Dropping H's

Alright, one of my new pet peeves is people using the letter H incorrectly. And by that I mean, using "an" in front of a word starting with "H." Like last night, when CSI used the term An Historic Event. In this country, we pronounce the letter H, and it acts as a consonant (because it is one). It should be A Historic Event. I feel like whoever is writing these things has some idea that "it sounds fancier if I do it this way." Kind of like people who use the word whom, instead of who, but don't actually know the correct time to use it. (For the record, I sometimes use whom, but only when it's correct. You use it in places where you would use him or her. And it's mostly dropped out of usage anyway, because it seems to confuse people.)

Example: Who ate the leftover pizza? (He ate the leftover pizza.)
To whom are you talking? (I am talking to him.)

Well, saying An Historic doesn't make you fancy or knowledgeable - it makes you stupid. Unfortunately, it seems to be pervasive in many of the books I've read recently, which makes me wonder if grammar books recently changed, or will be changed, to reflect the new incorrect usage. Well, I say STOP! Take a stand against incorrect grammar! And while you're at it, stop using 's after words that end in S. When I was a kid it was the Smith's house and the Rogers' house. Apparently some grammar books are now saying it's the Rogers's house, which is horrible. STOP IT!

Last Pink Ribbon Rant?

October is almost done, so my ranting will be over until next year. So let me leave you with one last thought. You know how every now and then there's some really really annoying commercial on TV and every time it comes on you have to mute the volume, or else you'll start tearing your hair out and run screaming from the room? That's what pink ribbons have done to me.

What price, failure?

I just read an interesting post over on BlogHer (a site for women bloggers). It's called College Never Prepared Me for Not Using My Degree. I thought this part was especially telling:

College prepared me to succeed. Everyone I've ever known, as a friend or mentor, has told me that I can do anything I want. That if I just try hard enough, I'll be successful. But it doesn't really work that way, does it? I've always been prepared for success. No one sits you down and says, "Sometimes, you're going to try really hard, and you're going to want something more than you've ever wanted anything else in your life, and you're not going to get it. Sometimes, you're going to fail. You're going to fail in small ways, but you're also going to fail in great, big, embarrassingly, heart-breaking messy ways. And it's okay."

This is precisely what is wrong with our children. This girl is part of the first generation to graduate under the "no failure" model. Your team comes in last place - you still get a trophy! You flunked the test - hey, that's a 60%, not an F! Because no one fails anymore! And there are no consequences! Until you get into the real world. And then you're not prepared for it, because you've never experienced it before. I've read a number of those lists and articles about really successful people, and most of them list failure as one of the important turning points for them. But now we've taken that away from our children. It's alright to be an optimist, and to reach for the stars. Really, go for it! But you do need to realize that not everyone makes it. And that's okay.

Boobies Rule!

You've probably heard about the I [heart] Boobies pink bracelets meant to raise breast cancer awareness. Some people don't like them, especially school officials, who seem to think that "boobies" is inappropriate language. In which case, I think they should change the motto to I [heart] Titties.

Humor aside, this is another rant about pink ribbons (or bracelets in this case). And you thought I was done ranting! I have no problem, in general, with pink boobies bracelets. And I think part of the reason they were created, is because they might appeal to kids, and get out the message about breast cancer.

They've been banned in some schools, and one kid in particular ran into problems. He initially had to wear the bracelet inside out, because the word boobies was "inappropriate." After the ACLU got involved, he's allowed to wear it normally now - just like all the girls at his school have been doing. But he can't wear it at all in the classrooms of two teachers (one had breast cancer, the other lost a relative to it). The article doesn't say whether or not girls had to take off the bracelets in those classrooms, even though the teachers were apparently offended by the term "boobies," not by the guy.

Bracelet wearers, officials added, must sincerely support the breast cancer cause and not use them to demean women.

Good god, what's next!!! If you want a pink ribbon, you'll need to fill out a request form?!? We all know how I feel about the pink ribbon phenomenon. I feel the same way about the bracelets. To me, they all trivialize breast cancer. So there's no difference between them in my mind. And in defense of the boy who got into trouble: he began wearing the bracelet because he was going to chemo with his dad, who has testicular cancer, and noticed there were a lot of women there with breast cancer. To me, that says that maybe, just maybe, he's not trying to demean women.

And how the hell does this demean women anyway! Boobies is a slang term for "breasts." It's a childish term, literally used by children who are too timid to say the word breast. Boobs is the more grown-up version. I don't care if kids are wearing them because they think it's funny to have the word boobies on a bracelet. They're still wearing them. It doesn't demean women. To me, this sounds like the same people who are against breast-feeding in public, because boobs are sex objects. The whole thing smacks of old-timey prudery.

Free Speech is Free Speech: Part 3

Wow, according to this posting, the Westboro Baptist Church has no problem with the Ground Zero Mosque. Well, they think it should be allowed to be built, but they do think Islam is a false religion. I'm not sure if they really believe that deeply in freedom of religion or not. A friend of mine suggested that they only support the mosque because they know it will piss people off.

Free Speech is Free Speech: Part 2

A friend of mine had a great idea. We should all show up outside the Westboro Baptist Church and protest them! This article on Wikipedia has their address. I wonder if they would still claim Freedom of Speech, if we stood on public property outside their church and told them they were all going to hell because God hates people like them. We could even chant and sing songs like they do.

