Lake Superior State University has released its annual list of “banished words”; words they consider trite, overused, annoying, or a combination of all three. Following below is the list, with my comments in italics: SHOVEL-READY “Apparently, the generally accepted definition of this phrase is to imply that a project has been completely designed and all [...]
Category Archive for 'Culture'
While reading a message board the other day, I saw a thread about New Year’s resolutions and rolled my eyes. My first thought was that nearly everyone would resolve to “lose weight” in 2010, as that particular resolution is typical and ubiquitous. There’s absolutely no originality about it at all. Sure enough, I was right. [...]
Four Year Old Suspended for Long Hair
Posted in Culture, Life, News, Rants, history, opinion on Dec 17th, 2009
In recent news reports I read about a four year old pre-kindergarten Texas boy who has been suspended from school for having long hair. Say what? Is this 1959 or 2009? I thought that the right of male students to wear long hair had been settled years ago. Indeed, when I was in high school [...]
A Few Thoughts on the Tiger Woods Brouhaha
Posted in Culture, Life, News, People, Social Issues, opinion on Dec 14th, 2009
I’ve not so far written about the Tiger Woods story because I viewed it as yet another story about a straying celebrity and that it would quickly become yesterday’s news. Reports such as these are now rather commonplace and are hardly worth reporting on, let alone commenting on. But this story outlived its fifteen minutes [...]
While listening to the radio tonight, the disk jockey was talking about a funny website: Ugly Christmas Trees.com. I went over there and the above picture was the first thing I saw. It’s supposed to be an upside down Christmas Tree, but my first thought was, “It’s the Christmas Tornado!” I’m sure this one will [...]
Reading the webpage of one of my local TV stations, I came upon a story about a man who had been arrested for bigamy. He’d married his first wife in 2005, and had married a second woman this past October. Neither wife had been the wiser until the first wife intercepted a text message for [...]
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. –Bertrand Russell While trying to come up with something to write about today, I visited a quote site where I found the quote above. The first thing that popped into my mind was that of religion. Wars [...]
Three Types of Religious Skeptics
Posted in Culture, Life, Religion, Social Issues, opinion on Nov 25th, 2009
I’ve often considered what attracts different people to religion and what purposes religion has served in society. Recently, I’ve been thinking of the converse: what makes people reject religion and the different reasons why people are either atheists or agnostics. I think there are several reasons, often depending on each particular person’s personality and outlook [...]
Can you imagine this bimbo explaining this one to her grandchildren forty years from now? That is, if she can get laid to bear any children in the first place! Another “classy” tattoo Bible verses and tramp stamps — the perfect combo! This last one isn’t a tramp stamp, but I’m guessing the owner of [...]
While out driving on Halloween, I drove through a neighborhood in full trick or treat mode. Though a minority of older kids walked from house to house, most kids were driven by their parents to each house, getting in and out of the vehicle (mostly ubiquitous minivans) ever 25 feet or so. This meant that [...]
