Kenji And Matsuko And Seiichi And Hanako, All One And The Same
If you thought the PC goons are far too powerful in our schools -- banning dodgeball and purging "most likely to succeed" from the yearbook -- you haven't been to Japan lately. This just in from the C-SM Asia Bureau:
The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White.
For the audience of menacing mothers and feisty fathers, though, the sight of 25 Snow Whites, no dwarfs and no wicked witch was a triumph: a clear victory for Japan's emerging new class of “Monster Parents."
For they had taken on the system and won. After a relentless campaign of bullying, hectoring and nuisance phone calls, the monster parents had cowed the teachers into submission, forcing the school to admit to the injustice of selecting just one girl to play the title role. (Fox News)
I can't help it. Images of the fall of Rome overwhelm me. Images of Bushido, the Japanese samurai ethic disappear like a mist in bamboo. Japan has raised a generation that curses any hint of the societal regimen that has served the nation so well, replacing it with a bunch of blame-shifting, over-protective infighters and ear-biters.
The article concludes:
Previously, when a child was in trouble the parents apologized profusely to the teacher; nowadays, they try to have the teacher sacked.
Where previously schools were trusted and respected, they are now the targets of concerted activism. Dozens of educators have been forced to resign in the face of the blazing fury of parents who no longer tolerate anything that appears to disadvantage their offspring.
Any guesses how this coddled, uncompetitive population will turn out? How many of these kids will turn out to be whining primadonnas, serial_killers_in_a_cubicle and never_leave_the_nest middle-agers?
How few will be able to lead their country to anything beyond descending mediocrity?
Oh! The woes of parents of young 'uns, trying to protect their wee innocents from the ravages of the Internet's social sites. (As addressed recently by Bookworm.)
Well that's all well and good for MySpace and FaceBook ... but wait 'til you get a load of JuicyCampus (get ready for an unhealthy dose of obscenity before clicking this link).
The collegiate-level social networking site is under investigation by New Jersey prosecutors:
JuicyCampus may be violating the state's Consumer Fraud Act by suggesting that it doesn't allow offensive material but providing no enforcement of that rule — and no way for users to report or dispute the material, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said Tuesday. ...
The investigation began last month when a student came forward who had been terrorized by posts on the Web site that included her address. Prosecutors have subpoenaed information from JuicyCampus on how it is run, citing concerns about "unconscionable commercial practices." (AP)
I checked out the site and was greeted by the first entry seeking comments, "Who's the best f*** on spring break?" No comments yet, but I see where this is going: Girls will be named, often in very identifiable manners, so what they thought was a night of annonymous sex will follow them home, name badge attached.
A couple entries down was one called simply, "I swallow." You know what she means. She is revelling in the anonymity of the internet to be without bounds or moral confinement (as if Jesus, if you believe in him, weren't watching) -- an outlet that was simply not available until sites like thise came into being.
Can anyone explain the psychological, sociological or moral benefit of the change? Why is "I swallow" better off by being able to proclaim it and see the racy comments back than she (or he) would have been if this were a matter that was not broad-banded to the world?
Then there's the Big (?) Man On Campus who got this entry about him:
Does [name] seriously have a 2.5 inch erection. What a flaming pile of s*** that kid is anyways, he deserves to have his dick severed from his body, that piece of s***.
There was a time such an epithet would have been said in a dorm room and would not have gone much further. Now the kid has to read it and know people across the Internet are reading it, and who knows what the consequences of such on-line attacks and bullying will lead?
JuicyCampus is disgusting and troubling on two levels: First, that it exists, and second, that young people flock to it.
Someone -- someone now being investigated by New Jersey prosecutors -- knew he could make money by not just appealing to the lowest levels of the human psyche, but by going a step further and spreading those low levels everywhere with no care about the consequences. This person needed no business model; he just knew that if he offered filth, the flies would gather round it. And that didn't bother him one bit.
Worse, he's wildly successful, which means we have a generation coming up that feels comfortable attacking others anonymously, that gets its jollies by annonymous sexual postings, and that cares more about their own thrill of the moment than the long-term consequences those thrills will cause others.
Imagine, if you will, that the person who posted the item about the Little Man On Campus grows up to become the president, and is applying that kind of moral judgment to decisions on how to deal with renegade nations, bothersome allies or political enemies.
Since I started this "Our Crumbling Civilization" series a couple years back, I've never wrapped up an entry this discouraged, this convinced that our civilization is, indeed, crumbling.
Listen to this very short clip and be prepared to be attacked in a whole new way for your conservative beliefs:
And you probably weren't even aware that as a conservative, you were promoting the gray rape myth! I certainly wasn't. In fact, because of my Incredible Wife's Voice of the Victims work, I'm very concerned about the very real problem of drug-induced rape -- although I admit that "gray rape" is a phrase I would have defined incorrectly, if asked.
Heather Mac Donald, whose LA Times piece so triggered Tracy Clark-Flory's clip above, defines gray rape thusly:
In all these drunken couplings, there may be some deplorable instances of forced and truly non-consensual sex. But most campus "rape" cases exist in the gray area of seeming cooperation and tacit consent, which is why they are almost never prosecuted criminally.
Mac Donald's piece starts with a simple enough premise: The reported number of campus rapes is so high as to raise legitimate questions regarding the source and quality of the data:
It is a central claim of these [campus sexual assault] organizations that between a fifth and a quarter of all college women will be raped or will be the targets of attempted rape by the end of their college years. Harvard's Office of Sexual Assault Prevention and Response uses the 20% to 25% statistic. Websites at New York University, Syracuse University, Penn State and the University of Virginia, among many other places, use the figures as well. ...
