"... 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.)

"Mom called what we did 'unschooling'..."

"... a concept championed by the home-schooling pioneer John Holt. She agreed with his assertion that 'schools are bad places for kids,' or at least for a certain kind of kid; my brother Aaron, she decided, was better suited for public school and was sent off on the bus each morning. I, on the other hand, was a 'creative global learner,' and Mom said that she was going to give me a 'free-form education' in order to 'pursue passions.' Other than math, which I began to do by correspondence course, I mostly spent my days with her visiting shops, libraries and restaurants of our rapidly-growing suburb, or else having 'project time' — drawing superheroes, rereading my David Macaulay and Roald Dahl books, or writing short stories.... Mom had been going through a hard time — ever since we’d moved to Plano, Texas, her social life was dim, her career as a children’s magazine editor had been put on hiatus, and her own mother had begun a long decline into dementia — but... 'You are better than any grown-up, Stef. You are more than all I need'...."

Writes the novelist Stefan Merrill Block, in "Home-Schooled Kids Are Not All Right" (NYT).

Here's his memoir, "Homeschooled" (commission earned).

I'm interested in seeing "unschooling" again.

"... the baby is fat... "

Chris, who reads biographies of U.S. Presidents, texts me this photo from "The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism" by Doris Kearns Goodwin (commission earned).

If your first baby was "frail from birth" and died at 14 months, you too would experience joy to see the new baby is actively fat. Taft grew to a heft of 340 pounds, our fattest President by far.

Chris also sends this photograph he took, in case you are wondering what Christmas decorations look like in Austin:

"The president’s deals with Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly... would appear to run counter to Mr. Kennedy’s longstanding hostility toward the weight loss drugs...."

"But neither he nor high-profile followers of the 'Make America Healthy Again' movement would be likely to risk seeming disloyal to Mr. Trump.... Mr. Kennedy was careful in the Oval Office to emphasize that obesity drugs were not a 'panacea' or a 'silver bullet.' He repeated his beliefs in ways of tackling the root causes of Americans’ ill health that include new dietary guidelines expected next month and a presidential council on physical fitness.... [In October 2024, Kennedy said] 'If we just gave good food, three meals a day, to every man, woman and child in our country, we could solve the obesity and diabetes epidemic overnight'.... The medications do carry side effects, most commonly gastrointestinal complaints that are rarely severe, as well as the hazards that come with losing a lot of weight through any means, like shedding muscle. And because these medications are relatively new, there is not yet data on what happens if people take them for decades. Speaking of Novo Nordisk’s product in February 2024, Mr. Kennedy said, 'The impacts of this drug are just terrible.... The moment you stop using it, you regain all the weight, and meanwhile your stomach’s been paralyzed.'"

From "Kennedy Walks a Tightrope on Trump Deal for Obesity Drugs/The weight loss medicines are proving to be a test case for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, in straddling divisions between his supporters and the president" (NYT).

In Trump's America, everyone will be thin and also constipated. What form will the greatness of Making America Great Again take if it is accomplished by thin, constipated people? I don't think it will be Trumpian — all the gold and the lavish decoration, the dancing and the good times. No, the America of the thin constipated people is pinched and bleak. I would rather see the culture that arises out of people who flourish through "good food, three meals a day."

"And I’m never going to call somebody fat because they’re fat. I’m going to call you fat if you called me Hitler."

"And the best part about that is it hurts them. It hurts them more than if they were to call me Hitler because they have to look in the mirror every day. I know I’m not Hitler. They know they’re fat."

Said Greg Gutfeld, in "The Interview/Fox News Wanted Greg Gutfeld to Do This Interview. He Wasn’t So Sure" (NYT).

"I’ve lost 4 stone on Wegovy. Now I look like a weedy nerd."

Good headline... for a piece in the London Times by James Ball.

Excerpt: "Inevitably, someone who hasn’t seen me for a while will remark that I’ve lost weight, but people are much likelier to notice that I’m tall — as if somehow they’d missed that before. If you’re tall and fat, you look like you’re in proportion. Once you’re tall and (relatively) skinny, it becomes obvious you’re all arms and legs. I’m back to what I last weighed as a teenager, and some of that sense of awkward gangliness has returned...."

