Leviticus Is Just Good Science

Over and over again I hear that the Bible must be the inspired word of God because the rules in Leviticus are so scientific and sane, we should all be following them just for our health.

Bullshit.

For example, this is what passes as scientific in this crowd:

the Law states we are not to eat pork. God will not punsih us if we do. BUT do you know that science has backed up God? pigs are the only animal that doesn't sweat, releasing it's toxins. so when you eat pork you are eating toxins! same goes for the catfish that God warned us against eating. they are the trash eaters of the water. why would you want to eat trash?

Sweating is not how you "release toxins". Sweating is how you modulate body temperature and it's not even that efficient a means of doing so. You do have a way of dealing with harmful substances in your body, it's called your liver. Your liver does not make you sweat.

Also, if eating catfish is eating trash, then eating a cow is eating grass, eating grass is eating sunshine and you should be able to live off of nothing but sitting out in the sun for several hours a day.

Continuing on, I guess this person doesn't get any international news, because all the people that were sickened, seriously injured or killed in Germany due to food poisoning? That was e coli. E coli is not found in pigs. Most outbreaks that don't come from people come from cows. When was the last time you heard about a trichinosis outbreak? (That's an actual disease you can get from pigs.) Never, I would imagine. E coli outbreaks, on the other hand, are common.

Let's examine some other sciencey stuff found in Leviticus:

• Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric (Leviticus 19:19) You know, because . . . yeah, I got nothing.
• If a man has sex with a woman on her period, they are both to be "cut off from their people" (Leviticus 20:18) Scientifically speaking . . . no idea.
• Don't let cattle graze with other kinds of Cattle (Leviticus 19:19) Because . . . well . . . I dunno.

Then there's this wtfuckery:

• "And the man whose hair is fallen off his head, he is bald; yet is he clean." 13:40
• "And he that hath his hair fallen off from the part of his head toward his face, he is forehead bald: yet is he clean." 13:41

Well, gee, I'm glad we cleared that up.

Fuck You, Glamor!

For some reason I cannot identify, I have an unending subscription to Glamor that I never have to pay for. It's very odd.

Anyway, Glamor might make me crazier than Cosmo, in that Glamor likes to position themselves as the urfeminist fashion magazine. You read that right. Urfeminist fashion magazine. It's obnoxious. It is simply hateful to see "You're all right just the way you are" articles interspersed with this crap (gee, I wish I could move pictures around while editing blogger in Firefox):

1. See the first picture? This is in answer to a question about going grey at 28. (Welcome to the club, people.) If you don't feel like clicking on it to enlarge, the caption says that models were deliberately greyed at a fashion show. Is that hair grey? No, it fucking isn't. That hair is not grey, not at all. If you're going to tell me grey is the new blonde, accompany it with a picture of actual grey hair.

2. See the second picture? Those two models represent (top) a "leggy" body type and (bottom) a "plus size" body type. Can you tell a difference? Because I can't. Neither one of those women is plus sized. In fact, given that the average size for American women is a size 12, that "plus size" woman isn't even close to average, let alone plus average. In fact, that's what I look like naked.

I AM A SIZE 2.

I cannot shop in department stores, their smallest size is a 6. I buy a lot of my clothes in the junior's section.

I AM UNDERWEIGHT. IT IS NOT HEALTHY. Stomach bugs put me in the hospital because my body has nothing to fall back on when I can't eat. I am cold 8 months of the year. My kitchen chairs have cushions rather than hard seats because I don't have natural cushioning to sit on, so if I sit on a hard chair for any period of time, I cut off the nerves in my rear and my legs go numb. Do you know how much well cushioned dining room chairs cost? I do.

That "plus size" model looks exactly like the underweight, size 2 wearing woman on the other end of your computer screen.

Feeling bad about yourself? Don't. You couldn't possibly have any idea what healthy or average or normal even looks like because of this shit. You couldn't even get close. And Glamor is at least part of the reason why.

Fuck you, Glamor!

A Boy in a Dress

This was sent to me by [redacted], who seems to think I need more to be disturbed by. This is in reaction to the famed "genderless child", Storm.

Back to make one last comment .....

As I have previously stated, I am in complete disagreement with the decisions that you have and are making regarding your children. I had to come back to make something very clear. I am a long time Junction resident and I can honestly say that I am thankful that my Son is not the same age as any of your children. Simply because I would not want my Son to be playing with a boy who is wearing a dress. I have chosen to rear my Son in a normal way. I don't think society needs to be exposed to you and your absurd ideologies, or your experiments. Just saying ........

First of all, have you considered going back to school. One does not have decisions, one makes decisions. One has beliefs, which might be what you're going for there.

Secondly, unless your son is the Messiah, you do not capitalize "son".

Thirdly, they're raising the child to be genderless, so why did you go straight to "boy in a dress"? That's . . . odd of you.

Thirdly, what do you suppose would happen if your SON played with a boy in a dress? I mean, I'm trying, but I can't quite . . . hmmm . . . .

1. SON plays with boy in dress

2. ?????

3. SON grows up to be a liberal gay atheoislamo terrorist.

I mean, I've spent some time with men who enjoy wearing women's clothing (women wearing men's clothing? totally normal! you may be doing it right now!) and I swear to you, nothing happened. Nothing at all. I did not become gay, I did not feel an urge to blow up any skyscrapers, I did not come down with a terrible dis- wait a minute. That was right before the porphyria kicked in.

Holy fuck, male transvestites cause porphyria! Lock up the children!

Wait, what's that? Oh, right, genetics. My bad. Transvestites do not actually have the power to change my DNA. They are not, in fact, radioactive.

Well, then, I just have nothing. Other than the fact that once you spend a little time around a person different from you, you realize that people are people and it becomes harder and harder to hate based on small differences. And you wouldn't want that for your SON.

Anyway, enjoy this video. It is the story of an elephant and a dog who are best friends. Then think very, very hard about why humans can't get along with other groups of humans, but an elephant and a dog can be the best of friends.

Sugar and Spice Is a Metaphor

You remember that poem about what girls and boys are made of? Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, boys are made of snails and puppy dog tails, that one?

Yeah, apparently, someone takes that literally.

As women, we are not made up of the same things men are made of; therefore it is nearly (but not completely) impossible for us to raise boys to be men. I'm afraid that's why we have so many sissy boys today.

I checked. Human males and human females are indeed made of the same things. Those things are not sugar and spice and snails and tails.

This post also includes a list of characteristics of men (not sissy boys!) that's a little . . . um . . . odd.

WANTED- A boy who stands straight, sits straight, acts straight and talks straight;

Queers need not apply, I suppose.

A boy whose fingernails are not in mourning, whose ears are clean, whose shoes are polished, whose clothes are brushed, whose hair is combed, and whose teeth are well cared for;

Actually, I'm okay with that, although I'm not sure what fingernails look like in mourning.

A boy who listens carefully when he is spoken to, who asks questions when he does not understand, and does not ask questions about things that are none of his business;

Well, okay.

A boy who moves quickly and makes as little noise about it as possible;

wut?

