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sabotabbyHere are the five stupidest stories to make the headlines in my five-minute scan of today's news.
5. A French parliamentary commission proposes banning niqabs and burqas
Presenting conclusions after six months of hearings, the panel also suggested barring foreign women from obtaining French visas or citizenship if they insisted on veiling their faces. I've already blogged before about why I think this is moronic, but to reiterate: Men deciding what women can and cannot wear is fucking sexist, regardless of whether the motivation is patronizing pseudo-feminism, post-911 paranoia, or a misguided interpretation of Muslim dress codes.
4. Nashville censors tell a Toronto theatre group to "tone down" Romeo and Juliet
"If Mercutio doesn't offend the Nurse with his line about the bawdy hand of the dial being upon the prick of noon and she doesn't try to exit in protest, then what happens to the rest of the play?" When I was in 9th grade, we had to study this play. Okay. I think it's not the greatest choice for high schoolers, but whatever. Our English teacher showed us the Zeffirelli film and censored the sex scene by holding a white piece of paper in front of it. This is probably the root of my Victorian porn fetish or something.
3. Children's TV show hosts detained by London police for terrorism.
"We were stopped, not arrested, but they had to say 'we are holding you under the Anti-Terrorism Act because you're running around in flak jackets and a utility belt', and I said 'and please put spangly blue hairdryer' and he was, like, 'all right'." Really, London? Really?
2. Tofu cream pies are terrorism.
A Liberal MP says he believes the federal government should investigate whether the pieing of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea by a woman opposed to the seal hunt constitutes an act of terrorism. Never mind that this story creates a weird mash-up in my head that involves Osama bin Laden starring in a Marx Brothers movie. This story gave me an intense craving for pie. Plz to be serving up more of this sort of terrorism and less of the blowing-stuff-up sort, kthnx.
And the stupidest story of the day...
Get ready...
Drum roll...
1. SoCal school district bans the dictionary.
A Southern California school board has pulled the Merriam-Webster dictionary off its shelves after a parent complained about the entry “oral sex.”
Okay, so you, like everyone else in the world, looked up dirty words in the dictionary and tittered. In fairness, we were all in fifth grade, when "poo-poo" stopped being the funniest thing ever*, to be replaced by "self-abuse" (what?). Maybe it even, well, made you a little hot. You can admit it, I won't judge.
But did you ever encounter a dictionary that defined "oral sex" in such detail that you would know how to do it? I'm pretty sure Merriam-Webster doesn't.
Poll-time!
[Poll #1516926]
Comment with your rants about descriptive versus prescriptive dictionaries.
* I jest, of course. "Poo-poo" is still funniest.
5. A French parliamentary commission proposes banning niqabs and burqas
Presenting conclusions after six months of hearings, the panel also suggested barring foreign women from obtaining French visas or citizenship if they insisted on veiling their faces. I've already blogged before about why I think this is moronic, but to reiterate: Men deciding what women can and cannot wear is fucking sexist, regardless of whether the motivation is patronizing pseudo-feminism, post-911 paranoia, or a misguided interpretation of Muslim dress codes.
4. Nashville censors tell a Toronto theatre group to "tone down" Romeo and Juliet
"If Mercutio doesn't offend the Nurse with his line about the bawdy hand of the dial being upon the prick of noon and she doesn't try to exit in protest, then what happens to the rest of the play?" When I was in 9th grade, we had to study this play. Okay. I think it's not the greatest choice for high schoolers, but whatever. Our English teacher showed us the Zeffirelli film and censored the sex scene by holding a white piece of paper in front of it. This is probably the root of my Victorian porn fetish or something.
3. Children's TV show hosts detained by London police for terrorism.
"We were stopped, not arrested, but they had to say 'we are holding you under the Anti-Terrorism Act because you're running around in flak jackets and a utility belt', and I said 'and please put spangly blue hairdryer' and he was, like, 'all right'." Really, London? Really?