Best bad headline from the Hegsethathon.

The award goes to The New Republic: "Hegseth Summoned Military Leaders to Say 'FAFO' in Disturbing Speech."

I think it's ludicrous for a journalistic article to call it a "disturbing speech."  Who is disturbed? The headline writer? Were the military leaders disturbed? All of them? Some of them? Don't create fake objectivity. Someone needs to have been disturbed. I want to know who and why.

From the article:

“To our enemies: FAFO,” Hegseth said, using an acronym that translates to “Fuck around and find out.”

Hegseth ordered hundreds of U.S. military officials around the globe to meet him at a spontaneous assembly in Virginia.... The message shocked members of the U.S. military, who could not recall another instance in which a defense secretary summoned so many commanders for a sudden in-person meeting—especially without a clear rationale.

Was it a "disturbing speech" because of what Hegseth said or was a "disturbing speech" because it was disturbing to have to travel and sit in the audience to hear?

"I’m aware that the president of the United States likes to go on television and beg me to call and ask him for troops."

"I find this extraordinarily strange as Chicago does not want troops on our streets … I refuse to play a reality game show with Donald Trump."

Said JB Pritzker, quoted in "JB Pritzker: is the Illinois governor the Democrats’ best hope?/Clashes with Trump have boosted his profile, and while a third Illinois term looks assured, a tilt at the White House could see old scandals return to haunt him" (London Times).

We're told that Trump "continues to mock Pritzker’s bulk, posting an AI video showing him as a sumo wrestler grappling with Chris Christie, a large former Republican governor." In case you're having trouble picturing that:

pic.twitter.com/KBZz0iosQX

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2025

Isn't it amazing that the President of the United States is fooling around — and fat shaming — like that? Trump is fat too, of course. I think he fairly cheerfully admits it.

There's also this quote from Frank Luntz: "If you’re the California governor, you have to defend San Francisco. If you’re the Illinois governor, you have to defend Chicago. Democrats do not know how to talk about crime and they do not know how to lead about it, because, quite frankly, they’re seen as being in bed with the criminal and being too distant from the victim.... I actually think that Rahm Emanuel is a better representative because Chicago was better off when he was mayor.”

"Have you noticed that trump is one of the very few presidents who does not have any kind of pet? I would sooner get rid of those folks than the cats and dogs. Absurd."

A comment on the NYT article, "We Love Our Dogs and Cats. But Are They Bad for the Environment? Some pets have wide-ranging effects on the planet. Here’s how to lessen them."

In the comments, everything always gets around to Trump. 

From the article: "Gregory Okin, a geographer at the University of California, Los Angeles, calculated in a 2017 study that the estimated 163 million cats and dogs in the United States consume a whopping quarter of the country’s animal-derived calories.

"Restaurants will have to tell the government what their customers order under plans drawn up by Labour to tackle Britain’s obesity epidemic...."

"Under the proposals outlined by Wes Streeting, the health secretary, restaurants employing more than 250 workers are expected to report the average number of calories that diners consume. The government will then set targets to 'increase the healthiness of sales.'... Streeting said:'“Obesity has doubled since the 1990s and costs our NHS £11 billion a year, triple the budget for ambulance services. Unless we curb the rising tide of cost and demand, the NHS risks becoming unsustainable. The good news is that it only takes a small change to make a big difference. If everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by around 200 calories a day — the equivalent of a bottle of fizzy drink — obesity would be halved.'"

From "Restaurants to report diners’ calorie counts in obesity drive/The Department of Health says the data will be used to set targets and increase the ‘healthiness of sales’ — but the industry says it was ‘totally blindsided'" (London Times).

"There are people that come, and they’ve been on it for three years, and they’re just so tired of feeling nauseous and constipated."

"They have come to Mountain Trek to get off of it. To learn accumulated lifestyle habits, so that they don’t then gain all the weight back."

