I love Bravo - I mean I love love Project Runway, which is on Bravo, a lot. It is also a really good Bravo Production, leading me to think that Bravo is really good at reality shows. But the Real Housewives Series makes me want to claw out my ears!

And then there were three.

Grrrrr.

Let's take a vote. Did Fidel die? Press 1 for "Yes," 2 for "No."

Seriously, though...if Castro is still kicking it, why would Cuba hastily announce, in the middle of the night, that he's stepping down? Why not wait until morning? Why isn't it big news on the island? If Castro was alive to announce this himself, why did he write a letter to the newspaper? Why not give a speech instead, or give a speech in addition to the letter? OK, yes, he's not well -- but is he so sickly that he can't even wave to the people one last time?

I'm just saying.

To think this day would never come: Principal Mancuso is 'graduating' with the class of 08!

Anxious Masculinity Watch--suicide-style

Apparently, some anxious anthropologist is blaming the wimmins for male suicide with their "manipulative behavior." Man. I only WISH I'd driven some men to suicide. I ripped this off of feministing.com:

"I can't say in the short term that we can begin to change the culture to be less male hostile. It is going to take years. But a part of what needs to be done is to re-socialise not only our males but also our females. Frankly, some of our females are far too manipulative," Gayle told the Sunday Observer, adding that it should come as little surprise that men were killing their women and themselves.

Yes, because we all know that the CRAZAZY-ness of women stepping out of line and actually arguing with the poor menz is liable to make ANYONE suicidal.

I would like to share something from the vault, dated July 13, 2000, 2:22 a.m.:

Those bastards should die. They made Erica cry. That's really fucking severe. I've never seen her cry before. She didn't even cry over ERiC. Well, that's not true. She did, but not in public. But "the man" and her whole frickin softball team, and those blind, dick-headed umpries made Erica cry in front of everyone. I hate that ANYONE can make Erica cry. She's the tough one...and if she can cry over a stupid little game that means absolutely nothing in the overall picture of things, then how tough does that make the rest of us?

Does anyone have any memory of this? After stumbling across it, I have a really hazy memory of a beer ball game gone awry, but...what the hell happened?

I am reading the most fascinating book with Parker right now.

It's called Language Exploration and Awareness, by Larry Andrews. Yes, it's a grammar book. It's also seriously interesting how Standard American English (SAE) and grammar "rules" are actually just social rules that often have the effect of stigmatizing whole groups of minorities and the manner in which they speak by declaring it "wrong" or "improper" use of grammar and language.

Key points I find terribly interesting:

1. SAE "rules" were not actually created for English. Back in the day, when Latin was taught and English actually was not, they decided that they were hearing too many deviations in the manner in which people were speaking English. So they decided to teach the language, though it was the native language of the US, and imposed grammatical "rules" that were made for Latin and other romance languages--hence why a lot of these "rules" don't make any sense in English, yet they make tons of sense for Latin, Spanish, etc. (ex: "Never split an infinitive." This makes sense for Spanish, as is illustrated in the example of "leer," or "to read." If one said, "le con cuidado er" it would make no fucking sense. But, in English--"I want you to carefully read pages 105 to 108..." makes perfect sense.) The rules are seriously outdated and conservative...and they also stand to create division and racism. As you will see in my other interested point--

2. African-American Vernacular English (aka AAVE, or Black Vernacular English--BVE, or ebonics) is often cited as "improper use of English," or "slang." But actually, it is NOT a degenerative language, as it is often described. Instead, it's, "a variety of English that followed a different path to its own pattern of regularization."--Larry Andrews. Obviously, AAVE is not all-encompassing of African Americans any more than SAE is all-encompassing of all Anglo-Americans. However, SAE is no more "correct" than AAVE, as it too is derivative and follows no clear pattern or rule structure...so why are people hyper-critical of AAVE? Frankly, I think it's shrouded racism--by labeling that way in which someone speaks as "ignorant," you slyly sneak in the idea that the person him/herself is ignorant. There is nothing linguistically incorrect, but socially...

I only wish I'd read this book a few years ago, when I got into an argument with some jag-off that said anyone speaking "incorrect" English was a follower of "gangsta culture."


I would be interested to know what Lauren thinks of this, as she is devoting her time and life to the study of linguistics.