Top 5 Reasons that I Prefer Facebook to Myspace

Now, this topic may seem a bit esoteric for my older readers, so I’m going to try to explain the greater concepts of Myspace and Facebook in order to make my arguments more comprehensible. Facebook and Myspace are free internet sites that allow users to create profiles in which they describe or post photos of themselves, and then contact other people with similar profiles, who then become their “friends”. Basically, to become someone’s friend on one of these sites, you “friend” them — i.e. you send them a friendship request, which they then either accept or deny. Some users accrue ludicrous numbers of friends in this manner, because even if someone only vaguely knows you, he would still feel that he is being rude if he were to deny your request for friendship. Once two people are friends, they can send each other messages, share contact information, get reminders about each other’s birthdays, etc. It is actually a very convenient way to get in contact with people who live far away, or whom you haven’t seen in a long time. I even used Myspace to get in contact with a friend that I hadn’t seen since I was 9 years old, and arranged a meeting with him in London this year (as recounted in “Top 5 things about my trip to England”). While I use both sites, I tend to overwhelmingly prefer Facebook. I have something like 12 Myspace friends, and over 300 Facebook friends. I check Facebook every day, and Myspace maybe once or twice a week. Here are the reasons why:

-5. The Anti-Reasons

I realize that in many ways, Myspace is a superior site to Facebook. Profiles on myspace are infinitely more customizable than those of facebook. On Myspace, you have a great deal of control over the “look” and “feel” of your profile, not just the information and photos you post about yourself. You can include non-photo media, such as music, which is a great way for aspiring artists to put their new material out there for the world to hear. Sure, Facebook’s cookie-cutter profiles might be considered more “user friendly”, like Windows XP over Linux, but generally things that are “user friendly” are designed to be limiting in order to prevent stupid people from messing them up. If you have any programming knowledge, or desire to be independently creative, Myspace is a much better fit for you than Facebook. Facebook, at its roots, was also very exclusive. You initially had to have a university email address from one of the schools on the Facebook network in order to become a member. Facebook is now available to pretty much anyone, but it started off as kind of a inner-circle, holier-than-thou, cool-kid phenomenon, which I find kind of irritating. So, really, if Facebook weren’t way better than Myspace, I would clearly prefer Myspace. So why is Facebook better? Let’s see…

4. I started using Facebook first

There is something to be said for being the first to do something. Why do we all remember Neil Armstrong, and denounce Buzz Aldrin as a giant tool? Well, maybe that’s exaggerating, but you get my point. I don’t know whether Facebook or Myspace was the first to coin the “profile” and “friend” concepts, but Facebook is the one that I started using first, so for all intents and purposes it was first to the finish line. Once you have one site that allows you to get into contact with far away friends, and make meaningless, empty contact with hundreds or thousands of others, having a second site to serve the same purpose seems a little unnecessary. Myspace was unfortunate enough to arrive second, and thus they are obsolete, and dead to me.

3. Tom just doesn’t do it for me.

Who is this guy? I know he’s the creator of Myspace, but why is he automatically my friend, and the friend of everyone on the site? I don’t feel any closer to Tom because I see his goofy picture in a plain white t-shirt every time that I look at my group of friends. I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me. All I know is that he created a website, has a very plain white t-shirt, and kind of a creepy smile. He has 166911512 friends! (and counting, I suppose). Who needs that many friends? No one. I guess maybe for him, getting to be everyone’s friend is like a finder’s fee or something, but boo to that.

2. Give it the old college try!

Giving something the “old college try” is an expression that I think went out of style sometime in the 50’s, but I still like to say it every now and again. I’m not sure I know exactly what it means; I think maybe something about trying really hard? If that’s really the case, the expression is not only out of style, but now, culturally inaccurate. While some college students try really hard at their work, most only try hard at three things: instant messaging, sleeping in, and drinking. Anyway, my real point is this: most of my college friends are on Facebook, thus Facebook is a more useful network for me to use. Also, I didn’t join Myspace until after I graduated, and I used Facebook for three years of my Denison experience, so Facebook holds some pleasant university nostalgia for me. Many of my groups, and in general the higher organization of the site, are based around univerisities and university activities. Facebook’s intrinsic links to college and the college lifestyle make it cool by association, and thus better than Myspace.

1. So sketchy….

This is really the most important reason that I tend to shy away from Myspace, and thus prefer Facebook. If it weren’t for this reason, all of the other reasons would probably be negated by the anti-reason. But Myspace just really turns me off with its disproportionately high Extreme Sketchiness Factor (ESF). I feel like I’m constantly being solicited for things by less than honest people when I sign on to Myspace. Take, for example, the ten or twenty friend requests that I get at the beginning of each month. The requesting profiles generally feature a photo of an attractive woman, and a cookie-cutter greeting that reads something like this:

“Hey, your profile is pretty cool. I just wanted to say hi, because I’m new to myspace and I don’t have that many friends yet. Anyway, all of my friends have been trying to get me to post nude pictures of myself on the internet, and I’ve finally done it! All you have to do is click on this link: www.pornandviruses.com“

Regardless of your moral stance on porn, unsollicited porn from unknown sources should be enough to make any computer user leery. And it’s not just porn that makes Myspace a shady site. I received one friend request from a user that didn’t have any ramblings about nude pictures in the friend request, but when I clicked on the profile picture to see what this person was all about, Mozilla Firefox popped up a message saying “to view all of the media on this page, you must download additional plugins”. I had gotten this message before on sites like www.comedycentral.com, and so I downloaded and installed the plugins, thinking nothing of it. Then the popups started, and I cursed myself for allowing Myspace to dupe me. Fortunately, after Ad-Aware cleared off the 43 new critical objects found on my computer, things started to run smoothly again. More about Ad-Aware to follow in future posts.

Really, I just get tired of people asking me to support their band, check out their webcam, or look at their potentially virus and adware-ridden porn. Facebook just seems like a much cleaner, more secure site to me. In the words of one of my roommates’ ex-girlfriends who was once asked to climb a tree, “I’ll stay down here on the ground where it’s nice and safe, thank you very much. HA!”

Well, that rounds out today’s top 5. If you think Myspace is better than Facebook, I would be perfectly willing to hear your arguments. For example, if someone created a Myspace profile for Tucker Carlson that expressed the full magnitude of his suckiness, it would certainly earn the site brownie points. I wish you all happy friending; and remember, stay away from www.pornandviruses.com. Tootles.

Important Tooting of My Own Horn

Before I write today’s Top 5, I wanted to give myself two pats on the back:

Pat #1: You know how in my post “It Begins” I attributed the main idea of my ranking system to the inordinate number of rankings (“best of all time”? etc.)  that I read on espn.com? Well, yesterday, I read the first actual Top 5 ranking on espn.com that I’ve seen since I started writing this blog. I mean, sure, they rank stuff all the time, but they frequently use top 10, top 25, or even top 100 (they generally resort to a top 100 when they want to do drawn-out countdowns). Anyway, this particular Top 5 was written by Joe Theismann, and it was entitled “Best Organizations in the NFL?”.

I must say, I can out-Top 5 Joe Theismann any day (given that my competition is Joe Theismann, I guess that’s not saying much. If Tony Kornheiser or Bill Simmons were to write a Top 5, I’m sure they would give me a much better run for my money). First of all, his title had a question mark. His punctuation undermines his own authority and expertise (not that he has any). Second of all, he put the Dallas Cowboys as third on his list. I mean, historically they are a good team, but I can’t even remember the last time they won their division (before the Super-Bowl-loser curse, the Eagles dominated the NFC east for years, and the last two years the Giants have squeaked it out). Since he is speaking about current organizations, one would think he would be able to recall recent history a little more effectively. He also included the Ravens as his fifth choice, who are perenially dominated by the Steelers (who didn’t make his list, btw). The one regret I don’t have about missing almost an entire season of Monday Night Football this year is the fact that I didn’t get to hear Theismann co-announce the games. Seriously, this guy couldn’t put together a good Top 5 if he only had seven things to choose from.

How is this a pat on my back, you say? Well, by the transitive property, I rule. It plays out like this: If Joe Theismann sucks, and I am not Joe Theismann, then I don’t suck. In fact, my opinions are so contrary to his, I am the opposite of suck. The opposite of suck is rule, so I rule. The Law of Curtis is precise.

Pat #2:  This week my blog received its first comments from individuals outside my friends and family. Two strangers both commented on my “Top 5 things that Rock About France” post, on the same day, strangely enough. According to these readers, my blog is “pretty cool” and “includes a lot of very interesting information”. Seems like other people are catching on to the Law of Curtis. Pretty soon I’ll be an international sensation, and major corporations will want to pay me to advertise on this site. Actually, if that were the case, I’d probably end up having to share royalties with wordpress. I checked the box that said I agreed with the terms & conditions, but who ever actually reads those things anyway. I hope I don’t owe WordPress blood plasma, or my firstborn child, or anything creepy like that.

Anyway, we’re getting there, top fivers, we’re getting there. I thank all of you regular readers out there, particularly those who comment and give me ongoing encouragement to write. I hope that the site continues to be “pretty cool” and to “include very interesting information” for you all. Tootles.

Presidential Musings and Revisions

I’m too exhausted today to write a new top 5 list; perhaps I’ll write a make-up tomorrow. Also, I’m quite interested in some of the points raised by my history major friends about my Presidents list, 2 of which are reprinted here for your convenience:

From Anna:

My one addition, who should get an honorable mention or something, or at least would be #1 and #2 on my list are:

#2 – Martin Van Buren, 8th pres. He was nicknamed Old Knickerbocker (from NY, possibly origin of OK? That’s Okay not Oklahoma). Also he had super-sweet sideburns.

