Why I'm a Feminist

I was watching TV the other day, and saw a Direct TV commercial that hurt my brain. In an outrageous assault on the intelligence of the viewer (and women everywhere), Jessica Simpson walks into a bar in a revealing outfit (redundant, I know, to say 'revealing outfit' and 'Jessica Simpson' in the same sentence). She is supposed to be in character as the waitress she portrayed in the cinematic miscarriage Dukes of Hazzard, but I fail to see the difference. Anyway, she starts blathering to the camera, in a coquettish southern accent, about how she's spent all these days working out at the gym, and she's insulted that her salacious male fans won't do her the justice of buying Direct TV to enjoy her fake plastic body in as much detail as possible. Yes, that's right - she's basically saying "I've worked so hard to become a vapid sex object, and now I'm offended you aren't going to objectify me to the fullest extent possible!"

But the climax of this idiocy is when she rattles off some detailed technical specifications about what she's selling, pauses, turns to the camera, and says with a smile:

"I totally don't know what that means - but I want it!"

In this sentence, dear readers, we have the three pillars of modern society's feminine Ideal. She is 1: Hot, 2: Brainless, and 3: Materialistic. Think of not only Jessica Simpson, but Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, Nicole Richie, Miss America, and so on.

Hotness may be an obvious characteristic, but it's a certain kind of hotness: the kind created by plastic surgeons that makes you look like a six-foot Barbie doll. Brainlessness - when's the last time you saw a sex icon wearing glasses? And Materialism - Paris Hilton failed to identify who Tony Blair was in a recent interview (see Brainlessness), but I'm sure she can tell you all about the differences between Coach and Gucci handbags, or about how many square miles of closet space she has.

I long for the day that a beautiful, smart, and independent feminine Ideal replaces the current hot, brainless, materialistic one. The fact that this places me in the minority among American men is the reason I am a feminist.

Real People

"Just as people with dysfunctional kidneys are getting perfect ones from hospitals nowadays, Americans with dysfunctional social lives are getting perfect friends and relatives from their TV sets. And around the clock!

'Hell is other people,' said Jean-Paul Sartre. 'Hell is other real people,' is what he should have said."

-Kurt Vonnegut, from the introduction to Bagombo Snuff Box

China's not gay

An addendum to my criticism of Jim Rutz's asinine contention that soy food makes children gay: if that were true, wouldn't most of China be gay? They eat a lot of soy, but as far as I know, communists aren't known for their flamboyance or good fashion sense.

Special recognition goes out to Anne Barreca and Kiri Oliver for finding that hilariously stupid article.

Smart

BBC: High IQ link to being vegetarian

Well fancy that. Of course, it's debatable whether people become vegetarian as a direct result of a high IQ, or because a high IQ tends to correlate with awareness of ethics and health issues, but I'll take it as a compliment either way.

Deliver us from soy

This just in: soy causes not only homosexuality, but also obesity, cancer, and probably genocide too.

Jim Rutz is actually dense enough to look at how most Americans eat fast food, drink soda, and don't exercise, and conclude: yep, it's the soy that's making them fat. Oh, and it also causes gay babies.

I wonder how much he benches. As a vegetarian, I get a whole lot of my protein from soy, especially soy milk, tofu, and soy peanut butter. And as someone who lifts a lot of weights, I have a sneaking suspicion that I could kick the shit out of this guy, despite my estro-femi-wuss diet. But that's just my liberal, pinko, gay slant towards listening to M.D.s, whose years of education and experience has given them such an uninformed bias towards nutrition that they actually say that soy is healthy and as effective as animal meat in building muscle. Lies. All lies. It may be true that I can run a sub-6:00 mile and do more than twice as many pushups as the average healthy person, but it's all a momentary fluke before the fall. I'mreally on a one-way trip to fat gay death.

Oh, and if you're wondering about Jim Rutz's credentials, he's not a doctor. He's chairman of Megashift Ministries and co-founder of Open Church Ministries. Who needs brains when you have faith? Besides, thinking is so gay.

Save thee, friend, and thy music

Listen to some of my friend's music. It's good. It's very very good. And you can listen to it and/or download it for free!

Oh, it's only "danger"...

Part 1.5 in my series of ruined English comes from KW, reporting from Thailand. It's part 1.5, and not part 2, because the sign was actually in Thai, and we unfortunately don't have a picture of it anyway. Nevertheless, it qualifies for the series because it includes misapproprated quotations, which are annoying and hilarious even in translation.