A boy who whistles in the street, but does not whistle where he ought to keep still;

um, okay.

A boy who looks cheerful, has a ready smile for everybody, and never sulks;

A human being who likes everyone and never has a bad day? A human being, you say?

A boy who is polite to every man and respectful to every woman and girl;

Yes, because you know you can't just be polite and respectful to both males and females that is too much. Too much, I tell you!

A boy who does not smoke cigarettes and has no desire to learn how;

Inhale, exhale. It's not hard.

A boy who is more eager to know how to speak good English than to talk slang;

I dig it, daddio!

A boy who neither bullies other boys nor allows other boys to bully him;

Yes, because it is up to children to stop bullying. Stop bothering the adults, dear, we're busy making inane lists and making fun of fa**ots.

A boy who, when he does not know a thing, says, "I don't know, "and when he has made a mistake says, "I'm sorry," and when he is asked to do a thing says, "I'll try";

*rolls eyes*

A boy who looks you right in the eye and tells the truth every time;

You know what? Do not tell me the truth about what my butt looks like in this skirt. Nobody anywhere wants the unvarnished truth every time.

A boy who is eager to read good books;

Define "good". I bet your definition is different from mine.

A boy who would rather put in his spare time at the YMCA gymnasium than gamble for pennies in a back room;

Good science, when was this written? Anyway, my husband really enjoys blackjack and poker. They are games of skill it takes a certain talent and dedication to play. While I do agree, as does he, that one shouldn't gamble with money one can't afford to flush down the toilet, I don't really see the problem with exercising one's mind as well as one's body.

A boy who does not want to be "smart" or in any wise to attract attention;

Sit down and act stupid! And read good books!

A boy who would rather lose his job or be expelled from school than tell a lie or be a cad;

Yeah, because grocery stores accept morals as well as VISA.

A boy whom other boys like;

I thought we were against gays?

A boy who is at ease in the company of girls;

No, really, are we against gays or not?

A boy who is not sorry for himself, and not forever thinking and talking about himself;

Okay.

A boy who is friendly with his mother, and more intimate with her than anyone else;

O.o
O.O
o.O

A boy who makes you feel good when he is around;

A boy they call Doctor Feelgood?

A boy who is not goody-goody, a prig, or a little pharisee, but just healthy, happy, and full of life.

Okay, did you read the enormous list that preceeded this? There is no way to be all that and not be a little prig. So pick one, lady.

This boy is wanted everywhere. The family wants him, the school wants him, the office wants him, the boys want him, the girls want him, all creation wants him.

And now it's a porno. I don't know what to think.

Rings and Surthings

I had the weirdest conversation with The Princess*, my new sister-in-law, when she was in town for my husband's birthday. It's taken me this long to write about because I just wasn't sure how to process it. Translation: I don't know her well enough to know if she was deliberately being rude or if she is just really clueless. I'm erring on the side of clueless, though deliberately rude is a definite possibility.

Anyway, she and my brother-in-law have been married less than a year. I generally hate talking to newlyweds, for a lot of reasons**, and she hit two of them in less than five minutes:

Why don't you guys wear wedding rings? Don't you want people to know you're married?

Why didn't you change your last name? Is this some kind of feminist thing?

So, here's my reply to those questions, feel free to borrow whatever is applicable to you any time you'd like.

1. Wedding rings:

Does anybody even know what the point of wedding rings is, anyway? I guess to show people I'm married, but why does every random stranger need to know my marital status? An unmarried person could buy a wedding ring. It's not like jewelry stores require proof of marriage. A married person with a wedding ring could simply take it off. And I'm still not sure why everyone I meet needs to know whether or not I'm married.

I've been told that my husband will cheat on me if I don't require him to wear a wedding ring. I told them I had no idea circles of metal had such amazing powers.

I've been told our refusal to wear wedding rings means we're not serious about one another. I've been known to say "fuck off". Seriously, seriously fuck off. We've stuck together through both of our chronic illnesses, poverty, and other stuff I don't talk about here, and you're telling me that the ring is what denotes serious commitment? C'mere, I wanna show you something. It won't hurt for long.

So why don't we wear wedding rings? Neither one of us likes the tactile sensation of rings. My husband won't wear any jewelry at all, not even a watch. I regularly wear earrings, bracelets, and necklaces (I'm actually rarely without all three), but rings bother me. I can't really see how "Hey, I know wearing a ring makes you wildly uncomfortable, but you must wear one every day for the rest of your life" means love.

2. Taking my husband's surname.

This is not a feminist thing. Well, actually, some feminists do promote this as a feminist thing, but it has nothing to do with feminism for me. I'd like to say it does. I'd like to claim to be a feminist warrior, changing the world through my bold refusal to change my name, but Hell is all about the honesty***.

I didn't change my last name because I didn't really care about it and I'm lazy about things I don't care about. Actually, thinking about it, I had just spent a very frustrating six weeks getting a new social security card so I could switch jobs and the thought of doing that all over again to change my name was just too much at the time, so I put it off. After a few years went by, I asked my husband if he cared that I didn't use his name and he said, quite reasonably, that while I was welcome to use his name, he didn't see why I should. I didn't become a different person when I married him, why should I have a different name? And, it bothers him to see men stay Mr. John Doe, but women become Mrs. John Doe as if she had to marry John Doe because her parents named her Mrs. John Doe. What if she wanted to marry Frank Doe? It would be tragic!

Yeah, he's as weird as I am.

I've been told that this means I don't love him. I've been told this means he'll leave me, cheat on me, be heartbroken. I've been told feminists are ridiculous, that I hate men and that I'm a bad wife.

People seriously froth at the mouth about this one, more so than the rings.

Multiple people have suggested a "compromise" as if we were fighting about it: hyphenate our names. First of all, this always means I change my name to the hyphenate and he does nothing. Secondly, I have a four syllable Scots/Irish name and he has a three syllable Italian name. Can you imagine?

Mrs. Faith O'Hannigan-Agnoli****.

That's better than Faith O'Hannigan?

People often ask what name our children (will) have. My husband agrees that in the highly unlikely event that we do have a child, they will have my name because I'll be the one doing all the work. This upsets people so much that I've suggested we simply combine our names into one unhyphenated, bizarre Iritalian mix. O'Hannoli, perhaps. Nobody finds that funny, other than my husband.

Anyway, I really want to know why are either of these things anyone else's business? Why does anyone at all care whether or not we wear wedding rings or whether or not I change my name? I have asked people that, but apparently, I'm the rude one for asking.



*No, I really don't like her all that much.

**Hey, you're happy, good for you. Stop pretending you know anything about marriage. Call me back in ten years and then we'll talk all about it.

***Carefully edited honesty.

****Not our real names. Our real names would be even worse. And longer. Much longer.

I'm Filled with Squishy Organs (Atheist Bashing)

That's me: big, hairy and poorly dressed. Oh, and rampaging.

I hate this kind of casual smack at atheists. I really do. It just makes me tired. And it so common.

Don’t be afraid to be pious.

We lose nothing in being devout and we gain ineffable benefits.