#1 – Calvin Coolidge. Silent Cal. Was sworn in around midnight suddenly when Harding (died? I think?) in a log cabin up in Vermont, where he’s from, by his dad who was a public notary. THAT’s the kind of presidential ceremony we need. I have a photo of him (from the high school US history book) fishing in a lake, but wearing a full business suit (and fedora) and waders, with the caption that he “liked to think he was an outdoorsman.” Also, I have a crazy picture of him wearing these HUGE ridiculous cowboy chaps with “CAL” down the side, and a cowboy hat. And finally, my favorite, the old stories (even if they’re not true, they might as well be at this point):
- A journalist challenged Coolidge, known for his general quiet/reticent personality, that she could get him to say more than two words together. His response: “You lose.”
(and this one is actually true, at least more verifiably true)
- During a press conference around election time (which was probably not until the actual election year… those were the good old days I suppose), Coolidge came into the room and faced all the journalists gathered to hear his statement, and just passed around pieces of paper that said “I do not wish to run for president.” And then presumably he just left.

Anyway, his presidency was not a particularly distinguished one, and probably he was if not part of, at least turned a blind eye to government corruption. But his presidency seemed to at least work because it was the 20s and there was enough to carry the economy and the country through on its own, and more importantly he’s just awesome. The fact that that guy could become leader of the country (and apparently not enjoy it too much, if he didn’t want to re-run) is what makes history so great. : )

From Jon: 

Ok, I think that props need to be given to Andrew Jackson, the only president (so far as I can tell) who had an assassination attempt on his life by someone without a cool name: Richard Lawrence. The other assinator or assinator (it’s a word, really) attempters are as follows: John Wilkes Booth, Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz, Lee Harvey Oswald (or CIA/Castro, both also cool names), John Schrank, Guiseppe Zangara, Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo, Samuel Byck, Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore, Raymond Lee Harvey, John Hinckley Jr., Francisco Duran, and Vladimir Arutinian.

How in hell’s name did a Richard Lawrence make it onto that list? To me that implies that Jackson somehow got normal people (who always have normal names) to want to kill him. I don’t know why you left Jackson off your list Curtis, I mean, he gets no respect! Anyway, to rap this all up, the History Channel does suck, big time.

For the record, I thought Anna made a better case for the awesomeness of Calvin Coolidge than Jon did for the awesomeness of Andrew Jackson. She even had a cool nickname for him (I don’t know if she made the nickname up or it already existed). She failed to mention that the word “Cool” is contained in his name, like a certain Peter “Cool Man” Kuhlman, but that is a relatively minor point.

On the other hand, Jon’s case for Andrew Jackson had some glaring weaknesses. First of all, almost being assassinated is not cool. If I thought almost being assassinated was a criterion for my top 5 list, I would have had to include Reagan (and I don’t think Jon would want me to include Reagan on my list). Second of all, the coolness or weirdness of the names of presidential assassins (or would be assassins) speaks more to their own coolness, not to that of the president they were trying to kill. One cool thing about Andrew Jackson is that one of his biggest military accomplishments was winning a battle in a war that was already over (i.e. winning the battle of New Orleans after the US victory in the War of 1812). However, I don’t see how Jon can say that Andrew Jackson doesn’t get any respect. His face is on the freakin’ 20 dollar bill! He’s like, the face of the most commonly used currency bill of all time! If that isn’t giving someone props, I don’t know what is. Thus, Jackson is not underrated, and while he may be mildly cool, he doesn’t belong on the list.

Good ol’ Silent Cal, however, seems like a pretty “Cool” dude (very bad pun intended). His media sass would almost him seem Rumsfeldian, were it not for the fact that he was reserved, intelligent, and possibly competent. His poser-outdoorsman aspirations remind me of myself in a Bass Pro Shops store. This, combined with his killer nickname, would almost make me consider restructuring my top 5. However, I’ve never really heard anything about him before this point, so he clearly isn’t important enough to remember. So I’m gonna leave him as an honorable mention for now, unless Washington does something to evoke my ire, in which case he’ll be demoted and Silent Cal can have the number 5 spot. Tootles.

Top 5 US Presidents

Okay, I was quite prolific in my verbal assault on The Secret, and I must say all of this verbosity wore me out a little bit. Thus, I decided to wrap up the week with a lighter, less serious topic that would require fewer words and greater levity: the top 5 American presidents of all time. You might be saying to yourself, “But Curtis, is the top 5 US presidents of all time really a light topic?” Trust me, it is. The gist of why it is such a light topic runs a little something like this. I was not a history major in college, and while I have a general knowledge of American History, I have very limited knowledge of American Presidents. You might think that this precludes me from creating a list that ranks the greatest presidents of all time. Not so. While I have almost no knowledge of the political platforms or policies of the former leaders of our great country, I am a foremost expert in what makes people (and thus presidents) awesome. And off we go:

5. George Washington

I mostly put Good ol’ George up on this list for posterity’s sake, but ironically that might resemble the reason for which he ran for president. I don’t know much about him, aside from the fact that he was a war hero, but I’m betting that given the means of communication in the late 18th century, that’s what most of the voting population knew about him at the time. Something about cutting down a cherry tree? Crossing the Potomac river? False teeth (wooden, maybe ivory)? I don’t know that he had any revolutionary political ideas, but I do know he had a famous name (not unlike a certain George who recently became president). I admire the two-term precedent that he set, although I’m not sure we needed to make it a constitutional amendment. Other than that, I really don’t know that much about his presidency, although if I were to follow the conventional wisdom of “First is the worst, second is the best, third is the nerd with the hairy chest,” I would have left him off the list entirely. Of course, then I would have had to make John Adams my number 1. I think the bottom of the top 5 list is a good compromise.

4. Abraham Lincoln

Good old Honest Abe. (You may find it perhaps disrespectfully casual that I refer to our nation’s greatest presidents as “Good ol’ insert nickname here“, like they are brothers of my fraternity at a University in the South. I mean it more in an endearing way, like Good ol’ Dr. Reverend Moonshine, or The Admiral — both nicknames for Dr. Richard Hood, a loveable professor at Denison who plays a mean banjo). I saw a documentary about him on the History Channel that investigated rumors about his depression, inner demons, and possible homosexuality. Personally I don’t believe any of it. No one that tall could possibly be gay, and no one with a beard that sweet could possibly be depressed. Every time that guy looked in the mirror he was probably like, “Man I have a sexy beard. I’m off to woo my adoring female public, to whom I am compellingly sexually attracted”. You guys know the rest of his resume — freed the slaves, held the country together during the Civil War, delivered the Gettysburg address, made the world safe from democracy, won the war on terror, defeated the Balrog in the depths of Khazad Dum, blew up the Death Star, and caught the Snitch, winning the Quidditch World Cup Final against the Soviet Union in the 1975 Olympics. So, despite this stellar CV, why did I not put Abe higher on the list? The dude got shot in a theater. He was probably watching a musical. Not just any musical – like a bad, cheesy musical (is that redundant?) That, and I’m sure everyone else is giving him enough props that he doesn’t need to take the number 1 spot on my list to establish his street cred. That would just be greedy.

3. Millard Fillmore

The 13th president of the United States (an undeniably sweet number), and undisputed winner of the “sweetest presidential name of all time” competition. His name is so cool, I’m not even gonna give him a nickname. His name is even better than Orvis Milner Fuller, and that guy isn’t even president (yet). His middle name was Powers. Can you imagine what kind of Porn Nickname Potential (PNP) that has? What if he lived on Johnson St? His name would be Powers Johnson. Or depending on your rules for porn nicknames, he could have had a dog named Girth, and then his name would be Powers Girth. Tell me that’s not a good porn nickname. That’s right, you can’t, because it’s amazing. Coming from a man whose previous porn names include a formidable “Benjamin Aster”, you know you have it on good authority. Maybe this isn’t enough to put him above Lincoln, but I think combined with the Bilbo-esque qualities of being the 13th president it gives him a slight edge.

2. William Henry Harrison

The reason Harrison, or “Chilly Willy”, as I like to call him, is so high on the list, can be summed up in the following sentence, copied and pasted from Wikipedia:

Harrison served the shortest term of any American president: only 30 days, 11 hours and 30 minutes.

Also, the way he died is somewhat of a presidential rarity. Was he assassinated? No. Did old age and the stress of office take a final toll on his heart? No. He caught a cold (which later became pneumonia) giving a long-winded inaugural address (apparently the longest in presidential history) on a cold and windy day. A rough, hardened war hero, brought down by the common cold. We might actually have 19th century medicine to blame for this long-standing presidential record; listen to these prescribed treatments (again, taken from wikipedia):

His doctors tried everything to cure him, applying opium, castor oil, Virginia snakeweed, and even actual snakes. But the treatments only made Harrison worse and he went into delirium. He died a month later, at 12:30 a.m., on April 4, 1841, of right lower lobe pneumonia, jaundice, and overwhelming septicemia, becoming the first American president to die in office.

Hear that? First to die in office! That’s two presidential records, and he achieved both of them in less than a month! It just goes to show you, you can do anything if you put your mind to. If you think it, it will be attracted to you. William Henry Harrison thought to himself, “I’d sure like to be remembered for doing something special. I’d like for people to regard me and my presidency as something unique. I sure hope I don’t get sick standing out here in the cold”. The Law of Attraction made it so. (I swear at some point I’ll stop making fun of that book).