KW saw a sign outside a Bangkok construction site that said:

Construction Zone

"Danger"

Keep Out

q

Idiotic misuse of quotations is one of the most common grammatical mistakes seen in everyday life. For some reason, people seem to think that slapping quotations on a word or sentence adds emphasis to what they're writing. But the ONE and ONLY purpose of quotations is to show that you are using words that aren't your own. If you want to add visual stress to something, you can underline, bold, italicize, or capitalize the words (see previous sentence for demonstration). But adding quotes can convey the impression that the writer wants to raise skepticism about the validity of what is written. Is this construction site really dangerous, or is it only "dangerous"?

Deck the Malls

‘Twas the month before Christmas,
And all through America,
The people were embroiled
In consumer hysteria.
Billboards, TV ads,
Radio jingles too,
All carefully employed
To con suckers like you.

The songs on the radio tell me that this is "the most wonderful time of the year.” I disagree; it seems to me that ‘obnoxious’ or ‘absurd' or ‘pine-scented’ might be more appropriate adjectives than ‘wonderful’. But maybe I just lack this elusive “holiday spirit” that everyone seems so enthused about.

The season is the same every year. First, a brutal onslaught of colored lights, insufferable music, and flashy store displays rip out your everlasting soul. Then, a slew of obtrusive advertisements remind you that the only way to fill this void in your existence is to crap away all of your money on presents. A meaningful present is an expensive present. LOVING IS BUYING. CHRISTMAS IS CONSUMPTION.

No where can you witness this mind-numbing, Orwellian fiasco of commercialism better than in shopping malls. Seething masses of frantic holiday shoppers pack themselves into malls everywhere, and lug their bundles of department store bags all over the building in search of that special scarf, iPod, or toolset. You see all kinds of people: the business executive buying flashy jewelry for his wife, the pair of middle-aged housewives shopping for their bratty kids, the bratty kids sitting on Santa’s lap, the fat lady in purple spandex pretending she’s interested in buying a cellular phone. All desperately shopping, all desperately spending, all desperately trying to conform to social standards created by clever marketing.

Signs and posters all over the mall provide you with clichéd, ulterior-motivated stock phrases describing what the season is all about. It’s about giving – giving, that is, Gap Sweaters for only 29.99. It’s about caring – and what better way to show him you care than to buy him a gas grill he won’t use until July? It’s about fun – and your eight-year-old can’t have fun without this video game. It’s about love – and you don’t love people if you don’t spend enough money on them.

But it’s not just the malls. The other day I was watching TV, and a jewelry ad came on: “This year, get her diamonds, the gift she really wants!” That’s right. The television just told me that what I got for my girlfriend last year wasn’t what she really wanted. She really wanted diamonds. My television knows my girlfriend better than I do. I'm a failure - unless, of course, I go drop a huge wad of cash on an aesthetic rock whose carbon bonds will, through some mysterious process, provide the only acceptable demonstration of my love and affection.

Remember how, when the Grinch tried to steal Christmas, it didn’t work because he stole just presents, and not the Christmas spirit itself? That was a nice story. But if some kind of Seussian Grinch were to steal all of OUR presents, we’d all weep, gnash our teeth, and then implode for want of a reason to exist. Make no mistake, though – we do have a kind of ‘Holiday Spirit’. It’s just not symbolized by wreaths, or trees, or menorahs, or those funny light-up Santas on people’s roofs. It’s embodied in the Santas on Coke bottles. Santa Claus endorses soft drinks, because he’s figured out that the true spirit of the season is not love, or Jesus, or family, or any other heartwarming metaphysical idea. It's the simple material act of consumption.

If you think your job is tough...

We work a lot in America, but we forget that much of the world labors for a living. Next time you feel fussy about getting up and going to work, think of this guy, and the couple billion people like him who labor all day, almost every day, in harsh conditions, for bare subsistance wages. Dental plan and 401(k) not included.

What's in a name

"The first of many strokes of good fortune for Adolf Hitler took place thirteen years before he was born. In 1876, the man who was to become his father changed his name from Alois Schicklgruber to Alois Hitler. Adolf can be believed when he said that nothing his father had done had pleased him so much as to drop the coarsely rustic name of Schicklgruber. Certainly, 'Heil Schicklgruber' would have sounded an unlikely salutation to a national hero."