If the one-in-four statistic is correct, campus rape represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions. No felony, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20% or 25%, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in the U.S., was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants -- a rate of 2.4%.
Such a crime wave -- in which millions of young women would graduate having suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience -- would require nothing less than a state of emergency. Admissions policies, which if the numbers are true are allowing in tens of thousands of vicious criminals, would require a complete revision, perhaps banning male students entirely. The nation's nearly 10 million female undergraduates would need to take the most stringent safety precautions.
It is a healthy reaction in a Free Press society to question statistics that seem unreasonable, so Mac Donald is absolutely legitimate in posing here question -- especially given that NationMaster tells us the rape rate per capita in the US is 0.3 incidents per thousand population. Even so, that Mac Donald even raised the question set Ms. Hyphenated off:
There is the stereotype of the feminist blogger foaming at the mouth while banging on a keyboard covered in spittle. Let me tell you, though, writing week after week about feminist issues inevitably causes you to become a bit jaded; things that once would have sent the spittle flying only inspire a curl of the lip, a roll of the eyes. But today, thanks to an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times about "the rape hype" on college campuses, my blood is boiling and I am fully embodying that stereotype.
Having vented, Clark-Flory does actually rebut Mac Donald, but she does it by quoting another study instead of addressing the perceptive demographic challenge raised by Mac Donald.
Let's dispense with the "science" behind this argument first. It all goes back to a 1980's study commissioned by Ms Magazine (red flags, anyone?), in which the author, Mary Koss, didn't use the word "rape" in her survey designed to identify the rate of rapes on campus.
That may seem odd, but she had her reasons. Her question didn't use "rape" because she thought sensitive females would not answer such a direct question honestly. Instead, she asked,
"Have you had sexual intercourse when you didn't want to because a man gave you alcohol or drugs?"
Not surprisingly, she got HUGE results -- the same 20 to 25 percent figure the colleges want us to believe. Mac Donald says, and I believe, that many women who answered "yes" simply had on "beer goggles" at a bar and put out, then regretted it. As Mac Donald put it:
College women -- as well as men -- reportedly drink heavily before and during parties. For the women, that drinking is often goal-oriented, suggests Karin Agness, a recent University of Virginia graduate and founder of NeW, a club for conservative university women: It frees the drinker from responsibility and "provides an excuse for engaging in behavior that she ordinarily wouldn't." Nights can include a meaningless sexual encounter with a guy whom the girl may not even know.
These women are not the victims of rape, even though they would answer "yes" to the survey question. Rape is a violent, ugly crime, not a Saturday night moment of ill-advised (or even self-directed) promiscuity.
The study with which Clark-Flory fights back attempted to fix this problem, not by asking about rape straight-up, but by rephrasing the question,
Have you engaged in sexual intercourse when you didn’t want to but were so intoxicated under the influence of alcohol or drugs that you could not stop it or object?
The results were identical to Koss', thereby "proving" a phenomenal amount of drug or alcohol-facilitated rapes on campus.
But here's the problem: Neither question addressed the man's intent, the woman's actions against the man, or any of the circumstances of the act. Rape is -- or has been up until now -- described legally by a particular set of circumstances that feminists are now trying to redefine. Just as anti-war factions are trying to redefine "torture" in order to create a cause where where wasn't one before, the feminists want to broaden the meaning of rape so more women become victims, thus increasing the relevance of their cause.
In one sense I agree with them: More attention has to be given to women who are victimized by drug-assisted rape, when a man slips GHB or a roofie slipped into their drink so they become immobilized, then hustles them out of the bar and carries out upon them an act that is, indeed, rape.
Drug-facilitated rape is very real crime that should not be minimized. Incredible Wife posted on her blog the story of Annette, the drug-facilitated rape victim you see here, that illustrates that the crime is, indeed, rape, with long-term damage that can be even worse that when the rape victim is sober.
Victims like Annette have trouble convincing police and prosecutors they've been raped. They have no memory of what happened and there's frequently no physical evidence because memories of what happened to them start to become real well after the crime. And, most damaging to the victims, law enforcement officials too readily dismiss these victims as bar sluts, not rape victims. That's particularly damaging to them because they were drugged, and were not drunk and promiscuous prior to being drugged.
To the extent that creating a false crisis out of campus and bar rapes will help the thousands of Annettes who are struggling to be heard, and who are psychologically damaged because society is calling them bar sluts instead of rape victims, more power to the false statistics.
But the studies cited by Clark-Flory do just the opposite. They group true date-rape victims with the girls who just got drunk and got laid. That minimizes the crime, and worse, it minimizes the perpetrator. One perp is a premeditating criminal who uses dangerous drugs just as effectively as other rapists use weapons and threats of violence; the other is some guy who just happened to be at a bar when a drunk girl said, "Lesh do it."
The other danger of the Clark-Flory approach is that it places justice in the hands of collegiate bureaucrats. As you can imagine, the colleges have set up protocols for dealing with the crisis created by foolishly broadening the definition of rape. Girls can ask committees of muddle-headed academics to rule on the fate of boys whose crime may have been no more than to say "Sure" to the girl's "Lesh do it."
Muddle-headed? You bet. This is from Mac Donald's piece:
"If one partner puts a condom on the other, does that signify that they are consenting to intercourse?" asks Alan D. Berkowitz, a campus rape consultant. Short of guiding the thus-sheathed instrumentality to port, it's hard to imagine a clearer signal of consent, although Berkowitz apparently finds it "inherently ambiguous."
Woe be to the American university.
