Street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm ([info]tritium) wrote,
@ 2007-11-13 10:58:00
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Inspired by a completely unrelated post on someone else's journal, this morning I remembered a newspaper item from several years back. Thinking about it some more on the T, I got even more het-up about it, because I realized something about it: it represents pretty much everything that shames me about my country today.

Here's a quick summary of the item: Emory University, world renown for its public health department, collaborated with the CDC and the federal government to study anonymous truck-stop sex as a disease vector for STDs, inspired by similar studies in other countries that revealed evidence that this was a major way that the disease spread down the "spine" of Africa. This study, along with a number of others, caused a major furor amongst the religious right, who consider it immoral and shameful. The religious right lobbied hard to get funding for the project cut off.

Why is this such a perfect storm of things I really despise about America?

- Anti-intellectualism? Check! In this case, distain for science.
- Pathological attitudes regarding sex? Check!
- Infuriating assumptions about the role of religion in public life? Check!
- Equally infuriating assumptions about the role of the government in public life? Check!
- Callous disregard for the needy? Check! In this case, by "the needy," I mean those who are at risk of contracting STDs.

I don't know why this four-year-old news item struck me today, but it did.

***********

Unrelated hypothesis: any band that uses punctuation in its name sucks on ice.

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[info]calamityjon
2007-11-13 04:56 pm UTC (link)
Even Hyphens?

Oh, wait! Even ? and the Mysterians?

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[info]tritium
2007-11-13 05:00 pm UTC (link)
I hadn't considered hyphens. Hyphens are all right.

I haven't heard ? and the Mysterians.

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[info]calamityjon
2007-11-13 05:05 pm UTC (link)
You probably have ...

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[info]tritium
2007-11-13 06:45 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I've heard that tune, I guess. It doesn't do anything much for me, but I will concede that it doesn't suck, much less on ice.

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[info]mehetabel
2007-11-13 06:20 pm UTC (link)
arg! too slow. I heart ? & his Mysterians.

in a desperate bid for comment relevance, I shall ask if apostrophes are punctuation for the purposes of this debate.

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[info]tritium
2007-11-13 06:53 pm UTC (link)
AARGH.

Exceptions to the above hypothesis:
Hyphens, but only when used as part of a compound word
Apostrophes, but only when used as a possessive or contractive

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[info]mehetabel
2007-11-13 07:05 pm UTC (link)
who's to say Bow Wow Wow might not have had a long and lucrative career had they merely shown the sense to add a couple commas and become Bow, Wow, Wow.

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[info]tritium
2007-11-13 07:54 pm UTC (link)
Were they formed nowadays, they'd probably be "Bow! Wow Wow"

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[info]mehetabel
2007-11-13 08:47 pm UTC (link)
I knew there was something retro about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs but I couldn't put my finger on it until now.

What rock needs is more semicolons. Semicolons always leave you wanting more.

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[info]catamorphism
2007-11-13 06:34 pm UTC (link)
I would add to the list "the idea that studying something in depth is akin to endorsing it" (similarly to the idea that trying to understand the terrorism means "being soft on terror".)

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[info]tritium
2007-11-13 06:54 pm UTC (link)
Hmm. I'd file that as a subcategory of general intellectual laziness, which is of course related to anti-intellectualism.

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[info]mehetabel
2007-11-13 07:20 pm UTC (link)
ah...yes! The description-prescription membrane.
You never want to analyze what you demonize, be it terrorism or truck-stop sex.

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[info]ludickid
2007-11-13 08:26 pm UTC (link)
Contra your theory, in addition to ? and the Mysterians, I offer in evidence:

- Godspeed You Black Emperor!
- Bonnie "Prince" Billy
- ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead
- +/-
- Was (Not Was)

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[info]tritium
2007-11-13 10:38 pm UTC (link)
I don't know if Bonnie 'Prince' Billy counts. I like him better as Will Oldham, anyway.

I will grant you Was (Not Was), though I find their name obnoxious. The rest of them, you can keep.

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[info]joshfisher
2007-11-13 08:42 pm UTC (link)
For us old folk: Crosby, Stills, blah blah. Surely grammatically correct commas are OK.

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[info]mehetabel
2007-11-13 08:54 pm UTC (link)
They may not have invented the supergroup, but they solidified commas as the supergroup-signifier. Egos too big to fit under a single band-name. But of course, if they weren't famous enough to be known just by last names it would just sound like a law firm.
The firm of Crosby, Stills, and Nash are proud to announce that Neil Young has made partner. Mr. Young has passed the whammy bar in several states.

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[info]tritium
2007-11-13 10:41 pm UTC (link)
Did you know that Stephen Stills' son is autistic, and is featured in Autism, the Musical, a documentary we saw at the Coolidge, and which documentary Allison, our resident expert on autism, quite liked?

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