1. George W. Bush

just kidding

The real #1: Grover Cleveland

First point of contention: Grover logs a respectable second place in the Awesome Presidential Names competition, in a possible tie with Herbert Hoover. According to Wikipedia his first name was Stephen; kudos to him for opting to go by his much cooler middle name. His name combines childhood nostalgia for Sesame Street and the name of a city with underachieving but sympathetic sports teams. The fact that LeBron James plays for the Cavaliers makes Cleveland, and thus Grover, much cooler. We are all witnesses to the 22nd/24th president of the United States.

Second (and more important) point of contention: As implied above, our friendly blue monster was the only president to ever serve non-consecutive terms. Who does that? Grover does, and it makes him awesome. Why does that make him awesome. For two reasons:

1. He’s the only person to ever do it — if you think it’s not that special, then why haven’t you done it? Grover is a Record holder, just like Chilly Willy.

2. There is a reason that no one else has ever done it. If you lose a presidential election, especially after having served for 4 years as president, you are branded as a loser. Sure, there are people who have lost elections and then come back to win the presidency later, but after having served as president and having fallen out of public favor? I don’t think that could possibly happen nowadays. Even one-time election losers are doomed today if the election was a big deal. Think about John Kerry. Was he right about the war? Public opinion today would say yes. Was he right about problems with the American Healthcare system? Curtis (who is Awesome) says yes. Is there any chance he would get elected president today? Not a chance. He lost a high-profile election in which he was branded as a waffler, and despite having almost the same percentage as the incumbent candidate, he was also branded as a loser. And who wants to elect a loser? No one. Espeically not a loser who is also a waffler.

Good ol’ Grover, however, was able to overcome this insurmountable hurdle, while at the same time telling us the letters and numbers of the day. What a sweetheart.

Well, that wraps up today’s top 5. Even if it’s still long, it took me much less time to type (proably because I could copy and paste from Wikipedia rather than reading and typing out of a book). If I got any history wrong, I’m sorry (not that sorry). I’m sure my history major readers will set me straight in any case. Have a great weekend. Tootles.

Top 5 Reasons Not to Buy “The Secret”

For those of you who haven’t heard, there is a new craze sweeping the nation. It’s a little book entitled The Secret. It’s on the bestseller list of Amazon.com, right along with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Three of the four customer reviews describe it as “Life Changing”, “Excellent”, and “A HUGE SUCCESS!”. Here’s how the book describes itself on the site:

“Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it.

“In this book, you’ll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life — money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You’ll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that’s within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life.”

Sounds like a blast so far, right? Not so fast. Don’t go blowing your $14.99 on it just this second. Some of you might already be wary, thinking perhaps that The Secret sounds suspiciously like an annoying self-help book. I can assure you, it’s much more than that. If you scan down the Amazon “Customer Discussion” section, you will find many interesting discussion subject headings, my favorite of which is “This book is not just objectively wrong…it is DEPRAVED”.

That might not be totally fair; after all, the book has at its base an idea that is worth considering — the powers of attitude, positive thinking, etc. That being said, some of the logical assertions of the book are objectively wrong, and others seem borderline depraved. The Secret is by far the worst book I’ve read this year, and probably in the top 5 for worst books I’ve ever read (I’m not planning on posting such a list for a while, but it would probably include The Awakening and Wuthering Heights.). To be fair, I haven’t even finished reading it, but I’ve certainly read enough to pick apart its fallacious premises and unhealthy attitudes. Let’s get started then, shall we?

5. Somehow, when you combine Keirkegaard and D’Zmura, the sum is even worse than its component parts.

The book’s basic premise is the “Law of Attraction” — basically, your thoughts are a physical force in the universe that attract positive and negative things to you in a way analogous to gravity. The book informs us that “thoughts become things”, and that whatever we think about, positive or negative, is what will eventually befall us. It tells us that “thoughts create and define our universe”, basically interpreting the ideas of Soren Kierkegaard, who tells us that “truth is subjectivity”, in a very literal, pragmatic, and ridiculous way. I mean, I thought Kierkegaard was taking things too far, but even he never said anything like our thoughts become things. I mean, really, our thoughts become things? What about children who are afraid that a great and terrible monster is going to come out of their closet and attack them in the night? There are children who really fear such things, and focus a great deal of thought on them. How many of these children have actually been attacked by something that came out of their closet? How many of them have been attacked at all? I would think if the Law of Attraction really made our thoughts become things, there would be a higher correlation between fear of the bogeyman and bad occurrences, such as actual attacks (be it by monsters, or even people). As far as I can tell, no such correlation exists, although I doubt there have been any studies performed on the matter. While I have no mass data, I can use myself as an example. When I was young, I was very consistently afraid of dark basements. Nothing tragic or terrifying has ever happened to me in a basement.

The D’Zmura half of the comparison makes reference to an Elementary Acting class I took in which the professor consistently told us to do things like “Feel Feelings”. The second chapter of the book focuses primarily on feelings, giving us such brilliant quotes as this one:

“It’s really so simple. [ask yourself] ‘What am I attracting right now?’ Well, how do you feel? ‘I feel good.’ Well good, keep doing that” (32).

I found one quote that was particularly D’Zmurian, that reads thus:

“If you’re not feeling as good as you’d like to focus on feeling your feelings inside and purposefully lift them” (35).  Isn’t that just profound? It’s as if I were to ask you to think your thoughts, or to breathe your breath. Really focus on doing that, and you can accomplish anything.

Kierkegaard had questionable ideas, stated really intelligently. D’Zmura had a relatively simple, interesting subject to teach, and her delivery was ridiculous. Combine the two, and you get questionable ideas, delivered ridiculously. Perhaps now you’re starting to get a feel for the book.

4. It has all of the endearing qualities of a used car salesman.

In my experience, anything that promises to solve all of life’s problems with one simple strategem or purchase screams: “Rip off! Rip off! Stay away!” The Secret is one such thing. It’s motives and intentions seemed less than honorable from the get go, as one can see from this quote in the first chapter:

“Why do you think that 1 percent of the [world's] population earns around 96 percent of all the money that’s being earned? Do you think that’s an accidnt? It’s designed that way. They understand something. They understand The Secret, and now you are being introduced to The Secret” (6).

First of all, a book that is supposed to help people achieve happiness makes an immediate appeal to money. That leads me to believe that it has its priorities somewhat out of wack. Secondly, I’m pretty sure that the richest 1 percent of the population did not come into their wealth in some uniform way. Some of them were born into their wealth, others worked their asses off for it, others likely engaged in dishonest practices like insider trading or screwing over business partners. I don’t think it comes down to a factor as simple as positive thinking.

Allow me to be somewhat skeptical when a book promises the world to everyone in the planet who buys their book. If the book is really all it claims to be, judging by the current book sales I would expect there to be a massive redistribution of wealth in the US over the next 5 years. The wealth will move from the hands of our top 5 percent and into the hands of the millions of readers of The Secret. Hey, then all the socialists will be able to quit complaining about the absurd disparity between the rich and the poor in our country. Something tells me that’s not gonna happen, though.

If you ever thought to yourself while watching a television infomercial, “Wow! This is real entertainment! I wish I could have this in book form, so that I could spend hours poring over it!”, then this book is for you. I’m assuming most of my readers have never thought this, however, and so I would advise most people to stay away from this book. Seriously, this book is the literary equivalent of the guy from tv informercials dressed in the question mark clothing (you know — the one who looks like the cartoon from the Krazy Kaplan fireworks Billboards?) who tells you how to scam free money from the US government. As times amusing in its ridiculousness, at times almost frightening, this book is a triumph of commercial absurdity.

3. Its prose leaves much to be desired.

While it may run well as an infomercial, the book fails utterly as a persuasive work. As I learned in my high school English class, the Aristotelian method of rhetoric tells us we need three elements to make a strong argument — ethos, pathos, and logos. The Secret has a great deal of pathos! It accomplishes this by ending a disproportionate number of its sentences with exclamation points! I fear, however, that the book is somewhat lacking in the other two categories. At first glance, the book appears to have ethos, which is another name for credibility. Really, what the book has is self-indulgence. The book is constantly quoting people to reiterate its points; it probably averages about two quotes per page. However, after reading a good twenty pages or so, you begin to notice that the book is just quoting the same handful of people over and over again, and none of the people are anyone you’ve ever heard of.  For all we know these people could have been paid by the author of the book to say what she wanted them to say. For example, Bob Proctor is quoted 8 times in the first chapter alone. What do I care what Bob Proctor thinks? I’ve never heard of him. He has no qualifying credentials that I am aware of. The quotes from real historical figures are given with no context, so I can only assume that they are taken out of context. Take, for example, this quote from Winston Churchill: “You create your own universe as you go along” (36). He could be talking about anything; he could even have been talking to someone he thought was crazy. I seriously doubt he was trying to make a case for the Law of Attraction. The book even quotes its own introduction as a positive review on its back cover! Basically, if you trust unquestioningly in the authority of the book, it has great ethos, because it constantly quotes and refers to itself. If you want appeals to real trusted or proven authority, however, it is sorely lacking.

As for logos, well…I will illustrate my point by picking apart one of The Secret’s “logical” arguments, which compares the Law of Attraction to the Law of Gravity:

“Just like the law of gravity, the law of attraction never slips up. You don’t see pigs flying because the law of gravity made a mistake and forgot to apply to pigs that day. Likewise, there are no exclusions to the law of attraction. If something came, you drew it, with prolonged thought. The law of attraction is precise” (36).

