nothing profound here

I didn't even realize the shift until the radio announcers were providing information about school closings by reading lists aloud for seconds on end: my, how times have changed.


[Edit much later to clarify my navel-gazing: Since the advent of the internet, apparently there is no need to read school closings aloud on the radio. There is also no need to skim them across the bottom of the local TV channel. Only when the internet cannot be relied on (because the power is out) does that old standby of youth in the second half of the 20th century reappear. And there I was, never even noticing that it was gone.]

query?

So about half a dozen times in the course of literally only days, someone has said the word "query" in my presence. Always -- always -- pronounced "quairy." But me, I pronounce it queery. And this weird pronunciation has seriously thrown me for a loop. I've always pronounced it queery. Everyone I know has always pronounced it queery. I look it up in dictionary and that says it's pronounced queery, and the recording reiterates that. So... where is this strange new quairy pronunciation coming from? Have I actually been missing it all these years? Or (obviously my favorite explanation, but totally unsupported by any data at my disposal), is there a vast conspiracy to avoid any vestige of queerness when speaking?

Sucker Punch - the reaction take!

Sucker punch. No plot. Three plots. Same time. Realllllly obvious movie tricks/foreshadowing etc. 13 year old boy's wet dream. Hot women hurting, sex slaves, and in Japanese-style anime fighting. Little clothes. Of the five girls we get to watch 4 of them die. There is of course a near-rape scene. Women have ZERO agency. Zero. A magic old white man tells them how to escape from evil prison/women's mental illness ward/brothel (the equality is supposed to be Deep). Once they do, at the very end, magic old white man comes back and saves the escaping girl from the police (still NO AGENCY). Also, did I say yet - NO PLOT. Just three distinct dream sequences interrelated by Meaningful Objects with Meaningful Camera Work. There is a hot intense girl-relationship (femslash like whoa....moar manjism) .... but they are sisters (moar forbidden manjism pr0n). Also the dykier of the two dies (trope much?). At the end of film the central character dies in total triteness to save her friend - the central character was the "missing piece" Meaningful Object that no one could identify before during the Mystical Quest. Written by 13 year old, fake twists and all. Fucking *horrible* gouge my eyes out. **Nothing** redeeming...

College & Same-Sex Experimentation

The New York Times has a short article exploring a finding that more educated women are less likely to have had lesbian experiences:

But according to the new study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on 13,500 responses, almost 10 percent of women ages 22 to 44 with a bachelor’s degree said they had had a same-sex experience, compared with 15 percent of those with no high school diploma. Women with a high school diploma or some college, but no degree, fell in between.

Fascinating, right? And the article has a wide variety of comments on why this may have been the result. Among them are people who say bullshit like this:

the new findings may reflect class dynamics, with high school dropouts living in surroundings with few desirable and available male partners.(1)

And this:

A lot of data shows that women's sexuality is more hetero-flexible, more influenced by what they see around them.(2)

I have an urge to call those oh-so-wise professors up and ask if they had a clue what they were saying....

On the other hand, this comment is love:

the results of the federal survey underscored how poor, minority and working-class lesbians had been overshadowed by the mainstream cultural image of lesbians as white professionals.

I just wish that comment weren't so buried in the article. *pulls out highlighter* <3

* * *

(1) What the fuck? An extra 5% of women start having sex with women because they are .... incredibly horny but lack the men they'd otherwise prefer? Whatever, dude. My bet is that there is some licensing going on in the lower socioeconomic status groups, and/or extra stifling in the higher ones.

(2) Dunno why this line is even in the article, but in any event, the discussion is about lesbians and women with lesbian experiences. So fuck that harkening back to "hetero" shit. It rubs me the wrong way.

Shape-ups for girls are here!!!!1!!eleventy!1!!

This is not the commercial I saw on TV just now, but it's close enough:



What the hell?

