Today the Lincoln Journal Star published the first of a 3-part series on Pat Deuel. Our Deuel Watch research staff has sifted through the article to bring you the juicy highlights:
"He sits on a love seat supported by cement blocks...."
"...some of his favorite foods: Pizza Hut, McDonald's, Lays and Chef Boyardee; Blue Bunny, Milky Way and Little Debbie...."
"...so bloated with fluid his wife avoids touching him, fearing his skin might tear under the pressure. He can move only one arm and partially rotate his head."
"In fact, the bulge is a panniculus, a sheet of stretched skin and fat that would form a mound of a belly if not for gravity."
"A yellow pallor tints his loose, almost shapeless face. Semi-circles the color of partially healed bruises hang under his eyes."
"The rechargeable vacuum draws drainage from three wound sites on his torso."
"Finally he snatches a tiny wastebasket off the floor and retches. 'Sorry about that. Normally I can tolerate burritos, but not today,' he says."
"Drivers and passengers stare. They laugh and point. Some speed around the block for another look."
Comments
See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
I figured you would hop on this story. Thanks for keeping us posted on the latest and greatest Deuel news.
Did anything about the Sunday article strike you as odd? For me, it was the implication throughout the article that LJS readers have some sort of a right to be pissed off that Mr. Deuel hasn’t already slimmed down to Calista Flockhart dimensions. What right do any of us have to protest his excesses? Sure, we taxpayers are subsidizing His Massiveness, but the fact that Mr. Deuel is able to abuse our generosity is our problem, not his. How can anybody be pissed at the guy for graciously accepting the (never ending) generosity of Joe Taxpayer? Hell, if I could legally stiff you suckers for a few grand each year, I would. And I expect you’d do the same to me. It’s an American tradition.
Anyway, expect whiny “How can that fat man not appreciate all the hard work others have put into him?!” letters to appear in the LJS any day now.
Well I agree that obese people (and smokers) have become the politically correct people to bash by the public health police (and deuel is both), but I am having a hard time distilling any particular bend from the LJS stories so far. Simply reading the stories makes you realize how damn awful his life is. His choices (or genetics) have obviously screwed him a lot more than it has me as a tax payer. In fact these past few stories have been more graphic than any Iraq war coverage (by the mainstream media that is) I have read. Personally I would find it hard to bash the guy since its obvious he has suffered so much and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
What sort of policy would you suggest for this problem of obesity? No policy and let them rot in hell? Support them to the hilt with government money?
What’s the policy solution? I don’t know.
A large part of me just doesn’t give a damn about the guy. He has a genetic condition that causes him problems? So what? So do a whole lot of us. Mr. Deuel was a productive member of society for a while. He hiked, he exercised. Although he was obese—a condition he will probably always be resigned to—he was active. He used to deal with his problem, and it worked, if imperfectly.
In today’s LJS article Mr. Deuel openly admits that he cares more about his gastronomical satisfaction than his health. (He eats 2800 calories per day—more than the 2000 recommended for an average American adult, and WAY more than the 1200 he is supposed to be consuming.) He cares more about the absence of physical discomfort than completing physical therapy. (He says that physical therapists are worst than terrorists.) He cares more about a nicotine high than he does about breathing. (2.5 packs per day.)
That’s all fine and good. More power to him. Let him make his decisions. But if he asks me to help pay for his excesses, or the consequences thereof, fuck him. I’m a sucker; I’ll pay, with only a little complaining, to help him maintain a reasonable standard of living. But I’m not paying his bills just because if I don’t he’ll drown in his own filth. He has to earn my cash. Mr. Deuel is fully aware of the consequences of his decisions, so I feel no guilt in letting him suffer those consequences. The guilt is his, not mine.
Mr. Deuel was stuck with some crappy genes, and for that I have some empathy. But he has taken his condition far beyond that which his genes fated. Taxpayers should not be forced to pay for Mr. Deuel’s terrible and self-destructive decisions.
Somewhere in that ranting is your policy. I think.
Share your thoughts with the community.
Commenting is no longer permitted on this post.