Here’s the problem: The Law of Gravity has been proven by quantifiable observations. Gravity is a physical force we can measure; that is how we know that the moon’s gravity is only a sixth of the earth’s, and so on.  We can drop objects and identify their downward acceleration at approximately 9.8 m/s², and we can observe the same effects over and over again. There is no way that if the Law of Attraction were tested in a lab or natural setting that it would produce consistent, quantifiable results. I like the train of thinking established in this example however. Let me try it out for the Law of Curtis:

“The law of Curtis states that Curtis is awesome. The law is consistent and precise, like the law of entropy. You don’t see chemical reactants moving toward more ordered states because the law of entropy forgot to come to work that day. Likewise, Curtis is always awesome. There are no exclusions to the Law of Curtis. If you see Curtis, he is awesome. The Law of Curtis is precise.”

If you believe that, then don’t read The Secret. I don’t want people as impressionable as you to get those kind of ideas into their heads.

2. Its attitudes are unrealistic, even dangerous.

The gist of what I want to say here lies in the fact that the book not only attributes all of life’s successes to positive thinking, but also claims the converse, that all negative experiences can be attributed to negative thoughts. It sums its perspective up best with the following statement:

“Often when people first hear this part of the Secret they recall events in history where masses of lives were lost, and they find it incomprehensible that so many people could have attracted themselves to the event. By the law of attraction, they had to be on the same frequency of the event. It doesn’t necessarily mean they thought of that exact event, but the frequency of their thoughts matched the frequency of the event” (28).

Is it just me, or is this passage basically blaming the holocaust on the negative thinking of the Jews? The argument could easily be made that this passage is blaming the negative thoughts of Africans for slavery. I’m not sure that Jews or black people would be very happy about this (in fact, I’m not sure why Oprah endorses it). I think reducing the causes of human history’s great tragedies to the powers negative thinking is not only ridiculous, but dangerous. We study events the holocaust in school so that we can learn from the mistakes of our past and make sure they never happen again. According to The Secret, studying the holocaust in school would attune our thougts to negative frequencuies, ensuring that further tragedies of a similar magnitude would occur over and over until we changed our thoughts. Basically, the logic found in The Secret would tell us that we should forget the Holocaust, and put it out of our minds forever, because its negativity will only attract bad things to us. While I am not necessarily a proponent of dwelling on prior bad experiences, or being miserable over them, I’m pretty sure that there is a healthy extent to which we can think about the tragedies or mistakes of the past that allows us to learn and positively construct the future. Negative things happen in life; we aren’t going to change that. However, we sometimes need to think about negative things in order to come up with solutions, or to appreciate the positives. Basically, the gist of my point is that I don’t believe the negative thinking of the Jews was to blame for the Holocaust. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned that way.

1. It’s just plain wrong.

The premises in the book can be disproved logically, empirically, and even scientifically (although I can’t imagine there are too many scientists out there chomping at the bit to set up experiments that test whether our thoughts become things). To be fair, if I didn’t think the book was a rip-off moneymaking scheme, I might concede that it starts off with good intentions. I do think that positive attitudes and positive thinking can have profound influences in our lives, influences that extend into the realms of our health, relationships, and professional successes. The Mozart effect has been linked to positive mood, and associated brain activity in the right frontal lobe of our brain. I would be very interested to read scientific journal articles (or even a book by someone like Richard Dawkins) about such a subject. But I would expect such a book or article to have some manner of data, internal consistency, and logical coherence. This book (or at least, the first 70 pages or so that I have read) seems to lack all of these things.

Most of the distinctions between positive and negative thinking in The Secret hinge on syntax and intricacies the English language, elements that might not even exist in non-Latin based languages. Also, the base premise of the book seems to be founded on a causatio-correlation fallacy. Yes, positive thoughts tend to accompany positive occurences, and likewise with negative thoughts. But that doesn’t mean that thoughts actually cause the occurences. If anything, experience tells me it’s the other way around. For instance, if Law of Attraction were true, I would never recover from being ill. This is because whenever I get ill, I tend to think, “Man, it really sucks to be sick. I hate being sick so much. I can’t wait to stop being sick.” Since the law of attraction is oblivious to negatives, and it doesn’t notice my aversion to the sickness, but rather only acknowledges the fact that I am thinking about sickness, more and more diseases should be attracted to me at every instant that I am having these thoughts. Yet, somehow, every time I get sick, I manage to recover. One might point to the fact that when I take medicine, I believe the medicine is going to make me better, and those positive thoughts bring recovery. However, one could also point to the fact that medicine is generally the product of years of research that has been proven at the molecular and clinical level. While thoughts may play a role in shaping our reality, I think our reality (in the physical, tangible sense) plays just as big of a role.

You may be saying to yourself, “So it’s wrong. So what? Why is that important enough to be number 1 on this top 5 list?” Here’s my reasoning on that. Being wrong in itself is not that serious of an offense. We are all wrong from time to time. For instance, I was wrong when I left Hagrid off my first “Top 5 Harry Potter Characters” list. It happens. We all make mistakes, so that we can learn from them, move on, and grow as people. However, it can be quite a problem when someone is wrong about something, and somehow efficiently convinces others that he is right about that thing. If you recall, in my post about the “Top 5 Things that Suck about America”, I bemoaned the exploits of christian fundamentalists who try to convince us to hate homosexuals, and the efforts of Anne Coulter, who has published a best-selling book telling us we should dismiss the biological theory of natural selection. That is because I fear the consequences of what will happen to our society if we build our cultural and moral pillars on the foundation of fallacious premises, particularly those based in prejudice or hate. Untruths, particularly those that lead to scary attitudes such as those expressed in Reason #2, misplace our common notions of moral subjects such as accountability, and hinder our ability to progress as a society. When I hear that millions of people are buying books like The Secret, or Anne Coulter’s Godless, I cry a little inside. Maybe those negative thoughts are causing more and more people to buy the books. Then again, maybe they aren’t.

Well, that wraps up today’s Top 5. And it’s about time. I guess you might have thanked me for saving you the time you would have spent reading The Secret, if I hadn’t used up so much of your time with this ridiculously long blog post. All I can say is, if you come to a crossroad in the next few days, and you’re unsure which best-selling book to buy yourself, go for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can’t possibly see how JK Rowling could screw that book up any worse than The Secret. See you Friday. Tootles.

Top 5 Pet Penchants

Thanks to the GRE vocab of my friend Anna, I have a name for my positive counterpart to “Pet Peeves” that has both appropriate meaning and sexy alliteration. (I say GRE vocab because I think it would be fair to claim that I possess a respectable SAT-caliber vocabulary, but the verbal section of the GRE still gave me fits). Anyway, I learned a new word, so I’m glad to be sharing it with the world. On to the top 5 list:

5. Midnight Tennis

This was a tradition started freshman year at Denison that never really firmly established itself and dropped out of existence, save for a brief rebirth senior year. It all started when my roommate Greg and I discovered you could swipe your student ID card at the Denison tennis courts and light them up at any time of night. This led to a handful of tennis matches on Friday and Saturday evenings between the hours of midnight and 3am. I always lost, but I always had a good time. I once even convinced Greg to play while intoxicated, which I thought would give me the advantage, since I was completely sober. Boy was I wrong. I lost 6-3, 6-4 as I recall. I had even had closer sets with him during day games. This was irreplacable, unforgettable roommate bonding time, and one of those important freshman year experiences that illustrated the freedom and spontenaeity that makes college so great. The brief rebirth senior year was with a group of Red Scouts friends, who mostly played King of the Court, because we had 4 rackets for 6 people. Also very good times, especially when we followed up our matches with 3am Steak & Shake runs, which are a college staple. Ah, Denison. I miss you so.

4. Ice Cream at inappropriate times or in inappropriate quantities.

As hinted at in the aforementioned Steak & Shake excursions, Ice Cream is meant to be enjoyed at all hours of the day. Times are few and far between when I would turn down a free milkshake, were it offered. (The fact that free milkshakes are rarely offered is fortuitious for me in that it keeps my daily caloric intake somewhat stable). Sometimes ice cream is most satisfying at times when you know it isn’t good for you. For example, nutritionists tell us that consuming large amounts of calories right before we sleep is a fairly good way to assure that these calories get stored as fat. Should that really stop us from enjoying the occasional 3am milkshake, sundae, or root beer float? I think not. My French friends, culinary purists, also bemoan my maladroit ice cream timing, but more so for my premature consumption. I have no problem with eating ice cream an hour before dinner, or even alongside my dinner. This offends the gourmet core of many Frenchies, who follow a strict schedule of courses that cannot be violated (e.g. thou shalt not touch thy salad until thy meat is completely finished). Important note: I will not resort to dipping my french fries in my frosty. That’s just gross. Eating Burger while drinking milkshake, on the other hand…..mmmmm…..

Subset 2 of this penchant is eating ice cream in inappropriate quantities. After a Guster concert, I once drank two Steak & Shake milkshakes in one sitting, to the horror of some of my friends who were seated around me. I would like to think that I’m capable of consuming even more ice cream than this, although I rarely test my limits as much as I’d like to (for example, my twin brother recently housed his med school friends in a competition that basically comprised eating a half gallon of ice cream as quickly as possible. That’s the kind of thing I need to get working on). There were also stretches of my summer jobs at Denison where I ate a frozen custard kitty cone from Whit’s every day for weeks at a time (this was encouraged by the fact that they were only 50 cents). Unfortunately for me, my freezer here in Le Mans is not really cold enough to hold ice cream. Perhaps that’s why I’ve lost weight, and why I write somewhat bitter and emotionally heavy Moral Questions of the Day.