Do not be afraid to bend yourself down before God especially and also to the angels and saints our intercessors and patrons and be simply pious. Man was made to be pious. This is the essence of religion, without which we are empty shells: to give due reverence to God. The sin of our first parents came from trying to be the opposite of pious: self-sufficient self-gods. That was defiance of due piety. But people can drift into the same emptiness of life by neglect of piety and devotion, neglect of fostering the habits of devotion.

Consider the benefits of devotion for a moment, and then consider the downside of being – not impious, in the sense of being wicked – but slothful and haphazard and lukewarm.

[emphasis mine]

I am an atheist and I am not an empty shell. I am not empty at all.

I am an atheist and I am not slothful, haphazard or lukewarm.

I am an atheist and I am human, too.

I am an atheist and I am not less than you, John Zuhlsdorf.

I am an atheist and I have feelings and they can be hurt.

I am an atheist and if you prick me, I will bleed.

I am an atheist and you hate me.

I am an atheist and you've never met me.

I am an atheist and I'm done apologizing.

I am an atheist and I'm done asking.

I am an atheist and I will make you listen.

I am an atheist and I've come here to demand your respect.

I am an atheist and I'm not leaving until I've got it.

However Do We Get the Poor to Save Money?

Look, the title of this Slate piece alone sent me into a rage. I'm surprised I didn't turn green, tear out of my clothes and go rampaging through Pennsylvania screaming "Faith MAD!" (Good thing, too, I don't have the insurance to cover that.)

I May Be Poor Now, but Wait Until I'm 65 ...

Is there a way to get the poor to save for retirement?

Um, no, really. Here's why:

Is there a way to get the poor to save for retirement?

THE POOR ARE POOR BECAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE MONEY!

I know I'm not with the Heritage Foundation or the Tax Policy Center, nor am I an economist, but I do have one qualification the asshat who wrote this piece doesn't: I'm poor! See, I can tell you why poor people do what we do, because I'm just telling you what I do.

What do I have saved for retirement? Zilch. My retirement plan is dying before I get too disabled or old to work. Seriously. I'm not being snarky, that's the plan.

Why haven't I saved for retirement? Well, I wrote this yesterday, Wednesday, and on Wednesday, I had $5 until payday on Friday. The bus costs $1.25 per trip. So, I have exactly enough money to get to and from work. That's it.

Why? Because I'm fucking poor, that's why. That's what being poor means. I got paid Friday, cashed my check at the pawn shop ($8 fee), paid bills (what I could anyway, paid $1 per money order), bought food and then I need a prescription. That was $15. The next day I went to feed the dog breakfast and realized I only had enough to feed him half of breakfast (he eats 2 cups of food twice a day), so I needed to buy dog food. Then my husband says to me that he needs CDs to burn his mixes to so he can check them on various sound systems*, so I bought CDs.

Then I had no money left.

Seriously, I hope I don't get my period before Friday. I hope I don't need any food or medicine or anything at all, because if so, it'll suck to be me. I had to steal toothpaste samples from my boss' office** to get to Friday.

Does anyone think that there is a way of getting me to save for retirement without giving me more money?

Apparently, economists do. Apparently, if they just convince me of the benefits of a 401(k) I'll rush right out and fill one up!

Through automatic savings . . . By simply switching the default—requiring people to opt out of a savings program, rather than asking them to opt in—the savings rate could shift significantly.

Seriously, that's the answer. Just take money I need to buy toothpaste out of my check automatically, and everything will be fine. Because it's not like I need every penny of my check or anything. And I love explaining things like that to the woman in charge of payroll. It was awesome explaining to her why direct deposit is not for me. (There are so many judgments against me, if I ever deposit any money into a bank account, I'll never see it again.)

Some have advocated making a retirement-savings tax credit refundable, which means that if the value of the credit exceeds the worker's tax bill, the government would actually deliver a check for the difference. In effect, the working poor could pay a negative tax.

That's not so bad, but keep in mind, I don't need toothpaste next March, I need it yesterday. That's what being poor is about. A person with money notices that their stove is acting funny and shops the sales to replace it. A poor person notices that their stove is acting up and does nothing, because they don't have the money to do anything, and then when the stove completely stops working, they stop cooking or they ask around to see if a friend has one. If you give this person the option of $200 now or $200 six months from now, what do you think they'll do? In fact, they'll take the $200 now even if the figure six months from now is $1,000, because they need a stove now. Which brings me to the last suggested solution:

A few think the only way to really pump up savings among the poor is to offer a matching program, similar to the way some companies match employee contributions to 401(k) accounts. Uncle Sam would pitch in $2 for every $1 a low-wage earner contributes, and he would match middle-class contributions dollar-for-dollar. The rich would be on their own.

Again, if you have money to pay bills and buy food and deal with broken appliances, then that probably seems like a great deal. But if you really, really need $200 today, $600 30 years from now is not much of an incentive to wait, now is it?




*Please say you'll participate in the release of The Cheat Code's first album! The songs are so good they may actually cure cancer!

**Once I borrowed on from him before a dentist appointment and he told me to take one any time I wanted, so it's not technically stealing. Poverty turns one into quite the ethicist.

#ThankingGod

I have got to stop clicking on twitter's trending topics. I just have to stop, if only for the sake of my blood pressure. But, in the waning moments before my heart explodes, I give you #ThankingGod:

Thanking God for another day!! BE GREAT TODAY PEOPLE!!!!

I'm thanking God for letting me wake up to see another beautiful day :)

Thanking God For Waking Me Up To See Another Day!!!!

Yes, there is no explanation for the world continuing to turn and the sun continuing to shine. Oh, look, it's another minute of existence- Thank you God! Honestly, some people have unbelievably low standards.

Thanking God for everything.

Ebola, AIDS, tornadoes, hurricanes, nuclear power reactor meltdowns, WWII, atomic weapons, cancer, child molestation, you know, everything.

Thanking God that Thanking God is trending again!!!

How meta.

Ha! I was just "thanking God" for my (awesome) job too. Literally.

I have literally no idea what literally means in that sentence.

Thanking God, for sight. #GodBlessTheBlind

Wow, nothing like combining your Pharisee-esque public devotion to god with outrageous ablism. Fantastic!

Thanking God for sendin this phone so fast! #TEAMBLACKBERRY

Oh, so that's what God was doing instead of protecting people from tornadoes. Okay, then.

God is Thanking God that most people who believe in him don't read the bible

lulz!

I just gave a homeless man my last. Then cried thanking God that I have a full tank of gas. God is so good

So, first we have a Christian thanking god that she isn't blind, now we have a Christian thanking god she isn't homeless like that guy she just ran into. Wow.

Thanking God, for unbelievers, cuz it strengthens me to be able to change their destiny.

And if you fail or just don't reach in time, we burn forever in hell! But that's okay, at least we strengthened you! Don't mind us, we'll just be screaming our lungs out for the next eternity for your sake.

Honestly.

Words Have Meanings: Unique

This is the most joyous creature on earth. Starting now, I am the founder of a religion that promises each truly true believer their own sloth.

