Fat Chicks Rule

Hullaballoo in 3 parts

Part 1 The Petition, supporters, dissenters, idiots.

Let's start with my petition.  Before the petition was removed, we were approaching 800 legitimate signatures and that was in 4 days.   I thank you so much for all the people who signed.  Now I am asking you to sign again here.  This is also very important.  PLEASE COMPLAIN DIRECTLY TO UNITED AS WELL.

Contact United Airlines at
Tel: (877) 228-1327
[email protected]

For those who have been asking what happen to the petition.  On Wednesday night, I was attacked by a troll (or maybe more) who repeated signed the petition with stupid names.  I had decided that on Friday morning, I would close and edit the petition and send it off to United.  Well, the next morning (Thursday), I went to approve new signatures and found that my petition removed supposedly by the author.  As the author I did not approve of this.  I emailed petitiononline that they may have been hacked or spoofed.  When I did not hear from them in 24 hours, I then emailed the CEO of their parent company. I don't know if the troll had anything to do with the removal of the petition but I do know he/she/it was repeatedly signing.

Believe or not, the trolls didn't bother me as much, as I expected it.   The trolls on this blog range from hatred to stupidity.  What I didn't expect was being ignored by petitiononline.  I understand that I was was using this service for free, so I get what I pay for (which was utter crap).  I finally got a response from them on Saturday.  Apparently when I sent them the response, it did not include the URL of my petition (Despite using their form) and that if I please email them the petition id and consider giving them "a donation".   I emailed them the id, told them nicely to cram their donation.   I have yet to hear back.   And people feel up to it, please complain to their parent company.  [email protected]. 

Part II Trolls and posters

I have a fairly laid back rule on posting to this blog.  I will delete your post if it's spam, vulgar or excessively trolling (A troll is a person who incites purely to do it).  I will keep posts that debate and disagree with my points and I keep nasty comments.   I need people to see how fat people are treated.

Part III Comfortable flying and why United sucks.
Some of the biggest complainers I get are from people who are forced to sit next a fat person on their trip.  No one (Except the airline industry) wants anyone fat or thin to have an uncomfortable flight.  In fact in my book I encourage people who do not fit in the seat to contact the airline to try to arrange to be next to an empty seat and if they can afford it upgrade to first or business class.   Deregulation and a poor way of business means that United need cram as many people as possible into a plane in order for that flight to make profit.   In the end, United may charge fat people double but it won't save their business from either being bailed out or go belly up.   If United was a company that really cared about their customers and not the bottom line, they would make it their priority that all their passengers are relatively comfortable.

New Petition

I am making a rare non-Monday post.  Due to circumstances beyond my control, my petition was removed.  (It could be hackers and/or petitiononline's incompetence.)

I am asking people who signed before to sign another person's petition against United.   We should always stand up to bullies.

An Open Letter to United Airlines.

My name is Lara Frater and I am an occasional flier.  I am very disappointed to hear about United's discriminatory policy against fat people.  I am a fat person who is tired of being blamed for airline woes.  You should also know that I can fit into a coach seat, so this policy doesn't affect me.  However I am writing this as a plead to not treat fat people as second class travelers.

I am happy to take my business to Jet Blue, Delta or US Airways, which at this time do not charge for extra seats.  

Please reconsider this policy.

I have also started an online petition to get 700 people to complain to United (The same number of complaints you say you received to implement this policy.  I started the petition Sunday April 19th, less than a day later I have 175 signatures.  Will you rescind your policy if 700 people complain or will you only care about the financial bottom line?

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely
Lara Frater

End Letter

Please click on the petition link, complain to United, then sign your name.

Lying liars who lie

Sorry! Saved in draft but forgot to post.

There are studies that prove obesity causes diabetes, cancer, heart disease and sleep apnea.  These studies are often picked up by the media and are never questioned.

There are also studies out there that prove obesity is only a correlation or a symptom of these diseases and that being fat doesn't automatically mean poor health.  These studies rarely picked up by the media and always questioned.

Then there are liars:

"A former Harvard researcher falsified data and fabricated results in a 2003 sleep study, two news outlets report online today.

Dr. Robert B. Fogel, who taught at Harvard Medical School and practiced at Brigham and Women's Hospital until 2004, said he altered numbers and invented anatomic details reported in an article about obesity and sleep apnea. The journal Sleep retracted the article in February and the federal Office of Research Integrity concluded its investigation last month."

Dr. Fogel's essential response: "My bad".  He also now works for Merck.

Did Dr. Fogel do this because he was pressured to publish? (which is his claim), His ties to Merck?  Bias against fat people?  I looked at the abstract of the study, it was concluded that there was no correlation between obesity and apnea severity.

Meanwhile fat people with sleep apnea will still be pressured to lose weight and to get dangerous surgeries that might not help at all.  

I'm a human being, go figure.

Ranting about clothing is one of my favorite thing, although I don't think our lack of choices and styles is that big compared being denied health care and jobs.

But today I rant about clothes.  We are treated like dirt in most stores, even in freaking knitting stores!

But the rant isn't bad, because today I am not talking about lame stores who don't care about us.  I'm talking about the Fat Girl's Flea Market which was on Saturday.  An annual event run by the NOLOSE.   

I was sick this week, had a cold and during this particular weekend, I originally had a lot of things planned.  Due to being sick, I had to narrow down that I was doing.  Would I miss a book reading of a new hot book or the annual sci-fi con or not sell my book at flea? (I focus more on this blog than the book, but I still have a number of copies at home to sell) or the Friday night sorting/pre-shopping? 

But the Flea won.  Because I knew missing the flea meant I would miss an event that profoundly influenced my self esteem.  Every time I came back from the flea joyous and happy unlike my visit to the mall in December.  

So for $45, I got two shirts (one with tags), 1 pair or pants, an Igigi dress, Pj pants, a nightie, jeans, and a silk skirt and most importantly got to feel like a human being for a little while. 

So I plead with people again.  Don't patronize a store that doesn't have your size or puts plus sizes into a ghetto.