"No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals. Just warriors."

Said Pete Hegseth, quoted in "Pete Hegseth: I’ll purge army of fatties, beardos and weirdos/The war secretary is establishing an Office of Religious Affairs and seeking ‘patriotic cowboys’ as he faces pressure over his budget and the Iran war" (London Times).

Seems crazy to insult the overweight. And beards — who cares? You can require beards to be shaved on entering the service, but a person who happens to style himself with a beard isn't a type of person to be rejected. I think Hegseth is the weirdo.

"Just as 'naked dressing' escalated from trompe l’oeil to the transparent mesh Bianca Censori wore to the 2025 Grammys, underwear as outerwear..."

"... has gone from lace-trimmed slip dresses to knicker-style shorts to just going out in your bra. Not quite the emperor’s new clothes, but perhaps only because women’s nipples are still considered more risque than men’s.... In 2026 wearing a bra as a top isn’t the subversive act of fashion rebellion or feminist declaration of sexual liberation that it was for Madonna in 1990 but a sign of compliance to the beauty standard, and the extreme thinness that’s putting women’s lives at risk...."

I'm reading the London Time: "Is a bra a top now? Looks like it! They’re in Paris and on the red carpet, but would you flaunt yours at the post office?"

I'm going to use my last WaPo gift link of the month to give you the 1991 article that is the London Times's source for photo of Madonna wearing a bra as a top: "The Roots of Madonna: Getting down to Earth with the pop star." 

"Fat sea lions ruined her town. Now this woman wants to kill them."

Headline at the London Times makes it seem as though the lady is fatphobic.

“They need to be killed,” says Reyhan Higgins, 52, a fishing guide on the Columbia River, brandishing a rubber-bullet gun he uses to deter sea lions from stealing salmon. “I’d shoot them myself if they would ever let us.”

On the river, the sea lions are barking with satisfaction after a summer of excess. They heave themselves on to the docks, waddling in search of a comfortable position to rest their swollen bellies. For months they have been feasting on salmon — the fish that is the lifeblood of Chinook, a small town in Washington state.…

ADDED: I see the pronouns are confusing. I should have excerpted the first sentence: “In most Democratic districts, campaigning to slaughter a cute mammal would probably not win many votes. But Marie Gluesenkamp Perez appears to know her electorate.”

"The political deployment of GLP-1s is fascistic... because the conditions under which they become necessary are shaped by a world fixated on genociding fat people...."

"Every time a government decides whose bodies must be protected and whose bodies must be erased for the sake of national imagery, this is body fascism."

Said Da’Shaun L. Harrison, quoted in "'Ungendered’ activist claims GLP-1s are ‘fascist’ and ‘genocide fat people’ in unhinged moment during DSA conference" (NY Post).

Also quoted there, Beatrice Adler-Bolton: "We have to give up the fantasy of being fitter than the fascists.... Fitness is a measure of relative disposability under capitalism. Our task is not to become less disposable to become more useful to the ruling order… The point is not to beat the fascists at their own game. It is not to lay a better claim on their own territory by being fitter, more eugenic. In fact, the more dysgenic, the better, I think...."

For an effort at defending Adler-Bolton, here's "anti-fascist dad" Matthew Remski:

"Every time we find out something new about GLP-1, it's a positive.... They're now saying that it reduces the likelihood of stage one cancer going to metastatic cancer..."

"... by 50%. Every time we keep waiting for another shoe to drop, we find out, 'Oh, it's actually a good thing.' Everyone at this table is going to be on a GLP-1 within 24 months....  I think when you look at the studies around the upside versus the downside here, it's the most transformative technology in the world."

Says Scott Galloway, ticking off Bill Maher:

Bill Maher shuts down Scott Galloway on the spot after he says “everyone should be” on a GLP-1 “within 24 months.”

GALLOWAY: “Every time we find out something new about GLP-1, it's a positive. They're now saying that it reduces the likelihood of stage one cancer going to… pic.twitter.com/2KUMXrkciF

— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) August 1, 2026

AND: Speaking of Scott Galloway...

Scott Galloway is upset about being 'doxed' after he supported Mamdani's pied-à-terre tax:

"He's taken a legitimate source of tax revenue, and he's turning it into a wanted poster."

"What is the upside here? Why is he doing this?"

Incredible. pic.twitter.com/9Yrb9lw4An

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) August 1, 2026

"Decades ago, the world of fashion was smaller and feistier, dominated by eccentric, visionary designers trying to express themselves...."

