstances will compel us to. There may be a lot of hardship and
difficulty, but in the process we are going to get some things back
that we threw away in our foolish attempt to become a drive-in
civilization. And most of these things we get back will have to do with
living on more intimate terms with other people, getting more regular
exercise, eating better food, leading more purposeful lives, and
rediscovering the public realm that is the dwelling place of our
collective spirit. Paradoxically, when that happens fewer of us will
need Prozac or the Atkins diet.

From:
http://www.oriononline.org/pages/oo/cur ... dBlue.html

Ennia · Post by **Ennia** » September 23, 2003, 1:38 pm

after reading about half of this I got angry. Does the guy realize that US is a huge country? Without looking up numbers I'd hazzard a guess that you can fit about 3 Europe's in it and probably 5 times the people population of Europe.

Having lived 21 years in Europe (Poland) it doesn't surprise me that you had to walk or ride a bike almost anywhere. The distances were shorter.
For efficiency reasons (time + cost of fuel+ costs of keeping a car + space to park/garage a car)) it was way more convenient to use your feet.
Lugging bags of groceries sucked of course and trips to multiple stores to buy all you needed sucked even more. I really appreciate these American WallMart Gods for carrying almost all I need to live from day to day.

Having a rather large house in America sure doesn't even compare to living with your folks and grandfolks in a "luxury" 52 square meters apartment. I'll let someone else do the math on that one, but it's freaking small.

Social interraction sure was better, you met pretty much half of the town on your way to school, work, store, theater etc. Though sometimes you really wanna be left alone instead of stopping every 10 meters to chat with so-and-so.

As for diet, obesity I really think American marketing raised an obese generation and is now stuck with it and with fixing the results of what they visually and verbally fed us over the last 20 years. People, a lot of them, really are like sheep, they will eat what you give them, especially if they see their brother, neighbour, co-worker are eating the same.

vn_Tanc · Post by **vn_Tanc** » September 23, 2003, 2:06 pm

1/3 of the population on happy pills?

Tell me that's an exaggeration. I mean, yeah, mock us europeans for our love of caffeine and smoking but I can count the number of people I've _ever known_ that were on antidepressants on 3 fingers.

Still, since our UK culture is slowly becoming more Americanised you can see the rates of pill popping and obesity are starting to rise.
Much food for thought.

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 23, 2003, 2:08 pm

To the author;

Drag your whinign ass somewhere else then. If this is all you see in the U.S., you are one miserable fuck.

Forthe · Post by **Forthe** » September 23, 2003, 2:12 pm

Ennia wrote:after reading about half of this I got angry. Does the guy realize that US is a huge country? Without looking up numbers I'd hazzard a guess that you can fit about 3 Europe's in it and probably 5 times the people population of Europe.

Both guesses would be wrong. Very wrong in fact.

Seebs · Post by **Seebs** » September 23, 2003, 2:13 pm

Please shift the topic to Oral Hygiene and grooming/bathing habits.

Limey bastards over there.

p.s I'm now eating an A&W root beer hard candy God I love this country and my 3,200 square foot home.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » September 23, 2003, 2:14 pm

This guy isn't exactly matching apples to apples here. If he was to compare London or Oxford to NYC or San Francisco or Boston, he wouldn't have much of a case. And really, just how many people can you pack into such a small area before they need to spread out.

The older the town, the more likely the environment will have that European feel this guy is referring to. The house my wife and I just put a bid on is in an older town where we can walk to restuarants or shopping and the like. That doesn't mean we're going to no longer drive to the beauty that is Wegmans for groceries.

People don't always want other people on top of them. People take pride in owning land. How much land does someone get w/ a flat? Please, there are suburbs popping up all around europe just as it did here. I'm sure if this guy went to a newly revitalized city like Frankfurt, he would see people in suburbs in the surrounding area.

Lastly, this guy is WAY off on the usage of anti-depressants. That alone spanks his argument

Wonko Wenusberg · Post by **Wonko Wenusberg** » September 23, 2003, 2:16 pm

I think he's the biggest prozac-consumer in the states.