Unique: Characteristic of a particular category, condition, or locality: a problem unique to coastal areas.

In fairness, the above is the third definition of unique, because that is the way it is being used in the post I am snarking on. I am all about the fairness.

As used above, "unique" denotes something that can only be applied to the thing in question. Hurricanes are problems unique to coastal regions. Hurricanes don't form over land, so you won't see hurricanes in Indiana or Iowa, for example. (Um, Germany?, for the Europeans.) This is important, because if you say certain characteristics are unique to a specific group or place, you can't use characteristics that can apply to anyone or anywhere. If you do, I can only assume that either you don't know what "unique" means, or that you have a rather odd view of other groups. I'm going with the latter.

The Unique Characteristics of a Godly Woman:

Here are some characteristics of a godly woman--check off the ones that describe you:

• Gracious

I'm an atheist and I'm gracious! [checks definition of "gracious"] Well, at least some of the time. We'll give that one a half check.

• Virtuous

No. I'm not that, not by the stretch of anyone's imagination.

• Sober

Yes, actually. Drinking alcohol while taking Vicodin is a good way to end up with liver failure.

• Chaste

BWAHAHAHAHA- um, no.

• Prudent

I am probably the most practical person you know. In fact, that is why I did not major in philosophy. I love philosophy, but I am simply too practical to really engage a discussion of whether or not the real world is the really real world.

• Discreet

Well, it's not like I have sex in public, except that one time, in the park . . . okay, no.

• Peaceable

Fuck yeah! Seriously, I think pacifism is the solution to a lot of humanity's problems. I'm just too practical to think it's a workable solution.

• Patient

That I most definitely am.

• Kind

Yes. I am kind.

• Faithful

To what? God? No. My friends, my beliefs, my principals, few as they are? Yes.

• Joyful

Overall, yes.

• Good

Now I'm getting all kinds of offended. Only Christian women are good? How rude!

• Merciful

I haven't set anyone on fire yet. Considering the provocations, that's damn merciful.

• Pleasant

That's really a question for people who interact with me.

• Ready

O.o

• Honorable

Yes. I'm not sure the writer would accept my personal sense of honor as such, but she didn't define "honor" for me, so I'm giving this one a check.

• Benevolent

You know, that's an odd word to describe a person with. Usually you see "benevolent" used to describe dictators or gods.

• Keeper at Home

Typing this at work, so, no.

• In Subjection

To what?

• Quiet Spirit

If my spirit were any louder, you'd all be deaf.

• Modest

What definition? How she is no doubt defining "modesty", purely on the basis of skirt lengths and such, no, but what about the real definition of "modest"? I had a heck of a time saying "yes" to any of this stuff, and it's all positive, or meant to be, so . . . another half check.

• Obedient

To what? The laws of the US? Yes.

• Loves husband and children

Who the fuck doesn't love at least their children? That's got to be the most insulting thing I've ever read. Only Christian women love their husbands and children? Fuck you!

• Teaching the younger women

Doing so right now, asshat. As we speak. So, ha!

I Am the Queen of All Landinia

Love the sinner, hate the sin. How many times have you heard that one? It's always being delivered by some hateful asshat after they've been called on the essential hypocrisy of claiming to follow a person who said that the greatest of these is love and then spewing vile hatred at people different from them.

Now, I could explore the idea that one can separate a person from their actions, which is problematic at best. (Pro tip: if zie tells you zie loves you and continually treats you badly, it doesn't matter whether or not zie loves you, you're still being treated badly.) I could also ask how one could feel hatred for a person's actions without any of that hatred rubbing off on to how you feel about the person themselves.

I could do those things, but it would be a lot easier to simply show you how love the sinner, hate the sin actually works in the really real world.

The below all relates to the commercial above. If you can't watch the commercial, it's from the NBA. It shows basketball players trash talking each other until one of them uses "gay" as a pejorative, at which point various NBA stars unequivocally state that using "gay" as an insult is unacceptable and hurtful. It's quite well done.

Of course the evangelical Christians, who are, at this point, an organization solely devoted to oppressing gays and women, cannot handle this at all.

Watching the NBA semis and I cant believe I'm watching a commercial about not using the word "gay" because it's offensive to gays.

Wow

I can't believe how stupid you are. It is stated in the commercial, out loud, in words, small words, that it is using "gay" as an insult that is unacceptable. Using "gay" as a descriptive is still acceptable. You idiot.

The word "gay" actually originally meant "to be happy". Not sure how the word "gay" began to be used to describe homosexuals. But either way, forget the commercial's message. The gays and lesbians have to be told flat out that their behavior is sin, regardless of what the world says.

Actually, the word "gay" originally meant really, really (hetero)sexually active. So, word origin fail. As to the idea that gays need to be told that their behavior is a sin, (a) I'm sure they all know how you feel about it by now, and (b) I'm sure you'll be fine with me stopping by your house once a day to point out all of your sins, and, oh yeah, (c) not a sin. Get over yourself.

You can hardly watch any shows anymore where there is blatant display of gay talk and behavior. Is not like before where one guy just played to be gay for the funny part of it (the feminist acting that looked awkward funny in a guy) but now is about relationships, kissing, and beyond. And I am talking about just regular channels, not cable.

I have started watching shows where I thought they were really good but had to stop because I saw the direction they were going with.

Sigh....

It was totally okay to have gay people in public as long as they were the punchline of a joke, but gay people as real people doing what real people do? outrageous!

No gays? well we can go back to the word we used as kids - bundle of sticks.

Homosexuals are trying to whitewash our language so as to make their conduct "normal".


It will not work. Yes we can live peaceably with homosexuals. They are sinners just like us - in need of love and redemption.

But sin is still sin. And men will label it what they will. Even if they do not acknowledge the One who defines it.

I'm fairly certain one cannot live peacefully with someone who throws a temper tantrum when they can't call you names. I get the impression this entire group has a list of acceptable insults, starting with "n***er" and ending in "slut", and they cry every time they have to cross out a word.

If someone's named "Gay" can you still call her by her name?

Well, "John" is also a slang term for a prostitute's client and a toilet, can you still call someone named John, John? Clever: ur doin it rong.

Why is it wrong for NBA players to use gay slurs (and get heavily fined for doing so) because they are so worried about offending homosexuals, but its ok to blaspheme God regularly? I cringe every time I hear God's name used in vain. And I have heard players say it and seen them mouth it. I as a Christian am offended. Will the NBA make the players stop?

How backwards is that? When people are more worried about offending gays than God we are in deep trouble folks.

Maybe because the people using "Jesus Christ" as an expletive- assuming this is even true- are Christians themselves expressing frustration, not heterosexuals enforcing second class citizenship on homosexuals? Just a thought.

So if we are not supposed to refer to 'gays' as gays or homosexuals, what?? Surely they aren't advocating going back to the 'q " word, are they? I really hate using the word 'gay' for them because when I grew up 'gay' was a good, 'happy' word. My sister's middle name is Gay, and I had a friend whose first name was Gay. Anyway, just commenting.

You know what word would solve your problem? None. Just refer to people by their names, like you would anyone else. Solves the whole problem.

