More pickitarianism

Brian Moylan admits he hates cheese. Because it's Gawker, the commenters are a) uniformly anonymous, and b) expected to shun sincerity, so lots admit that they too hate cheese, or bananas, or chocolate, or (a popular one) puppies. Most have no qualms with confessing to pickiness, but it is still very much a confession. But it doesn't take long for the predictable response to pop up:

Really ? really? You're not able to take a piece of Cheddar off a Burger, or a sandwich or pick the cheese out of a salad ? Now consider for a second people with real problems, like Diabetics (Type1), which cannot eat sugar which is hidden in all kinds of foods, or people with peanut allergies, where it's enough to have been processed on the same assembly line as other products. And these people go to the hospital/die when they eat those things, and you're complaining about the taste of cheese ? There are always people with bigger issues than yourself, and the people who complain about sugar or peanuts, should think about people in Somalia where water is not a given.

 And!

This article would have been a great place to talk about the billions of Lactose intolerant people who don't get to choose if they like cheese or not. It'd bee cool to talk about people who have food allergies that might kill them like peanuts or shellfish. Or other digestion allergies like being allergic to gluten. I get indignent anger towards food products that sicken you (Im looking at you mayo) but at least you have the choice to eat them or not. It wont kill you or make you sick. If you were starving and all you had was cheese you probably wouldn't die. Just saying.

And, as was inevitable.

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Pickiness of a different stripe: Dan Savage's latest terrain (just when you think he's covered it all!) is the world of certain bisexuals (see also the latest podcast) who claim that they are only romantically attracted to members of the opposite sex, but only physically so to members of the same. Sounds like yet another newly-announced category that sounds odd at first but what can we do but accept whatever consenting adults come up with... or is it more like "ex-gay," without the proselytizing bit? Certainly with the podcast complaint, from a (ex-?) Mormon 21-year-old guy thinking of marrying his overweight female best friend, a woman only attracted to gay men, because, although he's exclusively attracted to men, he feels he gets along better with women... certainly this guy is gay and.... a special kind of closeted that he may well prefer to remain with his entire life, but closeted nonetheless.

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Not that I'd know it from here in the woods with the scientists, but it's apparently Fashion Week again in NY, offering up opportunities to think NYFW means something isn't safe for work (and maybe it isn't!), and, just as reliably, the usual hubbub over how thin and young the models are. I think I've already explained why it is I think models look like that in the first place, so instead of repeating myself, I'll direct you to the CW reality show, "Remodeled," of which I've seen two partial episodes.

"Remodeled" is about a guy - in no way modelesque himself - whose personality is identical to the bad mohel from the "bris" episode of "Seinfeld," the one who coulda been a butcher like his brothah, but who is in fact a do-you-know-who-I-am modeling agent. The premise, which makes about as much sense as "ANTM," is that there are evidently agencies across the U.S. that aspire to represent high-fashion models, and dude will help them reach this goal.

Anyway. One agency, in Orlando, had made the serious error of representing models who were old. How old? 20, 23, and in one horrifying, decrepit case, 28. I can't remember now if dude was throwing a fit because the models weren't 15 or because they weren't 16, but either way, it would seem that the issue is less the difference between allowing 15-year-olds versus 16-year-olds on the runways, and more that in this industry, 17 is over the hill. So dude helps them go out into the streets to scout "kids" (this is the word he repeats incessantly - "kids" - because some of the models are male), and what they're looking for, with the women, is the youngest, thinnest, tallest they can find. (One who was 5'8" and a half had some nerve, daring to think she could enter that profession.)

Even if, in some implausible best-case scenario, models had to be 18, had organized for their rights in some capacity, there still wouldn't be many 'hags' of 22 or 'cows' of 120 lbs. on the runways, and thus from the consumer (of stuff, of media images) end, things would be about the same.