Dowbrigade

The
socio-cultural and economic dimensions of the obesity gap are clearly
visible in the third world and developing countries.  Here, (the Dowbrigade is currently reporting from Ecuador)
as was the case in the United States in the past, the obese are seen
as
enviously successful, while most of the poor people are lean and
hungry looking.

Almost every day, it seems,
there is another alarming study about the dangers of being fat
or a new theory about its causes and cures.

But a growing group of historians and cultural critics who study
fat say this obsession is based less on science than on morality.
Insidious attitudes about
politics, sex, race or class are at the heart of the frenzy over obesity, these
scholars say, a frenzy they see as comparable to the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism
and even the eugenics movement.

"We are in a moral
panic about obesity," said Sander L. Gilman, distinguished
professor of liberal arts, sciences and medicine at the University
of Illinois in Chicago and the author of "Fat Boys: A Slim
Book," published last month by the University of Nebraska
Press. "People are saying, `Fat is the doom of Western civilization.’ "

from the
New York Times

A
complex and polemic situation. Tourism, preservation of the
ecosystem and cruetly to animals often conflict in panoramas of human
development.

SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) — A koala population explosion on an Australian
island has prompted calls for 20,000 of the furry, native marsupials to
be shot to stop them destroying their island habitat and end a koala famine.

Some 30,000 koalas on Kangaroo Island, off the coast of the state of South
Australia, are stripping the island of its native gum trees, destroying
the ecosystem and causing a koala famine, say environmentalists and national
parks officials.

"We are talking thousands of starving koalas," said Sandra Kanck
from the Australian Democrats, Australia’s third major political party.

"While they may be cute and cuddly we need to get beyond emotion to
reality…my suggestion is professional shooters do it quickly and cleanly," Kanck
told Reuters on Friday of the proposed cull.

The South Australian state government has rejected calls for a cull, preferring
sterilization and relocation.

from Reuters