Spectator Life

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.

What do the likes of Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Russell Brand have in common? They are all fans of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a pseudoscientific hodgepodge of strange hacks and corny aphorisms supposed to change an individual’s thoughts and behaviors. NLP practitioners claim to have the power to help clients achieve desired outcomes. Comedian Jimmy Carr, currently touring the US, recently spoke about the power of NLP during an interview with podcaster Chris Williamson. Carr has also spoken about the power of NLP on other hugely popular podcasts. Like Buffett, Clinton, Obama and Brand, Carr has achieved unimaginable levels of success. But the idea that NLP can help you reach some higher plane of awakening is not rooted in solid science.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is famous for many things, including his rather fetching mustache and his rather hideous wardrobe. Behind the chuckles and the wacky attire, however, lies a slightly darker side. The man who famously said that he was “proud to be part of a species where a subset of its members willingly put their lives at risk to push the boundaries of our existence” is now pushing the boundaries of our patience. Over the years, deGrasse Tyson has become increasingly condescending, rude and arrogant. He has veered from the area of astrophysics into other avenues, including, most recently, the trans debate. More specifically, trans women competing in actual women’s sports.

What would it do to the credibility of the American Heart Association to accept a sponsorship deal with McDonald’s to give nutritional advice? What about the American Lung Association taking cash from a tobacco company to talk about healthy habits? It sounds far-fetched, but that’s exactly what the American Academy of Pediatrics just did.   Healthy Children, the official parenting website of the American Academy of Pediatrics, has sent out a few tweets that read: “Are you considering a cell phone for your child? What age is the right age? Find out by answering ten short questions.” The link is a co-branded campaign between Healthy Children and the cell phone company AT&T.

Mental health therapists are supposed to be deliberate in making sure that their personal politics don’t get in the way of treating their patients. I was taught during graduate school that separating my “stuff” from my patients’ therapy was essential. After all, their therapy was all about them.   But that has changed in this country — everywhere from college-level classes and professional organizations, to therapy practices both public and private.   Earlier this summer, in a private group of mental health professionals that I administrate, I witnessed how the critical theory ideologues are destroying mental healthcare.

Juul, the once dominant e-cigarette company, is back with a new proposed product that it hopes will rescue it from the brink of bankruptcy: age-restricted vapes.   In their attempts to make smoking less accessible for minors, the company is prepared to make the simple pleasure a pain for everyone. Users first must buy a new e-cigarette that pairs with a phone app. They will then upload their government ID or a real-time selfie to the app and have a third-party database verify their identity. A unique Pod ID chip within the Juul device will detect counterfeit cartridges made by other companies, who have flooded the market with illegal fruity flavors that appeal to minors. To further combat the problem, the new device only comes with just one flavor—Virginia Tobacco.

There’s a disturbing trend Cockburn has noticed lately that involves men d'un certain âge being inappropriately ripped. We’re not talking about the darling geriatric mall-walkers taking laps for their heart health; Cockburn is referring to the Jeff Bezoses (Bezii?) and the RFK Jrs. and the Sylvester Stallones of the world who are buffer than their aged bones might naturally allow. For starters, when you see Jeff Bezos’s fifty-nine-year-old “muscular physique” as he climbs aboard his “$500 million superyacht,” admit it: you’re disturbed. Before his billions, Bezos was a skinny nerd with the brawn of a wet spaghetti noodle.

The Biden family seems to care more about its dogs than the men and women who work to keep them safe every day. After numerous biting incidents, often but not exclusively of Secret Service agents, their dog Major was expelled. Now it may be Commander’s turn to hit the road — the question is how many agents need to get bitten first. The New York Post reports that over the course of four months, September 2022 to January 2023, the German Shepherd bit seven people, and there are likely more incidents outside that block of time. Cockburn finds it a bit strange that neither Joe nor Jill are willing to take the proactive step of muzzling their dogs — after all, hasn't this White House been all too eager to muzzle Americans?

First, it was rumored, and denied, that the Kardashians were on it. Then its usage spread all the way to Elon Musk. But now, are we seeing the real, tragic consequences of Hollywood's favorite slimming drug, Ozempic? Cockburn is devastated to hear of speculation that Christina Hendricks, also known as Joan from Mad Men, has succumbed to the latest celebrity trend. Hendricks, arguably the epitome of Rubenesque beauty in Tinseltown, caused alarm among fans online after posting a photo to Instagram following a dinner earlier this month. https://www.instagram.com/p/CuQszp2u_-M/?

Being overweight, unless you’re a sixteenth-century Rubens model, ain’t the thing. But looking at America, where more than two-thirds of people are obese or overweight, you’d think thin is definitely not in. It’s well known extra pounds increase a person’s chance of heart disease, stroke and diabetes, along with the general discomfort of carrying around extra heft for which your frame wasn’t designed. Being overweight is also linked to increased cancer risk, and the New York Post reports: “In all, thirteen types of [cancer] were previously known to be associated with overweight body types — but now, that number has climbed to eighteen different cancers. And the risk of developing cancer begins when people are young — between the ages eighteen and forty.