Boiled down to its core, Clark-Flory puts her faith in academic research and Mac Donald puts hers in human intelligence and reason -- all of which makes Mac Donald a quaint anachronism in a world that is set at full speed towards confusion and victimization.
She is demonized because she has the gall to suggest that dressing with your boobs and butt-cheeks hanging out, dancing the bump and grind with whatever male approaches you while swilling booze straight from the bottle may have consequences.
No matter if she's fighting against the minimization of rape -- a position feminists should laud -- she has argued against freedom without consequences and victimization without a crime.
Lost in all this is education, which once was the reason for going to college. That we are even having this debate is evidence that another institution that was foundational to the creation of America's greatness is slipping into mediocrity.
America is and always has been dominantly a nation of Protestants. It was our faith that filled the Mayflower, Protestants who wrote the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Throughout our history, the "mainly" of America in peace and war, business and government, has been Protestant.
That's why so much is being made of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey of 33,000 Americans that found those claiming to be Protestant now make up just 51% of the population.
There are only two other affiliations that make up a significant amount of America's religion (or lack of it): Catholics with 24% and "unaffiliated" with 16%. Add up mainline, evangelical, Black churches, and you get 51%.
Jews are 1.7%, equal to Mormons, and Muslims at 0.6%, on a par with Hindus and Jehovah's Witnesses.
The sensationalism of the survey is due in part to its breaking out of Protestants as separate from Christians. If you tally all the Christian faiths (yes, we're counting the Mormons in there), you find that America is very much a nation of Christians -- over two in three Americans, 78.4%, profess faith in Christ. Throw in the Jews, and you have 80.1% hewing to Judeo-Christian values.
Not surprising, given the aggressive promotion of secularism in schools, is the growth of the Church of Unaffiliated:
Overall, 7.3% of the adult population says they were unaffiliated with any particular religion as a child. Today, however, 16.1% of adults say they are unaffiliated, a net increase of 8.8 percentage points.
Stated another way, in a single generation, the amount of people who have no tie to church -- or, presumably to the Judeo-Christian values upon which are society is founded -- has more than doubled. If it doubles again in another generation, there will be as many unaffiliateds as Catholics.
(Catholics, by the way, are suffering large losses among those born in America, but are holding stead by a pretty good conversion rate and a huge influx of Latin American Catholics.)
All in all, the report is less sensational than the media coverage it's generating, like this from US News:
The first American colonists were Protestant, and for roughly four centuries their descendents, along with successive waves of Protestant immigrants, have been the country's dominant religious group.
But now Protestants are on the verge of becoming a statistical minority in the U.S., according a study released today.
We remain dramatically Christian, with many Christian churches enjoying healthy growth. It's just those Unaffiliateds that are giving my heartburn. Even without churches and preachers, they seem to be converting millions, depriving them of the joy of faith, and potentially altering the moral fiber of the country.
I'll keep taking votes, but it's evident that we've identified our winning entries into the Cheat-Seeking Missiles Six-Word Slogans for America. Here! They! Are!
Runner-up for best serious slogan, entered by Dave Hardy:
People climb walls to come here.
And the best serious slogan, entered by Patrick:
Free markets, free speech, free society.
Now the runner-up for best humorous slogan -- A three way tie!
Someone has to be the grownup, entered by BA.
Because everywhere else pretty much sucks, entered by Jimmy Walnuts.
Knowing we don't live elsewhere? Priceless. Entered by Alan.
And the runaway winner for best humorous slogan, entered by Joe Y.:
Researchers have created a paper-thin material that absorbs 99.955 percent of all light that reaches it -- described in a fascinating WaPo story as "A Roach Motel for photons -- they check in but they don't check out."
Think of the possibilities! Having trouble? Let's prime the pump
Known as transformation optics, the phenomenon compels some wavelengths of light to flow around an object like water around a stone. As a result, things behind the object become visible while the object itself disappears from view.
"Cloaking is just the tip of the iceberg," said Vladimir Shalaev, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University and an expert in the fledgling field. "With transformation optics you can do many other tricks," perhaps including making things appear to be located where they are not and focusing massive amounts of energy on microscopic spots.
For obvious reasons the Defense Department has been funding this research, but it may take a while for absolute invisibility in the field because technologies that block one light spectrum or energy type, don't block others.
But who cares about defense? Imagine your big 'ol electron sucking flat screen with a blacker-than-black case, so the image just floats in the air. Or a little black dress. Or the cover of the next (?) Harry Potter book. Or what a halfway decent SciFi writer could do with this trick!
Please note: This technology was not invented in a country under the fist of Islamic theocracy or Cuban socialism or even European social democracy. It was invented right here in the free market, GNP-butt-kickin' republic, the USA ... which brings up another six-word slogan for America:
Thank you all for the 221 entries you submitted to my little Six-Word Slogans for America contest. They were overwhelming! Creative! Funny! Patriotic! (And unpatriotic, which I didn't even include in the count of entries.)
Before getting to the poll in which you'll select the winners, a few honorable mentions are in order:
First, a celebrity honorable mention for this entry:
I did this years ago. "A shining city on a hill..." -- Ronald Reagan
Next, for packing the longest entry into six words, to Phileosophos:
Championing individual freedom since seventeen seventy-six.
And best entry that blew the six-word rule, to Bill Whittle of Eject! Eject! Eject!:
Great Country! (Needs more math education though.)
Finally, to Alan, a very honorable mention for submitting single-handedly 47 entries. They were great and I had a tough time limiting myself to putting just three of his entries into the finals.
There were so many great entries, I decided to give you an opportunity to vote for the best serious six-word slogan and the best humorous six-word slogan.
You can jump to the survey right now be clicking here.