3. Unexpected Pooch Encounters

Like I’ve said before, I have a profound weak spot for most things canine. Aside from individual dogs with unusually unpleasant dispositions, meeting a new dog is generally a significantly day-brightening experience. I have to admit I was sorely disappointed when they informed us at my study abroad program in Nantes that we should never pet a stranger’s dog. Although I’m usually quite circumspect when it comes to “stranger danger”, a friendly dog usually has an uncanny way of winning my confidences. Even in Chicago, where I’m usually particularly guarded, I surprised a French friend of mine by walking up to a yellow lab, petting it and asking its owner for its name. Here in Le Mans, street urchins and other assorted shady miscreants who cluster around storefronts all seem to have dogs; some of them even seem to have purebred yellow labs. My urge to walk up and give a friendly hug to the big yellow sweeties has not yet overcome my reluctance to approach homeless people, but I still can’t help but give a little “awwwwwww…..” inside every time I walk by. I kind of creeped out a lady downtown one day by walking up and petting her black lab. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the attention, but she seemed to want nothing more than my swift and immediate departure. I guess the people at IES were right; even if the owners of the dogs aren’t sketchy, you can end up being the sketchy one if you’re too friendly with strangers dogs in France.

2. Dr. Raymond Wise doing just about anything.

I don’t really know what it is, but this man just has a day-brightening effect on everyone around him. He’s like Chicken Soup for the Music Lover’s Soul, or Chicken Soup for the Tap Dancing Lover’s Soul, or Chicken Soup for the Good Person Lover’s Soul. I was always happy to go to Gospel Choir, or voice class, or Gospel Music History class, not just because I liked the classes, but because I was excited to see what the teacher was going to do to keep the class interesting. I remember one of the first days of Gospel History class, when Dr. Wise illustrated several musical elements of Gospel by playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” over and over again, with a new gospel element each time. I seriously could have watched it all day. The man is just ridiculously musically impressive. He has like an 18-octave range; he can sing, play piano, and conduct a choir at the same time; he can improvise piano accompaniment after hearing a song all of one time; he has written and arranged over 500 songs…and that’s not even counting his mad dance skills. In addition to being possibly the single most musically impressive man I’ve ever met in my life, I am also profoundly impressed by him as a person. He always brings effort, excitement, and enthusiasm to everything he does, even when he has a hundred other things to get to that day. While he was certainly one of the busiest people I have ever met, he is also among a very select few people I have ever met who always make me feel like my time is every bit as important as theirs. Whenever I had a question or a problem, he was always happy and available to discuss it, even if only for a few minutes out of his incredibly packed day. And he wasn’t just there for me. He was there for hundreds of students in his assorted choirs and classes in the three different schools at which he taught. He is a role model to me, countless college students, children and adults in the Columbus area. He would seriously get my vote for president.

1. Super Smash Bros (Nintendo 64 version)

Anyone who saw me during my senior year of college had to see this one coming. Smash Bros. is not just a game — it’s a way of life. I know a lot of video game enthusiasts/purists who would criticize my passion for the Nintendo 64 version, citing the graphic superiority, increased game speed, and smoother flow of the Game Cube version. But here is my ideal Smash Bros. setting: Myself, my three roommates, and our friend Jack, playing 64 Smash, broken into teams of two with someone from the losing team rotating out each game. The 5-man system of rotation is key, because it allows for a constant element of change in playing style/dynamic without causing anyone to have to sit out for too long. Besides, the short bouts spent sitting out allow one to rest the eyes, and can be well-spent going to the bathroom, or making a milkshake. Not to say that I’m ever on the losing team, or have to sit out…er…uh…damn. Actually, in a way not unlike midnight tennis, roommate Smash Bros. is not about always winning or being the best (although I get my butt handed to me significantly less while playing Smash than I do playing tennis or squash with Greg). It’s about roommate bonding — gathering around the greatest video game of all time for several hours, and sharing in the joy of trash talking and friendly competition. The joy of victory and the agony of defeat, while intense, are fleeting, and get lost in the overall atmoshpere of kinship and brotherhood. I can’t imagine anyway that it would ever be financially feasible, but I seriously think that I could do this for a 40 or even 60 hour a week job. They always say find something you love doing, and the money will come. Well, I have something that I love doing, and I put the challenge to you, readers, to find a way for the money to come. Riddle me this: How can my college roommates and I make a living playing Nintendo 64 Smash Bros.? The answer may be in this self-help book that I’m reading, and planning to rip a new one in next week’s top 5……

Well, that rounds out today’s top 5. As with the Pet Peeves, feel free to tell me about any of the little idiosyncratic things in life that bring you joy. Putting them on the internet will allow others to share in the wisdom and the love. Not that my site gets that many hits. I’m working on it though, trust me. I have the law of attraction on my side. What am I talking about? Tune in next week to find out…Tootles.

My Top 5 Pet Peeves

Okay, so this week I’m doing another pair of related top 5 lists, my top 5 random likes and dislikes. This time I decided to start with the negative, simply because there is a name for random, idiosyncratic dislikes — pet peeves. I’m still not sure what I’m gonna call the random likes – pet hotts, maybe? Pet AHS’s? (By the way, AHS = Aram’s Hot sister. I’m kind of leaning toward that one at the moment). Anyway, on to the list: 

5. People who misspell the word “definitely”.

This I find is particularly a problem in the midwest of the United States, although my ex-roommate will probably dislike being lumped in with the midwest, given his disdain for the region. He can’t spell anything though, so I guess the proper spelling of words like definitely should would represent unrealistic expectations for him. But on email or AIM I constantly see people buchering the word — definately, definetly, definetley, defianately, and so forth. It has almost gotten to the point where the real spelling of the word doesn’t look right to me any more. But then again, I can always remind myself that it’s a simple word to spell — you take the word “definite” and you add an -ly to make it an adverb. People don’t spell “definite” with an a, so why do they stick an a in the adverb form? This probably makes me sound like some kind of language nerd, so I’m moving on.

4. People who try to sing along, but can’t.

I’m a singer. I like to sing in front of people. Heck, I even like to sing with people. However, if people want to sing with me, they need to at least know the words and the tune to what we’re singing. Same goes for the radio. Nothing is more distracting as a singer than someone standing next to you, singing something wrong into your ear. This also applies to people in a choir who don’t know their part, or who can’t carry a tune. A certain kid in Denison gospel choir comes to mind — Evan and I never found out his name; we just called him “the kid who sucks”. Not only would he sing the wrong tune, he would often sing the wrong rhythm, and he would sing it loud and clear, over the top of the quieter people in the section who sang correctly. Seriously, when this kid was standing behind you, it was almost impossible to keep singing the correct part. Sometimes I just wanted to turn around and scream, “Just shut up! Can’t you see you do more harm than good! It’s like we’re a rowing team, and you’re rowing backwards!” I can be more forgiving with people who sing along to the radio, because they’re mostly just enjoying themselves, and listening to the radio requires no musical talent. But still, it seriously hinders my enjoyment of a song if someone is following along like this: “I…..nanana….better place….nananana….HOW FAR IS HEAVEN! I….nanana….better place…..keep on givin….HOW FAR IS HEAVEN!” (Note: I put the capital letters to denote the excitement of the singer when he gets to the part of the song he actually knows). So, you sing-along types out there, don’t be that guy. That’s all I’m saying.

3. Weak blowdryers/showerheads

I know that these two things aren’t really the same, but it’s the same principle. Don’t you hate it when you’re in a public bathroom, you wash your hands, and you discover there are no paper towels, only a blow dryer that feels like an asthmatic 70-year old blowing on your hands? The dryer makes no real attempt to dry your hands, it simply wheezes and passes air over your hands to let you know how wet they still are. To actually dry your hands with a blower such as this would undoubtedly take milennia, so you end up wiping your hands on your pants or shirt or whatever you don’t mind getting wet.

Likewise, don’t you hate it when you spend the night in a new place, you wake up crusty/dingy/smelly in the morning, and you step under the shower, only to find that the water comes out at an apathetic trickle? This is even worse when combined with a lack of hot water, but even when the water is of proper temperature it is abhorrent to try to rinse shampoo out of your hair when the shower head is giving you nothing more than chinese water torture.

I really feel that the two problems are similar enough to group them into one top 5 spot. Think about it – both of these problems stem from a lack of pressure, and both of them are irritating because they render the washing and drying processes simultaneously longer and less satisfying.

2. Chapped Ass

Numbers 1 and 2 on this list really blow the other three away. I had 1 and 2 decided long before I came up with any of the others, and each of these things bother me way more than numbers 3-5 put together. Chapped Ass may not be an intuitive concept for all you readers out there, and I’m not positive that everyone gets it, but I’m sure that enough people get it that they will feel my pain. Chapped Ass boils down to this: in times of depleted atmospheric moisture, or excessive wiping, or both, the skin of the butt crack becomes dried-out, irritated, and ultra sensitive. It is basically the equivalent of chapped lips or chapped knuckles, only it’s between your buttocks. It can also arrive after serious bouts with diarrhea. It’s certainly not a pleasant feeling, and it can be quite worrisome if you aren’t familiar with it. The cause of the great worry is this: sometimes the skin lining the cleft of your posterior gets so dried out and irritated that the skin begins to crack and bleed. You can’t really see down there, so you only notice when you notice blood spots on the toilet paper you wipe with. I’ve known a friend or two who thought they had amoebic dysentery or some other serious medical problem, when really all they had was chapped ass. But honestly, it’s never comfortable to see blood coming from down there. I always worry about serious infections, because face it, there’s a lot of bacteria down there. I’ve not yet had an infection due to chapped ass, but I’m crossing my fingers and knocking on wood as we speak.