The American Medical Association just announced its adoption of a head-scratching new policy that seems to be aimed not so much at improving people’s health, but at appearing sensitive and “woke.” The new policy is “aimed at clarifying how body mass index can be used as a measure in medicine.” BMI, apparently, has a “problematic history” because it “does not account for differences across race/ethnic groups, sexes, genders and age-span.” “BMI,” explains the Centers for Disease Control site (for now — they may not be up to “woke” speed just yet), “is a simple, inexpensive and noninvasive surrogate measure of body fat.

I was skeptical when my children arrived home from school Wednesday and informed me they could not play outside, irritated when they used the faculty fearmongering to demand screen time, irate when we pulled into the drop-off line Thursday morning. There was the crossing guard in an N95, a teacher in the same. A small boy was wrapped in useless cloth, dragged to the front steps by a mother sporting a surgical mask and a smart business suit. Evidently, cartoonish shoulder pads are making a comeback after a three-decade slumber, but mass panic barely had time to take a nap here in Washington before bureaucrats roused it in the name of public safety. It feels as though we are living in a horror movie and a particular one at that: the rushed sequel to a surprise box office hit.

Conservatives just discovered the surest cure for America’s obesity epidemic: boycotts.  On Tuesday morning, Chick-fil-A became the latest casualty in the Bud Light War when a Twitter mob began calling for a boycott of the fast food chain gone “woke.” The outrage followed a viral tweet highlighting that the company had hired a vice president of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. “We have a problem,” tweeted conservative commentator Joey Mannarino on Monday. “Chick-Fil-A just hired a VP of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This is bad. Very bad. I don’t want to have to boycott. Are we going to have to boycott?” Cockburn certainly does not want to give up his weekly chicken sandwich!

“I promise you if I’m elected president, you’re going to see the single most important thing that changes America: we’re gonna cure cancer,” then-candidate Joe Biden pledged in 2019. Virtually no one believed him at the time — and his administration is both complicating this promise and allowing China to leapfrog American medical innovation, potentially exposing the most sensitive health data of anyone who relies on Chinese companies for early cancer detection. Over halfway through his term in office, Biden’s own Federal Trade Commission, or FTC, is blocking a merger involving what advocates call a “cancer miracle” that could save up to 100,000 lives every year, concretely jeopardizing Biden’s already-unlikely promise to cure cancer.

Leaked Facebook messages provided exclusively to The Spectator reveal how therapists are using counseling sessions with their patients to push left-wing ideas of race and gender. Approximately half a dozen licensed mental health professionals in a Facebook group in Indiana had in-depth discussions about how to inject systemic racism into sessions with patients who problems or goals were seemingly unrelated to that topic. The therapists also strategized on how to work with patients who were resistant to the idea that the real source of their issues was societal bigotry or that they might be bigoted themselves.

Pennsylvania experienced a heat wave last week, with temperatures soaring into the mid-80s. It was not to last. This morning it was a balmy 33°F, with that bone-chilling dampness and threat of snow showers that can only mean one thing: spring! When friends and family who live in warm places send me photos of the beach and brag about taking long walks in the sunshine, I block out their bragging with a defiant flip of my hood and insist that people who live in cold places are tougher. We have more character. True grit. And it turns out that may actually be true. "Cold temperature extends longevity and prevents disease-related protein aggregation," according to a new peer-reviewed study from Germany's University of Cologne. Longevity, i.e.

When it comes to using trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote the iconic Bud Light brand — a favorite beer here in the backwoods — my first impulse was in line with that of Kid Rock, who used cases of the stuff for target practice. It’s a reaction many Americans, insulted by what they perceive to be an attack on their traditional values and gender stereotypes, are having to varying degrees as they boycott the beer giant, reportedly to the tune of billions of dollars. Progressives, meanwhile, can’t get enough of Mulvaney.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has released new guidelines on childhood obesity, advocating that children receive medication and even surgery as early as twelve years old to avoid long-term health consequences. The authors of the new guidelines argue against the historical belief that obesity can be overcome exclusively by lifestyle changes. They say that doesn’t adequately address “socioecological, environmental and genetic influences” that affect children. Childhood obesity rates, however, are higher than they’ve been in fifty years — and genetics didn’t cause the concerning rise. The most obvious changes in the Western lifestyle since then have included a massive increase in processed foods and the integration of the internet into everyday life.

Nothing says "it’s going to be a fine day" like a catcall. A short line at the coffee shop, great. No pushing and shoving to get on the subway, wonderful. But hearing that whistle when walking past a group of builders up on the scaffolding really makes me smile like nothing else in my morning routine. If I’m lucky, I even get a “looking good, darling.” It’s an act that me and my nameless builder friend have perfected. I blush, he gives me a cheeky smile, we both get on with our day. Yet in London, this morning staple of mine is about to be made punishable by up to two years in prison. Bye bye, builder friend. Late last year, the British government launched their war on ogling.