BHS - 8A – Olympics: Swimming in the River Seine | ‘Mixed Weight’ Couples

Yes! They’re actually doing Olympic swimming in the River Seine… YIKES. Alexa in in millions of households and Amazon is losing billions. ‘Bridgerton’ sparks discussion about ‘mixed weight’ couples on screen and not everyone is happy about it. Stop complaining about referees, we’re teaching our kids that nothing is their fault.

Episode Transcript

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You're listening to KFI AM six fortythe Bill Handle Show on demand on the
iHeartRadio app. And this is KFIBill Handle here on a very hot Tuesday
morning. And here's the last fewweeks. We had the assassination attempt.
We had that ridiculous debacle of adebate that unfortunately imploded for Joe Biden his

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refusal to stay in until a coupleof days ago. We had former President
Trump with the assassination attempt. It'sjust it's crazy. So here is the
latest, and that's Kamala Harris isnow the nominee. And I'm going to
be putting that the other in thepodcast. By the way, I'm going
to record this probably tomorrow. We'regoing to have it out by Thursday.

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And if a quick reminder that theBill Handle Show podcast is out and running.
It drops every Tuesday and Thursday.And you can go to the iHeartRadio
the iHeartRadio app and just plug intoBill Handleshow podcast and I like, take
a listen, let me know whatyou think, because I'm now joined the

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multitude of the podcast. All Right, a new Olympic event because the Paris
Olympics start at the end of themonth, and as you know or may
not know, there are every singletime there are changes in the events.
For example, for the first time, break dancing, break dancing is now

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an Olympic sport. Come on,really, yep, So I'll tell you
the one they just added, whichis actually it's a unique to Paris.
They have just added toilet swimming aspart as an Olympic sport. All you

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get to do is swim in thetoilet and see who wins the event.
Now it's a very very large toiletalso known as the River Sinne. That
river, well, it's what overfour hundred miles goes through Paris. You
see it on postcards, you takeboat trips to it through it. I

(02:15):
have done that. It's very romantic, especially when you go past Notre Dame,
which is now coming back, andit's the way it's lit. It's
very romantic. It's terrific, butvery careful. And that is you don't
want to fall over overboard, doyou. No, you don't, because
the Sayin is a filthy mess andit has been for over one hundred years.

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So from the moment that Paris wasawarded the twenty twenty four Summer Games,
the Seine has been central to theplans. As a matter of fact,
the opening ceremony. Instead of marchinginto the stadium, you have hundreds
of athletes, actually thousands, onboats floating along the Seine, and that

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is how opening ceremonies are going tobe viewed. They even had to make
an exception to the Olympic rules becausethe Olympic rules call for athletes marching into
a stadium. Well they're on boatsinside of or on the Seine. So

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now you've got events the triathlon,open water swimming, events like that,
and they're going to jump into theriver. Yeha, So ciers what I
mean? You think about it?What it means asking a bunch of world
class, highly trained athletes to plungeheadfirst into one of the most repugnant stretches

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of water in Western Europe. Forcenturies, the Saine has been depository for
wastewater, raw sewage, empty winebottles, bicycles, garbage cans, people
have crapped right into the Seine.Matter of fact, that's a great story

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in and of itself, and it'sjust a filthy, god awful mess.
Maybe now there's been a huge effortto clean it up, and has it
worked I don't know now the mayorof Paris and Hidalgo I decided that she
was going to show the world thatthe Seine is in fact a healthy river,

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that you're not going to be introuble physically if you jump in.
So she jumped in. She jumpedinto the Seine with reporters there videoing,
photographing her as she swims around.Now, granted, she was in a
hazmat suit that completely covered her entirebody up. Actually she was in a

(05:09):
wetsuit with goggles, and she swamaround and came out and said, see,
the river is clean. And thehope for Parisians is that she gets
out of the hospital before the startof the Games, because she has some
of the most severe gastro intestinal illnessesthat anybody has ever had. But damn

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it, she is going to makeit. Last year, organizers were forced
to cancel an event, a testevent. Why well, because the water
was declared unsafe in February the levelsof harmful bacteria were twenty times above the

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safety threshold set by World Triathlon.Yep, oh, I'm going to keep
on going with this one because Icontinue on with toilet swimming as the new
Olympic sport as we are going towatch the events, the water events on
the Seine. Also, I wantyou to notice when they have the ambulances

(06:16):
will be lining up along the banks. The city of Paris just wants to
keep them out of sight, becausewell, you know what that looks like.
And I want to continue on withthe new Olympic sports toilets, swimming,
And I make fun of this alot because it basically is the water

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sports are going to be held inthe River Seine, which is and has
been for over a century, oneof the filthiest rivers that exist in Western
Europe. And it has been I'mnot exaggerating, it's been a toilet.
You couldn't get into the water becauseof what was dumped in there, the

(06:59):
sewage that was dumped. Now yougo back to a couple hundred years,
I mean, that's what they didin rivers all over the world. But
you know, at some point yougotta go and the Saine is still unsafe.
Welm maybe, because here is whatthe organizers of the Olympics, with

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of course the government of the cityof Paris, they produced in boys this
ambitious a plan to reduce the levels. They produced a plan to reduce the
levels of harmful bacteria in the water, and it was one point five billion

(07:45):
dollars to clean up the river.How about just building a couple of swimming
pools for the water events? Whatdo you think, right? Four gallons
of chlorine at eighteen bucks a gallonand building a swimming pool, which,
okay, it's millions of dollars tobuild an Olympic venue for swimming and diving.

