Do the Yak

Remember my rant about kiddie spas that sexualize little girls? That's nothing compared to kiddie beauty contests. The movie we saw last night, “Little Miss Sunshine," does a hilarious send-up of this fine American institution that's also surprisingly touching. Great dialogue, great acting throughout, but the pageant finale will go down as a classic. Nine-year-old Olive: "I'd like to dedicate this performance to my Grandpa." Emcee: "Aw, how sweet. And where is your grandpa now, honey?" Olive, with equanimity: "In the trunk of our car." I won't spoil the whole thing for you, but this emcee has to be seen to be believed. Think American actor wildly impersonating Eric Idle impersonating a 1970s American game-show emcee. Ben and I laughed a lot during the movie, but it wasn’t entirely carefree humor — it was complicated because it was also poignant in places, and because it revolved around something I find truly horrifying. The kiddie-pa...

Just pondering some words that are inherently funny. I don't mean words whose meanings evoke humor, but words that just sound funny all by themselves. As a group, I think the funniest are words that mean surprised or puzzled, like "kerfuffled," "bamboozled," "flummoxed" and "gobsmacked." The derivation of only the last one is clear, as in "being so surprised you slap your hand to your open mouth," or "gob" in British parlance, as in "Shut yer festering gob!" There are lots of other useful British words and phrases you should know... where was I? Oh yes... lots of animals have funny names even though the animal itself it not particularly amusing. I have to admit my views in this area are somewhat colored by Monty Python. I mean, how can you not suppress a chuckle at the mere mention, even in the most serious context, of "halibut," "wombat," "stoat," "vole" or "hedgehog...

...from Sarah's birthday party last Saturday. God, whatever happened to plain old Pin the Tail on the Donkey? We woke up in what we thought was plenty of time to get ready before the kiddies arrived at 11:00. We had actually gotten all the fixin's (ice cream cake, matching paper Spongebob Squarepants tableware, gifts, wrapping paper and a puppet lady) in the days before. So all we had to do was tidy up a bit and get ready for fun. But first we had a leisurely breakfast, coffee and newspaper-reading session before getting to work. T-minus 90 minutes: Ben helps Sarah assemble goodie bags for her guests, which takes quite a bit of time due to her insistence that items be distributed in exactly the correct order and combination. I start to worry about time and start mopping the kitchen/dining area at high speed like one of those people in the sport of curling, then stabbing at the toilet bowl with the brush once or twice. T-minus 60 minutes: Ben and I are setting a new decibel reco...

OK, actually femininity in general, but "tits" will probably get more hits from Google wankers. I refer to the two extremes of Puritanical modesty vs. titty exhibitionism and the high-volume, self-righteous, straitlaced moral outrage that invariably follows. On one end of the spectrum, you have people who are offended by images of breast-feeding . Note that the partly visible nursing boob in question was on the cover of BabyTalk magazine, not Penthouse. "There's a huge Puritanical streak in Americans, and there's a squeamishness about seeing a body part — even part of a body part... It's not like women are whipping them out with tassels on them! Mostly, they are trying to be discreet," says the editor. You go, girl. Then we have my old favorite Michelle Duggar, she of the nuclear-powered uterus, who just doesn't have enough to do with taking care of more than a dozen kids but she has to MAKE HER DAUGHTERS' DRESSES HERSELF so as to ensure sufficie...

We had a great weekend in Boothbay, Maine last weekend. The 'rents treated us to two nights in a suite at the Tugboat Inn (yes, the restaurant is partly made of a real tugboat that apparently could have used a better GPS system) and a trip on their boat, plus a side trip to Reid State Park, where the girls had a blast scampering away from the waves. Even more exciting was when a guy standing next to us who was surf-casting caught a small striped bass and pretneded to make it kiss his son before throwing it back (the fish, not the kid). An unexpected bonus was the Maine State Aquarium , which is only one room but very cool. They have one tank where you can pick up starfish and lobsters, and another wherer you can touch dogfish, which are small sharks who stcik their noses out of the water like, well, like dogs. Apparently they get some sort of cheap thrill from the slight electric current passing through a person's finger. Then they gave a kids' presentation about lobstering...

Like many people, I'm unhappy about the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict and the deaths of innocent civilians. I'm not going to take a position on who's right and wrong, but instead point out something else: Bush's staunch support of Israel. Now this isn't anything new in terms of U.S. policy, but Bush, in keeping with his general hawkishness, supports even the most ruthless militarists, including Ariel Sharon and now Israel's latest campaign. There's another reason Bush is an unusually uncritical backer of Israel, I think: dominionism . This is a philosophy in America that seeks to establish specific political policies based on religious beliefs -- specifically, conservative Christian beliefs. As the Wikipedia article notes (boldface is mine): "Within the Christian Right, concern over social, cultural, and political issues such as abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, sympathy for Israel sometimes expressed as Christian Zionism, the banning of teacher-le...