It's Pink Ribbon Rant Time Again

Yes, I know. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Or as I like to call it: Pink Ribbons Out the Wazoo Month. As I've said before, in general, I don't have a problem with breast cancer awareness. I think it's a good thing. I have a problem with this huge celebration (or sale-a-bration) that it seems to have become. In the old days, you could send in pink yogurt lids and the company would donate 10 cents for each lid. Nowadays, every product made is available in pink, with or without the pink ribbon, and you are guilted into buying them. Many of these companies donate a pittance to the cause, and really, they could care less. All they care about is selling you products. And they've learned that this is a good way to do it.

My other peeve is the entire Awareness Month. Breast cancer does kill a lot of women and strikes a visceral cord with them, because it affects their breasts. But it's not the leading cause of death in women - that's heart disease. It's not even the leading cancer cause of death - that's lung cancer. And yes, maybe it's no longer the leading cause of cancer deaths BECAUSE of awareness. But I feel like it overshadows all the other cancers. How many women worry about getting breast cancer and get mammograms once they turn 40, but have to sneak out to their car and light up a cigarette? How many young girls start to smoke and get addicted, never thinking that one day it could kill them?

Carrying on with my peeve, Breast Cancer Awareness happens twice a year. I start seeing pink a few weeks before October, then there's the entire month of October. Then there's the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure around April. My local station starts advertising that 2 months in advance, because they have training sessions at the local track. So that's almost 5 months of Pink Ribbon Madness. Just as I get sick of seeing certain commercials on TV, I get sick of seeing Pink Ribbons everywhere.

Another cancer peeve I have issues with is the term "survivor." There's a good article about this on Slate. I'm not really sure what "survivor" means; apparently it has changed over the years. It used to mean having survived over 5 years in remission, I think. Call me crazy, but if the cancer is gone and never comes back, to me, that seems like any old bad disease. I think the true survivors are those who are still fighting it. And if calling yourself a survivor makes it easier for you to fight it off, then go for it. But as the article points out, calling yourself a survivor makes it seem like you did all the right things to survive. So anyone who dies, didn't do the right things. They didn't get the chemo, or the surgery, or a better doctor, or they just didn't fight hard enough. And that's just plain wrong. My grandmother fought cancer for years, until she finally lost that battle. But I declare her a survivor for lasting that long.

Don't think I'm trivializing cancer by calling it "any old bad disease." But if we're going to call people who survive cancer survivors, what about other diseases? Malaria is really bad, and it can recur once you've had it. So should those people be called survivors? It's pretty uncommon in America, but not in other parts of the world. What about people with recurring heart attacks, etc. Are they survivors? I know some people out there are going to say that I could never understand, because I haven't had cancer (and I pray I never do!). But I've seen two of my grandparents die of it. And I've volunteered at a hospice, where a lot of the deaths are from cancer. I don't trivialize anything that can cause that much damage. But I feel that Pink Ribbons are doing the job for me.

Women Rule!

Foreign Policy has a great little photo essay on women currently ruling countries. It's almost sad to look at it. The US still hasn't had a female president, but freaking Pakistan and Bangladesh have - and they're Muslim countries!!! I had pretty much assumed we would have a black president before a woman president, which has turned out to be true. (Because no matter how prejudiced some people are, at least it's still a MAN running things, not some crazy dame!) But now that the ice has been broken, we need a female president soon. And I do NOT mean Sarah Palin; I think she's an idiot. We need some good female candidates over the next decade so that little girls can see a woman actually win the presidency.

Free Speech is Free Speech

I am a big believer in freedom of speech, and sometimes that means defending people who don't deserve it. Case in point: those damn funeral protesters. The case is now up to the Supreme Court, and I really hope they can cut through the hurt feelings and make the right decision, which is their job. Personally, I feel it is completely reprehensible to protest a soldier's funeral. But we have the right to do so in this country.

I believe I have mentioned before in this blog, that right after I graduated college, I did some shift work. I was flipping through the cable channels at 4 am and found the KKK on the local cable access network. At first I was pretty offended, but then I realized that they were protected under freedom of speech laws. To paraphrase: I don't believe in flag-burning, but I will defend to the death your right to burn the flag.

Yes, Rich, Jews were oppressed

Wow - it's been a while since I blogged! I felt the need to comment on this though. And I hope it does not come out as trying to defend Rich Sanchez. Sanchez was fired from CNN after calling Jon Stewart a bigot, saying he was part of the liberal northeast elite, and when it was pointed out that Stewart is Jewish, that:

I'm telling you that everyone who runs CNN is a lot like Stewart, and a lot of people who run all the other networks are a lot like Stewart, and to imply that somehow they, the people in this country who are Jewish, are an oppressed minority? I can't see someone not getting a job these days because they're Jewish.

Like I said, I don't mean to defend Sanchez, but maybe he just doesn't know? I'm an educated woman, and it wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I found out Jews had been discriminated against in America (and that was because of a movie!). I grew up with discrimination being black and white. As far as I knew, there was no other kind. It wasn't until college that I learned the KKK had at one point been anti-Catholic. Looking back, it really makes me wonder - why was I never taught this in school? Was it because there were comparatively few Jews where I lived, so it was considered unimportant? Or was it because there were so many people of African descent that all other discrimination was crowded out? But from some of Sanchez's comments, I think he may simply be ignorant of the past.