The Bravery

Attending Sunday mass with my parents this past weekend, I was pleased that the service didn't end without a nod to Veteran's Day. The priest asked all of the men and women of service to stand and be recognized for their sacrifice (and if you know a veteran, you know how allergic they are to accolades). The majority of those standing were WWII and Korean War vets, my father represented the Vietnam era, and I was seated next to two guys just back from Iraq- the absence of women among them was unfortunate. As military combat implies a patriarchal sensibility, so Veteran's Day often reflects that. But the story of Sgt. Kimberly Munley, a civilian officer who took down the man responsible for 13 deaths at Ft. Hood this week, reinforces the vital role of women in national security and should foster some changes in current military policy. The ban on women in combat is an outdated dictum, on par with "don't ask, don't tell". Both are illogical in theory and even more so in practice. As I looked with respect and admiration at the veterans standing on Sunday, it occurred to me that, even in a conservative parish like ours, not one of them would be afforded any less respect for their duty if they revealed that they were gay. They still sacrificed in ways that the rest of us have not.

The Paper Chase

For the avid reader, a trip to a bookstore is an embarrassment of riches. With endless titles on esoteric subjects (everything from Black Entrepreneur magazine to the 45th installment in the Twilight series) glassy-eyed bookworms pin ball between displays like a Roomba that needs its batteries replaced. However, as more people turn to digitalia for their visual stimulus, a horrifying new trend has emerged in publishing: books based on websites. Arguably, the first of the bunch made sense. PostSecret began as a pretty inventive indie art project, and though its popularity seems to have transformed it from a vehicle for genuine confession to one of competitive voyeurism, it was still compelling in book form. Now, publishers are simply pilfering web content for its cut-and-paste production costs, with mind-numbing results. Among them: Fuck You Penguin (a book of animal pictures with snarky commentary), Would You Rather? (for anyone still agonizing over the landmark "Cleveland Steamer v. Dog Snot" decision), and LOLCat. (By the way- enough with the goddamn LOLCats. It's a desperate attempt to make cat ownership seem less sad and it jumped the LOLShark a LOL time ago. Which reminds me- we need a new phrase to replace "jump the shark".) The blogs-to-books equation is such a transparently slimy boardroom decision, that it takes the quirky randomness out of the source material and makes the authors complicit in an old media/new media swindle. "Let's charge $14.95 for a book filled with pictures that are online for free!" Ugh. Hard copy publishing is supposed to be about gate keeping and I still cling to the faded notion that books are kinda sacred. Blogging is egalitarian because those of us who do it would never expect to get any of our junk published any other way. No one's bookcase is going to be improved with a copy of "NippleBlog" on the shelf.

Diversion 2.0

A British official was removed for Estimating Drug Harms, a "controversial" (read: inconveniently accurate) study on the top 20 most harmful substances. I have a strong hunch that our most prescribed/profitable FDA-approved drugs would show up left-of-center on this graph.

Rearview Mirror

I hated studying history in high school. It was too tedious and too time-consuming, relative to the number of hours I felt I needed to teach myself the King Diamond discography on the drums. (Damn you and your infernal triplet fills, Mikkey Dee!) In college, taking a number of constitutional law classes forced me to warm up a bit to history class, though full disclosure dictates that I mention it was actually my instructor who was the unrequited target of my warmth. No small task, that. Try working Neville Chamberlain into your game and see how well it goes. After my formal education years had been wasted, I found I rather liked history on a purely recreational level. In fact, The History Channel is easily one of my top three go-to channels when I just want to plop on the couch, eat a bag of Swiss cheese slices, and paint my third eye black. I'm currently reading Paris 1919, Margaret MacMillan's dense blueprint of how the leaders of the "Big Three" (U.S., France, Britain) met in Paris in hopes of ending World War I. Sexy stuff, I know. But comparing the glacial pace of travel and communication in the early 20th century to that of today, it's strange to realize: there will come a time in the next century when this current period of digital largesse will be regarded as being similarly slow. As Paris 1919 details a time when automobiles were in their infancy, dirigibles were still viable transportation, and steamships carried world leaders across the ocean, so future generations will regard our Twitter, Facebook, TiVo, and YouTube obsessions as quaint technologies of a bygone era. Of course, by then, we'll all be enslaved to The Matrix anyway. Swiss cheese for everyone!

That Explains "Bangkok Dangerous"

No wonder Nicolas Cage has been doing every piece of crap to come across his agent's desk: he's broke. Cage went on Anderson Cooper 360 (because, why not?) to talk about his financial troubles- to the tune of $6.7M in back taxes- which he chalked up to his scheming and untrustworthy business manager. He's putting homes in Vegas and New Orleans on the auction block, even going so far as to sell his Bavarian castle! If that last part raised a red flag for you, join the club. Contradicting his fiduciary victim story is an article that says Cage is more in Michael Jackson/ Elton John territory due to his outrageous spending habits. None of this comes as any surprise, once you remember that Cage married a 21-year-old waitress, now turned "fashion designer" (which is always easier when Big Daddy is footing the bill for bolts of Italian linen) so he knows from the jump that he's gotta keep little mama happy. But, reportedly blowing through $40M on houses, motorcycles, a jet, yachts, and vintage cars is insanity, even by Hollywood standards. When you have so much money that you're buying meteorites and dinosaur skulls, it's strange that he seemingly only spent $20 on whatever mongoose yarmulke is on his head these days. Cage should have used a chunk of that dough to reimburse his fans. All they got for their money was tripe like Next and The Wicker Man.

