Trousers but no cake on the coed submarine

Today I was introduced to the funny/frightening delights of Conservapedia, which touts itself as a trustworthy version of Wikipedia. It loves Jesus, John McCain, and fighter jets, and hates the gays, Gardasil, and Jilly Cooper (who it exclusively reveals was an active member of S.C.U.M.). It has some particularly useful tips on how to spot a femmynazi:

“Specifically, a modern feminist tends to:

• believe that there are no inherent differences between men and women and that all inequality is the result of men oppressing women
• oppose chivalry and even feign insult at harmless displays of it
• view traditional marriage as unacceptably patriarchal
• shirk traditional gender activities, like baking
• support affirmative action for women
• detest women who are happy in traditional roles, such as housewife, and especially dislike those who defend such roles
• prefer that women wear pants rather than dresses, presumably because men do
• seek women in combat in the military just like men, and coed submarines
• refuse to take her husband’s last name when marrying^“

There are also some very sane and measured opinions on th’abortion:

“In Romania, abortion was illegal under two decades of rule by the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, and the country enjoyed one of the lowest breast cancer rates in the entire world during that time.”

There is also a very good page explaining a propensity to a variety of exotic crimes and misdemenors extant in academia. They revel in Barack Obama, naturally.

Laughing Cow

Toddling through Salon.com on my way to a tasty hit of God Man, I came across this article whipping the tired old nag of the religious right and their creepy obsession with sex (I mean, I don’t know any heretical secular types who go on about the dirty dirty deed nearly as much as the sort of person who takes dating tips from Leviticus).  What really got me was the following extract from an abstinence only sex education curriculum called ‘Choosing the Best Life’, aimed at 13 and 14 year olds:

“Boys and girls are invited to chew cheese-flavored snacks and then sip some water, after which they are to spit the resulting ‘bodily fluids’ into a cup. After a game in which the fluids are combined with those of other students, ultimately all cups are poured into a pitcher labeled ‘multiple partners’ sitting adjacent to a pitcher of fresh water labeled ‘pure fluids.’ In the final segment, each boy and girl is asked to fill a cup labeled either ‘future husband’ or ‘future wife’ with the contents from one of the pitchers.”

Rather reminiscent of the concerns of one Colonel Jack D. Ripper in the excellent documentary ‘Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’. What sort of convoluted thought process leads to the conclusion that that is somehow a Good Idea as a pedagogic tool.?

Bruce Springsteen needs a pension

The gym is redolent of unwholesome irrations (sweat, shame), not least because the provision of MTV Dance on the monitors always leaves one feeling as full of reactionary loathing for POP. I labour under the misapprehension that popular music is good and fun, until rare excercise binges leave me baffled and embittered by the many atrocities occuring outside my sheltered sonic niche.  This perkily cold-eyed cover of  Patti Smith’s Because the Night left me retching even harder than aerobic exercise normally does.  It doesn’t even have the eurotrash integrity of TaTu’s queasy version of How Soon Is Now? 

Some cover versions that do not fill me with horror:

Sonics – Louie Louie

Joy Divison – Sister Ray

Big Black – the Model

 Tricky – Black Steel

Grace Jones – Warm Leatherette

Slits – Heard it through the Grapevine

Sonic Youth – Superstar

Ciccone Youth – Into the Groove