What I Hate M-O

It has been suggested I might follow this rancorous list with a more polite compilation of things I love. I don't know. That might be harder. There are certainly many things I love but to accidentally omit just one could be costly. I mean, I forgot to include Hitler in my current list but no one decided to give me the cold shoulder or stop talking to me all together.

M - Mustache. This is best referred to as the "porn-stache" because it can make any respectable guy look as though he has been transported to the world of 1970's adult entertainment. I find mustaches to be distracting, at best. Of course, there's many kinds. There's the bushy 'stache (Einstein, Sonny Bono, Tom Selleck, John Oates, Dr. Phil), Fu-Manchu (Hulk Hogan), Overgrown (David Crosby, Gene Shalit, Frank Zappa), Overly manicured (Freddie Mercury), Flamboyant (Geraldo Rivera, Vincent Price, Salvador Dali), Small (Charlie Chaplan, Hitler), Thin-Lined (John Waters, Clark Gable), Bushy Sideburn/Mustache Combo (Richard Roundtree),  Handlebar (Rolly Fingers), and fake (Groucho Marx). Few men have successfully pulled off the mustache: Clint Eastwood, Richard Prior, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Yosemite Sam, to name a few.

Others: maggots, malted milk balls, mannequins, manure, messiness, mink coats, mosquitoes, murder, and Michael Bolton

N - N-SYNC, NWA, Naughty by Nature, Nick Lachey, and the Notorious BIG. This is a hateful tribute to most, if not all, boy bands and gangster rap groups. While I generally feel as though I like all kinds of music (although to differing degrees) I doubt I'll ever come around to either of these genres.

Others: nausea and neck tattoos

O- Ostentatiousness. For a period of time my dad would come home from work each week with a new word he and a friend had looked up in the dictionary. Their goal each week was to use this word a predetermined number of times each day until it became part of their vocabulary. I think, too, they hoped to annoy those around them. The only two words I remember are "ostentatious" and "facetious." It's been at least twenty-five years but I still use both words from time to time. The definition of ostentatious is "pretentious or conspicuous show in an attempt to impress others." I wonder if my dad found this to be ironic?

Others: opossums and the Oakridge Boys

The Speed Trap

We spent yesterday driving from South Carolina to St. Louis. As always we woke early, climbed into the van, and were on our way a few hours before the sun would rise. 4 am.

As everyone settled in and fell back asleep I stared off into the blackness ahead. There's little to see when driving down unlit roads in the dead of night. The only thing to break the silence is the rhythmic hum of the tires on the road.

Not too long after finding the interstate and passing into North Carolina the tranquility of the night was broken by the blinding blur of flashing blue lights behind me. Perhaps I became too lost in my daydreams. The trooper told me I was doing 85 mph in a 60 mph zone. I thought 60 mph was a ridiculous speed limit for any stretch of interstate. I thought I had the cruise control set to 75. I thought I probably wasn't going to get by with a warning. I was right. 

He asked "Why'd you just zoom right past me? Didn't you see that I was a state trooper?" This, I thought, was a rather stupid question so I chose not to answer it. I also chose not to debate his accusation that I was driving 85 since my only defense was that I thought I was doing 75.


This ticket is crazy-expensive. A sever punishment, for certain. However, it hasn't so much taught me not to speed as much as it's taught me not to speed in total darkness.

Later, Tricia took over the driving. She looked over and asked "How fast do you think it's safe to go without getting pulled over?"

"We're good," I said. "We already have a ticket. I think it kind of serves as a voucher against future tickets within the same trip. Kind of like 'I'm sorry but we already gave at the office.'" 


Poor logic, perhaps, but we made it the rest of the way without incident.

What I Hate: J - L

J - Jersey Shore. In all fairness I've never actually seen Jersey Shore. However, I've never seen a concentration camp either but I'm pretty sure they're both awful. One of the people on the show is named Snooki. Really. I'm not clever to make something like that up. I've been told there's an episode of Beavis and Butthead in which the boys try to create a chart tracking which of the Jersey Shore characters have hooked-up with one another. Beavis studies all the intersecting lines and deadpans "I bet if you stared at the chart long enough you could find out where gonorrhea came from."

Others: Ju-Ju Fruits, Jerome Bettis, jelly, jealousy, jingoism, jigsaw puzzles, Jack Daniels, Jumping Jack Flash (the movie, not the song), Journey, and James Joyce.



K -Kate (and Ashley) Olsen. They're both bazillionaires and celebrities but I'm not all that certain how either of these came to be.