Here are the current results for the nominees for best serious six-word slogan (as of 8:45 p.m. on Feb. 22):
People climb walls to come here. (Dave Hardy) -- 22%
The last best hope of man. (orotund wallaby) -- 6%
After 230 years, history’s friendliest hegemon (Patrick) -- 13%
New and improved! Kills. Terrorists. Dead. (CW) -- 6%
God shed his grace. It shows. (James)* -- 19%
Remember Communism and Fascism? Thank America. (Alan) -- 6%
* In the survey, there's a typo -- "Good shed his grace." Unfortunately, once it's posted, the survey responses can't be edited. Sorry, James.
And here are the current results for the nominees for the best funny six-word slogan:
We have the most expensive stuff (KHS) -- 3%
Someone has to be the grownup. (BA) -- 19%
Twenty million Mexicans can’t be wrong. (Joe Y) -- 38%
Because everywhere else pretty much sucks. (Jimmy Walnuts) -- 19%
Feel free to handle it yourself. (Andy Freeman)
Knowing we don’t live elsewhere? Priceless. (Alan) -- 19%
Why’s our oil under your sand? (Alan) -- 9%
I know there's something funny with the "funny" results. The math all checks out, but it adds up to 107%. The survey software must have the wrong number of survey-takers or something.
Once again, Google comes up lacking in the patriotism department. Forget patriotism; it would be nice if they would just recognize America and Christianity exist.
The art above greeted me at Ask.com this President's Day morning. I checked Google and found:
Nothing.
No matter what sort of ill-will or non-will you feel towards America, you should recognize that Washington and Jefferson were seminal good guys in world history, key to showing mankind a new and better way to organize itself. Their leadership reverberates year after year, as despotic rule gives way to democracy.
Without them, quite simply, America would have failed, and Howard Zinn and his ilk notwithstanding, the world would have been the worse had history turned in so unfortunate a manner.
Perhaps you read it and nodded in agreement. Not everyone did. You might want to revisit the post and check out the comments that are coming in from the transgender community. Stuff like:
"it is so sad that people are so close minded. You people who have the nerve to call a child "perverse" or label TSism as a "perversion" really need to wake up. If you spent just one day in their shoes I seriously doubt that you would be spreading hate speech and outright lies."
"My current nine-year old doesn't seem to have a problem with his mother who has been transitioning/ed since he was five. He has been told age-appropriate and understandable facts about what has gone on. He seems perfectly well-adjusted, shows no signs of ever wishing to 'be a girl' or any of the difficulties you seem to think he might have from such a 'traumatic' experience as having his 'father' be who she actually is."
"Tolerance has replaced not 'sanity', however you define that, but cruelty. ... Between one in 500 and one in 2000 Americans seek to change their genders."
"i am married, transgendered and have two kids, one boy and one girl. it is quite offensive that people call this perversion. i suppose it would be more liberating that a girl would want to be a boy? no one would find that strange because she wants to be masculine. my daughter and son both seem to be masculine and feminine. my daughter rips holes in the knees of her pretty jeans and my son screams at mom putting on makeup. if they grow out of it-fine-if they don't-fine."
The comments are thought-provoking to say the least, and I encourage you to give them a look.
They haven't changed my view one iota in this case, which to me is all about the kids in the classroom, not the kid who wants to dress as a girl.
I don't think that as second graders they should have to deal with this, and the school district should have required the boy and his parents to go through several years of therapy, allowing him time to consider his desires and the consequences of his choices from a more mature perspective, and time for the kids in the class to mature before being asked to deal with issues like transgenderism.
I knew we were in for cultural melt-down when a news article out of Denver started with this:
The issue of being transgender usually pops up with students in high school.
It does? Not in the America I grew up in! But bad as it is, the lead sentence is just a set-up for a civilization-crumbler of much greater magnitude:
However, a 2nd grade biological boy wants to dress as a girl and be addressed with a girl's name.
"Biological boy?" It's come to that? We can't just say "boy?"
Of course, you know that concerned educators immediately realized there's something amiss with the boy and his family (can you say "dominant mother/wimpy father?"), and immediately arranged counseling for all of them. Not.
"As a public school system, our calling is to educate all kids no matter where they come from, what their background is, beliefs, values, it doesn't matter," said Whei Wong, Douglas County Schools spokesperson.
What a calling! Don't think, don't care, just educate.
Hey, Wongster! I want to enroll my little boy in your school, and you should know he thinks he's Pol Pot. I expect you to accommodate his values, which are manifested in a desire to murder his classmates and impose a repressive government. The teacher? Enemy of the State. Summary execution!
I'm too cruel. Wong and the school system are very concerned about the other kids, too ... concerned that they need to be taught to accept this perversion.
Wong says the staff at one of Douglas County's schools is preparing to accommodate the student and answer questions other students might have. ...
Wong says teachers are planning to address the student by name instead of using he or she. The child will not use the regular boys or girls bathroom. Instead, two unisex bathrooms in the building will be made available. The school is handing out packets to parents who have questions. The packets contain information about people who are transgender.
Gone from all the school system's accommodation is any concern for other kids and other parents; there's no question in the District's mind -- everyone else needs to be exposed to this perversion, because the rights of the perverted come before the rights of those who support normalcy.
Do other parents, other kids have any rights in this situation? Should we worry, given that this must be an exception? You bet we should worry:
Kim Pearson says the family is getting support. She is the executive director of a national organization called TransYouth Family Advocates. The group has been working with the family and Douglas County Schools.
"Initially there was a lot of resistance," said Pearson. "Now, their position is they want this child to be safe in their school."