Said Kirkland Shave, co-owner of the wellness retreat Mountain Trek, quoted in "The Ozempic era is forcing wellness retreats for the elite to change/Attendees might be looking to wean off weight-loss drugs or mitigate side effects such as digestive discomfort and muscle loss" (WaPo)(free-access link).

I've never gone on a wellness retreat — though I have watched Season 3 of "The White Lotus" — but I was interested enough to click through to the Mountain Trek website and to momentarily bask in the idea of the place. But as with all travel, you have to do the hard creative work of imagining what it's really like there.

Big shot takes fat shot.

Trump: "A friend of mine who is a businessman. Very very very top guy. Most of you would've heard of him. Highly neurotic. Brilliant businessman. Seriously overweight. And he takes the fat shot drug." pic.twitter.com/pFFyXT6pHF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 12, 2025

"To get answers, one neuroscientist, Harvey J. Grill of the University of Pennsylvania, turned to rats and asked what would happen if he removed all of their brains except their brainstems."

I'm reading "What Nearly Brainless Rodents Know About Weight Loss and Hunger/Studies in neuroscience with applications to humans offer clues about what makes us start eating, and when we stop" (NYT).

Do we really have free will when it comes to eating? It’s a vexing question that is at the heart of why so many people find it so difficult to stick to a diet.... The brainstem controls basic functions like heart rate and breathing. But the animals could not smell, could not see, could not remember. Would they know when they had consumed enough calories? To find out, Dr. Grill dripped liquid food into their mouths. "When they reached a stopping point, they allowed the food to drain out of their mouths," he said...."

"When those on the creative side of fashion could be using their platform to share progressive values, it seems like many are acquiescing rather than pushing back."

"It’s frustrating to see the industry take a step back."

Said Sara Ziff, who leads a "models’ rights" organization. She's quoted in "Why Ultrathin Is In/When it comes to fashion models, the body diversity revolution appears to be at an end" (NYT).

Extreme thinness among models is “not really new — this kind of thing is cyclical,” she said. But this time around, she added, “it seems to echo the current political climate.”

Political???

"Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!"

Writes Donald Trump (on Truth Social):

Major League Baseball didn’t have the courage or decency to put the late, great, Pete Rose, also known as “Charlie Hustle,” into the Baseball Hall of fame. Now he is dead, will never experience the thrill of being selected, even though he was a FAR BETTER PLAYER than most of those who made it, and can only be named posthumously. WHAT A SHAME! Anyway, over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING. He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history. Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!

I'm disconcerted that the President of the United States wrote "betted," but I'm amused at the metaphorical flourish of "dying all over the place" and "fat, lazy ass." 

To me, "betted" is embarrassingly wrong, but I see Shakespeare used it. From the OED:

1600 Iohn a Gaunt loued him well, and betted much money on his head. W. Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2 iii. ii. 44

If you use "fat, lazy ass" metaphorically — baseball doesn't even have an ass — you do flout the niceties of the body acceptance movement, but Trump is well aware that his own ass is fat and thus presents a big target for his antagonists. He doesn't care. It's a fat ass, but emphatically not a lazy ass.

"There’s this tyranny of beauty, especially among trans women.There’s this feeling that, if we’re not beautiful enough, we’re not really women."

Writes Jennifer Finney Boylan, quoted in "A 'Weary but Fabulous' Poster Girl for Trans Life Opens Up About Aging/In her fifth memoir, 'Cleavage,' Jennifer Finney Boylan writes about her 36-year marriage, her adult children and why she keeps telling her story" (NYT).

Early in her new memoir, “Cleavage,” Jennifer Finney Boylan describes a moment of reckoning in a changing room. A size 12 dress is too snug....

The problem wasn’t that she’d gained almost 50 pounds in 25 years. “The crisis was that it mattered to me now, as a woman,” Boylan, 66, writes. “When I was a man (sic), I can say most definitively that it had not.”

Is that "(sic)" in the memoir or is the NYT inserting it? I'm going to guess, because of the use of parentheses instead of brackets, that it's in the memoir.

Did not looking good enough matter to Boylan because she was a woman — and that's female psychology — or because she was transgender — and had taken on the task of influencing others to perceive her as a woman? Is it about expressing what's inside you or getting the response you want from other people?