Okay, I have the solution - let's call them what G-d calls them . . . ABOMINATION

Yeah, that same god called dashing infant's heads against rocks a good thing.

You know, I realized why I'm having trouble writing my book. The main character is supposed to stop the Apocalypse and save mankind. Quite frankly, the more of this sort of thing I read, the more I think, "Let it all burn." Then I read this, from Charles Barkley, and I feel better.

"First of all, every player has played with gay guys," Barkley said. "It bothers me when I hear these reporters and jocks get on TV and say: ‘Oh, no guy can come out in a team sport. These guys would go crazy.’ First of all, quit telling me what I think. I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play.”

Barkley went on to say that he believes every professional athlete has had a gay teammate.

“Any professional athlete who gets on TV or radio and says he never played with a gay guy is a stone-freakin’ idiot,” he said. “I would even say the same thing in college. Every college player, every pro player in any sport has probably played with a gay person."

It was revealed on Monday that former Villanova basketball player Will Sheridan told his teammates that he was gay during his career.

Barkley told Wise that gay players pose no problem and said, "we need to outlaw guys who suck at sports.”

Thank you, Mr. Barkley. I needed that.

How to Tell You Are Not a Feminist

I've seen 1,000 word explanations of feminism, but as the Princess of Pithy, I can boil that down for you into one sentence: Feminism is the belief that men and women are equal.

That's simple, right? Men and women, we are equal. Anything else associated with feminism- control over fertility, criticism of media treatment, concerns about representation in power structures- flows from that simple, defining belief.

Determining whether or not you are a feminist or whether an organization is inherently feminist, is equally simple. Do you promote actions or ideas that treat women and men equally? Does the organization act in a way that results in women and men being treated equally?

If not, neither you nor the organization are feminist. You may wish to be a feminist, but if you don't hold to that belief, you are not. Go find another word. This is not to say that feminism is a monolith and that all feminists believe all the same things. I've heard equally good arguments for and against pornography and sex work from feminists I admire equally. I've heard some fairly silly arguments regarding subjects like wearing colours and skirts* from feminists I otherwise admire. However, even those arguments are within the framework of equality for all sexes**.

For example, is the Catholic Church feminist? The short answer is "no, what the hell is wrong with you?", but you probably didn't stop by for the short answer, and I'm stumped on what happens next in my book, so I'll ramble on a bit.

If you're not familiar with the Catholic Church (hereinafter "RCC"), even a cursory examination of the structure and teachings of the RCC is enough to show it is inherently misogynistic. Men rule the RCC. From priest to cardinal to bishop to pope, the entire power structure is exclusively male. Only men can lead worship services, only men can make policy decisions, only men speak for God. Women have two roles, and both those roles are in service to men: wife/mother and nun.

This is not feminism.

The policies of the RCC flow directly from this misogyny. Women are not allowed control over their bodies, and are fully expected to die in difficult pregnancies and to bear the child of their rapist, even if that rapist is their father, even if they are 9 years old. Women are fully expected to give up any possibility of a career and to bear one child after another until they no longer can. That is the role of women in the RCC and it will never change, because the policy makers will never be women.

This is not feminism.

Having established that, is it possible for a Catholic to be feminist, or for a feminist to be Catholic in good standing holding to the accepted teachings of the RCC? No. Logically, one could not embrace the above and be a feminist, simply because the beliefs of the RCC and feminism are mutually exclusive.

Now here's the thing about feminism: feminism does not promise you a rose garden. Even if feminism overcame all misogyny tomorrow, that doesn't mean every individual woman's life would automatically be perfect. Feminism seeks to remove artificial societal barriers keeping women lesser than men. Feminism does not require that each woman become a doctor or limit herself to two children or abort her rapist's baby. Feminism merely seeks to make those choices available to you. You are more than welcome to choose to be a stay at home mother, to have eleven children and to continue any pregnancy you wish, even if that means risking your own life in the process. I would not make those choices, personally, but I'm not you and I will support your right to make choices, even if I might personally find them bizarre or ill advised.

Basically, in the linked article above (and here, why make you scroll?) Simcha Fisher argues that because she takes advantage of certain advances earned by feminists, she is a feminist. Just soak that in for a minute.

What if I had to argue with the auto parts clerk to buy a headlight bulb, even though I was the one replacing it? What if the bank required me to get my husband’s permission for this and that? And what if I wore skirts because I’d be shunned if I didn’t, and not because I felt like wearing them?

Yeah, that would totally suck, right? That's the world many feminists lived in and worked so hard to improve. When my mother was in college, that was the world. Married women couldn't get credit in their own name, so she didn't. Female college students couldn't attend classes in pants. If you showed up to class in pants, you would be escorted out of the building. My mother is not 1,000 years old. This is very recent history.

So here's Simcha, aware of that history, grateful it is history and is simultaneously patting herself on the back for supporting an organization that is deeply misogynistic.

So what makes me a feminist? Some would say that all faithful Catholics are feminists, because the Church is the most pro-woman organization around: The Church honors and values the particular gifts of women, and demands that men treat women with dignity and even a little bit of fear. John Paul II famously called himself a “feminist pope”; and in practical terms, the Church has probably done more for the physical well-being of women around the world than any other charitable organization.

Catholics who are feminists recognize that, while so many true wrongs have been righted in the last 50 years, the poor treatment of women in America has just been displaced, not eradicated. So now, instead of corsets and disenfranchisement, we have widespread pornography, abortion, and abandonment of every kind. We have gained some necessary ground, but lost so much else that is valuable in the process. Most of my Catholic friends see the world this way.

Yes, pornography and abortion didn't exist until 1964, Simcha. JPII could have called himself a pink unicorn if he had wanted to, that wouldn't make it true. And you know what? I don't care what the RCC has done for women worldwide (health care missionaries? I'm not sure), as long as women are not allowed in the halls of power simply because they are women, the RCC is not feminist, and neither are you.

Find another word. "Feminist" is already taken.

*Admittedly, I wear skirts almost exclusively because I find them to be significantly more comfortable than pants, so maybe I just don't want to hear a feminist argument against skirts. Then again, I'm in favor of men having the option of wearing skirts (you'd think, given the, um, dangly nature of male genitals, that skirts would be the automatic male preference) as well, so I think I'm still falling within the equality test.

**We need to have a discussion about how limiting and exclusionary it is to discuss sex as if it is only male and female. There are those who fall outside the XX/XY paradigm, and it's hurtful to them to be constantly excluded from, quite literally, everything.

What Planet Do You Live On, and What's the Weather Like There?

[Note: I can't log into blogger using Google Chrome, so I'm stuck using Explorer. Blech! Anyway, I'm used to blogger spellchecking as I write the same way MSWord does, and as far as I can tell, I'm going to have to copy/paste this post into Word, do the spellcheck and then copy/paste it back. Charmingly, running the spellcheck in blogger while in Explorer just highlights the misspelled words, and if I knew how to spell them, I wouldn't have misspelled them in the first place. Anyway, fucking blogger.]

