This is How the World Will End

Not with a bang or a whimper, but with vapid celebrity pseudo "news" that will drive us all to mass suicide.

Wanna know how I've determined that we are now entering the End Times? Because yesterday immediately following the sign-off of our 10:00 p.m. news, the blaring trumpet theme of Entertainment Tonight came blasting through my television's speakers accompanied by the following voiceover:

"TONIGHT! WE HAVE NEW FOOTAGE OF OWEN WILSON'S BROTHER LOOKING CONCERNED!"

That was it. THAT was news. I know that's the case because I kept waiting for the actual story to be explained, but it never was. We have apparently reached the point where a fairly minor celebrity exhibiting an emotionally appropriate facial expression is news.

Well, shout hallelujiah and pass me the valium.

Full disclosure - I'm not above or immune to celeb gossip. This isn't about being "too good" to peruse the glossy pics of US Magazine. But perhaps it's time for the purveyors of trashy celebrity "news" to do a bit of self-culling, and for the other news outlets to do some self-policing: I'm looking at you, Allegedly Serious Cable News Outlets Who Lead With Lohan Stories.

Dear Kathy Rudy - You Aren't Helping

So I was perusing one of my favorite blogs today and came across this link to an editorial by Kathy Rudy, a professor of Women's Studies at Duke who decided to weigh in on the Michael Vick case because - well, I'm not entirely sure why. Vick isn't female, and he's a professional athlete, an affiliation of which Rudy is apparently none too fond....Oh! Right. She's weighing in because of the HYPOCRISY! And the RACISM!

Holy God, but I'm tired of hopped-up pseudo-academics grinding their axes and showing their asses in print.

Apparently Vick was arrested for dogfighting not because it's ILLEGAL, but because he's black. Because dogfighting and cockfighting got outlawed not because folks figured out that it's inherently cruel, but because BLACK PEOPLE started participating.

Wow, if that's the criteria, then Rudy has solved her own animal-rights dilemma. Think eating meat is cruel? Appoint a black person as the next CEO of McDonald's and it'll be outlawed before you can say "Chicken McNuggets!" Hate horse racing? Get Jay-Z to start a farm for thoroughbred racing, and POOF! My friend Flicka and her buddies will be free to roam the plains.

Read it yourself and thrill to the moral equivalence. Unless, like me, you find moral equivalence less "thrilling" and more "evidence of sloppy thought processes - damn you, Rousseau and Derrida!"

But the best part? After going on about how minority participation is why these activities were ruled illegal, Rudy contradicts herself here:

"Whether or not dogs are fought more by minorities than white people is actually unknown, but the media representations of the last several weeks make it appear that black culture and dogfighting are inextricably intertwined. We need to find ways to condemn dogfighting without denigrating black culture with it."

Last time I checked, Michael Vick was not the sole representative of the entirety of black--or even hip-hop--culture. You know, unless you think that all black people behave exactly the same way or something. What's the term for that school of thought again? Hmmmm....give me a minute, it'll come to me.

This is all very simple: dogfighting is illegal. Michael Vick has confessed to participating in a rather large dogfighting operation. Ergo, Michael Vick is in violation of the law and subject to prosecution. You break the law, you risk arrest. The end. You have a problem with that? Work on changing the law.

And leave my chicken nuggets out of it, dammit.

Amusing side note - upon first glance I thought Rudy's title, "ethicist and associate professor," actually read "ELITIST and associate professor."

What I Have Done This Week

Well, it's Thursday. Thank God. Sort of. It's one day closer to next Tuesday, when I will finally be able to come home from work and collapse on the sofa.

"But BAW," you're no doubt wondering, "whatever is preventing you from collapsing on the sofa this week?"

I am so glad you asked, thoughtful readers.

1. I repainted the kitchen on Sunday. The entire kitchen, which included priming and painting over some stenciling I had done, moving large appliances, and while I was at it (and in the throes of OMYGODMYSONISONLYGONEFORAWEEKTHISISMYONLYCHANCETOPAINT) I decided to wash the tops of my cabinets and all the decorative doo-dads on them. The irony of all of this work is that the color I chose for the upper walls, a lovely off-white called "Irish Cream," is EXACTLY the same color that the walls were to begin with. So I worked like a dog for 8 hours, and then that evening, while lying on the floor hoping that my spine would realign, realized that it looked as though I had done exactly NOTHING to the kitchen. Yay.

2. I repainted the den. Same story, except with bonus 20 ft. cathedral ceilings and the tall walls that go with them.

3. I planned The Boy's birthday party, complete with angst over whether or not there would be more than one girl attending - o blessed relief! There are two! They can hang out and mock the boys. His b-day gift this year is this little guy, and I've already taken it for a test run and can attest to the fact that it is only the coolest toy ever! Seriously.

4. I cleaned the house like a fiend, because Saturday is The Boy's "family cookout b-day celebration," and the house will be chock-a-block with inlaws. Bonus - Darth Vader cake! Everything is better with a Darth Vader cake.

5. At work, I've learned about velociraptors and that in fresh water mussels, the parasitic larvae that attach to fish look like "Little tiny Langoliers - you know, like in the movie based on that Stephen King book...Pac men with TEETH!" Yeah. I also learned how to artificially inseminate a horse. THAT was exciting. I've also written 2 features, 2 science stories, and edited countless tons of other stuff.

So I'm a bit tired. Tonight we meet The Boy's 1st grade teacher, tomorrow is his party (with putt-putt and go karts), inlaws and my folks are descending for the entire weekend, Saturday marks the first practice of the baseball fall season, Sunday's gonna be out of control, and Monday will be the first day of school.

That's why I'm kind of looking forward to Tuesday. And why I'm eternally grateful for Diet Dr. Pepper.

Yeah, it's me. Just Temporarily Displaced.

So I come back from the beach, all het up about the surfeit of flesh that, trust me, NO ONE wants to see, a rant all pre-composed about the fact that RSVP does not in fact mean Respondez-vous ONLY IF YOU'RE ATTENDING, and a host of other hoo-ha, only to discover that for some reason the cgi file in my Moveable Type installation--the one that gives me the interface that lets me actually PUT STUFF ON MY BLOG--will not execute.

This is annoying.

So I'm probably going to either upgrade my MT or switch to Typepad. As I am more of a dabbler than a virtuoso with this stuff, and as my life is completely out of control this week, this may take a bit. So in the meantime, I am blogger-fied.

Apologies for lack of links, and I'm pretty sure that if you have any sort of feed that tells you when I update it won't work right now. GAH.