Ashur · Post by **Ashur** » September 23, 2003, 2:21 pm

I once spent a week in Hawaii. I came back to a land of untanned people, buried in thier work. What is wrong with these people? They don't spend the day walking along the shore and spending thier evenings in quaint little beachside bars socializing with thier friends.

Obviously we must become like Hawaiians or our culture will slide into oblivion.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » September 23, 2003, 2:26 pm

I'm so depressed after reading that article that I need a Double Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese and some fucking Xanex.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 23, 2003, 2:31 pm

His opinion is pretty out there, but he does raise a few things I agree with.
For one thing, our culture. A lot of our smaller cities are just seas of stripmalls & suburbs. We are in love with tearing down old, historic buildings, and replacing them with new, ugly ones. Go anywhere in america, and a good portion of it looks exactly like everywhere else in america.. Wal-marts, stripmalls, etc.

We are expanding our cites with no regards for mass transit, sealing our fate as a car culture. We have to drive frigin everywhere. Yes, our country is huge, but we put absolutely no thought into any other transit but by car when suburbs started springing up. Lightrail? San Jose has one, and its a great way to get from te suburbia of So. San Jose to downtown, the airport, etc. BART. The greatest fucking way to get around the SF bay area. Finding systems like this in this country are rare.

We have a fast-past, "if you are moving up, your moving down" mentality lifestyle. Family, friends & values fall by the wayside in wake of this.

Post by **Sylvus** » September 23, 2003, 2:33 pm

I didn't completely discount what he had to say until I read:

It was interesting to note over in England how many people were out
enjoying themselves in the public realm, with other people. By public
realm I mean in the streets, the cafes, the pubs, the parks, the
riverside promenades and other places explicitly designed for humans to
enact their hard-wired social proclivities. Everywhere I went in
Oxford, Cambridge, and London I was amazed at the hordes of young
people so obviously enjoying the company of groups of their friends,
and what a contrast this was to the current culture back home where you
hardly ever see anything but a couple, or perhaps two couples, out in a
bar or restaurant, and where the Starbucks cafes are filled with
solitary individuals, and the streets are for cars only, usually with
lone occupants.

Sounds like this poor fella doesn't have any friends and doesn't get out much. Maybe it's because I live in a college town, but I see that kind of behavior all the time.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 23, 2003, 2:34 pm

Sylvus wrote:I didn't completely discount what he had to say until I read:

It was interesting to note over in England how many people were out
enjoying themselves in the public realm, with other people. By public
realm I mean in the streets, the cafes, the pubs, the parks, the
riverside promenades and other places explicitly designed for humans to
enact their hard-wired social proclivities. Everywhere I went in
Oxford, Cambridge, and London I was amazed at the hordes of young
people so obviously enjoying the company of groups of their friends,
and what a contrast this was to the current culture back home where you
hardly ever see anything but a couple, or perhaps two couples, out in a
bar or restaurant, and where the Starbucks cafes are filled with
solitary individuals, and the streets are for cars only, usually with
lone occupants.
Sounds like this poor fella doesn't have any friends and doesn't get out much. Maybe it's because I live in a college town, but I see that kind of behavior all the time.

Spend some time in LA. That will change your mind.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » September 23, 2003, 2:35 pm

the article ignores the fact that Europeans are now catching up with the US in the Great Obesity Race!!!

Post by **Sylvus** » September 23, 2003, 2:37 pm

Skogen wrote:Spend some time in LA. That will change your mind.

Why would I want to do that?

Again, the guy is just overgeneralizing. Sure, he saw that in London, and he'd see it in a lot of American cities as well. I'm sure there are cities in Europe that would make LA look nice as well.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 23, 2003, 2:39 pm

Sylvus wrote: I'm sure there are cities in Europe that would make LA look nice as well.

I wouldn't bet on that. (as long as we don't include the baltic area!)