Every now and then, I come across a post from a fundy so removed from reality as I experience it that I have to ask, "What planet do you live on and what's the weather like there?"

Now, I could rip apart every word of this post, I mean, she refers to homosexuals as "sodomites"*, but what made me wonder if the internet now extends to alternate realities was this:

First, God reveals Himself to all mankind. We are all born with a knowledge of
God and a desire to seek and to serve Him. This is why it is so easy to guide a
child into a saving knowledge of God and a life of service to God. This is the
desire God puts into a child. However, the first step one takes down this road
is rejecting God. This is compounded when parents place their children into a
sociological morass called the public school. In the public school, Christ is
only mentioned as a part of a swear word, as a study of mythology or when the
Catholic persecutions are purported to be in the name of Christ (Christ never
encouraged anyone to convert another by force or at the edge of a sword).
Christianity is, in many schools, mocked and ridiculed by the evangelistic
secular humanist and her religion: evolution.

"Sociological morass?" I can't decide if the author, Randy Ross, is referring to all those brown kids rubbing up against his kids' delicate white skin, or maybe all the poor people spreading poor cooties or what. (If you've started with the word "sodomite" I'm just going to ahead and assume that you're a racist as well.) I mean, really, children being expected to interact with other members of society who may be the slightest bit different from them. It's outrageous!

As for Christ only being mentioned as part of a swear word, can you imagine? I can't. I have no idea what, exactly, Randy thinks goes on in public schools, but I can assure you public school teachers are not instructing students in new, blasphemous swear words. Honestly. It's so utterly ridiculous, I can't help but laugh, but I think he may sincerely believe this to be true. He really may believe that if he sent his kids to a public school, they would come home with a spelling list that included "fuck" and "Jesus H. Tap-Dancing Christ!".

That's what actual people in America actually believe about America. They live right next door to you and they vote.

My work will never be done, will it?

*It's Christian love, baby!

**I'd probably be a bit more successful in life if I channeled my talents into marketable avenues.

Keeping the Boot on Your Throat, One Policy at a Time

Capitalism: It's like this, only with more screaming.

Today, I would like to discuss credit checks during job applications. I don't bother to check my credit. Whatever the lowest score is, I've earned it. I've earned it, not through irresponsibility, most people don't, but through misfortune: illness, job loss, circumstance. I tried to pay my bills, I just couldn't. Because no matter what the finger waggers like to say, anyone faced with the choice of paying the credit card bill and eating will choose to eat. Unless you've starved yourself to death to pay off your student loans, don't lecture me.

The reason I got my present job through a temp agency is that temp agencies, at least around here, don't do background checks. Everyone else does. I applied for a bank teller position and was told that my credit score was the only thing preventing me from getting the job. Then I had the humiliating experience of explaining each and every entry to the interviewer, in detail. That was so much fun.

Good credit scores are for the wealthy, the healthy and the lucky. If you're poor, you don't have a good credit score. You couldn't. You will pay your bills late, and if you've been poor more than 6 months, you know exactly how long each utility will wait before shutting you off- and you pay your bills accordingly. I've heard the advice not to get a credit card, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Gas has gone up, electricity has gone up, water has gone up, food prices have skyrocketed, but you know what hasn't gone up? Wages.

More and more people are living one paycheck away from absolute ruin and part of the problem is credit scores. It wouldn't do me much good to finish college, because I couldn't pass a credit check anyway.

And what's the logic? I have no idea. There's no correlation that I could find between poor job performance and poor credit, and what sort of people do they think are desperate to get a bank teller position paying a little over minimum wage?

It's just another way to keep the boot of the plutocracy to my throat and make sure I, and millions more like me, don't ever climb one rung up the ladder. The more of the pie I have, the less they have, and if you have to go through life with only three gold-plated yachts, what's the point, really?

Inside a Man's Mind: Modesty, Part II

Taken from here. Part I of my fisk here.

In my last post I described how I went from being completely oblivious to the issue of modesty to completely awestruck with how significant of a principle it is. I was "awestruck" for a number of reasons.

QUOTATION MARKS ARE NOT DECORATIONS.

First of all, I wondered how I could have lived 21 years of my life without once considering whether or not there was a right and wrong when it came to dress.

No, you did not. I imagine you knew that some items of clothing are considered appropriate to some situations where others are not. Stop lying.

Secondly, I was amazed by the beauty of it all.

Can we say "fetish", children?

As you may recall, in my last post I recounted my first encounter with my future wife and her sister sitting across the room from me at a scripture study and what my initial reaction was to their appearance. In my ignorance, I could not conceive of any rational reason that would drive two young ladies to show up to a college scripture study in ankle length, floral pattern jumpers.

Neither can I. There are so many ways to be modest without resorting to something that hideous, if the Muslim women in my area are any guide.

Not only had I never seen anyone don such apparel,

or "wear jumpers"

I honestly didn't know if I ever cared to see it again - not because it was displeasing to my eye, but because it was displeasing to my heart. Why you ask?

I just assumed it was because jumpers are tragic.

Look, I went to Catholic schools growing up. I wore jumpers in blue plaid, jumpers in grey plaid, jumpers in brown plaid and jumpers in green plaid. They're horrid items of clothing, uncomfortable and unflattering. If there is a dress code in hell (assuming hell exists, of course) it involves jumpers.

Seeing them "set apart" in their dress made me uncomfortable - more uncomfortable that I cared to admit at the time. I was used to the short shorts, the tight tops, and the form fitting everything else. I had become much too well acquainted with this sort of revealing dress and if I would have been honest with myself, I would have confessed that it had done nothing but aid in the development of many of the vile affections that then abided in my heart.

Bitches always tempting me! I am a man, I should not be held responsible for my thoughts, feelings and actions, damnit!

Scanning the room that night, my eyes came into contact with something that absolutely shook the foundations of my pitiable understanding concerning the issue of dress.

I can just imagine that moment. Don't you feel like this is what happens when Tim Gunn sees the perfect dress made of garbage bags and dead sewer rats? ("This week, you'll be making a business suit using only broken dreams and empty promises.")

As it was, however, I quickly took shelter in counsel of my heart (not the safest place to be) and reemerged from this cellar like nothing had ever happened.

Dude, you know, I love me some clothes, but wtf is wrong with you? I've seen less overwrought descriptions of visions of Hell.

To be sure, I could not deny that there had been an earthquake, but it hadn't phased me. Strange that it even shook me at all. And so, I settled myself by allowing a single word to characterize what I had seen - weird. Case closed. Back to the real world.

It was strange that an earthquake shook you?

Fast forward almost a year later and I was to discover that this earthquake had aftershocks like you wouldn't believe. Passing through the room of this same scripture study, I spotted one of these young ladies (Caroline in this instance) sitting meekly in the corner and the words came to my mind so clearly, "That is the sort of woman you ought to marry."

Meek: Easily imposed on; submissive. Yeah, aren't you just a pleasant fellow.