Pearson says their group is working with an increasing number of families nationwide who have elementary age transgender kids. ...
Pearson says children as young as 5 years old are realizing their true gender identity and her group wants to help parents who may be resisting the acceptance of this.
Why do you suppose there are more and more elementary school kids who are apparently transgender? Could it be that sex has permeated society? That tolerance has replaced sanity? In a sane society, this boy would be receiving therapy that would lead him back to the mainstream rather than drive him headlong into a life that will be difficult.
In a tolerant society, however, he is encouraged to leave the mainstream -- and we are forced to nod our heads giving him acceptance instead of help, and stand approving as other kids are exposed to him as mainstream, furthering the watering down of that once meaningful term.
Most parents are much more sensible than the administrators:
"I don't think a (2nd) grader does have the rationale to decide this life-altering choice," said Dave M.
He is also unhappy with the way the school is handling this. The district has been preparing for the child's return to this school for months. Dave M. thinks other parents should have been made aware of this sooner.
"I just find it ironic that they can dictate the dress style of children to make sure they don't wear inappropriate clothing, but they have no controls in place for someone wearing transgender clothing," said Dave M.
Oh, please, David! Get with the program. Your daughter needs to be sacrificed on the altar of tolerance, and if she starts dressing butch, you should happily go along with it.
Welcome Instapundit, Michelle Malkin and LGF readers!
Updated: The contest is now closed. View the 200+ entries in the "comments." View the finalists here. Cast your vote here.
Stephen Dubner, writing at the Freakonomics blog at the NYT, is running a contest for a six-word slogan for the U.S.A.
The idea was triggered by a book of six-word memoirs of famous and not-so-famous people, and by England's recent national slogan concept ("No Motto Please. We're British"). As of this posting, Dubner's post has generated 677 comments.
Some are fresh: "Still Using Fahrenheit, Feet, and Gallons."
Some are progressive deploringly negative and ignorant of how dynamic this land of opportunity and equality is: "White? Straight? Christian? Rich? Welcome Home!" or "'Number One? Smells like number two."
Some get it right: "To each, according to his ability"
Precious few are appreciative of this great land, the hope it inspires around the globe and the opportunities it gives those lucky enough to be here. I'd sure like to see more like that ... can you help? Here are some to get the ball rolling:
Planet Earth's shining light of freedom.
Give us your poor. Terrorists excluded.
Proving the magnetic attraction of opportunity.
Can you name one place better?
Please post your six-word slogans below, and pass the word along. I believe six words is more than enough to capture the essence of our nation.
Note: If you want to post something negative, post it at the NYT; that's not the purpose of this effort.
After the comments die down, I'll nominate several as finalists -- then we'll have some fun.
Not even six months after an insane, narcissist punk gunned down 32 Virginia Tech students in the largest student massacre in U.S. history, two insane, narcissist punks from Penn State thought it would be fun to go to a Halloween party as dead Virginia Tech students.
There's one of them, in a photo that surfaced recently on Facebook.
Yeah, yeah. Kids will be kids, right? Am I going overboard making this an "Our Crumbling Civilization" post? Not by a long shot.
If the perps, when the cold light of scrutiny finally shone on them, had admitted they had strayed beyond the tasteless to the purely offensive and had repented, civilization's crumbling would have been delayed for a heartbeat or two.
But that's not what happened. Not by a long shot. Here, courtesy of the NY Daily News, is what one of the perps had to say:
"It's not that it was funny," the student said of the costumes. "It's that we are notorious and infamous and very popular in the state college, so we have to do things that push the envelope just for shock value," he said.
He went on to imply that Virginia Tech students' public displays of grief less than a year after the massacre are at least partly for show.
"This is a group of college students who now think it's trendy to be upset about their friends being killed," said the Penn student.
He said those who objected to the costumes were blowing things out of proportion.
"The thing is, everybody's making a big stink about Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech was 32 deaths out of the 26 thousand that happen in America everyday," he said. "That's the problem with college students. They all live in an ivory tower of privilege. They don't understand, when it all boils down to it, it's someone wearing a costume."
First, let's just say at the beginning that this guy is about as smart (stupid) as your average college student, getting daily death rate for America off by about 400%. It's actually 6,814. Mr. Know-it-all? I think not.
Looking deeper, we see a person with a reputation to maintain -- "we are notorious and infamous and very popular" -- and prideful of that reputation, no matter how disgustingly it was gained.
There was a time when popular precluded "notorious" and "infamous," but it was before my time. I did, after all, paper my college campus with campaign posters promoting Ho Chi Minh for student body president, representing the Mindless Turd Party.
But there was a day in the not too recent past when being notorious and infamous did not assume that you had to attack the innocent and heartbroken. Back in those days, the targets of the notorious and infamous were usually people in power or people who thought too much of themselves, not the innocent victims of tragedy. The Penn State duo are schooled at Ward Churchill's Little Eichmann School of Indecent Provocateurship.
He also demonstrates a troubling trend in our society to be defensive to the point of cruelty. When he was attacked for his tastelessness, he defended himself by attacking the people he offended. He apparently is an honors student at the Michael Moore Graduate Studies Program in Vicious, Mindless Knife-Twisting.
And finally, this privileged denizen of a top American university Ivory Tower sums up his argument by discounting those he hurt as privileged denizens of top American universities Ivory Towers.
He doesn't understand that it all boils down to this: Halloween costumes only cover what is under them, and in this case, it is a person so tasteless, so unremorseful, so blind that there really only is one place for him in our society: a university.
I don't even know how to write this. How do you tell people that in New York there's a place one can buy a ... a ... a ... Santa With Butt-Plug to mark the holiday season? For $100, yet?
