darkemeralds. I'm Swiss. (Reply)

I just watched Bill Maher's "I'm Swiss" (And Other Treasonous Statements), a DVD of a live show from March 2005.

I recommend the show on general principles--he's funny, reliably politically incorrect, smart, blasphemous, and wonderfully foulmouthed while managing not to be mean-spirited--and because it was filmed right here in Stumptown and kind of showcases the awesomeness of Portland's progressive audiences.

But mostly I wanted to share the segment called "It's the Food".

Last year Congress passed this giant Medicare entitlement prescription drug bill, because it's important to keep our seniors high. And it's going to cost literally trillions and trillions of dollars.

And while they were debating this, no one ever stood up and said, "Excuse me! Why are we so sick? Could it be 'cause we eat like Caligula?"
The top five of those prescription drugs that are so popular? They're all antacids, anti-bloating medicines, digestive aids--all things to put out the fire in our stomach from the poison that we call lunch.
Folks, it's the food.
I know people hate to hear that, but when you look at those ads on the evening news at night--people farting and burping and bloating--it's just shit trying to get OUT of you! Take a hint!
Look at the burping and the farting and the bloating. It's the food. Honestly, you're not going to die from second-hand smoke, or SARS, or monkey-pox. It's the food. The call is coming from inside the house. I'm telling you.
The killer is not West Nile or avian flu or shark attacks. It's the buffalo wings.
It's the Aspartame and the Nutrasweet and the Red Dye Number Two and the high-fructose corn syrup and the MSG and the chlorine, and whatever shit is in Special Sauce. It's the steroids, the hormones and the antibiotics that are in the beef...
We feed cows too sick to stand, to people too fat to walk. And then we wonder why these diseases spring up--mad cow, AIDS and ebola.
You know, nature--it doesn't ask a lot. It really doesn't. Don't grind up the cattle and feed them back to each other. And don't fuck the monkeys. You know--not big requests.
And don't be gluttons. Gluttons. I read that in 1950, the average American ate six pounds of cheese a year. Now, it's 30. In 1900, the average woman's shoe size was 4. In 1980 it was 7. Now it's 9. We are evolving into a completely new species, with giant webbed feet to support our massive girth.
Seating has needed to be expanded everywhere in America in the last ten years. On buses, and planes and in stadiums and everywhere. If you invested in any sort of ass-widening technology in the 90s, you did very well. Hospital beds, gurneys, wheelchairs...caskets were not ample enough. Cemeteries have had to increase the size of the plots. We don't even fit into the ground. That's bad.