I had come a looooong way - from "weird" to to wedlock. Now, what I would have you to understand is that I wasn't contemplating marriage on account of what Caroline was wearing, but how she wore it. Her clothing was modest, yes, but more importantly, she was modest. This was what I had but dimly apprehended at the first. My wife was not wearing jumpers because she liked them (she didn't and still does not)

That is so sad. I can understand having standards of dress. I can understand having difficulty finding clothes you like, or that fit or that you can afford. But to where clothes you hate when you could be wearing clothes that make you happy- it's like eating only cream of wheat and never anything with flavor, on purpose.

or because she believed them to be particularly fashionable (they passed out of vogue, oh, some 30 years ago), but because she felt that they were accessory to a modest spirit (that, and they were all her mother could sew at the time, it being very difficult to find anything in the department store agreeable to modest deportment.)

Couldn't she or her mother find another pattern, or visit another store? I see plenty of modestly dressed women during my day and not a one of them is dressed in a jumper. There's no reason for that other than to mark yourself out as being loudly modest.

Here follows a very long, very ignorant discourse on why jumpers are good, but hijab and plain are bad. If you can make heads or tails of it (other than "things I like are good, things I don't like are bad") please let me know.

Then comes this:

After meeting Caroline and her family, I was introduced to quite a few other ladies who were careful and considerate of their appearance - not too be revealing with the clothing they wore. Not all of them were modest. The one's that were the most modest in their dress were, in many instances, the least modest, if you follow me.

It's not enough to put on a jumper and assume you're good enough for me! You're going to have to work harder than that!

I could go on and on about why I think this is, but I shan't, for the Modest Mom says I should draw this post to a close.

When the meekly meekest meek woman tells you to shut the fuck up, you really need to shut the fuck up.

I hope you will not take my comments as license to dress like everyone else for they are in no way intended to encourage such a course, for although it is possible to be truly immodest while modestly dressed, it is impossible to be immodestly dressed and truly modest.

I think they may require some sort of chart to follow.

No, my post is intended to encourage the cultivation of a modest spirit and all that it implies - and yes, this process involves taking a good hard look at your standards of dress and adjusting them if necessary (whether you dress modestly or not).

So . . . if I'm dressing modestly, I need to adjust my manner of dress until I am modest? lolwut?

In the end, modest clothing does not the Modest Mom make, but they are an appendage unto her.

What kind of appendage? An arm, a leg, oooh! Is it a tail? Wing? Are wings appendages?

If it were merely modest clothing that adorned my wife when first I met her, I would have dismissed her taste in clothes as sadly misinformed by some obscure, puritanical interpretation of scripture. As it was, however, she wore a meek and quiet spirit which was, and is, of great price in the sight of God, and it had the blessed effect of drawing me nearer to my Savior.

Ugh. I would hope you found your wife special. You did marry her, after all.

But It's Natural!

I'd like to start with a quote from my mother on natural childbirth (she had four children, three of them without medication because she had serious reactions to the medications given to her during her first delivery): You don't see men singing the praises of natural heart surgery, do you*?

So I have a good background in being suspicious of the claim that "natural" means safer and more effective. (Arsenic is quite natural!) And, if you're chronically ill (sing it, denelian!), you get to spend a lot of your time hearing all about this natural thing and that natural thing that's going to make you all better. My eyes, they are still rolling from last time.

Natural Therapies for Allergies

full disclosure: I seem to have allergies for the first time ever this year. The pollen counts in Northeastern Pennsylvania are epic this year, and my husband, who always has allergies, is really suffering. He's never gotten any relief from Zyrtec or Claritin or any of that, so I'm coming from the perspective of someone who's never seen that anything works for allergies.

Dealing with allergy symptoms throughout the year can have a considerable impact on your life, making it hard to function at work and at play.

Allergy relief medications can help, but some have side effects such as drowsiness that may make it even harder to function. An alternative approach to allergies is to try natural therapies, including herbs, nasal rinses, and certain foods.

Keep the side effects thing in mind.

Natural remedies that help keep your allergies in check can empower you to take charge of your health, says Moshe Lewis, MD, chief of the division of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the California Pacific Medical Center, St. Luke's Campus in San Francisco.

Zyrtec: not empowering. Herbs: empowering. No particular reason, it just is.

However, some natural therapies, such as herbs, come with their own list of side effects, and they can be toxic if you take too much. “People can be deceived into believing that if it’s natural, it’s safe,” Dr. Lewis says. The goal is to take small amounts of herbs to get the effects you’re looking for.

So, herbs better why?

Lewis recommends consulting with a naturopath or a homeopathic physician if you plan to try herbs for allergy relief. It’s also vital to tell all of your doctors about the herbs you’re taking, because natural remedies could interfere with any drugs you’ve been prescribed, both for allergies and other conditions.

Feel free to also consult a brick wall, a shoe or my dog. They are all as much experts as a naturopath or a homeopath.

The first suggestion is nasal irrigation and a saline spray. That's good advice in my limited experience. Nasal irrigation works to some degree for my husband and I'm getting relief from the saline spray.

Butterbur. Extracts of butterbur are going head-to-head with antihistamine products on the market, Lewis says. In a study of 330 people who were given either butterbur extract, the antihistamine fexofenadine (Allegra), or a placebo, extracts of the herb worked as well as Allegra at relieving allergy symptoms. Another study found butterbur extract to have similar effects to the antihistamine cetirizine (Zyrtec).

The herb helps get rid of mucus and has been used to treat asthma and bronchitis. There’s some concern that if butterbur is from the same family of ragweed it could trigger allergies, but that’s only in theory, Lewis says. Butterbur does have side effects, including the possibility of drowsiness, headache, and an upset stomach. Lewis recommends taking butterbur in extract form.

Drowsiness, headache and an upset stomach are the side effects of most antihistamines, as well. So, basically, if butterbur actually does work as well as Zyrtec, it's the exact same thing. Same results, same side effects. At best, natural remedies are the same as "unnatural" medications.

Stinging nettle. The jury is still out on whether stinging nettle provides allergy relief. A small study found that it might help relieve symptoms, but more research needs to be done. If you try stinging nettle, be sure to consult your doctor before taking it. As with butterbur, Lewis recommends taking nettle leaf in extract form.

You shouldn’t take stinging nettle if you’re pregnant or give it to young children. And if you take a blood pressure medication, a blood thinner, or a diuretic, or you have diabetes, be sure to talk to your doctor before you take stinging nettle.

No proof that it works, more dangerous than Zyrtec. (The children's dose of Zyrtec is the same as the adult dose. So you can give Zyrtec to children.)

Quercetin. The flavanoid quercetin, which is the phytochemical that gives fruits and vegetables their color, has been found to block the release of histamine in test tube studies. Research hasn’t found definitively that quercetin can help with allergy symptoms in people. However, getting plenty of quercetin in your diet from apples, berries, grapes, squash, greens, and sweet potatoes certainly doesn’t hurt, Lewis says.

Yes, I agree that eating fruits and vegetables is good, but it's not doing anything for your allergies. Fruits and vegetables are basically all I eat.

Spicy foods. Turning up the heat of your food with horseradish and chili peppers can act as a decongestant and clear away the mucus that’s been building from allergies. If you like spicy food, this may be the most enjoyable approach to allergy relief.

