Category: Commentary

Inis Beag (Gaelic: “Little Island”) is a the name of an island studied by the cultural anthropologist John Cowan Messenger where there is an isolated small Gaelic-speaking Irish Catholic community on one of the Aran Islands off the coast of Connemara in Ireland in his study “Sex and Repression in an Irish Folk Community.” During the period of Messenger’s study between 1958 and 1966, Inis Beag supported a population of around 350, mostly living by subsistence farming and fishing.

Messenger’s study of this island community has often been cited by anthropologists and sexologists as an example of extreme sexual repression, with sexual intercourse being treated by both sexes as a necessary evil which must be endured for the sake of reproduction, and phenomena such as menstruation and the menopause being regarded with fear and disgust.

Breast-feeding was avoided. Kissing, caressing and any affection was seen as too sexual and was prohibited. Nudity was extremely private. For a married couple, intercourse was conducted fully clothed except for genitals. Sex was also in the dark and practiced only in missionary position. Any variation of sex was seen as deviant and sinful. Although pre-maritial sex was almost non-existent, the Ines Beag didn’t have any formal sex education. Bathing was also ‘unknown’ and the average age at marriage was 36 for men and 25 for women. A man was considered a ‘boy’ until the age of 40. Dogs were whipped for licking their genitals.

The atmosphere, according to the researchers, led to high levels of masturbation, drinking and alcohol-fuelled fights.

via Inis Beag – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

You know those “little things” that make you mad? I’m not talking about the truly important stuff, like politics or religion or anything like that… No, I mean the little things – like the old lady in front of you at the checkout counter at the grocery store who doesn’t even bother to start writing her check until the cashier comes up with a total… or the guy in front of you in line at McDonald’s that stares at the menu for 9 minutes trying to figure out what he wants… like he’s never been in a McDonald’s before.

Here are a few of the “little things” that have been bugging me lately:

“Reuben” sandwiches: Last week I was searching the ‘Net for a local restaurant’s menu. I accidentally stumbled across the menu for a similarly-named restaurant also in the Charlotte area. This place claimed to sell the “the world’s best Reuben sandwich”… only their version came with corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut… and Thousand Island dressing! I hate to nitpick, but a Reuben sandwich is corned beef, Swiss cheese, sauerkraut and Russian dressing. Although Russian and Thousand Island both start as a mixture of mayo and ketchup, Thousand Island has sweet pickle relish added, while Russian has horseradish. They don’t taste the same at all. Any jackass selling a “Reuben sandwich” with Thousand Island dressing should be taken out and beaten with a garden hose until they promise to never, ever, ever do it again.

Spelling (Part 1): I’m hardly a spelling bee champion, and even I have problems with the whole “ensure vs. insure” thing. But come on, people! Firefox comes with a built-in spell-checker, and several are available for Internet Explorer. There’s no reason whatsoever for you folks to post about your busy “calenders”, your love of “independant” films, your “collectable” plates, your unused sporting “equiptment”, the Windows NT “kernal”, or even your own “ignorence”. My favorite, however, is “Tobasco sauce”. WTF?!?

Spelling (Part 2): While I’m on the subject, what’s up with people using the words “bumber” or “draw”, as in “my favorite ride at the amusement park is the bumber cars” and “if it’s not on my desk, look in the draw underneath”. I’ve seen people use “bumber” (meaning “bumper”) and draw (meaning “drawer”) repeatedly throughout multi-paragraph web posts, so it’s not a one-time typo. Is there some part of the US where “bumber” and “draw” are considered acceptable?

Step and Half: This one’s easy, yet it seems to continually stump some people. If one of your parents dies, and your surviving parent remarries, any children the surviving parent and new spouse might have would be your half siblings, while any children the new spouse might bring to the marriage are your step siblings. Thus, if your father dies and your mother remarries, any children they might have together would be your half brothers or half sisters. If her new husband already had a child (let’s say his wife died in an accident), that would be your step brother or step sister. Really, it’s not that difficult, folks. Perhaps this will help: your half brother would have half of your genes (since they have the same mother or father). If they don’t have your genes, then they’re your step brother or sister.

A bit off topic, but here’s a rather serious editorial from Rainn Wilson of The Office on CNN.com:

It’s a bit strange for me, to say the least; a comic character actor best known for playing weirdos with bad haircuts getting all serious to talk about the persecution of the fellow members of his religious faith.

Dear readers of CNN, I assure you that what I’m writing about is no joking matter or some hoax perpetrated by a paper-sellin’, bear-fearin’, Battlestar-Galactica obsessed beet farmer.

I am a member of the Baha’i faith. What is that, you ask? Well, long story short, it’s an independent world religion that began in the mid-1800s in Iran. Baha’is believe that there is only one God and therefore only one religion.

via Commentary: Stop religious persecution in Iran – CNN.com.

My pal Scott recently posted a note on Facebook where he talked about “five odd things” he does when no one else is around. He tagged several people in the note, and if you were tagged, you were supposed to make your own list of five odd things that you do when no one is around. I was tagged, but unfortunately I just can’t think of anything truly odd that I do when no one is around, save for the usual stuff like singing at the top of my lungs when I’m home alone listening to the iPod. Instead, I decided to do a list of “Five Odd Things About Me In General”. Some might make you laugh; some might make you cringe. And so… without further ado… the list!

