Books, burgers, and girls gone wild

[wombat_socho]

I went to B&N over lunch today to use up my gift certificate, and while they didn't have Ai Yori Aoshi #9 as I was hoping they would, they did have the newest HALO novel, Eric Nylund's Ghosts of Onyx. I'm not very far into it, but so far it seems up to the standards set in Nylund's two earlier HALO books, The Fall of Reach and First Strike.

I had wanted to do lunch at Rossi's Star Pizza, but that's been closed for the last month and a half. Since Jimmy John's was packed with people I decided to go ahead and try out Rossi's Steakhouse, which is now open for lunch in place of their now-closed pizza joint. It's not the kind of place I'd normally go for lunch, since it's more of a Morton's/Murray's/Ruth's Chris kind of place, with some entrees well into the OMGWTFBBQ/"if you have to ask you shouldn't be ordering it" price range, but they do have a few relatively inexpensive items on the menu, such as the cheeseburger. A damn fine cheeseburger it is, too - half a pound of excellent beef served on a grilled bun with cheddar and Swiss melted over the top. Lettuce, tomato and pickle were provided, along with a generous serving of good cole slaw and an adequacy of fries, which unfortunately followed the curretn style of being seasoned. :( The burger was outstanding, the service was excellent, and what more can you ask for? A cookie? The proprietor handed me one on the way out, and it was also excellent.

Eh, not really, though i do find it interesting that chebutykin posted this today, in the wake of the whole "Heroes for Hentai" flap and news reporters. suddenly noticing that most of the GOP candidates' wives are, well, kinda hot. Did I mention Joe Scarborough's foot-in-mouth moment, also kinda related? Then there's the Bride's examination of Jessica Valenti's unfortunate pose in front of Bill Clinton.

So how did it come to this, with high school kids doing dances that would have gotten them thrown in jail in the 70s, much less the 60s? How did young lawyers come to think that they could get drunk, stupid, have nude pictures taken, and somehow not have it come back to bite them in the ass? The short and snappy answer is that there was a culture war, and we lost, but that's not really helpful. I'm also going to pass over the irony of "progressives" anguishing over this issue, because it's not really fair to chebutykin, who has had a fairly consistent traditional feminist political stance as long as I've known her. I will say that it puts her in some interesting company that she normally wouldn't be caught dead with. Say hi to the moderate social conservatives, dear.

I'm not going to go into the whole history of sex-positive feminism here, but I do recommend it for people interested in one of the factors that got us to where we are today. I think the encouragement and promotion of gangsta rap also has a lot to do with the state of the culture.

The legal foundations of all this are pretty obvious. Pornography was not considered protected speech under the First Amendment until fairly recently, and is one of the many questionable decisions made by the Warren Court. So in order to fix the culture, you're going to have to get a large majority of Americans behind the notion that porn is destructive and needs to be controlled. Good luck with that. At this point in our history, I think it's going to take something like the Great Awakening or some politician who's willing (a la Andrew Jackson) to tell the Supreme Court to get stuffed, and I don't see either one of those on the horizon.

What I do see is a lot of people getting tired of all the crap littering the public square, and getting tired of the people who tell them to turn off the TV, turn off the radio, stop going to movies, etc., if they don't like it. So, like I said, chebutykin, your views may be unpopular in the circles you move in, but that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people on-side with you in your disgust at what's considered acceptable by the media. I wouldn't be too surprised if this is how states' rights became respectable again, with state courts essentially telling the Supremes, "Articles Nine and Ten? Remember them? You're not the boss of me, bitches. We want to ban the pr0n in the 7-11, we going to ban the pr0n in the 7-11. Let's see you send the Airborne in to tell us no." Could be interesting.

Comments

[qob.livejournal.com]

I think that if a person believes in a moral code they will eventually find themselves agreeing with other moralists even though they might have started by disagreeing with them. If a person's code espouses equity honor and an undying allegiance to Kahless (huh! how did that get in there?) More often than not you will find yourself agreeing with opeople that would surprise you.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

Well, see, this is the problem: I don't see the traditional feminists as acting from a moral code per se. They're making a utilitarian argument that basically states "We believe X is bad because it hurts these people. Therefore X needs to be made illegal." Unfortunately other feminists argue "Sorry, we find X to be empowering, liberating and fun. Therefore X needs to remain legal," and we get what we have here today.

[qob.livejournal.com]

Well, it seems to function as, perhaps mot a moral code but an ethical one. (I came to a clear understanding of the difference the other night.

But there is in liberal thought an ethical priggishness that would make Cotton Mather say, "hey why don't you dial it down a little?"

Vegetarianism, Animal Rights, forced egalitarianism, political correctness, etc,etc, ad nauseum.

the feminism of our friend (who I respect and disagree with often) is an ethical one, not a hedonism driven one.

[wombat-socho.livejournal.com]

the feminism of our friend (who I respect and disagree with often) is an ethical one, not a hedonism driven one.

Agreed. There's nothing hedonistic about traditional feminism, By the same token, though, the pro-sex feminists would argue that they too are behaving in an ethical fashion by showing women how to empower themselves and so balance out the power differential inherent in traditional patriarchal society. I'm not saying I agree with this, mind you, but I understand the line of argument.

[qob.livejournal.com]

ahhh good to know that BS crosses gender lines.