This past Easter, it was Chocolate Jesus, now we have to suffer through a chocolate Santa with a butt-plug. Is there a lower basement our culture can settle down into?
Here's the photo and the story, which unfortunately for America's reputation ran in the Times of London:
Is it a raunchy festive talking-point? Is it a work of art? Whatever it is, the $100, 10in tall chocolate Santa with Butt Plug is the talk of chic New York - and is delicious, even if the sugar rush could keep you awake.
I'm not 100% clear what one would use a butt-plug for, and please don't tell me. It's enough to know that this little bit of sickness is the creation of one Paul McCarthy, "the 62-year-old Los Angeles-based artist whose reputation was forged in the 1970s with performances that involved him rolling about on the floor, filling his pants with tuna and cramming his mouth with frankfurters."
The Times said "artist," not me. Shoot me, but I still feel artists create works that lift us up and inspire us, not works that exist only to outdo the last abomination foisted on us by the likes of McCarthy.
McCarty is selling his Sick Santa's in a gallery run by Michele Maccarone (say the name, don't just read it). Yes, a gallery, not a store, because this is art, you know. One thousand buyers thus far, many of them "art cognosenti" tell us it's art, as does The Times:
It’s all part of [McCarthy's] stream of thoughts about the infantilism of much contemporary culture, of how it all leads back to ingesting and defecating, to food and sex and toilet training.
Shudder. I actually agree with McCarthy: Much of contemporary culture is infantile indeed. But I bemoan the fact; I don't go around celebrating it by turning a revered childhood symbol of giving into a ass-inine attack on what's left of our culture.
And since you may be thinking, "What good is a chocolate sex toy anyway," and thereby contributing all the more to society's slide into hedonism, I'll leave it to Maccarone to explain:
“Well, if you want to break this off and stick it . . . I wonder. It might work . . . I haven’t tried."
It appears there remains room for Maccarone to get sicker still.
How successful should America be? Certainly successful enough that anyone who endeavors to make a go of it can find a way to support themselves well. But is it just too darn much success if America is so successful that someone has the time and money to do this?
[C]onceptual artist Jonathon Keats has announced plans to produce film and video for other species — from rose bushes to almond trees — using specialized new techniques.
“Humans have more entertainment than they can endure,” explains Mr. Keats. “Yet organisms with populations far greater than ours are routinely ignored by MGM and Disney.” Mr. Keats came to appreciate the potential impact of arts and entertainment on non-human audiences while choreographing ballet for honeybees at Chico State University last year. (source)
Let's stop there for must a moment, shall we? Do bees really need someone to choreograph little steps for them? Did anyone ask them if they were interested in getting help in this regard?
Apparently Mr. Keats was satisfied with the bees' response, however, so he decided to go mass-market, leaving bee ballet behind for the bright lights of Hollywood. With the emphasis on holly. And wood.
“Dance comes naturally to bees,” he says, “less naturally to trees. But all plants can perform photosynthesis. They’re sensitive to the play of light. As an entertainment form, cinema was practically made for them.”
By projecting specially-prepared video directly onto foliage, Mr. Keats found an effective way to share films with bushes and brambles, even entire forests and jungles. Yet he chose to open the first movie theater for the botanical kingdom at 1078 Gallery, an alternative arts space in Chico, California. “Chico has the advantage of being an agricultural town,” he explains. “In a place like this, my venture is likely to be appreciated.”
Hmmm. I spent most of last week in Clovis, an agricultural town a ways south of Chico, and I've got to say the crowd at Sandy's Country Junction would probably look Mr. Keats up and down and shake their heads with profound confusion ... and disgust, once they figured out that this guy was just another pornographer:
Still an essential question remained: What genres of film would appeal to flora?
“This wasn’t the sort of situation where I could learn the audience’s mindset,” admits Mr. Keats. “The only thing that would be a sure hit, I figured, was sex.” Accordingly, the artist dutifully filmed plants getting pollinated, editing his uncensored footage into a gritty black-and-white porn video.
Thanks a lot, Keats. You could have introduced plants to film with something inspiring -- a rising sun, a falling rain drop, a bursting blossom -- but because of you forever the history of plant cinema will have begun with base porn. hat-tip: mediabistro
Get a job. Move up. Learn respect. Earn respect. Or not.
UNION CITY, Ga. -- A McDonald's employee spent a night in jail and is facing criminal charges because a police officer's burger was too salty, so salty that he says it made him sick.
Kendra Bull was arrested Friday, charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct and freed on $1,000 bail.
Bull, 20, said she accidentally spilled salt on hamburger meat and told her supervisor and a co-worker, who ''tried to thump the salt off.''
On her break, she ate a burger made with the salty meat. ''It didn't make me sick,'' Bull told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
But then Police Officer Wendell Adams got a burger made with the oversalted meat, and he returned a short time later and told the manager it made him sick.
Bull admitted spilling salt on the meat, and Adams took her outside and questioned her, she said.
''If it was too salty, why did (Adams) not take one bite and throw it away?'' said Bull, who has worked at the restaurant for five months. She said she didn't know a police officer got one of the salty burgers because she couldn't see the drive-through window from her work area.
Police said samples of the burger were sent to the state crime lab for tests.
City public information officer George Louth said Bull was charged because she served the burger ''without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it.'' (source)
Even accounting for the normal anti-cop bias we see in MSM, you have to ask what lesson this episode sent to Kendra Bull. Will she be better or worse for having tried to make an honest living? Will she have greater or lesser respect for authority?
I think not. I think Ms. Bull's civic sensibilities have been ass-salt-ed.
