mellow-drama

Kick their asses

This house protected by Smith & Wesson.

Settle for Mr. Okay

I've got a real problem with this article, and I'm not the only one! Two main points: One, the author approaches the world on the assumption that every single woman must have her exact wants and needs.  That's just plain stupid, or lazy writing. And two, her understanding of the available options is flawed due to her child-centric viewpoint.

Laugh, then Cry

I can't help but laugh at the slightly prissy-outraged-aunt tone of this Slate article decrying the tabloid headlines that get viewership on CNN, MSN, and Fox News websites.   I actually noticed this phenomenon not long ago, when I discovered the Fox News website's "most emailed" list – it is inevitably full of drama and tragedy relating to children, pets, and celebrities.  Go read the Slate article, I'll wait.

How many of those headlines were you tempted to click on? I clicked on three.  I shake my head because I wish people were more interested in "serious" news; but I suspect the alternative to people reading tabloid stories online is not people reading lengthy discussions of the subprime "crisis" so much as not looking at news websites at all.  If I remember to drop by the Fox News website, I'll usually read four or five of the most-emailed articles.  Why not? I'm into spectacle as much as the next person. That doesn't keep me from being a serious person who follows serious events, but if someone is writing about a Star Wars fanatic or overly-harsh punishments for high school students, I tend to click.  I happen to be into nerds, and I follow issues on teen rights and privacy issues as a hobby.  I, too, am fascinated (and saddened, and disgusted) by the downward (and downward and downward) spiral of our White Trash Queen, Britney Spears.  At the same time I wish the paparazzi would leave her alone, I keep clicking on the articles to read about her latest trip to Starbucks in lieu of making a court appearance in her child custody case.

  I know I'm contributing to the problem by clicking, and supporting the continued publication of the trash.*  But then I think, so if I boycott tabloid stories and columnists I hate, is it going to make one iota of difference? Nope.  So I click, and I read, and come away feeling slightly ashamed of myself.  To me, it's the modern equivalent of paperback romance novels.

* I actually feel the same guilty impulse when I click to read a Maureen Dowd column – I don't want the New York Times to interpret my click as support for her crazy, mean, sexist rantings, but I know that for the people who run the NY Times website, attention is attention, and it's all good for the "brand."

Who's the freak?

If 40 million married Americans, or 20 million women (since the law is what it is), are not having much sex (less than once a month!)…why is it that people think that single men and women in their twenties and thirties who aren't having tons of sex or desperately seeking partnership might be odd…or gay….or asexual?   Is perhaps not having much sex the actual default condition/preference for humans, and we've made sex into this artificially-imposed thing to aspire to?

(Via Althouse)

What is it with Chuck Norris?!

I find the Chuck Norris facts as funny as the next person (including, apparently, Chuck Norris*), but why? Is it that we are so jaded that there can never be a strong, silent hero who is uncomplicatedly good, except to use as campy humor? If John Wayne were alive today, would he be sitting next to an "actual Geico customer" doing those commercials? 

But back to Chuck Norris – "invoking Chuck Norris out of context is funny" just seems to be such a given these days that it has seeped into everything. If you play WoW you know what I mean when I say "Barrens chat, anyone?" And then I read this today from James Lileks:

On the other hand: here's a movie called "Shoot 'Em Up," the title of which would seem to indicate a playful jab at the conventions. It features Clive Owen, who is so tough his breakfast cereal has marshmallows shaped like Chuck Norris.

Why did I laugh out loud at that? What is it about Chuck Norris that is so damned funny?! Why am I falling for this??

*Okay, what are your favorite Chuck Norris facts? Mine are:

• Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
• Chuck Norris can lead a horse to water AND make it drink.
• The quickest way to a man's heart is with Chuck Norris' fist.
• Chuck Norris can win a game of Connect Four in only three moves.
• In the Bible, Jesus turned water into wine. But then Chuck Norris turned that wine into beer.
• Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.

Speaking of Gender...

Two completely fascinating (though both rather lengthy) articles this week, one in Slate and one in Reason, about the education gap between males and females and effects it may have on our currently male-centered economy.  Both articles provide ample reasons as to why the marriage rate has declined and continues to do so.

First, the Reason article, which points out that by 2017 there will be 3 women with college degrees to every 2 men.  This has all kinds of economic and sociological implications for society, which the Slate article spells out quite nicely.  Consider this:

Paging Douglas Adams

The fact that I don't understand this stuff doesn't make it any less interesting.

Nothing funnier than marijuana puns.

I especially like the last one:

If that repressed Southern conservative gentleman ever does publicly support medical marijuana, maybe he could offer a Joint Resolution?

Genius.

Pure genius.

Someone explain to me

Why "pornography" = "misogyny"?