Srsly? Soup has the same effect. So does a shower or swimming. This isn't allergy relief, this is a runny nose.

*If you think I'm snarky, my mother invented snark.

Manly Masculinity Malaise

It's a droopy, dusty penis.

I have this website in my reader called The Art of Manliness. For the most part, it's the sort of misogyny that's hard to pin down, let alone write about. (You know, teaching men how to make fires with two sticks or fix a car, as if women couldn't use those skills.) This, however, is over the top, with a bonus round of evo-psych. Oh, yeah, I got me a fisking.

A few weeks ago, I caught the premiere of the Discovery’s Channel’s “Human Planet,” a television show about the ways people have adapted to survive in Earth’s most extreme environments. Perhaps a better name for the program would have been “Man Planet,” as the show primarily chronicled the incredible feats of men around the world–men the tentacles of civilization have barely grazed.

Yes, because women say, giving birth, in those situations weren't engaging in "incredible feats". Man Planet, indeed. Without those women, it would be One Generation of Planet.

Anyway, this is followed by a fuckton of stats that show that women are more likely to be in college, get higher gpas, graduate and move on to advanced degrees. What is not mentioned is that women, despite all this, make 78 cents on the man's dollar. Never mentioned. Women have more college degrees, more advanced degrees and make 78% what men make. Now that's impressive. Poor, poor menz making 22% more than women. It must be tough.

Over tens of thousands of years, our manly ancestors evolved unique psychological traits that helped them survive and thrive in a dangerous, hardscrabble world. While we like to think that we’re cultured and sophisticated and quite a distance beyond all that, all men still have these primitive psychological traits embedded deep inside them. As we can see from a show like “Human Planet,” there are still men who live this way right now. The modern society we enjoy today represents a mere blink in the long history of humanity.

And so we have a mismatch, where for men in the developed world the inner elements of masculinity remain unchanged, while the outer landscape in which those elements exist has been dramatically altered.

Okay, I'd like to point something out here. Women were also living in that "dangerous, hardscrabble world". Women also should have "primitive psychological traits embedded deep inside them". So why are the menz adrift and lost and saddened beyond measure while women get advanced degrees for the sake of making only 78% what their sad, primitive male counterparts make? I dunno, evo-psych, it's for the menz! For explaining why menz are so sadness. Men built out culture, you know. It was all men, all the time. And now they are adrift in the hell of their own making.

C'mon now.

Two of the stats mentioned were that men lost 75% of the 8 million jobs lost during the recession and now there are more women in the workplace than men. To me, that's called being hoisted by your own petard. You ever heard of the "pink ghetto"? It's a term for the way women have been traditionally funneled into certain (low paying) careers to the point where those careers are feminine by very definition and men in them are regarded with suspicion and mockery. Nursing*, teaching, secretarial work, that sort of thing.

Meanwhile, men dominated in other, (much) higher paying careers: construction and manufacturing, to name a few. Now what imploded in 2008? Oh, that's right the housing market. No more construction. Manufacturing has been on its way out for a while, but the final blow was probably nobody having money to spend on manufactured items.

So, men reserved, with ruthless efficiency (ask any women who has tried to get into construction) their stranglehold on better paying jobs that don't require college degrees- and stayed there. Meanwhile, women eked out an existence in their pink ghetto- jobs that are, to a large degree- recession proof. People will always need medical care, children will always need to be educated and letters need to be typed.

So, really, I'd just like to say Ha! and HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA and Shoulda listened to the feminists, buddy. Am I sympathetic to these jobless men living in a country and economy that doesn't have a place for their skills? Yes, I am. Do I think unemployment compensation should be extended past 99 weeks? Absolutely. Do I think this is an evo-psych issue? No. It's a patriarchy issue.

Just to be clear, I don't blame any particular man or group of men for this. In the main, men are pretty clueless about their privilege and how it affects them and women. They're not deliberately benefiting from or enforcing the patriarchy. Some men are, but most by far aren't even really aware of it. Still, it is the sort of karmic justice that make me think I should fear Shiva, because the Hindus** could be right.

There are many more pundits who like to describe the problem with men today than actually propose a solution. And when a solution is proffered, it typically takes the form of “Get over it men. Your sun has set. Move on. It’s a woman’s world now.” And what this typically translates to is this: become more like women. Get in touch with your feelings, become more nurturing, and train to join the thriving, and traditionally female-dominated careers like nursing. The square peg is told to smooth off his sharp corners.

Oh, honey. That's just so sadness. Men and women are different and asking a man not to spit on the floor and follow it up by sodomizing a potted plant is asking too much! We are men! Manly men! In tights!

The other solution that some men take is to put themselves back in an environment similar to our caveman ancestors, so those unique male attributes are actually useful again. Men likeChris McCandless and Eustace Conway returned to the wild to live a more primitive lifestyle in order to reclaim their manliness and find themselves.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ooh, that's hilarious. Can you imagine the average American man tromping through the woods with nothing but a pocket knife and a pack of matches? Here's the thing: I don't know a single man who isn't relatively happy with the way things are in modern life. They like smart phones and video games and modern medicine and convenience food. Yeah sure, lots of things about modern life suck- for men and women- but the only thing the average American male would be finding in the wild is an ignominious- and likely quite amusing- death.

Men at their best will be needed in every time and in every place. Our unique attributes are no longer always called upon for hunting dinner and doing battle (although as the recent killing of Osama bin Laden testifies, we certainly still need men for that). But we still need men to become leaders of families, honorable statesmen, innovators and entrepreneurs, teachers and mentors, and worthy brothers, husbands, and citizens. Men at their best have something unique to offer the world no matter what the changing landscape. Men are absolutely vital to the continued health of society. To throw up our hands and say we’re obsolete is beyond silly. We just need to learn to re-purpose our unique manly traits for our new environment.

Yes, because female Marines could not have shot an unarmed man in the face***. I could do that. (With surprising accuracy!) Although the rappelling down and running around in full gear? Not so much. Anyway, you know what? People at their best will be needed in every time and in every place. People. We need to stop dividing human beings into two distinct parts. Every person has something so unique the word itself must be italicized to offer the world. Nobody says men are obsolete, but this bullshit about how men and women are soverydifferent? Yeah, that's obsolete. That needs to go.

The solution for the modern male malaise lies at the heart of the idea behind the Art of Manliness itself: to move forward by looking back.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAsnerf This whole thing is an ad for the website itself. That is amazing. I bow to you, sir. Clearly there is a reason I am languishing on blogspot while you are sponsored by Gillette. (Probably has something to do with my rampant use of the world vagina. Oh, and I bet the atheism thing doesn't help, either. And you're probably not writing a book in which God is the bad guy and the antichrist is a Lutheran minister.) Anyway, good one.

*Yes, there are more male nurses these days, but it's only like 8% of the nursing workforce, and I had to specify "male nurse"

**That is the Hindus, right?

***Frankly, I'm okay with Osama bin Laden being shot in the fact, I just don't see why a penis was necessary for that particular venture.