Thus opens Ian Kershaw's two-volume biography Hitler, a well-written and informative (albeit unsettling) read. Amazing, the power of a name. It's unlikely Hitler would have gotten far in politics with a name so clumsy and undignified as Schicklgruber.

That little anecdote came to mind the other day when I heard that a man named Tom Vilsack is running for president in '08. President Vilsack? Can you imagine that? Today, President Vilsack held a summit with world leaders on... No way.

Politics is all about image, and it really helps to have a catchy name - or at least a name that doesn't suggest a synonym for 'scrotum'. We've had 43 presidents in our country's history, and the goofiest last names out of that pool are Roosevelt, Hoover, and Fillmore. I doubt Vilsack's gonna make the cut.

Though it must be said that Vilsack is better than Schicklgruber. Or Hitler. Definitely better than Hitler.

YOUR BRAIN IS TO SMALL

Part 1 in my series of... PICTURES OF RUINED ENGLISH!

I took this picture while driving in Hartford. The back of the truck reads:

BK CONSTRUCTION

'NO JOB TO SMALL'

No job too small... except, of course, remembering elementary-school grammar and spelling. Would you trust someone who can't discriminate between "to" and "too" to build your house? Maybe they also can't tell the difference between a blueprint and a coloring book.

Moral Certainty

"Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the person, the surer they are that they know precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on 'I am not too sure.'"
- H.L. Mencken

Craig. Daniel Craig.

I've always admired the qualities that make Bond who he is. His wits. His charm. His courage. His equanimity under pressure. His resourcefulness. His success with the fairer sex. His taciturn, stoic demeanor. His ruthlessly independent, self-reliant lifestyle.

Never before has any of that been so masterfully played out on screen. Daniel Craig is a genius. The man has ruined me for other Bonds.

Of course, Connery and Brosnon will always be great, and Moore and Dalton will always have their fine moments. (Lazenby, though, in his only Bond film, was pure excrement.) Craig, however, has entirely reinvented the character. Craig's Bond is more accessible. He has a genuine, human dimension that all previous Bonds have lacked. He is not just 007; he is also a man.

Craig doesn't have the detached insouciance of the old James Bond; he doesn't simply kill someone, straighten his tie, and walk away. He's more in touch with the gravity of his actions. Of course, he's still capable of turning off his emotions and getting the job done, but he's not as nonchalant as Connery, as artifically sophisticated as Moore, or as tight-lipped as Brosnon. Craig can show all of those qualities, but he picks the right moments for them. In other moments, Craig's Bond is more vulnerable - and therefore much more interesting - than previous Bonds. He's capable of showing emotion, and the audience is more likely to identify with him.

And for the first time, 007 actually gets the living shit beaten out of him once in a while, which is fitting in his line of work. The worst that would befall Connery or Brosnon was a sweaty brow and maybe a torn suit jacket. Craig gets cut, bruised, bloodied, and beaten. He bleeds and shows cuts and scrapes after fighting, which gives him an added, realistic edginess.

His look has also changed. Spies don't go black tie on every mission, you know. Craig is comfortable (yet still strikingly handsome) in a T-shirt or casual sweater, so when he wears a suit or the trademark tux it's all the more effective. And Daniel Craig is jacked. The man has powerful shoulders and a toned, muscular overall physique. His athleticism is immediately apparent; he looks like the fast runner and powerful fighter that Bond is supposed to be.

Finally, it's clear that Craig actually treats this as a serious acting role. He doesn't expect to let gadgets, cars, clothes, and women create the part for him; he's invested a great deal of creative energy into the character, and the fruit of his labor is a more complex and fascinating persona than I ever thought it possible for James Bond to have.

Cheers to you, Daniel Craig. 007 - status confirmed.

Shaken. Not stirred.

I do not take lightly my idolization of 007, or my appreciation for the past 20 Bond movies. So it's not without serious reflection that I've decided Casino Royale is the best James Bond film ever.

Allow me to enumerate and elucidate my reasons for thinking this movie is just so goddamned good.

NOTE: No explicit spoilers follow - very little that you wouldn't really already know from the previews, and no information that will give away the plot.

