Culture Warriors category archive

Via Tampabay dot com.

Strong in them is the capacity for stupid.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across the Facebook group “Chicken Pox Parties — New York Metro Area.” It has 143 members, all of whom, I’m guessing, are parents who have chosen not to vaccinate their kids against chickenpox and instead hope to build their kids’ immunity the old-fashioned way, by directly exposing them to the germs of a pox-infected child. They are not alone: Facebook has 14 other chickenpox party groups organized by geographical region, and if you can’t get to one in person, you can always ask to be sent a lollipop with an infected child’s spit on it.

More from the You-Can’t-Make-This-Stuff-Up Dept.

Tom Long tries to figure it out.

According to the completely twisted standards of the Motion Picture Association of America’s rating system, you can murder 20 people in a movie and still get a PG-13 rating (which means anyone 13 and older can see the film) yet if you utter four harsh expletives, a movie draws an R rating (you have to be 17 or older to see the film, or be accompanied by an adult).

Sure that makes sense. It’s a bit like saying it’s better to punch someone than to curse at them. Neither is particularly admirable, but words won’t break a nose.

Movie ratings are even odder about the sexy bits (I nearly said “screwier,” but decided that that would be impolitic).

Since folks seem to fear that their little darlings will slavishly imitate whatever they see on the silvery screen, just the way that they did when they were young ‘uns, the message seems to be that it’s more acceptable to off people than to love them.

When someone speaks to you about the “Lost Cause,” ask him or her, “What exactly was the cause that was lost?”

Citation on request.

Via BartCop.

If there’s a war on Christmas, it looks to me like Christmas has won.

Reg Henry:

Yes, I know it has become part of some people’s cherished Christmas tradition to assume a Taliban-like intolerance to those who dare to use the word holidays in the hope of being inclusive to others who are not Christian.

But it seems to me the anger so inspired is hardly conducive to recruiting more Christians. Who would want to join a religion that goes out of its way to be obnoxious to outsiders, in stark defiance of its own beliefs? Goodwill among men? Bah, humbug.

Do read the rest, if only for the delightful bit in which he discusses Sarah Palin’s latest contribution to reducing the overall intelligence of the polity.

Punishment that fits the needs of the prison-industrial complex and keeps them folk in line–forget it.

Warning: Language.

Via Delaware Liberal.

I got a dollar says we’ll be hearing more about this:

A historical marker in New Bern will honor the 1st N.C. Colored Volunteers, a unit of former slaves noted for their bravery while fighting for the Union during the Civil War.

The highway marker is scheduled to be unveiled today (that was Friday–ed.) on the grounds of the historic New Bern Academy, where the unit had a farewell ceremony in July 1863, said Mike Hill of the N.C. Office of Archives and History. Less than a year later, the unit was renamed the 35th U.S. Colored Troops, according to a news release from the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, which oversees the highway marker program with the state Transportation Department.

Just sayin’.

Early Christmas shopping? Paul Collins explains that the backstory is not what you might think. A nugget:

Early shopping might have faded into history like other Gilded Age excesses were it not for the arrival of an utterly counterintuitive player into our story: progressive titan Florence Kelley. Better known today as a co-founder of the NAACP — and for teaming up with Upton Sinclair and Jack London to start the Intercollegiate Socialist Society — Kelley also has a special place under the historian’s Christmas tree. Her widely distributed 1903 essay, “The Travesty of Christmas,” was not, as you might expect from a socialist suffragette, an attack on early shopping — it was in support of it.

The December rush on stores, Kelley explained, brought “a bitter inversion of the order of holiday cheer” for overwhelmed clerks and delivery boys. Early shopping was part of Kelley’s crusades for child labor laws and an eight-hour workday, because the last few weeks before Christmas were exactly when overtime and seasonal child labor were most abused.

There’s that 27% number again.

Yes, indeedy-do, that’s about the size of it.

Afterthought:

Some years ago, I had a short email exchange with a student from France. Somehow the conversation turned to fashion for a while, so I sent her a link to a chart similar to this one comparing European and American sizes for women’s clothes.

She could not make sense of the American sizes, because the system is, frankly, stupid.

A couple years ago, while campaigning for a city council candidate, I found myself at the Virginia Beach Convention Center at some sort of expo.

There was a booth there about breast cancer. I got chatting with the lady at the booth, who was about my age. In the course of the conversation, I remarked, “When you and I were growing up, you couldn’t say ‘breast’ in a conversation,” and she agreed.

It seems that you still can’t.

In Easton, Pennsylvania, at least, breasts can’t be mentioned.

We live in a society that denies reality.

Then, again, let’s not and say we did.

Several churches in the Charlotte area – including one of the largest, Calvary Church – are moving to cut ties with Boy Scout troops they sponsor after a decision earlier this year by Boy Scouts of America to admit openly gay Scouts.

Someone at Fox News decided to complain that the “Walking Dead“* is a sign of American decay, much like the Police Gazette, dime novels, silent films, Esquire Magazine, the wireless, comic books, and many other predecessors.

Tony Norman isn’t having any of it.

“Is watching ‘The Walking Dead’ seriously hurting American society?” Dr. Manny Alvarez asked in the lead sentence. “I would argue ‘Yes.’ Hate me all you want, or call me paranoid and misinformed, but there is one common theme that is pervasive in American pop culture today: violence. Even more specifically, zombie violence. The idea of a zombie-infested world inspires fantasies of monsters possessed by an uncontrollable rage to kill, and viewers get a thrill imagining what it would be like to participate in this new world order.”

Zombies possessed of an uncontrollable rage sounds a lot like Fox News regular Sen. Ted Cruz and his gang of nihilists who shut down the government with no winnable strategy.

Do read the rest.

________________

*It could not possibly be as stultifying as The Beverly Hillbillies.

Last night, we watched Wheel of Fortune, as both of us like word puzzles (my friend is an editor by trade and I’m a punster by avocation); I also like to marvel at Vanna White’s state of preservation, as in amber.

One of the contestants, during the intros at the beginning, allowed as to how he was married to his wonderful husband (Giuseppe, I think) and that they were in the process of adopting their first child. Yes, “he.”

And nobody batted an eye.

Afterthought:

I wonder whether the audience received any special preparation for the moment. I rather suspect so.

I bet that the studio’s mail will be interesting for the next couple of days.