Do me a favor and seize the means of production today, would you?
Happy May Day!
– May 1, 2012
holidays Archive
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Easter Notes
– April 9, 2012
So yesterday Jesus came back from the dead (yay!) and I got sick from something (not booze, I’m not a lightweight, you know) and spent most of the evening puking. Then I slept for two hours and woke up at midnight and couldn’t fall back asleep, so I read the rest of some Anthony Bourdain book until it was time to go to work — by which time the vomiting and runs had subsided (Easter miracle). And then I went to work and managed a team of Human Resources volunteers from a large national defense contractor as they put books in my makeshift bookstore all afternoon, all of whom were exceedingly nice, and all of whom were women. Well, no. There was the big chief HR guy, who was smug, and who dropped the stinkiest shit I’ve ever smelled in our first floor bathroom and proceeded to LEAVE THE GODDAMN DOOR OPEN AFTERWARD, which made the whole first floor smell of feces. Thanks, chief. Thanks a lot.
The HR people stumbled across books they’d read in HR School and said things like, “Oh gee, I’ve read this one before, Ha ha ha, whoa, hee hee.” And I didn’t care because my mind is totally zapped and if I went into a coma right now, it wouldn’t be too soon.
But hey, I’m not shitting bile and dry heaving anymore, so I’ll call it a small victory, all in all.
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Happy Ash Wednesday!
– February 22, 2012
I’m still sick with a head cold. I got nothing. Oh, except Catholic guilt. HAHAHA. Just kidding.
Here is a video of a jet breaking the sound barrier over a crowded beach.
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Valentine’s Day Tips from Brutish&Short
– February 13, 2012
Well, it’s official: despite pounding Airborne and ginseng for these last few days with the rapacity of a couple of starving curs let loose in a poorly guarded Snausages factory, your humble editors here at Brutish&Short have finally succumbed to a serious case of VD fever. (That’s how people typically abbreviate “Valentine’s Day,” right?) So in order to ensure that your upcoming Cupid cupidity both begins and ends with a bang, please enjoy the following sensual suggestions from three gentleman who — and I don’t mean to brag — have rarely ever had to pay for sex in their lives.
1) You can never — I repeat, NEVER – have too much lube.
What are you going to do with all this lube?! Wrestling match? Biggest adult party ever? If you are looking for a simply jaw-dropping amount of lube, Passion Natural Water-Based Lubricant is ready to get the fun started with this 55 gallon drum! With its superb formula you will have a natural feel that keeps you moist longer and also works great with all toy materials. Easily washes away with warm water and mild soap. You may never run out of lube again!
Size: 55 gallons
Note: Includes pump
Includes pump. Man, now that’s just thoughtful! Imagine the joy on your lover’s face when he or she walks into the bedroom to find this tubular beauty next to the nightstand. All I can say is, pass the ShamWow!
[Editor's note: Perhaps the best part of this product is the "Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed" information, which reveals that the sort of people who are likely to need 55 gallons of lube are also the sort of people interested in Horse Head Masks, Laptop Steering Wheel Desks, Kindle Fires (natch), Testicle Self Exam Forms, and, of course, Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tees.]
2) A cock in the trap is worth two in the bush.
We’ve all heard of the honey trap, of course, but with this Do-All Outdoors Professional Single 3/4 Cock Trap, you can really take your gonad game to the next level. That said, I can’t say that I’m entirely smitten with this particular model. First of all, what, exactly, does a “do-all” cock trap do (besides trap cock, I mean)? Frankly, if it doesn’t also fold laundry and make milkshakes, I think it can hardly be said to “do all.”
Secondly, if you are in the market to trap cock, do you really want to do so outdoors? To me — and maybe I’m just old fashioned — but to me, cock trapping is an intimate indoor activity, undertaken with or without a loved one in the privacy of your own home. Granted, it’s nice to know that when the cock-trapping time arrives, you will be equipped to do so in a professional manner, but unaccounted-for variables such as inclement weather and peeping Toms make outdoor cock trapping a risky proposition indeed.
Thirdly, if this is merely a Single 3/4 Cock Trap, what other varieties of cock trap am I missing out on? Can I purchase a Double 3/4 cock trap for me and a friend? (A very close friend, naturally.) And what if my cock is larger than average? Must we deal only in fractions, or is integer sizing available as well?
Fifthly, while I would never begrudge anyone their God-given right to trap cock, what does the free range cock movement have to say on the subject of trapped cocks? Are they up…in arms over this innovation? Or have they come to accept that this is simply the price you pay when you’re in the sack of Big Cock?
3) A nickel for your pickle used to be a solid deal. With inflation, however, you shouldn’t accept anything less than quarter these days.
Yeah, that’s right: where do you think you put it? It’d be just like if Eduard Khil lived in your twat! (Or arse, depending on preference.)
More to come tomorrow! (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more, say no more!)
UPDATE: Nope. Apparently not
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Happy Groundhog Day!
– February 2, 2012
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, y’all. We’re in this shit for the long haul.
