http://www.iwhim.us

The C word has been in use since at least 1230, according to the Oxford English Dictionary online, when it referred to a street name, Gropecuntelane (bet I can guess what went on there). It has gradually been finding its way into mainstream American culture since the 1970s. Think of Travis Bickle’s rant in Taxi Driver, Hannibal Lector’s delightful salutation to Agent Starling, or the last words Adriana heard before being shot to death on The Sopranos. And don’t forget Citizens United Not Timid, best known by its acronym, a Hillary-bashing group that got media attention during the last campaign.

For decades, such feminists as Germaine Greer have advocated reclaiming the C word, in a take-back-the-night kind of way. While I’m all for this, efforts to redeem loaded words can be problematic, as we’ve learned from the N word. Besides, most women just don’t seem to have the stomach for it.

Hy-Line admitted to the Associated Press that “instantaneous euthanasia” (e.g. grinding up male chicks) is a standard practice and claims that it is also supported by the animal veterinary and scientific community. (Male chicks are less valuable because they can’t lay eggs or be raised quickly enough for meat.) Mercy for Animals estimates that 200 million male chicks are killed annually and United Egg Producers confirmed this figure.

No federal law exists to ensure the humane euthanasia of animals on farms or hatcheries. According to the Humane Society of the United States, even egg farms that sell cage-free eggs, get their hens from hatcheries that kill their male chicks. (This to me is the worst news of all because it means few commercially sold eggs are truly “blood-free.”)

The first thing she found is that young people today write far more than any generation before them. That’s because so much socializing takes place online, and it almost always involves text. Of all the writing that the Stanford students did, a stunning 38 percent of it took place out of the classroom—life writing, as Lunsford calls it. Those Twitter updates and lists of 25 things about yourself add up.

But is this explosion of prose good, on a technical level? Yes. Lunsford’s team found that the students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos—assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across. The modern world of online writing, particularly in chat and on discussion threads, is conversational and public, which makes it closer to the Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago.

(via Daily Dish)

Mr Gatward…will not join the ‘five items or less’ queue at the supermarket, in protest that the sign should read ‘five items or fewer’.

He also gets annoyed when people-neglect the ‘Royal’ in ‘Royal Tunbridge Wells’, and was vexed when he saw a major chain store advertising sales with signs saying ‘until stocks last’ rather than ‘while stocks last’.

‘I fought for the preservation of our heritage and our language but some people seem happy to let that go. I’m not,’ he said.

‘I feel very strongly about the English language.

We had our camera set up on some rocks and were getting ready to take the picture when this curious little ground squirrel appeared, became intrigued with the sound of the focusing camera and popped right into our shot.

Examples of the human form can be found here.

I worked a number of jobs in college to make ends meet. My parents were able (and gracious) to help me out my freshman year, but with two more siblings following me to college in short order, I knew I had to get off the parental dole after that. I was fortunate to have an academic scholarship to pay for tuition, so all I had to cover was room, board and incidentals (including books). I worked at McDonald’s and as an overnight stocker in a grocery store in the summers, and during the school year in the cafeteria and at a tutoring center. These experiences have led to my “shitty job” theory: everyone should have to work a shitty job at least once in their lives. It does two important things for you:

1) It inspires you to achieve something greater. We called the full-time year-round workers at McDonald’s “McLifers”. It was a future I would have done anything to avoid – I viewed it as the prison sentence it sounds like- and I worked hard to make sure when I left I wouldn’t have to come back.

2) It gives you some empathy for people who have to make a living at a shitty job. I still neaten up displays at the grocery store – I won’t leave things in the wrong places and when I put some thing in my cart I move the one behind it to the front of the shelf. I remember people taking out their frustration on me – a woman screaming at me about the price of a kid’s drink, as if I was the one responsible for setting the price, people throwing things at you (“I asked for BBQ sauce, not Sweet-n-Sour!!!”) I have my bad days too, but having been on the receiving end, I try not to inflict them on innocent bystanders, and to remember it’s not the end of the world if someone puts onions on my hamburger.

I’ve worked several shitty jobs. It’s why I’ve decided to pursue a graduate degree, so I don’t have to work them ever again. But they were important for me, as this e-mailer articulates. Myself, I ask cashiers and baristas how they’re doing before I hand over my check card. Many are surprised by this simple, but rare, courtesy extended by a customer. When trying on jeans or t-shirts at a store, and I decide that I will not be purchasing them, I put them back as neat (or neater) than I found them.

Misanthropy can rear itself in retail and the food-service industries (I’ve worked both). I’ve sometimes joked with myself that there should be a government mandate requiring all eighteen year-olds to devote two years of their lives to work shitty jobs, similar to the required Army enlistment in, say, a country like Israel. I think it would curb the amount of assholes in our country (at least, ideally).

Yes, I’ve said this when I was most unnerved by rude customers in the past. I still kid myself about it from time to time.

But only half so.