(08:11):
And that's not one point five billiondollars. And at some point there
are enough lakes out there where youcan do long distance swimming. Ah,
do believe that's true, But hereit is. It's the sane And so
with the mayor and Hidalgo had tofight. Is not only swimming in the

(08:35):
Seine and probably getting sick and probablydying we don't know yet. There was
a social media campaign that urge Parisianswho were against the Seine being you used,
and they were told to crap inthe water upstream. Now that is
tell me that's not a social mediaevent. Can you imagine a video of

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hundreds of people lining up and basicallydefecating along the river, I mean mooning
four hundred people? Oh god,the discuss factor. Well, that didn't
turn out. So the mayor jumpsin the water. She's in a wetsuit

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and goggles, and she says theSaine is exquisite. The water is very
very good, a little cool,but not so bad. And as a
matter of fact, organizers have confirmedthat this one point five billion dollar plan
to reduce the levels of the bacteriaand the water is actually working. And

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that's what they're saying. So eventhe opening ceremony, which is going to
be on the Seine, now it'snot gonna be swimming. The people are
going to be on boats, theathletes. That was tough enough, never
been done before. It's going tobe an interesting view and opening ceremonies for

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those people that spend a fortune intickets for ticket sales for the stadiums,
well, sand is line the sane. I don't think they are going to
I don't think they're gonna pay muchmoney for that. Paris first hosted the
Olympics in nineteen hundred and so thisis the third time out for Paris.

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The river at that point had swimmingevents, but Parisians made a habit of
diving in those are not really thesecond time the French capital hosted the Olympics
nineteen twenty four. The band wasabsolutely there. Since nineteen twenty four you
could not go into the Seine.It was against the law. And so

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here is what they're doing. They'recleaning up the river. And what does
that mean. Well, the officialssaying, this is not like a big
fish tank. It's not like productsbeing added to the river upstream like water
treatment plants. This is about limitingthe amount of wastewater that flows in,
not treating the water after the fat. And so there is an underground storage

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tank one hundred and five feet deep, one hundred and sixty four feet wide
that is going to hold the wastewaterthat's created during storms. We have that
problem along the beaches. And thereis a backup plan too, just in
case this doesn't work. That isto move the ten kilometer swims to the

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rowing venue and turn the triathlon intoa doathlon and ditching the swimming part altogether.
So I can't wait, and theevent is going to be I think
just swimming in the Seine should bean event. And if you ever happen

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to go to France as a tourist, especially in the middle of summer like
it is right now. I don'tknow what the temperature is of France right
now, but I don't know howmany people are jumping in the water.
I really don't. It's pretty disgusting, to say the least. But they're
the French, you know, theyjust do everything differently, I mean everything.

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Here's a little factoid for you.You know, around the world helicopters.
If you look at helicopters, theblades all turn clockwise. You know
that as you watch a helicopter,the French go the other way. They're
the only country in the world thatgoes the other way with helicopters. Why
because they just want to screw youto the rest of the world. That's

(12:45):
what the French do. Hey,all right, okay, Oh I don't
see Amy. By the way,Anne, I don't know where Amy went,
because I wanted her to join thisdiscussion. And this happens to be
about Bridgerton the television show. AndAmy happens to be a big fan of
the show. And here is thecontroversy about the show. I mean,

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I don't watch it. My daughterBarbara is crazy about it, even to
the point let me tell you hownuts, how nuts my daughter is about
Bridgerton. My daughter is getting marriedand her bachelorette party that she arranged was
a Bridgerton t And this is whatthey offer, full costume, eighteen hundreds

(13:35):
costumes and I mean just thousands ofdollars. They're not doing that because I
said no, I was going topay for it. But it is so
hugely popular and it's a very goodshow, and it's a period piece and
it's a drama. And here isthe controversy about Bridgerton because you have the

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romance between Penelope Featherington played by NicolaCoughlin and Colin Bridgerton played by Luke Newton.
And here is what's going on.She is heavy and I don't know
the last time you had a couplewhere thin guy heavyset woman. Amy,