Our Crumbling Civilization: Looking For (Bisexual) Love Edition
No other force in the popular culture has done more to degrade and corrupt the emerging generation than MTV. Not content to rest on its laurels spoils, MTV is pushing on in its effort to normalize the abhorrent and sinful:
MTV has greenlit a bisexual dating show with a star who built her fame on MySpace.
“A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila” is scheduled to premiere on MTV Oct. 9.
The 10-episode series will feature contestants who want to win the heart of Ms. Tequila [pictured here in one of her least provocative poses], who has more “friends” than anyone in the history of the online social network MySpace.com.
MTV says Ms. Tequila is a bisexual, which means the contestants on the show will be sixteen straight guys and sixteen lesbians.
“The finalists move into her mansion, live together, and each week Tila will narrow down her suitors. “Every episode will culminate in a dramatic ceremony unlike anything you’ve ever seen before,” according to the network. (TV Week)
What next? A let's-get-physical reality show taking its cue from "Must Love Dogs?"
Her life story -- born Tila Nguyen to a family that fled Vietnam and rising through adversity to fame -- is on one level a classic success story. She is obviously a person who is very talented in more ways than mere sexuality because one does not become the most befriended person in the history of MySpace without having some lights burning upstairs.
Unfortunately, Tequila concentrates only on what's apparently burning downstairs. That her mix of mush-mouth singing and soft core porn has rocketed her to the top of MySpace and into her own MTV show is more a reflection on the sad state of our civilization, and MTV's preponderant role in its deteriorating condition, than it is on this young woman's God-given gifts.
In a civilization less shattered than ours, she could have really been someone significant.
You'd think a classic bit of Americana like the patty melt would be beyond the touch of the civilization-slimers who bring everything down to the scuzzy mindset of an 18-year-old male in order to sell more product and make more money.
I can understand dropping "my first lay" to that level, but the patty melt? What next? Apple pie? Oh, they already did that.
The patty melt's fall into society's sewer is brought to us by none other than fast food chain Carl's Jr. (Hardee's in the Eastern U.S.), who not that long ago gave us a minimally dressed Paris Hilton flaunting about in a largely successful effort to get young men to think of Carl's hamburgers when they think of sex ... a pretty compelling marketing strategy, you have to admit.
When Carl's decided to offer patty melts on its menu -- patty melts, by the way, that don't look nearly as good as the one featured here -- they did it with a TV ad called "Schooled" (view here), showcasing a too-hot for this planet high school teacher who slithers about in a slinky gray suit while a couple boys in the class rap:
Well, I like 'em really hot I like 'em really flat I like 'em lookin' like a pancake stack. What about hiney? Got no hiney? I call you Your Hineness. In anatomy class You got butt minus. Flatness makes a better rear Stand sideways, girl, you disappear. Flat buns. I like flat buns. I like the flat ones.
The scene cuts to a patty melt with a more mature male voiceover: The patty melt. On flat buns. Only from Carl's Jr.
Patty melts are not, of course, "only from Carl's Jr." The only thing that's only from Carl's Jr. is the raucously in your face flaunting of the old "sex sells" paradigm of advertising, and a willingness to further degrade the American morality in the name of "creative advertising."
This commercial would have been un-runable a few decades ago, but it wouldn't have been unthinkable. I've been in plenty of creative sessions where someone would throw out an idea so tasteless, racist or sexually over the top that it would get a laugh or a groan, but never a thought to really go with it. Heck, most of the time we'd be so embarrassed by the mere thought of having to admit we could come up with such an idea that we wouldn't even share it with our clients.
Now it seems that the more outrageous the idea, the more likely the ad agency (in this case, Mendelsohn|Zien) is to run it ... and not just run it, but run it as if it were significant in some way other than that bothersome "complete breakdown of civilization" way. Really; the folks at Carl's thought the ad so important they issued a news release on it (via Nexis, so no link):
"The Patty Melt is an American classic but the burger has been around for almost 60 years and, thus, it needed an image make-over to become more relevant for today's fast-food consumers," said Brad Haley, executive vice president of marketing for Carl's Jr. restaurants.
"So, our advertising agency developed a rap song to emphasize one of the unique aspects of the burger: the use of flat, grilled rye bread as opposed to the traditional round-top bun. That rap song, which originally ran as a radio spot for our Hardee's chain, became so popular with the public - even spawning related websites and YouTube spoofs - that we decided to make it into a music video TV commercial for the burger to run at both chains. Who knows? This may help give flat buns the respect and admiration they have been missing for all these years."
To help that possible trend along, and to keep digging this civilization hell-hole deeper, Carl's kindly provides a list of the hottest flat-bunned celebs. Most of them are meaningless Hollywood people, but you'll be interested to know that Hillary comes in seventh on the female side (large thighs and flat buns ... is that the anatomy we want in our president?), and Rudy seventh and Obama tenth on the male side (are Obama's buns too flat to be the first black president?).
Sigh. As much as I'd like it if sex didn't sell, and we lived instead in a world where a clever headline, beautiful copy and tasteful art was what drew people to buy products, I have to admit that ever since they started illustrating the Grecian urns to sell more olive oil, sex has been a big part of the marketing mix.
But really, has it become too much? Has it come down to this?
Who hasn't heard the hapless answer of Miss South Carolina, Caitlin Upton, to the question, How can it be that a survey found that 25 percent of Americans can't find the U.S. on a map? [See comments for a more accurate rendering of the question.] If you haven't, you can watch it here, or read it here:
I personally believe the U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh ...; people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and ...; I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., err, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future ... for us.
