Sunday Brunch: Diet & Exercise edition

You'll notice a little more fruit on the menu today. Well, if you're going to eat sausage it's probably a good idea to throw in a few more antioxidants. Fruit is loaded with them and they help fight those free radicals. When you put it that way, it sounds downright repressive and reactionary. To us activists, free radicals just have to be a good thing, but they're definitely not in this case.

Diet: But maybe we can turn that around a bit. The radicals that are yelling the loudest about being free these days aren't progressives. They're the ones blathering on and on about trimming government, except when it comes to marriage and repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell. And they're out working hard for their candidates. If we want to fight the free radicals then we'd better start adding more fruit (if I can reclaim that offensive epithet used about our community) to the body politic. Yes, I'm suggesting that heavy doses of the antioxidant vitamins G, L, B, and T found naturally in what some people call fruits is part of the remedy to these dangerous free radicals.

So does that mean raising our community's issues more often and with more urgency in our state's upcoming election? To a degree. What I'm really talking about, though, is higher participation by the GLBT community. In other words, let's use fewer fighting words and use more fighting action. And that brings us to

Exercise: I'm definitely no exercise physiologist, gym bunny, etc. You can tell that by looking at me. But I do know that there are three muscle groups that our community needs to work if we want to have an impact in the upcoming election. And all three can help a good candidate.

Fingers: Phone banking for the candidate of your choice is a great way to give those tiny muscles in your fingers a great work out. After just a few sets with lots of reps (pretty butch, huh?) you'll amaze your friends with feats of manual dexterity that will pay off in faster and more accurate texting, etc.

Legs: After canvassing the voters in a neighborhood for a couple of hours, your legs will definitely feel the burn. You'll not only get the definition in your legs that you've been wanting, you'll also see the results when you contact your winning candidate about the issues that are important to you.

Arms: You don't have to do all your heavy lifting in the gym. Hitting the polling places during early voting with your candidate's sign in your hands will give you plenty of opportunity to work and show off those arms. For an aerobic component, try your sign spinning skills just like those guys who stand on street corners advertising everything from "Cash for Gold" to mobile phones. You'll look great in that sleeveless thing in all the clubs.

If you'd like to join our diet and exercise program for this fall's elections, contact us at chris@tnequalityproject.com and we'll be glad to connect you with a candidate who could use some help.

-Chris Sanders