I swear the one I saw on TV was worse (but maybe that's just because I spent the entire 30 seconds in the thralls of "bzuuuuuuuuuuh?"). The TV version didn't even do any of the "it'll let you bounce!" handwaving to justify marketing butt-toning shoes to elementary schoolers.

There are some insightful comments to be made here about girls, gender roles, body image, health, childhood activity, and how these all tie into television (television!) commercials, but I am not sure I'm in the mood to tease them all out. There is just so much wrong with this, right down to the Velcro shoe they show at second 12 and the gross = food = boys at second 18. And, sticking with the name "Shape-Ups"? Really? It just echoes of Pull-Ups.... which these kids are no more than 5 years past wearing.


---

Overview of video:
Skinny professional cartoon lady at news desk of pink and grey: Breaking news from Sketchers!
Other skinny lady jumps on news desk: Shape-ups for girls are here! Let's go!

(cut to stage with skinny cartoon rock band ladies and lots of pink, with massive Shape-Ups logo in background)
Singer sings: Heidi's got new Shape-Ups!
(a series of shoes display, spinning slowly in circles like crowns)
Got everything a *girl* wants!
She's got the height, got the bounce, yeah, she's looking good and having fun!
(boys dressed in junk food appear for half a second, looking disgusted)
Cuz Heidi's got new Shape-Ups!
(boys dressed in junk food can't keep up with skinny happy beaming girl)
Heidi's got new Shape-Ups!

Voiceover: Shape-ups for girls by Sketchers!

The master: *falls over ded*

National Society of Collegiate Scholars

Dear National Society of Collegiate Scholars,

You are so disingenuous. You are a shining example of everything wrong with American education and this generation of students. Because I'm in the top 20% of my community college class, you want me to pay you $75 to join your barely 15-year-old "society"? Because somehow you can tell that I'm a "natural leader and outstanding scholar" (emphasis in the original)? And that I engage in hard work and exhibit academic excellence? Because I have managed to have 3.6+ GPA in this age of grade inflation? I call BULLSHIT.

Now, I appreciate my community college and I'm incredibly impressed with my fellow students, but you're trying to make a buck off the back of poor kids who desperately want to believe they are special and are hungry for recognition. And, omg, THEIR PARENTS. I was going to let this NSCS bullshit go until I got a letter that began with this: "Dear Family, I am attaching a copy of the letter The Master received a few days ago [to join NCSC]. Also enclosed is a Membership Confirmation card in the even you would like to respond on The Master's behalf." (emphasis so in the original). What an absolutely shitty thing to do, NSCS. You appeal to students' desire to think they are special, and then when the student doesn't respond, you appeal to the parents' desire to feel their progeny is special.

This rankles so much more because the benefits of joining are NONEXISTENT. If you pay NSCS, you get....:

• someone who recognizes your specialness
• a line on a resume (which is really worse than useless, given the admission standards -- if I saw this, I'd know I was reading the resume of a mediocrely bright person who really, really wanted to be regularly patted on the head -- in other words, someone to run far far away from)
• access to scholarships (but you must run IE 6.0+, and most are only worth $500 -- pennies in the face of higher education)
• opportunities to study abroad (because without NSCS you can't get abroad)
• transfer help (because it's so hard)
• networking, internship, and job opportunities (because you really want the ones they'll connect you with)
• "an official NSCS diploma to recognize your achievement" (WTF?)
  
• "the coveted NSCS membership pin" (WHAT THE F****????)
• press release to provide to your local media (I honestly can't believe this is so overt)
  

But honestly, I'm not sure that most people who get these letters know the system well enough to know that these "benefits" are really not worth anything. Certainly NSCS is not appealing to people whose families had multiple generations of college graduates and know the system.

Yes, I'm an elitist, but I have no respect for you, NSCS. And I think I'm more than justified in calling out your shitty and transparent maneuver to give barely-better-than-average people nothing more a special feeling if they only pay you money.

No love,
the master