Latest obesity figures out today. I did my part to help the obesity rate when I lived in Mississippi by eating fried catfish and Krystal hamburgers. I sure do miss that food even though I know it wasn't good for me.
WASHINGTON — Mississippi's still king of cellulite, but an ominous tide is rolling toward the Medicare doctors in neighboring Alabama: obese baby boomers.
It's time for the nation's annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there's little good news. Obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year and didn't decline anywhere, says a new report from the Trust for America's Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
And while the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year olds _ the oldest boomers _ than among today's 65-and-beyond.
Thursday, 2 July 2009
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I had a Mississippi experience yesterday. I had to drive from Houston to New Orleans with one of my fellow Mississippians (a deckhand on our boat) and I was pissed all the way.
This guy, so typical of young blue collar Mississippians, is perpetuating every negative sterotype of Mississippi known, and without even trying.
First, he refused to drive because "I just got off" (from work- he's paid till midnight on the day he gets off). Then he couldn't pay for gas because, of course, he didn't have any money. Credit card? Nope, can't get one. So this lump of white meat sat in the backseat and slept most of the way.
He made several phone calls along the way, talking loudly so I and my other passenger could be impressed with how slick he is. His wife has been in the hospital for the four weeks he has been on the boat, his kids with the grandparents. Was he making arrangements to get his kids and visit his wife?
No, he was trying to talk a friend from a town 60 miles away into picking up a "pint" and putting it in his mailbox for him since the liquor stores were going to be closed by the time he got to Hattiesburg. He was talking to another girl and trying to get her to meet him at his house, where he hoped to retrieve the pint of whiskey. I'm assuming she would have to bring her own to the party.
On the boat we work six hour watches. He thinks the wake up call (30 minutes before watch change) is to inform him he has another hour to sleep. So while his sorry ass is still laying in bed his co-worker is left holding the bag, waiting on his relief. Threats of losing his job have no effect on him.
His method of interacting with me is to call me "boss"- which leads me to suspect he's spent time in jail. He tries to ingratiate himself with unnatural subordination instead of just taking care of his job.
By the time we made it to New Orleans his tone and epithets became increasingly insulting to me- "boss" became "cool cat" and "asshole". Hehe. He thought I was going to do the driving, pay for the gas, and take him to his car first instead of going to mine. When I parked the rental car by my truck he jumped out, mad as hell, and I told him "Don't you wish you'd driven now?" His car was twelve miles away, parked where we have been told for three months not to park. And, to really rub it in, I drove around, going down three different streets pretending to be lost before I finally went to the parking lot where my truck was.
He will probably be wondering, once he sobers up next week or the week after, why he doesn't have a job any more. I am sure he will be very puzzled and finally put it down to me being an asshole. I hope someday he realizes you don't piss off the boss, even if he is an asshole, and you don't besmirch the name of Mississippi.
That's a great story.
I'd be a little worried he'd come looking for me, but by the sound of it he wouldn't have the initiative.
Do you really have that much trouble getting decent workers, even with the economy the way it is?
Mel, it is terrible. There has developed such a sense of entitlement most of the kids feel like they are doing the company a favor if they show up for work, never mind doing much of it.
Recently it's been a little better with the slowdown, that enabled some weeding to be done.
Over half of these kids that come to the training center, recruited from high schools, can't read well enough to pass the simple tests given to them. It's crazy, these kids could go from the hopelessness of the rural south to making $250 a day in a years time if they tried, full insurance, 11% matching 401k. Of the ones who do pass the training school over 90% lock themselves into the lowest level simply by not trying, just being contented with the lowest level of pay.
$250 a day is not a fortune, but it is enough to get a start on life. In the past, thirty years ago, lots of kids came to work on boats and financed their college that way. Heck, it was common to have people working on advanced degrees, taking advantage of not having any living expenses, just staying on the boat for months at the time and collecting pay. I haven't seen that in fifteen years though. There has been a very definite change in work attitudes among the working class in the south.
Oh, my, we do have some porcine peeps here! It's dangerous, because ordinary folks like us think better of ourselves than we deserve, being much slimmer than the average hippo lumbering ahead of us in line.
That's why I like to go and visit my Colorado friend as often as possible---the minute I land in the Denver airport I start a new fitness/diet regime---they really are a pack o' lean wolves out there!
That's a great story about the worker and what you did to him. I'll bet he's talking about that on the phone to all his women now.
On the chance none of you have ever heard of Tyler Perry I want to mention him here. His films and plays make me think of Mississippi though he is from New Orleans.
This guy has a unique and powerful way of telling stories. He's done a series of films about this character he plays called Madea. If you've never seen any on his work give it a try. It may seem really odd at first but this guy is a real genius at storytelling. He's sort of like Richard Wright with a sense of humor.
'and I was pissed all the way.'
In England, this means you were drunk all the way home, but I figure you mean angry in the American way.
I don't know tyler Perry. Will look him up. thanks for the tip.
Richard Wright didn't need a sense of humor, did he? His writing was so powerful.
Marty, Mel read your posts this morning and now he wants our son to go work on the boats after he graduates from the UK version of high school!
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