(14:26):
I know you ran off for aminute and you're a Bridgerton fat. Does
it bother you? How do youreact to heavy woman thinn guy as a
romance. I'm fine with it.I know several examples of this in real
life. And actually she I meanshe's she's a little bit overweight, she's

(14:48):
not like really fat, and he'scute, but he's not like the hottie
is like in season one. Okay, so here I think this is important
because this is this is sort ofI think the last barrier that has to
be broken when it comes to TVand commercials, and it has to do

(15:09):
with race, has already been brokenthrough. Now when you look at TV
commercials, a mixed race couple isnot only just a regular thing. I
think white couples are a minority now. If it isn't a mixed race couple,
something's wrong with a commercial. Right. The weight thing in commercials is

(15:33):
not a normal thing yet except theway. Well I'm going to break into
that or I'm going to say youwill see many more fat people in commercials.
That is being accepted. Maybe notas quickly as the mixed race to
your point, but there are plentyof commercials out there that have not just
moderately overweight people fat people as theleads, particularly the commercials that deal with

(16:00):
pharmaceuticals. I mean, if youdon't see a belly jiggling, something is
going on. And I mean fatpeople that are now in commercials, and
we're not talking about Roseanne bar We'renot talking about who else is really fat
female. I can't think of manythat are that are leads. Well,

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a lot of them who used tobe have lost weight too. Yeah,
that's true. But when you haveto when you talk about a Roseanne bar,
when you talk about something or someoneof that ilk, the fat part
is incidental to it because she isa personality and on her own right,
who happens to be fat? Nowhiring someone who is fat, and that

(16:42):
is the purpose of putting someone upthat. Commercially speaking, we're seeing that
all the time. Why because thepharmaceutical commercials for the most part is because
you know, it's an older crowdand we're fat. It's that simple.
We don't look like that. Youhave plus size models, well we look

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more like that. Even the plussize models are number one, moderately fat
and they're really great looking and they'remore curvy than they are there. You
could describe them as zoftig ze ft ig. You can look that up.
It's a Yiddish word for rubenesque.Talking about the television show Bridgerton,

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of which Amy is a huge fan, and it has to do with an
overweight lead woman with a slender malelead of romance between the two of them,
and that is sort of the lastbreakthrough race. We've broken through in
terms of you know, TV movies, et cetera. You know, mixed

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race couples are fine fat folks ascommercial spokespeople. Okay, Now, romance
between a heavy set woman and athing male that is sort of the last
vestige breaking through and Bridgerton has doneexactly that. And there's some huge controversy
about that. Why. Because thereis fat shaming in this world. I

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mean, there is just something aboutsociety that just doesn't like heavy people lazy.
I had this problem. I wasover three hundred pounds overweight, and
I was called fat and lazy elsworking eighteen hour days. What do you
mean lazy? Let me alone?Fat? Yes, And I'm one of
those people that have a hard timewith heavy set women and thin men.

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For example, I'm going to bringit personally, I through my entire life
would never date a heavy set woman. I wouldn't marry one, I wouldn't
date one. And my God,is that fat shaming? I guess to
the extent it is, But ithas to do with my weight. It
had to do with my shame inbeing fat and overweight. This is why

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I plug West Medical because it tookbariatric surgery for me to do it that
I'm thin, do I still wouldI date marry a heavyweight woman? I
would not now had I been thinas I was a child, would I?
I don't know. I have noidea. But there's certain things where

(19:15):
I'm very old fashioned. For example, house husbands and breadwinter wives. You
know that I don't. I'm notcomfortable with that, and I should be.
I always wanted to get married,and I love wives working, and
I wanted my wife to earn exactlyone dollar less than I do because the
thought of a wife earning more thanme, I'm old fashioned. I don't

(19:40):
want that to happen. And certainlyI'm forgot. Am I dating myself now?
And certainly when it comes to datingbeing involved with overweight women, I
just it doesn't fit, doesn't sitwell with me. Now. Is it
because of my personal views of beingoverweight my entire life? Or is it
because just I am part of societalthinking that there is just it doesn't work

(20:06):
and it is fat shaming, andit truly is. And uh, I
think we have to get past that. We're on our way by the way
they're playing. You look at commercialstoday, not only do you have mixed
race couples, but you've got genuinelyfat people pitching products which never happened years

(20:26):
ago. Gay men, for example, there is one pharmaceutical product. I
don't know what the hell it is, but uh, two men kissing,
straight out kissing. You know,it's a it's a different world that's being
accepted. And now the last vestigeof the uh breaking the societal norm,

(20:48):
the uh uh, the societal view. The discrimination is fat women and thin
men. Now fat men and thinwomen. That's different. We're much more
okay with that. Life is justit's weird how men and women just God,
God was never a woman. I'lltell you that right now. All

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right, we're done, guys.This is KFI AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. You've beenlistening to the Bill Handle Show. Catch
my Show Monday through Friday six amto nine am, and anytime on demand
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