Exactly. I see where the author is going with his article (and I think some of the points he raises are actually quite valid), but he's playing both sides of the "heavier than what?" point.
Yes, the JVM is slimmer than many interpreted languages with external dependencies (Python, Ruby, etc), and yes it can be slimmed down through manual labor, but no it is not something you can call "not heavy" with a straight face.