Three thoughts:
First, pity on the poor girl. She is no doubt at least somewhat brighter than her answer would have you believe. She just choked ... big time ... nationally. For the rest of her life, she'll hear, "Are you the Caitlin Upton, the 'South Africa and, uh, the Iraq' Caitlin Upton?" She'll just have to overcome it, and overcoming it will make her a stronger, smarter person.
Second, I don't know what survey it was that found that 25 percent of us can't find the U.S. on a map, but I can tell you what the right answer to the question is, the answer Caitlin should have come up with:
I personally believe that the only way a survey could report such a finding is that it was a biased, left-leaning tool, not a truly scientific survey. I would be willing to bet my crown, which I sure hope you will place on my pretty blond head soon, that the survey was doctored by a National Education Association in order to dupe Congressmen and Congresswomen into sinking even more money into the bottomless pit of our failing public education system. Americans are smarter than that, but the NEA apparently knows members of Congress aren't.
But I wasn't on the spot like Caitlin was, so who can fault her?
And third, if you haven't ever had a "Caitlin Upton moment," it's probably because you've never had the courage to step out in front of a crowd of people and accept a spotlight.
My Caitlin moment came when I was emceeing an annual awards ceremony for our professional association -- a big deal, hundreds in attendance. The night had progressed well, and it was time for the big award.
What I meant to say was, "This is it ... hold your breath ... the winner is..."
What I said was, "This is it ... hold your breasts ...."
There was no point in even trying to get to "the winner is," because the laughter was so loud and I was so mortified. Fortunately, I don't remember then next few seconds, I just have vague sense that somehow the award was announced and a recipient -- who no doubt holds a grudge against me to this day for spoiling his or her big moment -- came up and accepted the reward.
Let no good deed go un-rioted against by demanding, strident Muslims.
In this case, US forces thought it would be a nice idea to give Afghan kids a soccer ball to play with, so balls like these were dropped by helicopter in Khost province. Well, screw you, America, said the recipients:
A demonstration has been held in south- east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah. ...
Some displayed flags from countries all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, which features the shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam - the declaration of faith.
The words, which include the name of Allah, are revered, and Muslims are very sensitive about where and how they can be used. (BBC)
The Afghans should be rioting against Saudi Arabia for putting the name of Allah on their flag, or against the World Cup Federation, for not removing the flag when Saudi Arabia asked them to, but the do-gooders from America are always the target du jour.
"I believe that black artists have the right to interpret ourselves first. If nobody steps up to the plate to do that, then certainly pass it along to someone else." -- Black artist Gilbert Young
Gilbert Young is so angry that he's started a protest Web site (King Is Ours) where he attacks another man because of his race, and attacks his brothers for making a decision that was not made on racial grounds.
Granted, it's a humdinger of an eyebrow-arching decision: The artist selected by the MLK Memorial Foundation to sculpt the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in Washington DC is not black, not even American -- he's Chinese.
The foundation defends its selection:
The memorial foundation directing the project seems surprised at the criticism. Ten of the 12 people on the committee that chose the sculptor, Lei Yixin, are black. Lei is working closely on the design with two black sculptors in the U.S., organizers said, and the overall project is being directed by a black-owned architecture firm. (USAToday)
Lei Yixin apparently won the competition fair and square; he is after all, one of only nine artists in all of China who are considered "masters" by the government. As such, his commissions have included hero-statues for very unheroic men, men who have oppressed in the name of Communism.
I understand where Young is coming from because it would have been an uncontroversial decision to pick a black artist for the job, and we would have been treated to a great symbolic gesture as one of our most hallowed pieces of real estate -- between the Lincoln and Jefferson monuments -- was entrusted to the hand of a black artist.
Certainly, Young (see here for more samples of his work like the one above) has an easy point to argue and he argues it very well:
Is it that Alpha Phi Alpha, one of the country’s oldest African American fraternities, and the executive staff of the King Memorial project—also all black, and the Memorial Foundation Leadership, could not find one African American sculptor good enough to create a likeness of King? That’s crazy. You best believe, there is not ONE national memorial, not ONE monument to a leader or historical event in China, Russia, France, Italy, India, Germany—go ahead and name them all—that has the name of an African American artist engraved in its base. It’s probably not that they don’t like us or appreciate our abilities. It’s that a commission of such importance is a legacy for a country and its countrymen. Why should the King Monument be any different?
But his position ultimately is untenable against the teachings of Dr. King, who preached that America should be race-blind (among other less laudable positions).
More resonate than Young's are the complaints of Ann Lau and her comrades who push for human rights in China. Pointing to Yixin's statues of Mao and the fact that the MLK granite will be cut from a mine where worker's rights and safety are likely not high priorities, she said,
The whole thing is wrong. We are going to be permanently connecting Dr. King with someone whose ideology is totally opposed to Dr. King's ideology.
And that's where I settle on this: I would have preferred if the foundation had accepted a black artist, but given Dr. King's teachings, I can't fault them; and I understand that many blacks won't care one bit what one pampered white man has to say about it; and I think their judgment wouldn't score too high on Dr King's scale, and I believe in my heart that it is very wrong to do anything to glorify the current regime in China.
It would have moved Dr. King greatly if somehow the Communist functionaries were moved to change their ways when they first see Yixin's statue, but that most certainly is not going to happen, so the MLK Memorial Foundation ultimately has wasted a very important opportunity for positive symbolism.
"Thank you for the "Voice of the Victims films. The students really liked them, and it means so much to them to hear real stories and not watch a cheesy drama like so many other videos."
— High school teacher.
The stage was set, the lights went down and in a suburban Japanese primary school everyone prepared to enjoy a performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The only snag was that the entire cast was playing the part of Snow White.