The Devil You Know

You gotta feel sorry for organized religion. Having to continually foist centuries-old screeds onto modern audiences, tirelessly attempting to convince them that a belief system developed to keep primitives in line could still have any relevance in contemporary culture. As I come from generations of Irish Catholics, my frequent tirades on religion are filtered through that particular prism, but feel free to insert any other ancient system of deification; you'll see the same writing on the wall. To clarify, I always make the distinction between the indispensable lessons writ large of the Bible (cast not the first stone, love thy neighbor as thyself, etc.) and the anachronistic minutiae used as an excuse to avoid putting those lessons into practice. It's beyond incomprehensible to me that, almost one decade into a new millennium, we are still hung up on gay marriage. If you investigate yesterday's election results in states which had a gay rights referendum on the ballot, you'll notice that the Catholic Church spent a great deal of time and money upending efforts to pass such a referendum. Of course, that's their job. But, in doing so, they charge themselves with a burden of proof that can never be realized. If it's really their position that gay marriage is harmful to the traditional notion of "the family", then why not wield that considerable voting power to outlaw divorce? Does it still bear repeating that pedophilia (not long ago the scourge of the Church) is infinitely more harmful to the family than having loving parents of the same sex? For a power structure like the Church to be so rife with self-loathing gay men, it has to be a fresh hell for them to work against any kind of equality. Especially when the protagonist of our book was so big on the concept.

Check Steve Buscemi's House

Watching Young Frankenstein for the umpteenth time over the Halloween weekend, I was reminded of the forgotten genius that was the late Marty Feldman. When I was 12, I remember seeing the brilliantly adolescent and largely overlooked In God We Trust. The movie (which cast Feldman as a rogue monk opposite the perpetually overrated Andy Kaufman) included lines as mediocre as "haul thy ass aboard", but it was Feldman's rubber mug and fourth-wall asides that sent me into paroxysms of laughter at every turn. Feldman's "magnificent hideousness" is the centerpiece of an article asking where has all the ugly gone?

Terror Alert

Fake tits have officially jumped the shark. Former singer/current human flypaper Amy Winehouse is sporting a new pair, the body mod equivalent of putting platinum rims on an 18th century oxcart. She reportedly spent $56,000 on the blokes, money that could have been put to better use hiring a team of dentists. I guess anything that draws attention away from her face is a welcome relief. Happy Halloween!

Freshen Your Drink, Skank?

Online dating site OKCupid.com has done a study of how to minimize gaffes on a first date. Among the findings: when trying to work your game, calling a woman "pretty" will increase your chances of getting rejected.

Remember, guys- she wants to be respected for her mind, not her looks. Clearly, that's why she's dressed like a porn star.

Easy Writer

Among the myriad languages spoken around the world, Japanese, Gaelic, and English are said to be among the toughest for foreigners to master. Linguistically, the stereotype of the American is typified by the fact that most of us aren't fluent in a foreign tongue (indeed, we have no shortage of ways to mangle the native one) while other citizens of the world often speak a few languages out of necessity. Even my French is rusty, not having flexed those muscles in any real capacity for twenty years. Occasionally, un petit francais will work its way into the boudoir (comme ca!) when Gwen and I are playing "Victor Hugo and The Lusty Chambermaid", but rarely otherwise. As the reach of technology more rapidly exceeds our grasp, I wonder how long it will take for texting shorthand to become an unofficial addendum to the ESL curriculum. Between all the LOL's, IMHO's, ROTFL's, and WTFDYJCSOTPIOTTFAH's- the already grammatically-challenged might be further vexed. Personally, I won't write in text shorthand; despite the obvious economy of doing so, I'm way too much of a word nerd to send texts that resemble vanity license plate numbers. Nevertheless, even those of us steeped in language have yet to master all of its modern abbreviations, which might lead to starkly different messages than those intended. Case in point: until recently, my father (a generally tech-savvy cat) believed "LOL" signified "lots of love". Since my siblings and I didn't realize this, we wondered why every text he sent us seemed so snarky- "Hope you're having a great time. Mom and I miss you. LOL." I've heard of empty nesters happy to have some peace and quiet, but why the mockery? Once we figured it out, we got quite the chuckle (though not before a strangely quiet Easter dinner.) Language is fickle and subject to the whims of cultural evolution. Sometimes, it seems the less we communicate in person, the more forms we have with which to do it.