CalandraWindrose · Post by **CalandraWindrose** » September 23, 2003, 2:41 pm

I think most of you have taken the wrong thing away from this article - or at least not what I took

he's not saying let's all become socialists and move back to the city

he's saying maybe let's take a look at how our culture is evolving

I don't agree with all he is saying but I don't think he is as off the mark as you might think

as an aside - what makes you think if someone is on anti depressents you would know it? that they would tell you? take a look at the drug sale numbers and what are the top selling drugs - his figures may or may not be off - but it's many more than you probably think

for every culture and every age you can point a finger to the negative - there is always negative and positive - I would hope that we can always take the time to examine the negative and what might make our lives better - isn't an honest dialogue one of the only ways to identify how we might improve things?

to say to anyone if you don't like it get out is ridiculous - isn't the free exchange of ideas one of the things our counry was founded upon? Just because someone has criticisms doesn't mean they want to be anywhere else...I think we can assume we all recognize we are a lot better off here in many ways than many other people in many areas of the world - does that mean no further discussion on where we are going is ever permissable?

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » September 23, 2003, 2:44 pm

Sounds like this poor fella doesn't have any friends and doesn't get out much. Maybe it's because I live in a college town, but I see that kind of behavior all the time.
Spend some time in LA. That will change your mind.

That's what you get for living there?

We have block parties 2-3 times a year, and you see people on the street walking every evening in where I live. It's not nearly as "social" as where I grew up in MO, but pretty close.

One of the very few things I miss about living and working on Alameda is being able to ride my bike everywhere. Work, the grocery store, you name it.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » September 23, 2003, 2:44 pm

Skogen wrote:We are expanding our cites with no regards for mass transit, sealing our fate as a car culture. We have to drive frigin everywhere. Yes, our country is huge, but we put absolutely no thought into any other transit but by car when suburbs started springing up. Lightrail? San Jose has one, and its a great way to get from te suburbia of So. San Jose to downtown, the airport, etc. BART. The greatest fucking way to get around the SF bay area. Finding systems like this in this country are rare.

It's not economically feasible to build rails everywhere. Sure, Jersey City has a light rail as well but there are probably 800,000-1 mil people that live around that short 20-30 mile line making it cost effective. What can other less populace areas do?

take a look at the drug sale numbers and what are the top selling drugs - his figures may or may not be off - but it's many more than you probably think

Hydrocodone, a pain killer, had about 57 million units sold in 2000. A cholesterol reducer and a beta blocker were ranked two and three. Paxil, Zoloft, Alprazolam (Xanax) and Prozac added up to ~76 million prescriptions. The number of prescriptions isn't even 1/3rd of the population let alone the fact the one prescription does not equal one person.

Pilsburry · Post by **Pilsburry** » September 23, 2003, 2:46 pm

I agree with the authoer on some accounts. I think Obesity is a major problem here....and it is due to our sedientary life styles.

However I do go out in large groups of friends, it just happens thatthe only place they can agree is in a freaking bar. Man I just want to like walk around and shit sometimes. I've been talking to some of them but they just don't understand I want to be more active.

A lot of my friends are younger, 20-22...I'm 29. Even before I decided to get in shape, I was in better shape then some of them....and I'd been isolated in atlanta by myself with nothing to do but play EQ (UO/Diablo whatever) for 4 years. Now I'm probably in better shape then any of them in 6 months, and I'd be in better shape if they would stop hauling my ass to bars instead of to the park...they have made a running joke about how I refuse to drink beer some nights or limit my intake because it's "empty calories"...the one who thinks it's the funniest should follow my lead...because they need to cut back on calorie intake more then a little.

I tried to get them to go rock climbing, canoeing, white water rafting....no dice. I tried to bring a couple of them to the gym as guests....no dice, they actually responded with "why?".

I'm looking forward to a time when I get a second group of friends, a more active group.

As for towns here, my mom just moved to a nice little town....she walks to most places...unless she is doing a large shopping trip..then she will drive to krogers. Her town in a nice mix....it's small and nice....but you go 2 miles over and it's a regular town with all sorts of stuff.