1. Pre-title sequence

Almost every Bond movie begins with an action-based sequence before the main title and credits. It usually involves Bond on some kind of mission, and the outcome always influences the main storyline in some way.

Casino Royale's pre-title sequence is a masterpiece. Featuring rough, realistic fighting shot in grainy black and white, it begins the reinvention of 007 as we know him.

2. Title sequence and song

Chris Cornell, a favorite singer of mine from the bands Audioslave and Soundgarden, wrote and recorded the song You Know My Name for the title credits. The song is great, and it's got a masculine, slightly grunge sound that blends well with the tone of the movie. It's the first time that a male singer has recorded a Bond title song since a-ha did the song for The Living Daylights.

The title sequence is a welcome change from the usual display of dancing naked female sillouettes. In fact, there is hardly any sexual presence to speak of: it's mostly simple animation focused on a sillouette of Bond and the creative use of spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs, not only to foreshadow the poker game in the plot of the movie, but also to suggest the strategic risks that 007 is known for taking with his life. It ends with a stunning shot of Daniel Craig as Bond, letting you know that The Man Has Indeed Arrived.

3. Plot and Dialogue

The storyline of the movie is awesome. It eschews the hackeneyed explosions and flashy gadgets worn out by the franchise, and focuses on Bond's wits and the cost of betrayal.

Past Bond films - every one of them - have followed a rigid formula. Gun barrel sequence, pre-title sequence, title sequence. Bond visits M and Q-Branch, and says "shaken not stirred" and "Bond, James Bond", by about the middle of the film. He gets captured and somehow escapes. He beds at least two women. He gets involved in a car chase in which he shows off the latest Bond gadgets. He kills the villain in a grandiose fashion. And the film concludes with him getting cozy with the main Bond girl of the film.

Certainly a tried-and-true formula, but one that was becoming trite and boring after 20 reincarnations. Wisely, the makers of Casino Royale broke the rules. They didn't destroy the formula altogether, but they firmly departed from convention, and the result is an engaging and fresh story.

Instead of a car chase, there is a pursuit on foot, which is infinitely more interesting because it is not limited to streets, and it involves the characters' physical stamina as well as their quick thinking. And instead of the cheesy, smarmy Bond lines typical of Bond movies, the few one-liners delivered by Craig are believable and actually charming.

There's hardly any superfluous violence in Casino Royale. None of the bad guys die in impressive, earth-shaking denoument explosions; their final ends are actually believable.

4. Bond girl - Eva Green as Vesper Lynd

Without a doubt, the smartest and (and I think prettiest) Bond girl ever. She's every bit Bond's match for wits, and she doesn't just swoon into his arms after 2 corny lines and let him take her. She stands her own and Bond can't complete the mission without her.

5. Villain - Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre

I don't know how they found this guy, but he's so fucking cool. He's much more reticent than other Bond villains, and his presence on screen is more captivating. And he doesn't portray the stereotypical, cackling, meglomaniac Bond villain who pets his cat and dreams of world domination. Instead, he's a believable modern bad guy: a private banker to terrorists, and a cruel, unforgiving, selfish, very wealthy man.

6. Judi Dench as M

It's Judi Dench. Need I say more? The woman should get an Oscar for every part she's ever done.

7. Daniel Craig as Ian Fleming's James Bond 007

This will require an entire post of its own.

JAMES BOND HAS RETURNED

You know his name.
You know his number.

Only 007 can make a hand of poker as thrilling as unarmed combat, death-defying chases, and rapturous sex. Only Bond - James Bond - can deliver all of that in one movie and still have time for a vodka martini.

Go see Daniel Craig give Bond back his true self. The stakes are high, and he delivers. Considerably.

Conventional

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."

-John Kenneth Galbraith

Rape

Pakistan Votes to Amend Rape Laws
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6148590.stm
Pakistan's religious parties called the [new non-religious] legislation "a harbinger of lewdness and indecency in the country", and against the strictures of the Koran and Sharia law.
Addressing parliament on Wednesday, the leader of the six-party MMA Islamic alliance, Maulana Fazlur Rahman, said the bill would "turn Pakistan into a free-sex zone".

Under the current law in Pakistan, rape trials are handled by religious courts, and a raped woman who can't come up with four male witnesses to her rape faces prosecution for adultery.

Leave it to religion to be so outrageously backwards, retarded, and sexist as to punish a raped woman for being raped.

