Spectator Life

Earlier this year, in episode #2273 of the Joe Rogan Experience, the world’s most successful podcaster started sounding off about fluoride, calling it a “neurotoxin” and citing “conclusive studies” linking high levels of fluoride in the water to lower IQs. In a clip that has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, Rogan expressed bafflement to his guest Adam Curry, the entrepreneur and media personality: “We know it’s bad for you in large doses, and yet there are fucking people out there with college degrees who read the New York Times who will get angry if you want to remove this neurotoxin from water because, ‘Look at all the strides its done in preventing tooth decay,’ and you just wanna say hey man fuck you, this is stupid.

The US Senate narrowly confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human Services (HHS) secretary in a 52-48 vote. Democrats voted along party lines — against former Democrat RFK — as did Republicans, with the exception of Senator Mitch McConnell. Expressing his view of RFK’s appointment, McConnell said in a statement: I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world. I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles... a record of trafficking in dangerous conspiracy theories and eroding trust in public health institutions does not entitle Mr.

My friend Dan Foster voiced a theory about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today that strikes me as particularly accurate. In response to a comment from the New York Times’s Ross Douthat giving credence to RFK’s belief that Lyme disease could be the result of a materially engineered bioweapon, he noted: “The reason I think Kennedy gets confirmed is because every single American agrees with him on one of his fringe things. He’s like the Captain Planet of kook.” This is the ultimate expression of voter antipathy toward traditional politicians, laid atop suspicions that everyone holds about something on the edge of appropriate discussion. It goes like this: “Well, yeah RFK’s probably wrong about X, and definitely about Y, but Z? He’s the only guy who tells the truth about Z!

After years of crushing inflation, "woke" priorities and bureaucratic overregulation, Donald Trump and the Republican Party achieved a resounding victory in November. Part of that victory was built upon his promise to challenge the status quo in our healthcare system and to “make America healthy again.” The first step? Ending patient-last policies in Medicare, Medicaid, drug pricing and health insurance that prioritize the health of the healthcare system over the health of patients, driving up the cost of care at the expense of patients and taxpayers.  Healthcare is the only market where customers discover the price after consuming a good or service, and these surprising costs are contributing to crushing medical debt. It doesn’t have to be this way.

This week, the nation focused on the deaths of two men in New York City. In one case, a mentally stable man confronted a mentally unstable man on the F train. Out of an intentional drive to protect the lives of those around him, the stable man — a twenty-five-year-old Marine from Long Island — put the unstable man in a chokehold that resulted, directly or indirectly, in his death. In the other case, a mentally unstable man targeted a mentally stable man as a consequence of his job leading one of the largest health insurance companies — shooting him in the back as he walked down the street.

For those of us with a poor grasp of time, who can still recall when a night at the bar could be sharply revisited by a Proustian wave of stale smoke arising from yesterday’s clothes, it can almost feel as if vaping crept up on us out of nowhere. One moment, it seemed, all the authorities had firmly agreed that pushing for vaping was creepy, and were pledging to legislate and tax cigarettes into oblivion; the next, great hordes of schoolchildren were apparently free to suck constantly on little vials of liquid nicotine with sugar-rush names such as Cherry Fizzle and Blue Razz Lemonade. What happened?

Imagine a movement of alcoholics wanting to glorify alcoholism. They’ll claim alcoholism is normal, even healthy. They’ll charge anyone who says otherwise as infected by a societally instilled form of methyphobia, the abject fear of alcohol. The movement will be sponsored by the alcohol industry, eager to gin up sales with the advent of “alcoholic positivity” promoting their addictive beverages. There will even be conferences around the country featuring activist alcoholics selling alcoholism as beautiful. The same movement is happening today with food.  TLC’s My 600-Lb Life returns with season twelve on Wednesday. Each episode offers a painful illustration of the consequences of extreme food addiction glorified today by activists for “body positivity.

After twenty-five years battling her weight before a studio audience, Oprah has finally dropped those pesky forty pounds... with the help of weight-loss drugs. Now the media mogul has dropped WeightWatchers too.  Earlier this week, Oprah announced that she would be leaving the company after nearly a decade on its board of directors and starring in commercials.   “I look forward to continuing to advise and collaborate with WeightWatchers and CEO Sima Sistani in elevating the conversation around recognizing obesity as a chronic condition, working to reduce stigma and advocating for health equity,” said Oprah, who apparently no longer needs the weight-loss program.

Secretary of defense Lloyd Austin underwent an elective surgical procedure, still unspecified, at the end of December. Because complications, also unspecified, developed, he was hospitalized on Monday and spent three days in intensive care. He is still in the hospital as of Monday, January 8. What is remarkable about this episode is that the public was not informed that the man who is in charge of national defense and sixth in the line to the presidency was seriously ill. But neither was the White House itself. President Biden did not learn that his defense secretary was, well, hors de combat, until Thursday, and the public did not learn of it until Friday. Austen’s deputy apparently didn’t know either as she was on vacation in Puerto Rico.

Conservative commentator Guy Benson and his husband recently announced the arrival of a new baby, born via surrogate. Controversy erupted when they tweeted out the news. Last year, when Dave Rubin, another conservative commentator, and his husband announced they would have two surrogate babies, there was a similar flare-up. Surrogacy is the only way a male couple can biologically become parents, but the practice is increasingly questioned due to moral and ethical concerns surrounding the industry and the rights of children. Now, the issue is dividing conservatives who have recently found common ground against things like radical transgender ideology. Some immediately conclude that critics of surrogacy harbor bias against gay families.

My phone screamed on the bedside table at 4:30 a.m. I’d been playing poker at a home game in Culver City until late in the night, so I didn’t answer, and I also didn’t answer the other six times it rang in the next two hours. When I finally woke up, I had a text from the “BBC OS” asking if I could talk. “What is the BBC OS?” I wondered. Then I realized it was the actual BBC’s Overnight Service. Still, why were they calling me at dawn? And then when I went online, I realized they wanted to know my thoughts about the fact that Snoop Dogg had announced, on his Instagram, that he, “after much consideration and conversation with my family ... decided to give up smoke.” He accompanied this announcement with a photo of himself, hands in prayer, looking quite plaintive.