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Lean, Sinewy

I thought I might take on the truly unimportant issues raised by Jacob Weisberg’s profile of Barack Obama in Men’s Vogue. First, since when does Men’s Vogue exist? I’ve never heard of this. The magazine industry is supposed to be dying, people, this is no time to be starting up new glossies. Second, seriously, how many magazine profiles of Obama does the world really need — 10? 57? Will he be on the cover of the next TV Guide? What I’m really wondering about, however, is this: “His build is so lean and sinewy that he seems much shorter than his 6’2” stature.”

It always seems to me that people who are tall and lean appear taller than they actually are, since the leanness emphasizes their sheer verticality. Discussion about two weeks ago with friends, however, revealed disagreement on this point and some support for the Weisberg line. What says the distributed intelligence of the internet?

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