B is for Beneficial

It looks like the Plan B contraceptive pill will soon be available for over-the-counter sales in New York City and elsewhere. This is a decidedly good thing. If your condom breaks, or if, in a torrent of passion, you stupidly ignore protective measures, it's good to have a backup plan for obviating unwanted pregnancy.

Predictably, that's not how conservatives view the matter. For some of them, Plan B falls too uncomfortably close to abortion, that ongoing holocaust of tiny innocent people by the liberal legions of Lucifer himself.

Other conservatives, like the blockheaded cretin I saw on the news tonight, argue that Plan B is dangerous because it encourages promiscuity and more casual attitudes towards sex.

This is precisely the same argument that has been used throughout history against condoms, birth control pills, and abortion itself. But there is nothing to support the contention that birth control increases lustful behavior. People are ALWAYS lustful; Plan B and other birth control measures just prevent unwanted potential babies from being born or aborted at a later stage.

The conservative on the news also expressed concern that Plan B might fall into the hands of underage girls. Uh... point being? Would he rather that they go through with pregnancy? 16-year-old girls should be studying precal and applying to college, not breastfeeding and changing diapers. And again, the same argument could be made about condoms; should we deny them to teenagers because they give them sexual license? You're not going to stop teenagers from having sex, but birth control can at least provide options for safety and the prevention of unwanted pregnancy.

To think that people will actually curb their sexual appetites without Plan B is a hilarious departure from everything psychology, biology, and history teach us about human nature. And conservatives call liberals naive!

A Couple of Devilish Definitions

From Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary (1911):

Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teachings of Christ in so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin.

Pray, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.

House + Senate - Rumsfeld = Awesome

I consider myself neither a Democrat nor a Republican, mainly because I prefer thinking for myself and don't like to attach a label to the aggregate of my political and social views. But on the whole, I find the Democrats to be the far saner party in this country.

That being said, WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!

I expected the House. The Senate was an agreeable surprise. And the resignation of Rumsfeld was a totally unexpected delight, not only in that the bastard is now gone, but in that the timing was such as to be an obvious display of concession.

Bush's discomfort during yesterday's press conference was palpable. He was stumbling, laughing at his own bad jokes, and disgracing the English language, all more than he usually does. What's more, he took responsibility for the election losses. I'm going to repeat that. He took responsibility for something.

Oh brave new world, that has such a Congress in't!

A Connecticut Jew in King George's Court

So. Another 6 years of Lieberman representing Connecticut with his drooping, vapid countenance. I'm ecstatic.

The other day I heard him boasting about how he has always stood for working "across party lines". By this, of course, he means that he hasn't let calling himself a Democrat stop him from acting exactly like a Republican. Now he's an independent - which I assume means free agent available for GOP contract.

Oops

US Pastor Admits Sex 'Immorality'

A respected pastor and vocal opponent of gay marriage is a sanctimonious, contemptible asshole? Never saw that coming. "There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark and I've been warring against it my entire adult life," he writes in his confession. When he says "repulsive and dark," he's not talking about his antediluvian religious views on marriage, but rather the fact that he secretly counts himself among the very people whom he so enthusiastically persecutes. It's like being a Jewish Nazi. The self-loathing must be epic.

But don't think that a humiliating national scandal will drive him to apostacy. Oh, no. It'll just make him more religious. That's how religion works; it's an ideology that subsists on a viscious cycle of impossible standards, inevitable guilt, and insincere repentance. Amen.

Go Fish

I'm a vegetarian. I do not eat pigs, cows, birds, fish, or any other meat, because in our age of supermarkets, it is absolutely unnecessary to kill animals in order to have a complete, nutritious, delicious diet.

Many people on some level understand my compunction with killing animals that walk or fly, but it's often harder for them to conceive why I don't eat seafood. Swordfish or lobster don't scream or squeel when you kill them, so their suffering is more of an abstraction. And come on - to give up eating meat AND fish I must be some kind of kook!

But occasionally, science comes along and vindicates erstwhile kooks, making them look like the only reasonable people in the room. And it's now becoming clear that eating fish is no longer a reasonable dietary choice.

Only Fifty Years Left for Sea Fish (BBC)
There will be virtually no fish or other seafood from the oceans by the middle of the century, scientists conclude.
"The way we use the oceans is that we hope and assume there will always be another species to exploit after we've completely gone through the last one," said research leader Boris Worm, from Dalhousie University in Canada.
Steve Palumbi, from Stanford University in California, one of the other scientists on the project, added: "Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood."