1. Wet Socks

Now, how could anything possibly be worse than chapped ass, you say? Well, I was considering making the top 2 spots a tie this week, but really, if you are still questioning my decision making, you’ve never stepped in an unexpected puddle while walking around the house in your socks. It is simply one of the most disgusting feelings in the world. First of all, you don’t always know what kind of liquid you just stepped in (you hope it’s water, but if you live with dogs or pet-sit, you know there’s a chance that it isn’t). If it’s something like coke or fruit juice, it not only makes your socks wet, it makes them sticky, and sticking to the floor is also high on the list of disgusting feelings that humans can experience. Then, the circular spot of wetness on your sock lingers like a stain on your immortal soul. It clings to the skin of your foot, slightly cold, slightly moist, slightly disgusting and heinous and terrible. You have no choice; the socks must be removed. Burned, if possible.

Important note: wet socks are much more tolerable if they became wet when your feet were inside shoes, like if you jumped in a pool with all your clothes on, or you got rained on until all of your clothes got soaked. I think the reason this is okay is because when you’re completely drenched, the one little spot of wetness is less pronounced. Even so, doesn’t it always feel great to take your socks off when you come inside after being drenched by rain or snow? Isn’t a dry pair of socks or slippers an amazing source of comfort? You know why? In contrast to the wet socks, any other kind of foot fabric feels like heaven. It’s like having your back cracked — your back feels normal, but you appreciate it because the awful, wincing pain is gone. It’s just that in the case of the socks, the pain is existential, and inflicted upon your sense of well-being.

 I’d love to hear about your pet peeves, if you care to comment about them. I’m pretty sure my #1 and #2 pet peeves are unshakable, but I’m not married to any of the bottom three, so if anyone has some really good ones to propose, I would be willing to make a revised list posts with new rankings, honorable mentions and the like. Also, I’m all ears for a name that I should call my idiosyncratic preferences or likes. Pet pooches? Pet asians? Pet kebabs? Those all seem too specific. Thanks in advance for your suggestions. Tootles.

Moral Question of the Day

Warning: The following post may talk about things that make people uncomfortable/should not be viewed by children.

Question: What’s with Bad Guy appeal?

This question is perhaps more complicated than it would first seem. First of all, while “Bad Guy appeal” is typically looked at as a female phenomenon, it is by no means exclusively so. I recently had a fling with a girl who, while by no means would be considered a “Bad Girl” in the rebel/hardass sense, was certainly a bad girl in terms of the fact that she was no good for me. A friend of mine at college stayed with a girlfriend who repeatedly cheated on him, and another friend of mine repeatedly got back together with a girlfriend who dumped him for the express purpose of having sex with other guys (meaning she told him of her intention to do so). I also had a conversation with a friend in my study abroad program who had studied psychology at her school, and told me about a study she had read where a significant majority of men surveyed (I believe she told me something like 80%, but I could be wrong), found many of the things that physically aroused them to be morally despicable. So I suppose another way I could phrase the question would be, What’s so sexy about being bad?

On the surface, the simple answer would be that people are attracted to confidence, and “bad” people tend to possess confidence (or the semblance of it) in large quantities. This again applies to guys as well as girls, with the distinction that for guys, personality tends to play a less integral role in attraction, particularly if the guy in question is looking for a one-night stand. For example, if a man meets a woman at the bar, whether she is confident/shy might not matter, as long as she is physically attractive and the man feels capable of getting in her pants (although confidence can clearly play a role in the second of these two factors). In my experience, if you ask a guy what is attractive about a woman, he will point out a physical feature such as chest, butt, face, or even eyes. Women tend to point out a personality trait, such as confidence, or a chip on the proverbial shoulder; or sometimes something even more abstract, like an air of mystery, or a “twinkle”.

However, leaving the question resolved in such a black and white fashion is unsatisfying for me. There is an old saying in America that reads thusly: “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”. Recently I’ve been coming around to that way of thinking more and more. I don’t hate the people who have screwed me over as much as I hate their mindset.  I hate the person that other people tell me to be in order to have more success with girls. I hate the Heathcliffs of literature and the characters played by Mickey Rourke in films. I hate the fact that acting like a”Bad Guy” seems to be a necessary evil.

Let me clarify a bit.  When I was in the midst of the aforementioned fling with the girl who was no good for me, I repeatedly received advice from members of my family telling me to “Just be mean to her every once in a while. It will make her appreciate you more.” Two of my best friends from high school, with whom I stayed in contact during college both told me, “If you really like a girl, you can’t be as nice to her as you want. You have to be kind of a dick sometimes if you want a girl to respect you.” (Both of those friends have now cheated on their girlfriends, and have had many more partners than I probably ever will). Even in high school, I had a conversation with one of the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life, and he told me, “Look, sometimes, when you meet a girl, you have to act like you only want to get in her pants. It simplifies things, and prevents you from being ‘too nice’. Then, once you’ve gotten past the first hurdle, then you can start to be yourself.” While I can see the practical wisdom in all of these pieces of advice, I’ve never been able to follow any of them. Something inside of me won’t allow it.

Here’s another way to state the problem: When I was young, I used to think that romantic relationships (sex, dating, marriage, etc.) were a mutually consentual thing between two partners. When two people met, they would feel some sort of connection, be it through eye contact, conversation, etc., and then as this connection grew, sex and relationships would arise out of this mutual feeling. The older I get, and the more I see and learn, the more the situation appears to more like this — The majority of people don’t know what they want, so take what you want, and your confidence in doing so will convince your partner that what you’re doing is mutually consentual.

That probably makes me sound like a rapist, which brings up another point. I think the way that our society views “the game” is conducive to attitudes that promote rape. One of the most depressing things I’ve ever heard was a testimonial from a rape victim at Denison’s Take Back the Night. The girl told us the story of not only the circumstances of her rape, but also the first time she tried to confide in someone. She went to one of her best friends, whom she told she thought she had been raped at a party the night before, and the friend replied, “Well, at least you got some.”

I think that sex is over-prioritized in the meat-market atmosphere of college parties, a point that was reinforced to me every time one of the guys in my a cappella singing group told me, “Hey Curtis, tonight we’re gonna get you some.” I often hear women cite the stereotype that “Men only want one thing”, but that’s oversimplyfing things. Yes, men want that one thing, but so do women for the most part. The problem lies in the fact that the men who are willing to do whatever it takes to get that one thing tend to be the ones who get it the most, for reasons that are tied directly to the “Bad Guy Appeal” attitudes listed above. Guys who are dicks take what they want, and subsequently have the appeal to get it. Other guys, who may have started off “Nice”, learn from the success of these individuals, and adopt the wisdom that my friends tried to pass on to me in high school and college — that sometimes it pays to be a dick.

The third way I could phrase today’s question is this: Why do feelings sometimes contradict our reason or morality?

I’ve already brought up the example of the survey where men said they found things simultaneously physically arousing and morally despicable. This also is quite applicable to my “Bad Girl” situation. It was apparent to me that the girl in question was no good for me long before I got over her. No matter how much she hurt me, and no matter how many logical reasons I had to give up, I kept pursuing. Women with abusive husbands will often say things like, “Deep down, I know he loves me”, but rationally, abuse is not a loving action, so these kinds of declarations clearly stem more from feelings. Similarly, boys/girls who are already in a relationship with a “Bad Guy” type generally believe that they can change their partner into someone who’s a good/dependable partner in the long run, a belief that is clearly based more on feelings than observable facts or reason.

One reason I can point to right away is religion. Many religions teach us that our bodies are worldly things, disposed to sin and error, and thus our bodily urges (e.g. sex drives) are dirty and sinful. There are two ways in which this could lead to the feelings/morality opposition that my question addresses:

1) These religions are correct, and sex really is a dirty thing, so we should use it carefully, and only for procreation.

2) The fact that religion plays such a role in our society and culture has led us to be conditioned into believing (consciously or subconciously) that sex is dirty or sinful, so in the case that we do venture into the exploration of our own sexuality, we are already of the mindset that we are doing something dirty. Since we naturally find sex arousing, we associate arousal with things that are against our morals.

Either way, this opposition is clearly apparent in our society’s sexual dialogue. When people become sexually involved, partners will frequently say things to each other like, “I feel like being really naughty tonight”, “I’ve been a bad boy/girl”, or even “Talk dirty to me.”The images of dirty/bad/naughty are naturally ingrained into our sexual conscious, and it manifests itself in our lingo. I have no doubt that this in some way plays a part in the Bad Guy/Girl appeal we are discussing.

The aforementioned “bad girl” with whom I became involved once told me, “This whole situation would be so much easier if you just didn’t have feelings.” I couldn’t help but agree with her, because if I hadn’t had such strong feelings for her I would have left her on her unappreciative ass a long time ago. But I think perhaps it is my feelings that causes me to hate “The Game”. Acting like dick to attract girls would make me feel disingenuous, like I was lowering myself. Also, if I were to separate my feelings from my romantic pursuits, I would feel like I was giving up a part of who I am, part of what makes me the person that I know and like.

There is one final contradiction in this issue that I feel merits consideration, and that is the contradiction between people’s short-term and long-term romantic goals in our society. An anecdotal way in which I can illustrate this is a conversation I had with some girls here in Le Mans after my fallout with “bad girl”. The girls I was talking all were of the belief that a guy shouldn’t be “too nice” if he wants to be desirable. They tried to console me by telling me, “Well, Curtis, you might be a nice guy, but you’re the kind of guy a girl would want to marry.” I told them that didn’t make me feel much better, because generally I like to date a girl before I marry her, so initial appeal is important to me as well. It made me think about how irrational it was to look for different qualities in people you date vs. people you marry. The way I see it, dating is the process through which you discover how you function in a relationship, and what qualities you want in a partner. While those qualities may change as you learn more about yourself and others, at every point you should be looking for qualities in people that you want in a long-term partner. To consciously look for different qualities in a boyfriend and a husband seems silly to me.

