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The Charge of the Lite Brigade Well, we all know what time of year it is now, don't we? It's the time when a spin doctor is someone who can improve your dreidel skills, and we try to replace whatever other tune is spinning in our heads with "Ma'oz Tzur." In my own case, the ditty that needs replacing is Harry Warren's 1925 hit, "Seminola." Since it is subtitled "An Indian Love Song," I very much doubt whether Warren or lyricist Robert King had the Florida county in mind, but I had been imagining Al Gore crooning those climactic chorus lines: "Oh, can't you see I'm waiting,/ My sweet Seminola, for you." I suppose I really ought to recap and clarify for those readers who, due to woeful inattention, have not fully comprehended the news coming from our powerful ally in recent weeks (bearing in mind that, at time of writing, the latest news is merely the umpteenth reversal and twist in court opinions, with no clear winner yet in sight). Put as simply as possible, the facts are these: every few years Americans get a chance to choose their next president. This time, they were not equal to the task. This means they were actually too equal. Some people have asked me to explain (well, all right, it was my cats) what this vote-recounting business is all about, and I explained to them that Al Gore didn't want all the votes recounted. He only wanted those votes cast for the Democratic candidate recounted, in order to ensure that among them, at least, he had a majority. In mathematics, if one lisps, this is known as an AlGorithm (or so all the neighborhood cats now believe).
IT STILL remains for me, though, to wish my readership, whatever its size, a happy Hanukka. By that, I mean each individual reader, as well, regardless of his or her size. Hanukka is also known as the Feast of Lights and, while few would argue with the aptness of the word "Feast," you'll notice that "Lights" is never spelled "Lites," as Americans have taken to labeling comestibles intended for those on a diet. In this fair country of ours, it's hard to travel many blocks by road without encountering a handmade sign telling all those who need or don't need to know which direction to travel in order to arrive at the bar mitzva of Yissachar, or the bat mitzva of Yissachara, or the wedding of some grotesquely named lovebirds. I am never tempted to follow these signs without prior invitation, no matter how good the food may be. There are, however, other signs, those that announce other, unspecified, ceremonies. In Hebrew, these signs are supposed to be read as "latekess," but, thanks to the blessing of unvoweled Hebrew and my love of anything containing potatoes, my first reading is invariably "latkes." Now, potatoes are not barred to me, but this festive season, for the first time, I'll have to go easy on the latkes (and sufganiyot are out of the question). Reflecting on the turn of events that brought me this low, I am reminded of an exchange between Harry Secombe and Peter Sellers in 1972's radio nostalgia-fest, The Last Goon Show of All. Secombe, as Neddy Seagoon, is standing in for the Queen, suitably dressed, when perennial boy scout Bluebottle emerges from his trouser leg, brandishing a camera and claiming to have "certain unsavory snaps of your bloomers." "But I have to wear them," blusters Seagoon, "That's protocol." "Ooh, what you been eating?" Being a staunchly non-medical man, I still know very little about the cholesterol I reportedly have in such abundance. I have had it explained to me (not, reciprocally, by the cats, I may add) and already understand that it's split into the good and the bad variety. The only sense I can make of this is to imagine one wearing a white hat, while the other's hat is black. Why, I feel like asking my doctor, can't my good cholesterol simply shoot my bad cholesterol? I'm taking all the dietary restrictions very seriously, even extending them to questions of musical taste. If I'm in a light, jazzy mood I may listen to Jimmy McPartland and the Wolverines in their rendition of "When My Sugar Substitute Walks Down the Street." In the classical arena, I know I'm safe with Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar-Free Fairy." Disciplined as I have been thus far, I would be lying if I didn't admit to missing some now-forbidden foods quite a lot. At times like that, I make an effort to view my situation philosophically, as a kind of compulsory recruitment by the Salivation Army. So far, so good. But my health doesn't affect world events. Dick Cheney's fourth heart attack should be cause for a little more concern. Again, I stress that I'm no great political maven, but isn't it true that if George W. Bush were to become president and Cheney were subsequently done in by his heart, then George W. Bush would become president? The market has long been glutted with slimming products. A colleague who shall remain heightless (though, to her frustration, not weightless) used to lunch on Slimfast, a powder to be drunk mixed with milk. My suggested improvement on the company's formula was to use vodka instead of milk. "You don't lose weight, but you're too drunk to care," I helpfully offered. Lately, I've realized that something I've seen advertised on the sides of buses is a new addition to the roster of cures. I don't know about you, but if I read the words "Fat Trapper" devoid of any other context, my mind's eye instantly conjures up a villainous-looking French-Canadian in a fur cap having great difficulty getting into the rest of his hunting outfit. Prevailing Western cultural norms have come down heavily on the side of the slim. In some areas the obsession with losing girth has reached the dimensions of diet terrorism and frequent weighing has taken place on a large scale (I shall now pause briefly, while the enormity of that comment sinks in). Though one might think that the obese had an almost unlimited number of cheeks to turn, their patience, if nothing else about them, is wearing thin. Back in May, San Francisco enacted what its denizens without delay dubbed "the fat ordinance." I first learned of this development via Alistair Cooke's Letter from America on BBC World Service radio. Upon checking further, I discovered that the last straw that prompted this new legislation, which bans any kind of discrimination based on an individual's size, had been a billboard advertisement for a health club. Accompanying an illustration evocative of popular science-fiction conceptions of extraterrestrial beings was a piece of advertising copy that read: "When they come they'll eat the fat ones first." Cooke told his listeners that "the first practical result of the ordinance was a reported rush of the fat, the very tall, the skinny, at employment exchanges. May luck and the Lord be with them." "Weightism" and "sizism" are rapidly joining racism and sexism as an accepted part of the vocabulary. And according to one new company, the more visible assets of those who were Born to be Wide may be precisely that - assets - even if not to their original owners. Artecel Sciences has plans to turn the fat removed during liposuction procedures into the basis of cultures that could grow other cells useful in wrinkle repair and, the company hopes, even into replacement blood cells for cancer patients whose own cells are being killed through chemotherapy. These ideas are all still on the drawing board and, the report affirms, "Artecel is likely to face many challenges. But," the news item continues, "one problem it won't face is a shortage of raw material." I originally calculated that one column would suffice for an adequate discussion of this topic and its permutations. But now I find that - how startlingly appropriate - spread has set in. So tune in two weeks hence for more of - well, more.
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Of course, since we, over here, live in a boringly stable political climate, we must amuse ourselves by making fun of the American election mess. By the way, I'd like to apologize in advance if anything in this week's column doesn't quite make sense. At a critical point in its writing, I carelessly left the column unattended in a room full of Republicans and I fear they may have tampered with it.