The Phantom City

Is it really the case that 56 percent of NFL players are obese? And why is this taken seriously by the AP?

These folks probably know a bit better. BMI doesn’t scale well. It’s a simple height/weight formula that doesn’t even have the advantage of the arbitrariness of the old charts. I’m willing to admit that the BMI’s assessment of me may be pretty accurate, but that probably has more to do with the fact that I’m in the middle of the pack in height, am not an athlete, and sheer luck than anything else. (Actually, it can’t even be that accurate with me. In order to get to the middle of the normal weight range, I’d have to weigh what I did when I was fifteen and my ribs were sticking out. )

Well, guess I’m never working for the state.

At least the name. I worked up the stairs from Nando Media for a few weeks during a stint with The News & Observer, and I used a content management system they had programmed in Perl. It’s too bad that the name is going away, given its evidence of the Raleigh newspaper’s pioneering role in online journalism, but I’m glad they aren’t getting rid of the company.