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.