Columnist Scott Dickensheets: A little of this, a little of that

AFTER A WHILE, one's notebook fattens with stray tidbits, weightless woolgathering, fast factoids and hastily scribbled whatnot. Thus, a Tuesday Grab Bag is born:

A blimp ride imparts a new perspective on the city. From a slow crawl 1,000 feet up, you see the blue dots of pools stretching into the distance, and a lot more homely warehousing than you notice at street level. The scars of development are everywhere. And glamorous resorts? Not from above. The grimy roofs and banks of ugly air conditioners are a nice reminder that, despite the casino-centric hype we live amidst, these theme palaces are really just big buildings, subject to the same dirt and refrigeration problems as my house.

According to a new study, obesity is much more common among religious people than the nonreligious, the rate of obesity rising with one's devotion. Sect-wise, Southern Baptists are the heaviest. The lightest: Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, according to Purdue University researcher Kenneth Ferraro.

While some of the phenomenon is attributable to demographics -- blacks tend to be heavier than whites, so black churches are heavier, etc. -- many of the whys are unclear. Ferraro's best guess: People eat a lot at church socials. "Eating, using food, is a way to celebrate." Darn those potlucks!

I'm not obese, but I do occupy more than my share of volume, and if the wisecracks I put up with are any indication of what the obese endure, then the simple truth behind the study's results seems obvious: The overweight are more likely to find acceptance and nonjudgmental friends among churchgoers. At least, Ferraro says, the religiously obese are happier than the secular obese. Another pile of grant money well spent!

I thought it was clear I was satirizing society's tendency to view welfare kids as not as actual children but as moral lessons to their taxpayer-sponging moms. That's not my view, as anyone who's argued politics with me can attest.

To this caller, however, the column had a flat satire. "It was one of the most insulting things," she hissed. So to her and anyone who misread it, I didn't mean what you thought I meant, only what I thought I wrote.

How's that for dropping a heavy object?

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