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Wading into the comments section at Crooked Timber (Or, Happy Roe Day)
– January 23, 2012
Tedra Osell has a piece up at CT about abortion and today (edit: yesterday, it’s 1:00 in the morning) being Roe Day. Anyhow, there’s a lot of weird pushback from the CT commentariat (60 comments in) that I don’t quite understand, but I think the fundamental issue is addressed in Lynne’s comment at 51:
@jack lecou, it is true that someone who believes abortion is no different from homicide will be absolutely, immovably opposed to legalizing abortion. There is no reasoning with such people. They just have to be overruled.
What other anti-choice people seem to miss (and the abortion = murder crowd don’t care about) is the enormity of a law that overrides the sovereignty of people over their own bodies.
I was in a class with the late philosopher George Grant when someone took him up on his anti-abortion stance by saying, IIRC, “If there can be a law forbidding abortion, there could be a law compelling it.” He acknowledged this, as the point was the reach of the law.
I can’t think of any equivalent situation that faces men, where the law can reach into their bodies and say “Yes, do this,” or “No, you can’t.” I do wish that more men would consider this violation when they are expressing their opinions on abortion—-some men here have, some seem oblivious to the unique scope of abortion law.
And this is it exactly, the bolded part. Fuck your faux-moral concerns about the “sanctity of life” and so on. Until a legal regime is established wherein men are forbidden to masturbate due to the “spermicidal genocide” inherent in the process, we frankly have absolutely no right to decree what women should or shouldn’t be able to do with their own bodies, up to and including killing the organism growing inside of them.
I, for one, have always been pretty comfortable with the idea that one assumes personhood either upon birth, or within a week or two prior to birth. If the mother’s death would result in the fetus’s death without modern medical intervention, the fetus doesn’t have any rights over and above those of the woman carrying it. This is why the famous violinist analogy that’s trotted out repeatedly in defense of abortion in Ethics 101 classes has never quite worked for me: it implies personhood where none should exist. It takes raw biological potential to be social potential. And it gives further ammunition to those who wish to assume that a woman shouldn’t have control over her own body if she’s about to bear the next Mozart, or Picasso, or whoever. Fuck that utilitarian hogwash. It shouldn’t matter whether a woman is about to give birth to a genius or a crackhead. That’s not what the debate is fundamentally about. In fact, A Defense of Abortion concedes a good deal of the argument to the other side from the get-go, regardless of its intentions.
Maybe that’s all you could ask for in 1971. I’m certainly not trying to demonize Thomson. She created a discussion, which is more important than anything I’ve ever done. But I’m not going to pretend that I don’t resent people using her argument as the de facto position on abortion for pro-choice people. It’s not. For me, it’s what’s bolded above. It’s the lingering fascism behind attempts to legislate what people may or may not do with their own bodies for the purposes of their own mental and physical health. It’s the fact that any attempt to limit the scope of a woman’s right to choose implicitly acknowledges the legitimacy of forcing her to do the opposite of what your current moral code dictates. The leap from decreeing “women must not have abortions” to “women must have abortions” isn’t far, after all, if you live in a society where men call most of the shots.
Happy Roe Day.
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Happy MLK Day
– January 16, 2012
And here’s Charlie Pierce, in a beautiful essay, on being a child of the Civil Rights movement.
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Jolly Black Slaves
– December 14, 2011
Slate has a story today about “the racist Christmas tradition Dutch people have begun fighting about.” The article is informative and nuanced and probably worth five minutes of your time.
It’s also five years behind the eight ball (and not just because the eight ball is the black one).
Forthwith, an early (2006) short film by Emmy award-winning director, Jeremy Levine, featuring the delightfully racist dutch folk hero, Zwarte Piet, and his clamoring clan of misfit negros.
From the director:
The Dutch celebrate Saint Nicholas Day in much the same way that Americans celebrate Christmas only our elves are replaced by their Black Petes. Every December, white Dutch citizens paint their faces black, cover their heads in curly wigs, and carry on a tradition that has long passed its admissibility in The Netherlands multi-ethnic society. Inspired by David Sedaris Six to Eight Black Men, this film provides a first-hand look at one of the most shocking and offensive traditions still in practice today.
For added value/context, check out some of the comments the video has received, as well as Levine’s characteristically thoughtful responses. Read the rest of this entry »
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A Brief History of the English Language
– November 24, 2011
This will likely be my only post for the day. Maybe Ben, resident Canadian, will take up the slack?
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Happy Pi Day!
– March 14, 2011
There’s an old pi joke, the setup to which I can’t remember, but the punchline goes like this:
“No, pi aren’t squared, pie are round.” Or something! It doesn’t really work when you type it out! Anyhow, my 7th grade math teacher (who, incidentally, looked a lot like Gargamel from The Smurfs) told my class the joke one day in Pre-Algebra, and since it was the only time I ever saw him smile, I guess it’s stuck with me.
All of which is to say, there are a few “holidays” in rapid succession in the middle of March. Pi Day, the Ides, and then St. Patrick’s Day (in which people who aren’t Irish forget that they can’t hold their liquor as well as we can and end up embarrassing themselves) — but Pi Day is certainly the most excellent.
Behold irrationality!