If the street I lived on had even a flat walking surface on the side of the road I would walk a lot to get stuff....but it's not really walkable you'll twist an ankle...it's a steep hill with a drainage ditch, the road has no shoulder and it's curvy...I took a friend walking on it one day at 7am after everyone else at the party passed out here, we walked up for breakfast...he thought it was crazy we walked so far...it's like 1/4 mile haha. 1/4 mile is nothing.

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 23, 2003, 2:57 pm

to say to anyone if you don't like it get out is ridiculous - isn't the free exchange of ideas one of the things our counry was founded upon?

Constant negativism is not worth arguing with. Sure, let's take the most attractive aspects of Europe and compare them to the least attractive aspects of America. What a wonderful excersize in self-flagellation.

The author totally ignore the fact that it is quite possible to drive completely through most European countries in an afternoon, making personal transport largely unnecessary. His statements on cities in the US dieing from the inside totally ignore the fact that many European cities are a hundred times worse.

In other words, we can't walk out of town into the
countryside anywhere.

Bull

Shit.

Take a train soemtime you whining asshole. Believe it or not, there is life more than ten miles out from the Jiffy Mart.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 23, 2003, 3:03 pm

Fallanthas wrote: The author totally ignore the fact that it is quite possible to drive completely through most European countries in an afternoon, making personal transport largely unnecessary. His statements on cities in the US dieing from the inside totally ignore the fact that many European cities are a hundred times worse.

LOL.

BULL

SHIT

Pilsburry · Post by **Pilsburry** » September 23, 2003, 3:09 pm

This thread about Europe just reminded me, I need to call the dentist for a check-up.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » September 23, 2003, 3:13 pm

Pilsburry wrote:This thread about Europe just reminded me, I need to call the dentist for a check-up.

Pilsburry · Post by **Pilsburry** » September 23, 2003, 3:31 pm

Man oct 30th is the earliest appt...I'm going to look british by then....

Melrin_Specclaster · September 23, 2003, 4:08 pm

I read last week that 25% of Americans cats and dogs are considered obese.

Deijah Vu · Post by **Deijah Vu** » September 23, 2003, 4:22 pm

Fallanthas wrote:To the author;

Drag your whinign ass somewhere else then. If this is all you see in the U.S., you are one miserable fuck.

hahaha /agree

rhyae · Post by **rhyae** » September 23, 2003, 4:40 pm

I blame americans depression and obesity on diet coke. Pure evil.

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 23, 2003, 4:54 pm

Melrin_Specclaster wrote:I read last week that 25% of Americans cats and dogs are considered obese.

I can see that as true! My cat is a fat ass, and so are my parents two cats!

Skogen · Post by **Skogen** » September 23, 2003, 5:03 pm

Ok, I just got back from lunch, and what I saw when I made a run to the bank epitomizes the "fat, lazy american" stereotype.

I went to BoA to make a deposit.. As I drove by the Drive-up ATM located on the side of the bank, I noticed 5 cars in line waiting to use it. I thought "Oh shit, the bank is crowded! I am going to be here forever!" As I swung around the front of the bank, I noticed there was plenty of parking. I parked right in front of the bank. As I made my way to the front door, I noticed that the two normal, walk-up ATM machines were un- occupied. I walked in, and there was NO ONE in line! I walked right up to a teller, made my deposit, and walked out. When I got back to my car, my wife called me, so I sat in my car talking to her while still parked. I looked inside these cars STILL waiting to use the drive-up ATM. 4 of them had fat-ass people behind the wheel, and the 5th was an elderly man with a handicapped sign on his license plate (who was in fact holding up the line because he was going to slow, but hey, he's old!) As I sat there talking, I watch all five of these cars use the ATM, and drive off. The elderly guy left the parking lot, and drove away, and the other 4? They ALL drove right over to the KFC located in the same parking lot, and sat in the drive through there!! Those fat-ass lazy fucks wouldnt even bother with the effort of parking there car in front of the bank, getting out, and using the ATM with no line. They all opted to sit still, and just wait for the drive-up ATM.
Then they all went to KFC for lunch.