"In 2000, John Galliano showed his infamous 'homeless chic' couture collection. Alexander McQueen’s 'Highland Rape' show of torn dresses shocked the industry in 1995. Rei Kawakubo’s spring 1997 line, known as 'lumps and bumps,' remains one of the most significant collections of the century because it rejected traditional sex appeal, distorting and reimagining a woman’s form. It would be impossible to defend 'homeless chic' or 'Highland Rape.' Or Mr. Lagerfeld's disdain for fat bodies, a part of his personal brand, or Mr. Galliano’s antisemitic tirades.... But as fashion becomes more consolidated and homogenized... it hasn’t seemed to figure out how to provoke and shake up aesthetics and culture, creating crazes that people open their wallets to be part of...."

Writes Amy Odell, in "The Rise of Fashion Slop" (NYT).

"Casper weighed a little over 104 pounds at the time, which means the boy — who was 4 feet 2 inches tall when he died — gained roughly 150 pounds in less than two years. His diet consisted largely of potato chips and French fries...."

From "Michigan Couple Are Charged With Murder After Death of Morbidly Obese Son/Seven-year-old Casper O’Brien weighed 255 pounds when he died last year. Prosecutors said he was bedridden and subsisted on little more than snack foods" (NYT).

"When asked if Trump was the 79-year-old man in question, White House spokesperson Kush Desai did not say no...."

From TNR.

"Well, now we finally know what would happen if The Wall Street Journal and Us Weekly had a baby. In a piece titled 'Everyone in Trump’s Cabinet Is Eating Sauerkraut'..."

"... the Journal reports that various White House officials are shedding pounds thanks to a hot new diet that involves eating lots of fermented foods, like sauerkraut and kimchi.... There’s just one drawback: 'sulferous odors' have caused some 'friction at home.'... HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was, naturally, the first to jump on the trend. Now he’s converted Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick, Transportation secretary Sean Duffy, and Vice-President J.D. Vance. We’re told that the men have been getting compliments on their 'glowing skin' and seeing various health benefits, including dramatic weight loss.... [S]everal Cabinet members have been looking svelter, and what other explanation could there be? It’s not like there’s some new magical weight-loss drug out there!"

Writes Margaret Hartmann, in "Sure, the Trump Cabinet’s Weight-Loss Secret Is Definitely 'Sauerkraut'" (New York Magazine).

"You gained 14 pounds in one year!"

That's PRESENCE 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/dxmRmKZchQ

— Baby News Network (@BabyNetworkNews) June 2, 2026

Not obese.

"The 6-foot-3 president weighs 238 pounds, having gained 14 pounds since his physical last year — meaning he is technically 'overweight' and is about 1.6 pounds shy of being classified as 'obese,' according to body mass index calculations. Trump was encouraged to increase his physical activity and pursue continued weight loss, according to the report."

From "Trump’s doctor says he is in ‘excellent health’ after latest checkup/While the president’s medical report says he remains fit to serve, independent physicians have raised questions about the recurrent bruises on his hands and swelling in his legs" (WaPo).

Trump's sunny summary: "Just finished my 6 month physical at Walter Reed Military Medical Center. Everything checked out PERFECTLY."

Why did The Washington Post put "overweight" in quotes and modify it with "technically"? He's simply and straightforwardly overweight. And that's not perfect. Can we get Bobby Kennedy over here for a second opinion?

See "RFK Jr dares governor of America's fattest state to do regular public weigh-ins/'You look like you ate Governor Morrisey,' RFK said on Friday" (Fox News, March 29, 2025).

"AJ Jasper, 40, has been struggling with anorexia for about 30 years. Three years ago, at a time when he was a healthy weight, he relapsed after purchasing GLP-1s..."

"... from various apps without ever seeing a doctor. Using multiple drugs at once, he dropped 50 pounds within three to four months. 'The apps make it frighteningly easy. It is like anorexic heroin to my brain chemistry,' said Jasper, a social worker in Chicago. This past winter, he went into triple organ failure — his kidneys, liver and heart were all affected — leaving him too weak to walk or even turn in bed at times...."

From "People with eating disorders are taking GLP-1s and doctors are alarmed/Providers said some patients with anorexia, bulimia and binge eating disorders are taking GLP-1 drugs" (WaPo).

"Androgenic Reacts After Reports Of Clavicular Suspected Overdose."

A Newsweek headline. Can you even read it?

