Oscar Rant

At last night's televised Academy Awards show, the usual self-congratulatory back-patting by vapid celebrities in fancy attire took center stage. This year the denizens of Hollywood are even more infatuated with themselves since they brought down that evil Harvey Weinstein (formerly everyone's best friend and mentor), and despite the fact that since the beginning of talkies, every young actress who sought a career in the movies had to sleep with someone in power, engendering the term "casting couch."

The New Old Jane Fonda

But no more! Now Hollywood's revolving and evolving parade of tucked, lifted, sculpted and Botoxed starlets are free from the bondage of their oozing sexuality. Um, except that freedom has nothing to do with them baring less cleavage and thigh, wearing less makeup or keeping their original body parts. This morning tongues were wagging about how stunning and young Jane Fonda looks at age 80! How does she do it? I want the number of her plastics factory.

And another thing. I am sick and tired of everyone foaming at the mouth over "inclusion." You know, "The first black man to ever do this, the first Latino woman to ever do that." That kind of thinking is even more racist than when blacks and Latinos weren't recognized at all. And as for the diversity that made all the women stand up and roar, the lone female among nine people nominated for Best Director (Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird) did not win, nor did anyone attached to her movie take home any award of any kind. So much for roaring.

Keala Settle: "This is how I'm meant to be."

An enormously fat lady sang an Oscar-nominated song entitled This Is Me and was simply grotesque. I could barely watch for fear her mammoth breasts would detach themselves from the sheer weight of all that flesh, then tumble out of her dress, roll off the stage and smother everyone seated in the first few rows. Naturally she got a standing ovation from the politically-correct audience, whose combined weight was probably less than hers, for defiantly remaining so fat and being damn proud of it!

Meanwhile, food is a drug and her morbid obesity is proof of a severe addiction. Would anyone stand up and cheer for a heroin addict who crawled onstage, wasted, drooling and slurring words, with needle marks dotting her arms? Applauding those who stay fat is no different. As a former foodaholic who years ago often inhaled an entire box of Berger cookies on a 20-minute drive home from work, I know from experience. (These days I dream of eating just one of those cookies, but I don't.) FYI, Berger cookies are to die for. They are a Baltimore icon and can be ordered online. Get some if you dare.

Berger cookies: 140 calories each. Eight per box. Do the math.