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there was no hatred, prejudice, and bigotry in this world. Just think of how much money would be saved if we didn't have any more wars, and how much would be saved if we feed all the hungry people in the world, because hunger, and lack of resources, often lead to violence and war which exacts heavy costs in the number of deaths, and damage to civilization. I grew up knowing about the cost of hatred when I went to school as a kid, back in the 1960s. I'm 46 years old now. And yes, I'm a fat person at only 5 ft 6 in and 400 pounds. When I was 4 years old, I fell out of a car, and busted my left knee on the road, so as a kid, my left leg was crippled up, and I walked with a limp, and I could not run, and I was lousy at sports. My mother taught me how to read and write before I even started school, and by the time I was only in the 3rd grade, I was already reading at the high school and adult level. When I was 13, I scored 150 points on a standard IQ test, so going through school should have been a breeze for me. Science was my favorite subject, especially Astronomy. But then, back in 1962 I believe, the President's Council on Physical Fitness said that Americans were out of shape and that we all needed to go on 50 mile hikes, and then, our schools became super gung-ho on Physical Education, while cutting back on academics. In the 4th grade, I was suspended from school because I failed to climb a rope in a gymnasium. In the 5th grade I had my first male teacher who made my life a living Hell in the PE class. He would humiliate me in front of all the other students, and one day he punched me in the stomach with a basketball. Then there was another time when our class went to the school library. There was this one Astronomy book that I wanted to check out, but the teacher would not allow me to have that book. When I asked why he let all the other kids check out any book they wanted, but not me, he dragged me out of the library, out into the hallway, grabbed me by the shoulders, and bashed my head up against the corner of a concrete block wall. The following year, that teacher was fired and could not get a teaching job anywhere else. But for years after that, from the age of 11 years and through out my teen ages years, I had dizzy spells and headaches as a result of my head injuries. I suffered a lot of mental and emotional problems, and during my teen age years, I gained a lot of weight, and I got fat, weighing about 280 pounds by the time I was only 17 years old. In school I was harassed and bullied around by the jocks. I was called a fat sissy boy because I didn't care for sports, and in high school, I wanted nothing to do with the drug scene. I tried to avoid anyone who was using drugs, but a couple of pusher keep harassing me, trying to get me to try some of their stuff. Then I made a stupid mistake. I turned them in, because they wouldn't leave me alone. After than, I was harassed even more. In the art class, my oil paintings were destroyed, I had books stolen from me, and my life was even threatened, so for my own safety, I had to drop out of school. After that, I had a total breakdown, mentally and emotionally, and spent three weeks in a mental hospital, where I was beatened on a regular _base_s, and one night, I was raped by an older man. I was 17 years old at the time, and after I came home from the mental hospital, after the effects of the drugs wore off, my weight shot up from 220 pounds to around 280 pounds in less than two months! When I turned 18, I was in no condition mentally and emotionally to holed a job, so my mother had to file a claim for disability on my behalf, and of course, this was back in 1969 during the Viet Nam war, so I had to register for the draft, but the Army reject me because I was about 120 pounds overweight. Actually, I was glad for that, because it meant that I didn't have to go to Viet Nam and die for a country that treated me like a 4th class citizen. Since I never graduated High School, I took the GED Test, and I scored high in it, and got a certificate that is as good as a High School Diploma, and from 1975 to 1978 I tried going to Collage where I majored in Physics and Astronomy, but I never completed my degree. I was under a lot of emotional stress. I made Bs in most of my math classes, and I love Trigonometry. For me its' fun, but I couldn't hack being under too much stress. I have become emotionally fragile, unable to control my emotions, probably due to my head injuries and some other factors in my life. And so, I have been a victim of prejudice and hatred, the same kind of bigotry being spouted off by the likes of people like Shirley Skeel, who is a slimy green with the lust for money. All she cares about is money, and she does not care if human lives are put on the Sacrificial Alter of Capitalism and Greed just to save a few bucks. I'm more interested in saving human lives than saving money! As for me, being fat has done me no harm, and has actually protected me from more serious injuries from beatings I had received in the past. But the hatred, just for being different, had taken a far greater tole on me than my weight ever could. Hey, because I'm fat, I actually save more energy. I don't need to have my thermostat set so high during the winter months and have my home heated at tropical temperatures as thin people do. I'm too fat to drive a car, so I use public transportation, thus saving more energy. Also, I have a slow _meta_bolism. Normal body temperature is about 98.6 degrees, while mine averages 96.5 degrees. That usually indicated hypothyroid, but I've been checked for that, and the lab results always come back negative. I can maintain my weight on fewer calories than the average size person, thus saving more on food. It's been said that to maintain a weight of 400 pounds, that it would take about 4000 calories, but I can maintain my weight on just 2500 calories per day. I know a lot of skinny people, like my younger brother for example: who is much taller, and only weighs about 160 pounds, and he eats a Hell of a lot more than I do, but he is not anymore active than I am, because he is also crippled up and walks with a cane, and he needed to use a cane about 10 years before I finally needed one myself. He has had surgery done on one of his feet, and he has incurred far more medical expenses than I have. I'm not harming anybody else, but I have been harmed several times repeatedly, and it has cost me much. I'm unable to hold a job, not because of my weight, but because I'm far less able to cope with emotional stress than most people, thanks to all that had happened to me, so my earning potential is greatly reduced. I plan to go back to working on my oil paintings again, and perhaps I might be able to supplement my meager income. And so, someone should publish an article about the high cost, of prejudice, hatred, and bigotry! I say we need more fat people in this world, and we need to get even fatter! Most of the fat people I have known were very kind and gentle people. I only knew a few who were mean or aggressive, but most of us fat people are gentle and more docile. We are far less pron to committing violent crimes, and fat men have much lower suicide rates than thin people. I hope more and more people become obese, and when every man, woman, and child is obese, we will all be too soft and weak to want to fight in anymore bloody wars, and we will have to depend more on human intelligence to solve our conflicts, and seek more peaceful solutions. Increasing obesity around the world may one day bring about world peace, thus saving even more money. Say Teddy. If you don't like life as an obese person why don't you bring your weight down by about 250 pounds.? Hundreds of thousands before you have made a decision and shed the excess weight and opened up a new life for themselves. No one has said that it will be easy. However, it took a long time to put it on and you will not take it off within a short period of time. It takes dedication, self discipline and a willingness to follow a whole new life_style_. A six month diet is not the answer. People I know who have quit smoking and lost large amounts of weight tell me that quitting smoking is the most difficult of the two. Jan
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