Over the weekend I came across two stories that, together, struck me as interesting. First, the NYPost did a piece about how "shocking" it is that American Idol judge Simon Cowell said that last years Idol winner Ruben Studdard is "fatter than he's ever been." Simon then went on to say such "shocking" things as "Britney Spears can't sing" and "Mariah Carey has a great voice but needs to lose the attitude." (In a related story, I would like to shock you with this piece of information: 2 + 2 = 4. You heard it here first!). Here is the pic of Ruben:



Later that day, I meandered my way over to the Sun and saw a somewhat similar article in which the paper itself was calling english pop-tarts Girls Aloud "porkers," and applauding the fact that their fatty-mo-matty-ness has gotten so out of control that they are being shipped off to a military-style boot camp for big-boned girls in order to get the girls to "shape up" in a literal sense. Here is the pic they ran with the story to make their point:



See any difference here? When I think of girls who are so large that they warrant being sent to boot camp for fatties, I can't say girls that look like them spring immediately to my mind. Scroll back up and compare these two pics again! Does anyone actually think these girls are fat? Does anyone actually think that Ruben is not fat? It's even funnier when you read the articles and see that the Post is writing from the perspective of "Simon is an asshole for calling our beloved Ruben fat" and the Sun writes from the "It's about time someone did something about these fatties" perspective.

(Does this post make me a "crusader for women's rights?")