Excellence and Complacency
April 2, 2009 § Leave a comment
Right before spring break, AAA held its elections for executive officer positions. I was excited since my friends were running against one another, and I was eager to see what their speeches would be like. I thought about arriving just a tad late to the meeting [it did start an hour earlier than usual, after all] but decided not to. It would be rude to get there late for no real reason, and I would only be perpetuating the negative stereotype that so many of my friends already buy into [rant about that later].
When I arrived at precisely 6PM, only about 20 other people were there. By the time 6:30 rolled around, another 15 or so people had shown up. The number of people hovered at around 35 for the entire night as people left early and others straggled in late. This was an unexpected problem because the AAA constitution decreed that a majority [2/3rds?] of the active members had to be present in order for elections to occur, which meant over 50 out of 80-something.
Perform Like A Man
March 28, 2009 § Leave a comment
This is the best thing I’ve learned all semester in Sociology:
The Pokot people in northwest Kenya expect both husband and wife will reach orgasm and if husband fails to please wife he may be punished. If failure to please the wife is thought to be due to adultery (a common event) the wife will enlist the help of women friends to tie the husband up while he is sleeping, then shout obscenities at him, beat him, and slaughter and eat his favorite ox before releasing him.
HAHA. I don’t generally condone violence, but I appreciate the progressive nature of this custom.
In other international news, clerics in Saudi Arabia apparently want to ban women from appearing on television. Um what?
In a letter to new Information Minister Abdul Aziz al-Khoja that appeared on websites this week, the 35 Islamic clerics also condemned the increase of music and dancing on television, as well as images of women in popular newspapers and magazines that they labelled “obscene.”
It added that the ministry had permitted the import of “obscene newspapers and magazines that are filled with deviant thought and pictures of beautiful women on its covers and inside.”
“There should be no Saudi woman on television, in any case,” they said.
“There is no doubt that this is religiously impermissible.”
Since I’ve started to read Jezebel less, I haven’t been as aware of gender issues in the media, but I had to post this. It’s a little extreme, though I don’t fully understand their culture so I’m obviously biased.
Punica Granatum
March 13, 2009 § Leave a comment
My little shrine of pomegranate food items.
I have unofficially undertaken the task of consuming and reviewing every pomegranate-flavored food item I come across.
At Target a few weekends ago, Roomie #1 and I were flitting around in the snack aisles when I saw the sign for the section titled “Good For You.” Laughing, I went over to investigate, and was delighted to discover Archer Farms Organic Pomegranate Fruit Strips. I have been a fan of the health benefits of fruit leathers since being introduced to them by my badminton coach, especially when compared to the high-fructose corn syrup content of Fruit Roll-Ups, which do not come in the trendy pomegranate flavor.
Unfortunately, pomegranate was the third ingredient on the list, after apple and pear juice, so the fruit strip just had a general fruit flavor with only a hint of the dry tanginess of actual pomegranates.
Party Of One: Pt. II
February 15, 2009 § 1 Comment
Anyway, things were pretty hunky-dory until I clicked those links on Feministing. While reading Dr. Ty’s tirade against masturbation, I was rather taken aback. I didn’t expect all Christians to agree with what I had discovered, but I wasn’t prepared for such a strong abhorrence of the act.
Dr. Ty vigorously associates masturbation with shame:
Most people who have engaged in masturbation know that the culmination of this sexual act ends in shame. I don’t have to share with you the thousands of emails of the admittance of this shame because you know all too well since you have experienced it yourself. Curled up in a fetal position, crying, because your bed is even more empty and you’re lonelier than you did [sic] before you violated yourself…
Many things, like shame, can be learned through socialization. Although I am not saying that the shame experienced by others is false, it is important to consider that perhaps some feel shame simply because they’re told to, not because of some concrete, innate knowledge that they sinned.
auradis 