2. Tofu cream pies are terrorism.
A Liberal MP says he believes the federal government should investigate whether the pieing of Fisheries Minister Gail Shea by a woman opposed to the seal hunt constitutes an act of terrorism. Never mind that this story creates a weird mash-up in my head that involves Osama bin Laden starring in a Marx Brothers movie. This story gave me an intense craving for pie. Plz to be serving up more of this sort of terrorism and less of the blowing-stuff-up sort, kthnx.
And the stupidest story of the day...
Get ready...
Drum roll...
1. SoCal school district bans the dictionary.
A Southern California school board has pulled the Merriam-Webster dictionary off its shelves after a parent complained about the entry “oral sex.”
Okay, so you, like everyone else in the world, looked up dirty words in the dictionary and tittered. In fairness, we were all in fifth grade, when "poo-poo" stopped being the funniest thing ever*, to be replaced by "self-abuse" (what?). Maybe it even, well, made you a little hot. You can admit it, I won't judge.
But did you ever encounter a dictionary that defined "oral sex" in such detail that you would know how to do it? I'm pretty sure Merriam-Webster doesn't.
Poll-time!
[Poll #1516926]
Comment with your rants about descriptive versus prescriptive dictionaries.
* I jest, of course. "Poo-poo" is still funniest.
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no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:20 pm (UTC)Edit: Also, I think you want "prescriptive" there. Proscriptive dictionaries would be the ones where you look up "oral sex" and it says "don't even think about it".
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:26 pm (UTC)When pieing becomes an act of terrorism, the terrorists have won.
Now, I'm guessing that Mr. Byrne has some sneeksy ulterior motive for his call for an investigation. Maybe he's trying to point out how stoopid the def'n of terrorism (which does not come from Webster's) is kind of broad. Maybe he hates PETA (who doesn't?). Maybe he's oh-so-cleverly trying to kill two tofurkies with one well-placed stone. Even so, wow does it make him look kind of idiotic.
Memo to people shocked and offended by Romeo and Juliet: your lack of reading comprehension is not the Bard' fault. If you don't want to talk about sex, violence, murder, madness, and greed, don't read Shakespeare. Or Homer. Or Vergil. Or Ovid. Or the Bible. Just stick to the Bowdler versions, okay?
Don't even get me started on Menifee Union, CA. Turnips.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:31 pm (UTC)Although I do remember calling my first boyfriend from my mother's cellphone and reading innocuous dictionary entries to him... while my mother and I cackled hysterically... I think he concluded, falsely but understandably, that we were high.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:34 pm (UTC)By her fine foot, straight leg and quivering thigh
And the demesnes that there adjacent lie
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 08:04 pm (UTC)Now now, let's be fair: I am fairly certain that the French lawmakers believe men should be equally prohibited from wearing the niqab. When Atatürk banned the wearing of the fez under the penalty of death, it might have appeared equally gendered, but he was no misandrist (nor would it have been more so if the decision was come to by a woman in his place). Conveniently, because the State is still mostly a male-dominated enterprise, State decisions can be lazily assumed to have been made by men, but I am pretty sure the French National Assembly has some female supporters of the ban, women having just as many irrational prejudices about veiling (faces, chests and crotches).
I feel about this about the same as I do about the Naked Rambler -- of course people should be allowed to wear whatever the heck they want. Life in jail for pantlessness is ridiculous.
On private property (as long as it exists ;)), those annoying "no shoes no shirts no service"-type of rules can be enforced as long as alternative means of obtaining the goods and services exist (having been kicked out of many a place for being shoeless or shirtless I am bitter but resigned); where identity needs to be established, faces should be revealed (sorry, no veils, masks or those Marx noses with eyeglasses and whiskers in passport offices or courtrooms). But outside of that, everything's fair game. Laws forbidding manners of dress only make them more desirable and radicalize the adherents.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 08:49 pm (UTC)>_>
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:30 pm (UTC)females can be sexist every bit as much as.. oh, say, queer people can be homophobic.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 01:36 am (UTC)And since you bring it up; I've always kind of felt that the internalized homophobia of queers is structurally and performatively rather different than the homophobia of the general public. Call them H0 and H1. Terrorism vs. riot. So I am glad you didn't say "females can be sexist every bit as much as males", because I might have had to disagree on parallel grounds :)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:02 pm (UTC)Because kids have never heard of the internet.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:09 pm (UTC)WHAT THE FUCK, MAN
This should be the last straw, but I can't move until I'm out of school.