I know Clavicular is a person, and I've got to presume Androgenic is also a person. By their names alone, I would have guessed they were corporations or health-care products of some kind. But in the context — reacting, overdosing — I can see that they are human beings. Sad.

Clavicular is only 20, and he's gotten far too much attention for a young person. Yes, he's been asking for it, but don't give young people everything they ask for.

Sample paragraph from his Wikipedia page: "On December 27, 2025... [Clavicular] described Vice President JD Vance as 'subhuman' for his "recessed side profile' and for being 'obese,' asking, 'How are you fat and expected to lead a country?' He agreed with [a] criticism of California governor Gavin Newsom as both a 'degenerate' and a 'liar' but said that, in a potential 2028 United States presidential election in which Newsom ran against Vance, he would vote for 'Chad' Newsom for 'mogging,' or being more attractive than, Vance."

"That's the precise point, 1 minute and 10 seconds in, where I clicked off the audiobook."

I wrote, 2 days ago, in what I called "a short, enigmatic blog post." I said, "I think anyone, using AI, can now easily discover what book is being talked about."

Shortly after posting, I tested AI and added the story of how it failed to identify the book. The problem was that the language I found so off-putting — "For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land" — wasn't written by the book's author. It was the book's epigraph, a quote from "Moby-Dick," a quote that at least 2 other authors have used. AI never found the book I'd been listening to. 

At that point, I became curious enough to go back to the audiobook and I listened to the whole thing. It was a book I'd blogged about last Tuesday after reading a NYT column about it. The column was called "She Was a Famous Millennial Feminist. Her Polyamory Memoir Is Heartbreaking." I have a long-running problem with the word "heartbreaking," and I blurted out "Heartbreaking? Really? It's dangerous bullshit from West. I don't regard this as another occasion to summon up empathy."

West = Lindy West. The book is "Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane" (commission earned). And I'm going to stand by my blurted-out opinion: It is not heartbreaking. It's dangerous bullshit. 

Let me quote from page 123, where the author call herself a “people pleaser" and calls "people pleaser" "a hideous misnomer for a hideous behavior." Boldface added:

“People pleasing” is never about pleasing people—it’s about the pleaser avoiding discomfort, confrontation, accountability. It’s a manipulation, a rot that threatens all my relationships, not because it makes me “too nice” and vulnerable to exploitation, but because it makes me a liar who isn’t willing to do the hard work of love.

"In earlier writing, [Lindy] West presented her union with the musician Ahamefule Oluo... as a kind of feminist fairy-tale ending."

"'My Wedding Was Perfect — and I Was Fat as Hell the Whole Time,' said the headline of a 2015 column she wrote in The Guardian. But if the wedding was idyllic, West reveals in 'Adult Braces,' the marriage was not. Almost from the beginning, she writes, Aham conditioned their relationship on his being able to sleep with other women. She gave in because she was desperate to keep him, but his dalliances made her intolerably insecure. Because West lived in a left-wing milieu in which nonmonogamy is common, she felt an extra layer of shame over her inability to accept Aham’s extramarital sex life. ('At the time, being cool about polyamory felt like a growing imperative in progressive circles,' she writes.) Her anguish was exacerbated by an excruciating degree of bodily self-hatred, which, as she knows, contradicts the persona she’s built her career on. 'Do you think I have ever felt like I deserved to demand anything from men?' she asks.... [Aham] used her politics against her; West reports that Aham, who is half-Nigerian, 'believed that monogamy was, at its root, a system of ownership.'... [At the end of 'Adult Braces,' West writes] 'If you think I have been brainwashed and I am secretly miserable, I simply do not know what to tell you.'"

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "She Was a Famous Millennial Feminist. Her Polyamory Memoir Is Heartbreaking" (NYT).

Heartbreaking? Really? It's dangerous bullshit from West. I don't regard this as another occasion to summon up empathy.

"... Clavicular said he would vote for Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a Democrat, over Vice President JD Vance because he preferred Mr. Newsom’s looks to Mr. Vance’s. "

"'It wasn’t, like, a political statement at all,' Clavicular said later of his criticism of Mr. Vance. 'I was just saying he’s fat.' Of late, Clavicular has begun to refer to all politics as 'jester' — an insult in the looksmaxxing community that refers to a foolish waste of time.... Back in the van, [his female admirer] asked Clavicular if he thought looksmaxxing was 'inherently right-wing.' 'No,” he said. 'At the end of the day, I have such an influence over the movement that I could bring it in any direction I want.'"