Now, this really shouldn't come as a surprise. It's simple arithmetic. There are now over six billion people on the planet, and although the oceans are vast, they aren't infinite. Fishing used to be sustainable when they're weren't so many people and the fishing itself wasn't so industrial. Now, if people keep glutting themselves on cod and tuna, there just won't be any left.

Fortunately, there is a simple solution, albeit one that's unsatisfying for our self-centered society: STOP EATING FISH. You don't need to eat fish to have a complete diet; it is unnecessary, it is a luxury, and now an ethically indefensible one. There are plenty of other sources for the protein and nutrients found in fish. If petty selfishness overrides your moral compass and you choose to keep contributing to the disappearance of sea life as we know it, at least consider eating less seafood. We can't have our oceans and devour them too.

Cure

As if we needed more proof that Rush Limbaugh is a fat, sweaty douchebag.

His recent criticism of Michael J. Fox is so putrid that it shocks even those, like me, who are used to his idiotic contrarian rants. Of course, after the fallout he had to issue an apology to save his fat face, but even then he couldn't stop himself from saying something dense. He solemnly asseverated that "Fox is allowing his illness to be exploited, and in the process is shilling for a Democrat politician." Stephen Colbert recently reacted to this by pointing out how very shameless it is that Democrats are "cynically exploiting his disease to try to find a cure for his disease."

If only there were a cure for terminal stupidity.

For more amusing satire of conservative radio's favorite sputtering moron, check this week's Onion.

Enemies of Truth

"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
-Friedrich Nietzsche

This is one of my favorite Nietzschean aphorisms. Having a conviction means feeling, instead of thinking, that something is true. A lie can be proven wrong; a conviction, on the other hand, can be maintained no matter what evidence or facts exist to impugn it. This is why convictions play such a vital role in religion; they allow the complete epistemic insulation that one needs in order to believe things without any reason at all.

With an upcoming election, we would do well to remember Nietzsche's words whenever a politician is praised for "the strength of his convictions".

Frighteningly fruitful

It's 2006, and the Catholic Church still opposes contraception. Just because of god's commission in Genesis to "be fruitful and multiply".

According to the Bible, god gave that command when there were two (2) people living. Now there are more than two. In fact, more than six billion people now populate the Earth. Haven't we been "fruitful" enough? Or will god just blow a whistle when we reach our quota?

That's the problem with categorically following the teachings of a book whose pages have gathered thousands of years of dust. Might not some of the content have an expiration date?

It's especially disheartening that all those unthinking idiots who eschew contraception in obedience to Church doctrine end up breeding more unthinking idiots as a direct result. This is not a desirable eugenic trend. It is, however, an easy way for the Church to ensure a perpetual supply of blinkered morons to fill its pews, generation by fruitful generation.

United We Flaunt

9/11 bumper stickers still confuse me. Five years after the fact, people are still flaunting their patriotism on the backs of their cars with flags and accompanying slogans that are either outright false or pitifully trite. We will never forget? Then why do we need your bumper sticker to remind us? These colors don't run? Yeah, but they sure start to fade when you leave them on your bumper through a couple winters. United we stand? Pray tell, in what country have you been during these past several years of internecine political bickering? And then, one that always stands out for calling attention to the stupidly obvious: There's Only One, inscribed proudly under a picture of the US Flag. Uh... yes, and there's also only one Zimbabwean flag, and only one Argentinian flag, and even only one Canadian flag. Oh, but ours is superior, prettier, more freedom-tastic? Well you indeed do a fine job of honoring it - I'm sure Betsy Ross herself would weep with solemn pride at the idea that your spare tire is protected from rain and slush with a cover that has our Grand Old Flag emblazoned across it.

Oddities

Edgar Allen Poe's stories are widely known for their darkness and horror, but not many people know that Poe invented the detective mystery with his Dupin stories. Below is my favorite line from The Purloined Letter. If you've never read it, go do so.

"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."

Then it begins

Salutations. This is my blog. As I've spent the better part of the evening setting it up, I don't have much energy to write; rest assured, however, that I will soon begin posting frequently on all things ethical, historical, philosophical, fictional, farcical, critical, nonsensical, and grammatical.