I hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving, the non-Native-American, Imperialist Colonials among you anyway. For the rest I hope you were able to sponge dinner off of those who were celebrating. Failing that, I would like to extend my condolences to those of you who were unable to slip into a loose-belt, tryptophan induced coma after consuming enough calories at one sitting to keep a moderately populated African village going for a week.

You don’t know what you’re missing.

While we’re on the subject. I was reading a story on NPR this week about the worsening problem with obesity in America; a problem that is now spreading throughout the developed world. Even the French are no longer immune. Which does not bode well for the beaches on the Côte d’Azur. Currently about 70% of the U.S. population is overweight or obese, a number that is expected to grow to over 80% within the next eight years. I’m not sure anything can be done about it, realistically anyway, but you can bet everything from diet ads to First Lady led childhood obesity campaigns will continue flourish.

The reason I think we’re seeing this ongoing problem is that for 99.9% of our evolutionary history nutrition, in general, and calories, specifically, have been extremely hard to come by. Humans evolved to take advantage of seasonal or fortuitous availability of food – Those mastodons don’t come along every day, you know – and pack on the surplus as fat to tide us over when the food source, and calories, went away.

On top of that, it used to be hard work to find those calories. Digging roots, climbing trees, planting crops by hand, all of it – that’s a lot of effort. Effort burns calories and keeps us fit and trim and allows our evolutionarily developed fat storage mechanism to function properly.

Now, that former survival skill, has turned against us and, rather than helping to keep us alive, is actively working to make us sick. Because now, there are no longer any lean times. The calories simply don’t go away.

Regardless of whether you’re supersizing your combo or making due with half a portion of Lean Cuisine vermicelli squash and sun-dried tomato flavored wood-product, food-like substance, your body is trying desperately to pack on each and every calorie against the day when McDonalds or the freezer section of Trader Joe’s lets you down.

Now, one might think, that given the current crisis in health care, that there’s a sort of, ummmm…, perfect opportunity here to improve our health, lower the cost of eating, and lower the cost of health care all in one nice, coordinated program. But do you think that will happen?

What, are you nuts?

Since time immemorial rulers have known that to stay in power you have to give the people exactly what they want: panem et circenses to Caesar, bread and circuses for the rest of us. So, it is in the best interests of all of the powers-that-be, from government, to Wall Street, to the health care industry, to keep us all well-fed and happy, regardless that it’s killing us off.

So when I step on the scale, I know that ever increasing number is just the end product of a massive corpo-governmental conspiracy to keep me in my place. Because if I’m well-fed, it’s much less likely that I’ll be out stirring things up.

As long as they keep me home in front of the TV.

The other component needed to complete the equation – mindless entertainment – is a tougher nut to crack. I used to think that this evil was embodied in TV, professional sports, and movies made by Saturday Night Live washouts. But we’ve grown way past that. Nowadays, those are still in play although the sex and violence has been amplified beyond any potential entertainment value. Even that we’ve grown used to. So this conventional amusement has been superseded by an even bigger circus; a group of clowns that keep pouring out of the tiny car and tumbling into the center ring under the big-top.

The Republican Presidential Contenders.

Have you seen these guys? Jeez, in makes me wish that I hadn’t abandoned my quest to be King. Now, don’t get me wrong and think I’m picking on the Republicans. I firmly, and with every fiber of my being, believe that each and every politician out there is a mouth-breathing, bottom-feeding, scum-sucking, slime bag. Come on, really, if they weren’t why else would they get into that line of work? But in the old days politicians could be smart and effective, even if they were criminals of the worst sort – Nixon comes to mind. They could be inspirational leaders even while banging starlets and smoking flavored cigars. But this new crowd? Wow!

Going through the list of one-time front-runners for the Republican nomination: Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and Gingrich, along with the permanent place-horse Willard “Mitt” Romney, I can only assume that 1) our view of the campaign is being manipulated by evil forces and 2) there is only a number one.

Of course the Republican pundits are right. It is the fault of the liberal media that we don’t get a clear, rational picture of how upstanding and qualified that these right-wing wackos really are. I mean when those pinko, apologists-for-hope talk about the presidential contenders you’d think that all of them are insane, drunk, stupid, and corrupt. If those truth-warpers at NPR would tell it like it is then we’d be able to get the true picture about the candidates like that provided by the bastion of conservative thought: Fox News. Yeah, that’s right!Because on Fox the candidates are shown to be exactly what they are which is insane, drunk, stupid, and corrupt.

Huh?

Yeah, the only difference is that Fox thinks that’s OK. The stories Fox covers are the same as the liberal mainstream. And, more importantly, the stories Fox doesn’t cover are too. No front-running stories on the rational politics of John Huntsman from either side. No segment leading commentary about how Ron Paul thinks the Patriot Act is the freedom killing, Gestapo legislation that it is. Nope. Fox, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, even Comedy Central realize that there’s no money to be made in a calm, well-reasoned discussion. What they want is twenty second sound-bites on the issues and in-depth details on who is shoving whose head into which lap. Or whatever. And those sound-bites better be targeted so far out on the fringe or else.

Which is where they get into trouble. Witness the famous “should a sick, employed, uninsured person be allowed to die if they can’t afford their medical treatment” incident. The crowd shouted “Yeah!” The candidate, Ron Paul, was left holding the bag and stumbled through the conundral waters of playing to the crowd (he did get a cheer when he said that “risk is what freedom is all about”) and appearing to be a heartless bastard when Wolf Blitzer pressed him about the dying part.

I think, at heart, a lot of these guys are really moderates. Look at Rick Perry’s decline in the standings following his talking about what is basically the most compassionate stance on illegal immigrants. Yes, some of you might point to him in New Hampshire kissing a bottle of maple syrup on TV as a contributing factor, but that stunt was wacky enough to make him jump up in the polls just from bringing the syrup fetishists on board.

These guys just haven’t figured it out yet; regardless of being able to go to school on their predecessors’ putts as it were. Herman Cain. The correct answer is “sheee-it, yeah, you know what I’m talkin’ about.” Followed by a wink and a grin. Rick Perry. Come on man, the correct answer is “Did I say three? I meant two.” Mitt. On RomneyCare, the answer is “You bet. There are a lot of hard-working Republicans out there that could use the help.”

But concepts like honesty and admitting to past mistakes are as foreign to the candidates as heterosexuality is to Michelle Bachmann’s husband. Honesty, in politics, is pursued relentlessly, tied up, and beat with sticks. There’s no margin in telling the truth and therefore, there’s no problem with lying. Or playing to the fringe.

Just don’t talk about anything in calm, measured tones.

And so we have our quadrennial circus, except that it lasts for two years now. We should be grateful that the Democrats don’t need to have their own clown show this year. In just over a month the candidates will start dropping out as the powerhouse states of Iowa and New Hampshire make known their feelings on the subject. The lunatic fringe we’ll be the last to go, so, for the next year at least, we’ll have these bozos parading around the center ring; climbing in and out of their tiny car. The rest of the world will look at us like we’re nuts (it’s OK, they’re nuts too). And in a year, when the dust settles after the Grand Finale, they’ll come in and clean up the donkey and elephant crap.

And the show will start again.

OK, have fun shopping this weekend. I’m going to go make myself another turkey sandwich with stuffing and cranberry sauce and tune into Circus News Network. Maybe John Huntsman has done something stupid.