From "Handsome at Any Cost Braden Peters, known as Clavicular, has emerged as a beacon for a group of narcissistic, status-obsessed young men. He wants to take his fixation with 'looksmaxxing' mainstream" (NYT).

"Weight-Loss Drugs Could Save U.S. Airlines $580 Million Per Year... lower fuel costs as slimmer passengers lighten their aircraft’s loads."

The NYT reports.

"For people who make and sell beef tallow, a golden age has dawned. Consumers spent $9.9 million on food-grade beef tallow in 2025...."

"Jars of it landed on the shelves of Costco this year, and big retailers like Walmart and Target sell it. Fat Brothers beef tallow sells for almost $20 for 14 ounces on Amazon, and business is brisk... Jenni Harris is a fifth-generation rancher whose father in the late 1990s transformed their small conventional cattle feeding operation in South Georgia to an organic one where cows are raised on pasture. She remembers a time when they had no market for the fat from the animals they slaughtered. 'We damn near gave it away' she said...."

From "Beef Tallow, Long a Health Pariah, Rises to the Top of the Food Pyramid/The new dietary guidelines give federal approval to a fat that has slowly caught on with consumers, even as doctors have warned against it" (NYT).

Have you made the transition from seed oils to beef tallow? Or do you think butter is tracking the new food pyramid well enough? Or do you think this new fat advice is just crazy?

I'm reading the comments over there, including: "The man is barefoot as he stands next to a vat of hot oil while removing a drippy bird. What can go wrong?" And: "Anyone that works over a vat of 400 degree oil barefoot shouldnt be in charge of anything safety-related be it food, drugs, or healthcare."

They're responding to this photo, which is taken from RFK Jr.'s own social media:

And I like the NYT's correction at the bottom: "An earlier version of this article misstated how much consumers spent on beef tallow in 2025. It was $9.9 million, not $900 million." That's kind of a never mind correction. They wrote this whole article about the hot new business that is beef tallow and then it turned out to be on 1.1% of what they thought it was!

What's worse, the Secretary of Health's risky approach to home cooking or The New York Times's embarrassing and extreme botching of the dollar amount as it conducts its supposedly professional journalism?

And by the way, while RFK's feet deserve some attention, a lot of us are noticing his torso. He's 71 years old, and look at him. And he's eating beef tallow.

I think it's great that she looks like this while writing for Vogue.

It's poor form to make fun of somebody for their looks but I do think it says something about the current state of affairs that one can look like this and write for Vogue. https://t.co/BXcxHe1rfg pic.twitter.com/H5zTIpceIz

— Jo (@junker_jo) December 31, 2025

I'm not here to say anything about the political wisdom of Brigitte Bardot. I just want to comment on the photograph of Emma Specter, author of the Vogue opinion piece, "Mourning Brigitte Bardot Doesn’t Mean Absolving Her."

Clicking on the author's name, I see that Specter has lots of writing credentials, including a book called "More Please: On Food, Fat, Bingeing, Longing and the Lust for 'Enough'" (commission earned). That sounds like the sort of writing that would appeal to Vogue readers and serve their interests well.

So what is there here to make fun of, that she's fat but works for Vogue, where the models are usually quite thin? I'll bet the majority of the readers are fat and that a majority of the unfat readers worry about getting fat. I'll bet the models are obsessed with fighting fat. Fat is a big subject in the Vogue zone of interest, and who's better than Emma Specter at writing about it?

Or is "junker jo" making fun of the fashion? I think the fashion is perfect! Looks like something you'd feel happy and comfortable wearing while female and fat, and the method of putting things together reminds me of those "Look of the Week" fashions we were talking about yesterday. It's really important to show women ways to dress that don't seem to say: First, get thin and maybe you'll be able to wear this.

ADDED: The embedded post originally looked like this:

"I used to love feeling her body, her big body next to me in bed, the softness of her body — you know, the extra tummy and the extra booty, you know, next to me...."

"I miss that — that voluptuousness — being able to, you know, lean up next to her and feel her — for lack of a better word — draping over me. That's no longer an option. Now it's, it's cuddling and it's cuddling as tight and closely as we can — or as I can. And that's, that's the extent of the intimacy. I'm at a loss for why there's no physical intimacy. There hasn't been any...."

Said a man who's wife lost a lot of weight on Ozempic, in "Marriage and Sex in the Age of Ozempic: An Update," today's episode of the NYT podcast "The Daily." (Link goes to audio and transcript at Podscribe.)