There is no positive organization representing people of size on a national stage. There is only a social club called NAAFA that mainly raises its flag once a year, blessing some hotel in America with some rather hefty revenues; and, if they're lucky, they'll get the" Polka Dot Cuties" in the National Enquirer. And you can be sure that the flaming pink flamingo herself, Marilyn Wann, will be touting her book and telling all the size challenged people of America that "you too can be free" if you only follow her unabashed, hedonistic lifestyle, courtesy of San Francisco.

They'll raise their glasses of Perrier to Sally Smith, applauding her thirteen years of service to NAAFA while failing to mention that the organization would have been completely bankrupt without Conrad's money. And that the organizational membership dropped from five thousand to under two thousand in her illustrious tenure.

There is no organization representing us, when the one organization that does claim to, has people telling other people that they aren't fat enough to have a voice. These are not a group of people who can be trusted when they look you square in the eye and tell you that size acceptance means that you *accept* whatever cards you've been dealt and those worn-out knees, and sciatica-ridden back are just facets of life that you are forced to accept.

The final nail in the coffin to illustrate that we have no representation at any time is this: the greatest assault on not only fat people but all American citizens is a group of people who insist on telling you how to live your life via executing socially-oriented behavioral laws. I am talking food tax here. There's always been an element in our society who wants to tell people how to live, even though the Constitution says we're free. They tried Prohibition in the twenties and failed miserably. They have won some impressive victories in the cigarette wars. If you don't think so, name me a legal product that's in danger of being taxed out of existence. And now the same people who think they have a better way for you to live now want to tax your food because they don't like the size of your body. Food is not a vice. Some may treat it as such, but the basic foundation of eating is not something we do in our spare time for entertainment. With this assault slowing but surely gaining momentum, when it was once thought ridiculous, where are the Sally Smiths and the Maryann Bodolays of NAAFA now? These are the things that we should concern ourselves with, as far as helping each other.

When one says that somebody has done more for size acceptance than anybody else, I say virtually nothing has been done. Some municipal laws here and there, but nothing on the national stage of any import. What *has* been done has been done by individuals such as you and I. What social networks that have been provided to help fat people have been engineered by the common person, and not by anybody selling videos for $39.95. It will be us common folk out in the streets that will change the perceptions. It will be us salts of the earth that will have to rise up and write the members of our government to stop the efforts of the fat phobics who have the twin desires of hammering everyone down to an anorexic size while inflating the waistlines of their pocketbooks in the name of the common good.

So once again, let us not be distracted by your basic charletans and your will-o-the-wisps. Hum a few bars of "Won't Get Fooled Again" while we continue to reject an inept leadership by those misguided souls who feel they have the only blueprint that fat people must follow. May something finally break that will galvanize all of us to finally say "enough is enough!" to those who wish to control our lives through guilt, harranguing, preaching and those endless diet commercials on cable television. Because if we are to believe the statistics, that sixty percent of American adults are overweight, according to my math, that gives us a rather hefty majority.