1) “Get this voice outta my head!” – As you can tell from this blog, I like to write. What you might not know is that I’m writing all the time. Seriously: all… the… time. If I’m not actually engaged in something – like talking to the missus or watching something on TV –  I’m writing an article in my head, over and over again. In fact, by the time you read something I’ve posted on this blog, I’ve probably written it in my head dozens of times. So if I’m outside smoking a cigarette, or doing a mundane household task like making the bed or washing dishes, I have this voice in my head, and it’s writing articles… 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! What’s really sad about all this is that “the voice” is apparently only able to write short, non-fiction pieces; despite writing enough articles on this site over the years to fill the Encyclopedia Britannica, I just can’t do long form non-fiction, or fiction in any format. In fact, over the past 20 years, I’ve only had a couple of ideas for stories, and they were half-baked crap that wouldn’t fill one of those little books in the checkout line at the grocery store, much less 300 pages of a “real” novel.

2) “There’s asphalt in Room 101” – When you were a kid, did you ever walk barefoot across asphalt and accidentally “roll” your toes underneath your foot and scrape the tops of them? I did that a few times, and it’s led to one of my only phobias: scraping the tops of my toes on asphalt. It sounds silly, I know. And, as an adult, there are few instances where I actually go outside without shoes. But it happens sometimes. Maybe I need to go out and get the mail, and my shoes are “all the way” upstairs. Maybe I just got out of the shower and Lisa has just come home with a bunch of stuff from Harris Teeter that needs to be unloaded from the car. Whatever the case may be, I’ll walk slowly and carefully across the pavement, and the entire time I’ll think about the sensation of the skin on the tops of my toes being ripped away by the asphalt. And it’ll freak me out. I’ll get a queasy feeling in my stomach, and my brain moves at 1000 miles an hour, thinking alternately about how it would feel and then ordering my muscles not to do it. I don’t think I’d call it a paranoia – I’m not nearly as bad about this as Lisa is about spiders – but still… if I walk across asphalt barefoot, scraping my toes will be the only thing I think about.

Continue reading “In Response to Scott G.”

Boris Johnson, the Tory mayor of London, nixed the idea of a “Multi-faith Concert”… in favor of (wait for it…) a “Christmas Carol Service” at London’s famous Southwark Cathedral. In fact, Boris has personally banned all attempts by the PC police in his office to change “Christmas” to a “holiday festival” or “winter celebration” or what have you. And for that I say… thank you, sir!

Oh, and he’s bringing back the double decker buses, too!

Read more about it here.

The missus and I stopped by Trader Joe’s last Saturday while we were out running errands. Since Lisa had a few specific things that she wanted to pick up, I just kind of roamed the beer aisle while she went about her business. While there, I spotted a can of something called “Simpler Times Lager”. A single can only cost 67¢ (a full sixer will only set you back $3.99). So then I figured, “What the hell… it’s only 67¢!”

So… how is it? It’s… decent. It’s a lager, obviously. It’s got an appealing taste that hints at good drinkability, even if the head’s a little wimpy. It tastes light enough to be a barbeque beer, but it also has a touch of a stronger lager’s heft. In short, Simpler Times tastes a bit like what I’d imagine Pabst or Schlitz first tasted like back in the 1840s: a hardcore German lager lightened up a tad for the American market (as opposed to Budwesier or Coors, which is German lager that’s been lightened up a lot). Simpler Times won’t become the 2 Buck Chuck of the beer world, but it’s far better than Budweiser or Coors, in my (not so) humble opinion.

I checked out a few beer review sites, where Simpler Times was ravaged as “piss-poor swill”; that’s almost a “badge of honor” in my book, since I actually hate beer review sites. There’s just something so elitist about them. Just as many “foodie” websites look down their collective noses at any “unwashed prole” that would deign to eat Kraft Mac and Cheese instead of growing their own wheat to make their own pasta to coat in a sauce made from imported, $35.99/pound cheese, I feel that these beer sites are skewed towards the beer snob that won’t drink anything that doesn’t come directly from Bavaria.

But these review sites do make one good point, and that is this: although Simpler Times might be a decent beer, it’s only sold at Trader Joes. Which means that, for many people (assuming they even have a Trader Joe’s near them at all), buying a sixer of Simpler Times means driving 20 minutes to get to a Trader Joes… and passing countless convenience stores on the way that sell Pabst or Schlitz. So while I like Simpler Times, I just don’t see where I’d buy it that often. If I woke on a football Sunday and found that I had no beer, I’d rather drive to my local quickie mart to get a sixer of PBR than make the hour-long round trip journey to get Simpler Times. Don’t get me wrong – if Lisa called to say that she was stopping by TJs on the way home from work, I’d love me some Simpler Times… I just don’t think I’d go out of my way to get it, especially not when there are a dozen places to buy something nearly as good here in Belmont.