Is The C-Word Still Jarring?

Kathleen Deveny wonders if the word is starting to lose it’s acerbic effect.

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.

The Value of Shitty Work

The Daily Dish publishes a reader’s email:

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:

Judd Apatow Movies are Socially Conservative?

Ross Douthat makes a case:

Don’t laugh. No contemporary figure has done more than Apatow, the 41-year-old auteur of gross-out comedies, to rebrand social conservatism for a younger generation that associates it primarily with priggishness and puritanism. No recent movie has made the case for abortion look as self-evidently awful as “Knocked Up,” Apatow’s 2007 keep-the-baby farce. No movie has made saving — and saving, and saving — your virginity seem as enviable as “The 40-Year Old Virgin,” whose closing segue into connubial bliss played like an infomercial for True Love Waits.

How will America End?

An interactive feature that lets you decide the fate of the Great American Experiment. My diagnosis of finality:

You are a humanitarian internationalist. You’re convinced mankind will terminate America—but at least we won’t off ourselves in the process. You’ll know you’re right when: Everyone on Earth pledges allegiance to a world government; the feds default on the national debt.

How Americans Spend their Time

An interactive graph.

Tattooed Librarians

I don’t think that my mother and the IRS Chief Council Library, where she works, will be doing this anytime soon, but the Texas Library Association has a forthcoming calendar showcasing some of the tattoo work of their librarians.

Story here. Calendar here.

Every One Must Sacrifice, Even Beer

It seems shitty beers are making a comeback amidst these more uncertain economic times:

Heineken sales sank 18% from the previous year in grocery, convenience and drug stores during the two-week period ended July 5, followed by Budweiser at 14%. Corona Extra sales dropped 11%, while Miller Lite declined 9% and Bud Light fell 7%. Coors Light sales held up better, falling less than 1% from a year ago.

Meanwhile, sales of “subpremium” beers including Busch, Natural Light and Keystone posted “substantial gains”…

Idioms From Around The World

A book called I’m Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears… examines idiomatic parlance from over the globe.

A few examples:

Not hanging noodles on your ears: Russian – not kidding

To live like a maggot in bacon: German – live in luxury

To reheat cabbage: Italian – rekindle an old flame

Like fingernail and dirt: Spanish, Mexico – well suited

Bang your butt on the ground: French – die laughing

Plucked like a chicken: Yiddish – exhausted

To bite the elbow: Russian – to cry over spilt milk

Smoke from 7 orifices of head: Chinese – to be furious

To become naked: Japanese – to go broke, poor

An ant milker: Arabic – a miser, tight wad

Give it to someone with cheese: Spanish – to deceive

Squeezer of limes: Hindi – self invited guest, idler

To break wind into silk: French – live the life of Riley

Athiest Summer Camp For Kids

Leave it to Richard Dawkins.

The five-day camp in Somerset (motto: “It’s beyond belief”) is for children aged eight to 17 and will rival traditional faith-based breaks run by the Scouts and church groups.

Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war.

I love this.

There will also be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.

New Expose On Scientology Leader: Nut Job!

Former members who worked under David Miscavige, leader of the Church of Scientology, recount the intimidation seen during their lieutenancy in a new exposé. The musical chairs story is pretty crazy.  More after the jump.

Herbivore Pandemic in Japan?

Some in Japan are worried about the soushoku danshi, which translates: “grass-eating boys.”  This growing denizenship lead tranquil and less-competitive lives, and are causing a rethinking of male behavior in the country:

Herbivores represent an unspoken rebellion against many of the masculine, materialist values associated with Japan’s 1980s bubble economy. Media Shakers, a consulting company that is a subsidiary of Dentsu, the country’s largest advertising agency, estimates that 60 percent of men in their early 20s and at least 42 percent of men aged 23 to 34 consider themselves grass-eating men. Partner Agent, a Japanese dating agency, found in a survey that 61 percent of unmarried men in their 30s identified themselves as herbivores. Of the 1,000 single men in their 20s and 30s polled by Lifenet, a Japanese life-insurance company, 75 percent described themselves as grass-eating men.

Is America Ready For Gay Couples In T.V. Ads?

It seems as long as there are companies willing to put them in there.

Current Events Quiz

A news quiz offered by the Pew Research Center.  Sadly, I only scored 9/12

The Murder Of George Tiller

Picking up where I left off on a previous post, my latest discusses a bit more about the recent murder and how I view it as domestic terrorism.

A taste:

The irony would be comical were it not so painfully tragic: a supposed follower of Jesus Christ murdering a fellow individual (let alone a fellow Christian) in a house of God.  Yet, Scott Roder (who, at this writing is the current suspect in the killing) felt it justified to execute abortion doctors, serving as the only means of defense for the unborn fetus.  The parallels to the pious Islamist, who detonate bombs in Israel’s public squares in retaliation for Israeli bombing that takes the lives of children, is blatant.  That behavior is dubbed as terrorism: using violence to achieve political aims.

Christianity and Torture

My latest contribution, further discussing a Pew Research Poll that found many of Christianity’s most pious were also the most supportive of torture.  I take a look at how Christianity and suffering have been intertwined since the former’s beginnings.

A taste:

The most prevalent symbol of suffering is the cross itself, on which Jesus painfully respirated his final breaths.  The scourging that occurred before his murder and the extracted death that crucifixion entails (a ghastly crushing of the lungs by one’s own weight) provides a saddening irony over the matter.  It seems hard to fathom Christians finding a minutiae of justification for such primitive and egregious violations of international law and human dignity.  Christ’s divinity was emboldened by his staunch antipathy toward marginalization and barbarity.  And this is the ultimate point of Christianity: to mimic the man many view as the human incarnation of the divine.

Becoming a Scenester

Having lost a fair amount of weight since becoming vegetarian back in October, and being annoyed with loose-fitting clothes, I decided to take a stab at purchasing skinny jeans.  They’re comfortable, but in coming across this, I’m now wondering if I’ve sacrificed my contrarian sensibilities and written my name in local Richmond-scenester cement.

Click on the image to explore your identity (I think I’m a mix of “generic emo boy” and “prehistoric emo”)