I talked to another friend about this, and she told me, “Well, it’s the classic debate between excitement and stability; people want excitement from sex/dating and stability from marriage. But that’s just silly, because you can have both. In fact, I know you can have both.” I found here words very wise; I think if you love someone enough to marry them you should have both. But here’s where the mind/feeling opposition rears its ugly head again. What do we do when our feelings tell us that an asshole is exciting and attractive, when our mind tells us that really he/she is just an asshole, and we should be looking for someone dependable who will treat us well? I generally favor my mind in circumstances such as these, but as I said previously I am not willing to simply dismiss or relinquish my feelings.

Okay, I think I have thoroughly and comprehensively explained my qualms with the Bad Guy appeal, and its apparent and underlying causes. If you feel compelled by these issues, feel free to leave me any opinions, anecdotes or advice you have in the comments section. I promise the top 5 lists this week will be lighter, easier reading. Tootles.

Top 5 Dog Breeds

This Friday’s post has me at somewhat of a moral dilemma. Part of me feels like ranking dog breeds is sort of racist. I mean, how is comparing breeds of dogs any different from comparing races of human beings? (By the way, for the record, if I were to rank races, Asians would totally top my list. They’re just so motivated, and they smile all the time). I had also thought about writing a Moral Question of the day about parallels between dog breeding and racism. I mean, is looking down at mutts and mongrels any better than looking down at mulattos? That might be approaching territory that would offend too many people, so I’ll leave that alone right now. Doggy racism concerns aside, there are clearly individual dogs that are better than others, and we breed dogs to try to engender and accumulate these individual differences according to our design, so there are clear reasons that we consider some dog breeds “better” than others. It is also clear that I have the authority and expertise to now decree which ones are the “best”. Alright then, off we go….

Dishonorable Mention: All manner of small, bark-happy dogs.

This group includes, but is not limited to: Poodles, Bichon Frises, assorted breeds of Terriers and Spaniels, Shih Tzus, and so forth. The first strike against them is that their barks are terribly annoying — shrill, piercing shrieks of canine cacophony. The second (and more important) strike is that they unleash these barks at the slightest change in their environment, be it a stranger at the door, a creak in the house, or a new flower pot on the back porch. Strike 3 (perhaps the cause of strike 2) is that many of these dogs just seem to be ill-tempered in one way or another. Some are simply hyperactive, others are quite ornary, or even violently tempered (I’m looking at you, standard poodle down the street). Many of the smallest ones seem have a napoleonic complex — despite their diminutive stature, they insist upon imposing their will on all of the bigger dogs and people around them. Strike 4 is less important, and only covers some of the aforementioned breeds, but I just find curly-haired dogs less satisfying to pet. I don’t care if a poodle doesn’t shed; if it isn’t soft and fuzzy to pet/cuddle with, it is failing in one of its primary roles as a dog. The whole not-shedding phenomenon in poodles and bichons is also overruled by the three previously mentioned strikes. Give me a dog with a smooth, soft coat; a deep, chesty, rarely-heard bark; and a sweet, loving temperament, and it can shed all over my house if it wants to. God created brushes and vacuum cleaners for a reason.

I realize that many of my friends and readers may indeed own dogs that are on the Dishonorable Mention list. If this is the case, you can choose to react one of two different ways:

1) Put my criticism completely out of your mind. Everyone knows that his/her dog is the best dog in the world. If that is the case, and your dog is the best, then what does the opinion of some blogger matter? Besides, the whole premise of today’s top 5 list is essentially dog racism, and it’s not fair to hold individual dogs to the stereotypes of their breeds. Some dogs might be capable of running fast, jumping high, and performing well on standardized tests all at the same time. Even Curtis himself would admit that he has met the occasional little terrier with a sweet disposition, so he can take his elitist canine purism and shove it.

2) Get a new dog, preferably one on the top 5 list.

Either of these reactions are acceptable; I find them equally valid and compelling. Speaking of the top 5 list, however…..

5. Weimaraners

I had always thought that the it was spelled “Weimeraners”, but when I checked Wikipedia, I got the spelling above. Anyway, I like their name; it’s fun and challenging to spell and pronounce. Kind of like my last name, only without the Armenian. I’ve never actually owned a Weimaraner, and I don’t know anyone who owns one, but they are very cute dogs, and their resemblance to Laboradors naturally reserves a soft spot in my heart for them. Also, there’s a very cute Weimaraner in the Matchbox 20 video “Unwell”, and that’s a great song, so Weimeraners are great by association (if there can be guilt by association, there should also be great by association). Plus, check out this wikipedia excerpt:

“Weimaraners will tolerate cats, as long as they are introduced to the cats as puppies, and many will chase and frequently kill almost any small animal that enters their garden or backyard.”

I don’t know how the person who wrote the wikipedia article thought to connect the two ideas expressed in this sentence with the word “and”. That’s like writing, “Weimaraners will tolerate small children if exposed to them as puppies, and will chase and frequently kill small children that live down the street”. I don’t know how that makes Weimeraners better dogs (in fact, they sound kind of agressive), but it is hilarious. Plus, I’ve met Weimeraners at travel soccer games and other social functions, and they seem well tempered enough. I’ll keep them at number 5 for now.

4. Pugs

These are kind of the underdog of today’s top 5 list, if there is such a thing, and if you excuse the terrible pun. The reason I say that they are an underdog is because I don’t understand what exactly is so adorable about them. I would not be surprised if someone told me, “Man, pugs have got to be some of the ugliest dogs I’ve ever seen.” They are wrinkly, snorty, oddly-colored balls of bizarre with legs. I suspect that if I didn’t find them so freakin’ cute, I might think that they were ugly. I’m not sure, but it might be their temperament that endears them to me so. I guess in some ways, personality affects cuteness in dogs. I feel like a girl, saying something like, “That guy is so hot, because he’s a photographer”, or “That guy is so hot! Look at him, he’s just so confident.” For little dogs, pugs are strangely bark-free. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a pug bark in my entire life. I’ve heard them snort, sneeze, chortle, hack, and other gross-yet-endearing noises, but I’m having trouble even recalling what a pug bark even sounds like. I would assume it sounds like other small-dog yaps, but you would never know, because pugs hardly ever bark. For being little dogs, they are surprisingly mellow, but that is not to say that they are completely devoid of little dog energy. I was walking the streets of Le Mans one night when a man passed me, pug in tow alongside him. It wanted to say hi, so I leaned over to pet it. The French guy was like, “oh, you started petting her…now it’s all over…she’s your friend forever now”. His words seemed true enough — she was trembling with excitement at the attention she was receiving, and she seemed to have no intention of leaving, even when her master started tugging on the leash. She, and by extention, her entire breed, is adorable.

3. Beagles

I forsee a point of contention here. You might say, “but Curtis, isn’t a beagle the kind of small, bark-happy dog you were talking about in your dishonorable mention?” I have this to say to you in my defense: Beagles are small, howl-happy dogs. There’s a very important difference. Little-dog barking, otherwise known as yipping or yapping, is incredibly grating and annoying. Howling, the hound equivalent of barking, is infinitely less annoying, and sometimes even cute or endearing. Why do you think they chose a hound for Disney’s cartoon “The Fox and the Hound?” Actually, it was probably because hounds were traditionally used to hunt foxes, so the two childhood friends made an unlikely pair. But I contend that the second reason for which they chose a hound was because when Copper howls, both as a puppy and an adult, it is infinitely cuter than if they had chosen a dog that went, “Yap! Yap! Yap! I’m an annoying little dog with curly hair and an unfriendly disposition! Yap! Yap! Yap!” Barking-howling distinction aside, Beagles are arguably the cutest of all the little dogs, and in a genuinely cute way, not in a weird-and-almost-ugly way, like pugs. I realize they share many of their features with Basset Hounds and Corgies, but Basset Hounds are too droopy, and Corgies are too pointy. Beagles, like Baby Bear’s porridge, are just right. I could just gobble them up.

2. Golden Retrievers

Arguably one of the most beloved breeds in America, Golden Retrievers would certainly merit a spot on anyone’s top 5 list. They are loyal family protectors, wonderful with children, and the perfect size for hugging. Their bark is profoundly less annoying (and less frequently employed) than that of a little dog, and intimidating enough to scare burglars away. Golden Retrievers are simultaneously intelligent and obedient, two traits which lend themselves well to canine acting. This has landed Golden Retrievers starring roles in films like “Homeward Bound” and “Air Bud”, and many other smaller cameos in other Hollywood films. Plus, they’re just so darn cute. You can’t look a Golden Retriever in the face without saying, “awwwwww…..”, or at least feeling it on the inside. The only thing that keeps Golden Retrievers out of the top spot is the undisputed-most-amazing dog breed in the world, which Golden Retrievers even resemble in a few ways. All in all, Goldens have nothing to be ashamed of, and many reasons to be cuddled with.

1. The Labrador Retriever

I use the phrase “The Labrador Retriever” in the way that people from OSU say, “ahem, The Ohio State University.” I know, it’s pretentious, and annoying, but it conveys superiority, and really, that’s what labs are — superior canine specimens. Ditto for everything I said about Golden Retrievers (minus the starring roles in “Air Bud” and “Homeward Bound”), add cuteness and intelligence, and decrease the shedding by about 30%. Darby, three-time winner of the “Undisputed Greatest Dog of All Time” award by the Plowgian Association of Canine Merits, Attributes, and Needs (PACMAN), was a labrador, and he personified everything that a labrador can and should be. He was paradigmatically cute (the archetype of cute for any postmodern readers), cavity-causingly sweet, cuddly, with low Bark and Drool Factors (BF & DF). His DF increased late in life as he lost control of bodily functions, as did his Poop-All-Over-The-House Factor (PAOTHF). But even when he pooped in the house, he did so in record-setting fashion. In spite of badly arthritic hips, he managed to paint our entire main floor with his feces in the space of a few minutes when he was 14 years old. I remember telling my Denison friends that he was the David Copperfield of Poo, and that he had performed the fecal equivalent of making the Statue of Liberty disappear. Man I miss that dog.

