Breaking: Americans Are Getting Fatter!

When I hear about this sort of thing, I tend to tune it out. I live on LA's Westside, hang out in South Bay and venture occasionally into Hollywood if someone else is driving. These obese people storming the nation feel mythical to me, all horned and bearded, unkempt, charging forward into our great nation carrying some manner of pole arm and a chicken wing. I never see anyone beyond a size 6 around here.

I know we hear about the fat people incessantly these days, but MSN had the courtesy and the summer interns to track the stampede graphically, and it's actually kind of sad.

Sadder still is that, while watching this multichromatic masterpiece of investigative journalism, I realized that I don't know my states. On an unlabeled map of the continental US, I can pick out Cali, Arizona, Florida and Texas, and after that I am truly stumped. Befuddled. Not even New York. How did this happen? I feel the system has failed me.