I'm not entirely sure how to answer the ticky box because
I didn't figure out fapping until I was eighteen.long story that should involve bibles but probably only involves friends with bibles and a nonbiblical sense of shame burning in my soul since birth
no subject
Date: 2010-01-28 02:55 am (UTC)have a picture:
no subject
Date: 2010-01-29 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 07:53 pm (UTC)5. A French parliamentary commission proposes banning niqabs and burqas
Presenting conclusions after six months of hearings, the panel also suggested barring foreign women from obtaining French visas or citizenship if they insisted on veiling their faces. I've already blogged before about why I think this is moronic, but to reiterate: Men deciding what women can and cannot wear is fucking sexist, regardless of whether the motivation is patronizing pseudo-feminism, post-911 paranoia, or a misguided interpretation of Muslim dress codes.
Not only that, but there are about an estimated 300 to 2000 women who would be affected by this and they will probably just stay locked in their homes (voluntarily or not) than violate their religious beliefs. Considering the hyper-patriarchal environment that the women live in where abuse is not unheard of, this makes these women all the more vulnerable to being victimized through further segregation them from society. Good job France, way to protect women.
And despite Gitmo and all, sometimes (as an American) Britain really scares me with their caviler attitude towards adopting security culture with absolutely no barrier from the laws from being abused (though we're not better). I've heard that the police in Kent are going to be testing out drone planes with camera for use during big demos that are not that different than the ones the air force uses in Afgahnistan.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 08:18 pm (UTC)Me too! :)
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 08:23 pm (UTC)I'm dreading the future twenty years from now.
This is the education the future young American - nominally the "leaders of the free world" - professionals and workers are raised with. Banning dictionaries and sex education that doesn't actually include sex.
It's not sustainable.
The whole Hijab and Burqa thing is simply backward. I mean, what?! What about women who without their hair and/or face covered can't leave the house? How does that benefit anyone?!
GRRRRR ARRRRRGH.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:08 pm (UTC)never jerked off to Mirriam-Webster, merely looked up 'fart' repeatedly.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 12:08 am (UTC)dictionary ban
Date: 2010-01-26 09:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:40 pm (UTC)There was a demo in Trafalgar Square the other day by photographers because police have started arresting people for taking photos of anything. A friend of mine was jumped by eight policemen six months ago for taking photos of trees in the forest (Epping Forest, on the edge of London, where many Muslims live, shock horror).
Bloody burqa ban stuff - I suppose it is very sexist as they'd be banning men from having beards and long hair as well otherwise. I think the burqa seems oppressive and offensive, but certainly do not believe in dictating whether people should be allowed to wear something or not. Aaaargh!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 09:56 pm (UTC)...did you actually...
...recognize the existence of this nebulous concept we call the patriarchy?
*awards silver star*
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 01:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 03:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 10:05 pm (UTC)Somehow our parents never complained about that.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-26 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 12:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 04:55 am (UTC)dictionary
Date: 2010-01-27 03:25 pm (UTC)Also:
no subject
Date: 2010-01-27 10:46 pm (UTC)I dunno. I can totally see the argument out there that there do exist dictionaries that are edited to be more "child-appropriate," whatever the hell that means. By the time high school rolled around, we were reading R&J and The Canterbury Tales and the library had a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, and this was the middle of Oklahoma (before the internet). But I was pretty much as sex-obsessed at nine as I was at thirteen, just without the frequent masturbation. And I was, in fact, flipping through the dictionary for definitions of words I already knew.