It gave me a good chuckle.

Xzion · Post by **Xzion** » September 23, 2003, 5:05 pm

ehh well in the homeland being spain, people dont use any happy pills, everyone just smokes hash while chatting to the local police officer about the weather, or hooks up there 6 year old kid with a few glasses of wine

and yeah, the population density and size of the country play a huge factor, im sure if the US had the same density and layout of europe,and the same gas prices... people would walk a lot more and all that,

thought that has nothing to to with obesity,thats just american marketing and people who would rather spend 5 bucks ona couple big macks then cook a healthy dinner, also the workhours and time off play another huge factor, people in europe, at least meditarranian(sp) europe are a lot more laid back with more time off and shorter work hours, meaning they have more time to cook meals and take life easyer

Sheryl · Post by **Sheryl** » September 23, 2003, 5:36 pm

Skogen wrote:
Melrin_Specclaster wrote:I read last week that 25% of Americans cats and dogs are considered obese.
I can see that as true! My cat is a fat ass, and so are my parents two cats!

my friend's parents have a dog who is so disgustingly fat that she actually has fatty TUMORS bubbling up all over her body. the vet said to quit feeding her so much junk but they just ignored him. they think they're doing their pup a favor by "spoiling" her when all they're doing is cutting a few years off her life. the poor dog has a neverending bowl of food (when she eats some they just top it back off) and gets a ton of table scraps. it pisses me off to even go over there anymore.

Skogen wrote:I walked right up to a teller, made my deposit, and walked out.

i've done the same thing. it's unreal that people will sit in a line of 5+ cars when the atm sitting in front of the bank isn't being used.

and wtf is all that I AM THE PROPHET AMERICA IS DOOMED bullshit at the end of that article? it's an interesting read until you get to the end and instead of theorizing he's like ok this is what's going to happen so listen up fatso.

Pilsburry · Post by **Pilsburry** » September 23, 2003, 5:56 pm

I always use the atm and drive-thru.....I went inside my bank once....to open my account.

I'm not fat or lazy though....I'm down to 14% body fat. That's a good number...and I'm still working on it.

Here is what really gets me hot and bothered....

I watch people circle the gym parking lot looking for the closest spot. Hello? Gym? And then I'll see the same person walk in do 20 crunches, 15 mins of walking on a treadmill, and leave. Basically just so they can explain to thier friends and relatives "I don't know why I'm fat, I eat good, and I work out 3x a week". What bullshit. I've even seen perfectly healthy people at the gym park in the handicapped parking so they could get a close spot!

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » September 23, 2003, 6:02 pm

Fallanthas wrote:To the author;

Drag your whinign ass somewhere else then. If this is all you see in the U.S., you are one miserable fuck.

AMERICA LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT LOL LETS ROLL

Fallanthas · Post by **Fallanthas** » September 23, 2003, 6:21 pm

I think Kooky forgot her meds again.

In all seriousness, is that what you got out of the bit you just quoted? I guess it's true, people see what they can understand and nothing else.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » September 23, 2003, 6:55 pm

Fallanthas wrote:To the author;

Drag your whinign ass somewhere else then. If this is all you see in the U.S., you are one miserable fuck.

I think that's just the point... Americans don't have any perspective on their own culture if they never leave it. Unfortunately, this makes further argument moot.

Deijah Vu · Post by **Deijah Vu** » September 23, 2003, 7:10 pm

American culture is too diverse. You don't have to take too many steps outside your front door to get a feel of anothers culture. These generalzations about American culture is pure trash. American culture is nothing but a big melting pot of every country near or far. just because they're counting how many fat people live in America, or how many pill poppers doesn't me they are all American. They just live here. I know people who, unfortunately, live in America for the oppertunity but refuse to call themselves American. So are people American just because they reside here? Or is beging an American something you feel in your heart? You're "pride" in America. Hmmmm makes me wonder.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » September 23, 2003, 7:23 pm

There's a difference between an integrated culture and many cliques co-existing in a given area.