Really, yellow labs make the top tier of the number one spot occupied by “The Labrador Retriever”, they’d be like the Honors Program at OSU (or the football team; I don’t really claim to know what OSU students value — beer, maybe?). Yellow Labs get a special, unprecedented ranking on the list of dog breeds: we’ll call them 1+. Either that or Uber 1’s. Uber- goes well with the whole German/Aryan/racial elite theme of today’s post, so let’s go with that. Darby was a yellow lab, but that’s not the only reason for their top tier status. What is the most common breed of dog you see helping blind or disabled people? Not just labs — that’s right, yellow labs. That’s because the aforementioned intelligence/demeanor combination found in Golden Retrievers and Labradors is even more evident in “The Yellow Labrador Retriever”.

There are even different kinds of yellow labs. According to Marley and Me by John Grogan, European labs have a much more mellow, family-friendly temperament than their American counterparts (which would explain why Darby, purchased at a breeder in Belgium, was the sweetest thing on four legs). Anyway, for any dog lovers out there, particularly lab lovers, Marley and Me is a funny, touching, tear-inducing read. It clearly illustrates that even the “worst [lab] in the world” is still pretty darn sweet. Anyway, I don’t think I need to give any more proof. Laboradors are simply the best. I hereby propose that we all log on to Wikipedia and change their laborador entry to “The Labrador Retriever (“Labrador” or “Lab” for short), is one of several kinds of retriever, and is the most popular breed of dog (by registered ownership) in both the United States and the United Kingdom. They are also undisputedly the best dogs in the world. QED.” I think it would work. It’s basically fact, anyway.

That rounds out today’s top 5. I realize that there are many great breeds of dog that I didn’t get to touch upon, and if you want to make a case for your kind of dog I look forward to hearing it. Except, of course, any nonsense from Jon claiming that I need put Bichon Frises on the list, or any devil propaganda from the Standard Poodle down the street singing the praises of poodles and their kind. I mean, I guess that stuff could still be posted, I just won’t look forward to hearing it. Tootles.

Top 5 Embraced-then-Rejected Celebrities

Ok, I’ve been quite verbose recently, and as my twin brother pointed out this has prompted complaints that my blog is in fact “tros long” (this is actually poor French, by the way; my junior high students need to practice more than their English apparently). Anyway. I’m not feeling particularly prolific today, so I wouldn’t be surprised if today’s post turns out a little shorter than the last few.

Today’s top 5 addresses a group of people for whom I feel a great deal of sympathy. These are people who were once on top of the world, and now are not much more than objects of frequent mockery. In some cases, the reason for the downfall of the particular individual is to a great extent his/her own fault, but ultimately I think this calmity befalls  a great number of celebrities simply because public opinion is a fickle thing. My criteria for ranking include, but are not limited to:

- Height of popularity before rejection

- Intensity of hate/mocking after rejection

- My sympathy for the individual

Note: I am only addressing celebrities during my life tenure. I don’t really remember series like the Partidge family or Brady Bunch, or the rise and fall of people like Gary Coleman, so while these people may be worthwhile, they didn’t make my list. And here they are:

 5. Pauly Shore

The reason he makes this top 5 list was pointed out by Kevin Smith in the dvd, “An Evening with Kevin Smith”. While Pauly shore was very popular for a few years in the early nineties, what is more startling was the intensity of the backlash against him. The “his fault” part of this debacle was also pointed out by Kevin Smith — he never really made an attempt to grow or diversify as an actor, and the public got sick of his character type. I can’t really blame him, however; as we’ll soon see, the #2 person on this list would have done well to follow the “stick with what works” strategy a little more. I don’t think there’s a fool-proof winning formula for staying beloved in the capricious realm of public opinion, which is why people like Madonna are so rare and impressive. Anyway, sometimes I kinda miss the Weasel. I still contend that “Encino Man” and “Son In Law” are very well-made, entertaining movies. “Weeza da ju-uice!” I mean, it’s certainly not heightened prose, but you can’t fake that kind of originality. Wherever you are, Pauly Shore, you are not forgotten. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

4. David Hasselhoff

One reason in particular this guy comes to mind is that I was talking to the very hot German assistant at my high school, and she informed me that David Hasselhoff is no longer popular in Germany. Germany, people! Even if Hasselhoff had become a joke a decade ago in the states, Germany was always supposed to be his one remaining fortress of public support. It was his last line of defense — his Helm’s Deep, if you will. Granted, I was very young when Knight Rider was popular, but I was a young adolescent when the Baywatch era was still in full swing. And during the Baywatch era, Hasselhoff was the man. If you think about all the money that show made (both in the US and abroad), and all of the beautiful women he was surrounded with, there were few people in the world who were in as enviable of a position as ‘Hoff was in the early 90’s. Now he makes cameos in movies like “Eurotrip”, “The SpongeBob Square Pants Movie” ,and “Click”, where it’s clear that the film maker either wanted him for comic relief or is blatantly making fun of him. Even sports casters at Dallas Mavericks games make fun of him, and sportscasters are among the lamest people on the planet for the most part (Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon aside — I love you guys). At least he seems to embrace his joke status, and is still capable of making money at it.

3. Vanilla Ice

I chose Vanilla Ice as a paradigm example as what happened to a lot of rappers and heavy metal artist in the early and mid 90’s. You could easily insert MC Hammer, or any Big-Hair band’s name here. The thing that is amazing about Vanilla Ice is that basically his entire popularity hinged on one song, but everyone still knows and loves that one song. I think “Ice Ice Baby” came out when I was in Kindergarten, but they still played it at almost every high school dance I ever went to. That being said, I challenge you to name another famous Vanilla Ice song. People still played it at college parties, and in my travels abroad I have met people from other countries who know all the words. I know “Ninja Rap” from TMNT II: Secret of the Ooze, but I don’t know how many people would consider that popular, per se. Like Hammer, Poison, Whitesnake and others, Vanilla had the wrong image at the wrong time; he was glitzy when the indusrty went hard. On MTV (maybe VH1) I saw a program that said Vanilla Ice made it almost impossible for white people to make it as rappers for years after his epic downfall from the music scene. If that’s true, that’s reverse discrimination, and I know a lot of affirmative action opponents who would have something to say about it.

2. Brittney Spears

The most recent of my examples, and particularly on the public’s mind since the head-shaving incident. Arguably the most successful female solo-artist of her time, Brittney headlined the early 00’s (how do you say that? early “thousands?”) pop music revolution alongside her fellow mousketeers Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez and Christina Aguilera. To my knowledge, none of the Backstreet Boys were mousketeers, but they might as well have been. Anyway, Brittney was making money hand over fist, she was the biggest female sex symbol since Madonna, and she was in what looked like a healthy romantic relationship with Justin Timberlake. She was the envy of every 10 to 14 year-old girl who bought her records, and liked by millions of other people who today would never admit it. I knew guys in my high school who bought her album just for the pictures in the cd cover. So what happened? Some would say she went back to her white-trash roots; if she is truly being herself now I guess I can’t fault her for trying, but really I would have to say she would have been better off with the “stick to what works” strategy (e.g. Justin Timberlake rather than K-Fed, feigning innocence and not fooling anyone rather than embracing the trashy, etc.) Now that she’s pumped out a few kids, let the pop star image go, and started hanging out with people like Paris Hilton, she has succesfully made the transition from pop-goddess to trashy tabloid magnet. In attempts to regain the spotlight, she shows the paparazzi body parts that Playboy would have once paid her millions of dollars to photograph. It’s a shame the timing worked out so poorly for her.

1. Michael Jackson

While the Thriller might be the person on this list who is most at fault for his downfall in terms of his actions, he might be the least at fault in terms of how screwed up he is, and he’s definitely the person for whom I feel the most pity. Granted, anyone implicated in child molestation is going to suffer in the realm of public opinion, but think about where he’s coming from. He had an abusive, overbearing father, was basically deprived of anything that any of us would consider a normal childhood, and has made so much money that most of the “friends” he’s had for his entire life were probably people just trying to get some kind of cut. Plus, I’m beginning to think I believe him when it comes to the whole children/sleepovers thing. All of my friends had sleepovers as young children – sometimes we’d even make our sleeping bags in to forts and share the same sleeping space, and no one ever thought it was gay or perverted. Most people would probably agree that a grown man sleeping with a young child is gay or perverted, but that’s because they think “sleeping with” implies intercourse/sodomy. What if Michael is just trying to make up for the sleepovers he never had as a child? It doesn’t make it any more normal, but there isn’t necessarily anything sexual about it. Plus, some of the kids who have sued him seem like they’re pretty sketchy, or their parents want to pay for something expensive like medical treatment. Of course, it’s possible that he’s a child molester and I’m just spouting off nonsense, but seeing television interviews and reading newspaper articles has made me question from time to time.

That rounds out today’s top 5. It seems a little shorter, right? I can’t tell right now; I kinda zone out when I’m writing, and in the “Post” window, I can only ever see about six lines of text at a time, so my frame of reference isn’t really that good. Anyway, I’m off to see if I can find a delicious pastry to eat before my afternoon class at my junior high. Tootles.