Others: KKK, Kip Winger, KIT, and Kevin Costner.



L - Late night commercials. It's not just that they're really bad that makes me hate these commercials. No, it's that they're selling products and services that are designed to appeal to forty-five year old men living in their mother's basement. Knowing that they strategically place these commercials to reach their target audience, I hate realizing it might be me!

Others: landmines, laser shows, laundromats, leeches, limousines, line dancing, litterbugs, locusts, losing, and loud neighbors

What I Hate: G - I

Hate is a strong word. I mean, do I hate Gary Busey or am I just wildly disturbed by him? It's a fine line I'm walking here.

Here's the next installment:

G - Great Expectations. I've tried to read this book, by Charles Dickens, three different times in my life. The first was in high school. I admit I probably didn't give it much of an effort but, still, it made no sense what-so-ever. I wasn't even all that certain they were speaking English. I gave up  after a few chapters and then paid just enough attention to the class lectures to squeak out my usual "C." A few years later I tried reading it again because I didn't want to admit failure. I abandoned it after less than a hundred pages. The last time I tried was in my early thirties. I somehow convinced myself that another ten years of life experience would help me enjoy this book. I couldn't have been more wrong. It was still awful and made me feel like a bad reader. Anyone who says they love this book is lying or trying to appear smarter than they really are. I, on the other hand, vow to never try reading it again.

Others: guilt, guns, grapefruit, grenades, Gatlinburg, TN,  Gucci (and all it represents)


H- Hard Liquor. Why does anyone ever drink this stuff? It essentially tastes like fingernail polish smells.If, to consume it, you have to shoot it down your throat as fast as humanly possible and then squeeze your face up tighter than a bull's ass on fight night then it's just not worth it. But at least it's cheap, right?

Others: haircuts, hearses, hockey, hospitals, hot air balloon rides, horseradish, hoola-hoops (only because every one I ever tried didn't work right), and humidity


I - IRS. This might seem too obvious but I have a particular beef with the IRS. It is now early December and we still have not received our sizeable tax refund from last April. Every few months we get a letter saying "We apologize but we are still reviewing your file. You will hear back from us on (insert random date) with our findings." Only guess what? We don't hear back from them until about three weeks after that date and the only thing we receive, even then, is yet another letter saying they haven't had enough time to look over our return. And because they have a sick sense of humor that even I cannot appreciate, yesterday they sent us a bulky envelope (never a good sign) that said they're charging us a 20% interest penalty for the fact that our tax situation was not resolved by April 15th. Yes, 20% in penalties for money they actually OWE US. I enjoyed an hour long discussion with them on the phone last night. The guy on the other end actually started laughing at one point, stopped, and said "I'm sorry, this probably isn't a laughing matter." At this point maybe that's all you can do. This week we will send in yet more adoption documents to them and wait another three months.

Others: identity theft, idiots (as well as ignoramuses and imbeciles), and igloos (I'm really supposed to believe those things keep you warm?),

I'M DONE!!!

“What does it mean to be a winner at learning? Winners are judged by some external criteria set by anyone other than the learner. If you answer more of someone else’s questions, score higher on someone else’s test, or complete more of someone else’s assignments according to their specifications, then you will be considered a learning winner over your peers. Under these circumstances, the goal of such schooling is to do more of someone else’s bidding. This separates learners from their learning because they control neither its content nor its consequences. In classrooms that feature learning competitions, learning is about winning – about gains, prestige, and satisfaction. It has more to do with ego involvement than with performance, coming to know yourself, your own and other cultures, and the workings of the world” 

I love this excerpt from Patrick Shannon's book Text, Lies, and Videotape. It was one of many I've read (or at least browsed) over the past month in preparation for a theory paper I was writing for one of my classes.  This paper took far longer than I expected .

However,  I'm proud to say that after holing up in the library on Wednesday I was able to finally finish the paper, as well as a research proposal and accompanying Power Point presentation. By the time I entered that final reference and hit "save" I was almost in disbelief that I could actually be done with everything. It's been a long, but rewarding, haul.

After attending my final classes on Monday and Tuesday I'll have five weeks off before classes start up again. As overwhelmed as I get at times trying to keep up with my coursework I have to say that I do enjoy it. I like having lots to do. When I don't I feel kind of lost, not knowing exactly what I should be doing. I imagine I'll probably play more guitar, clear out some fallen trees and limbs around the house, and go for bike rides with the kids. It's not such a bad job trying to find ways to spend downtime!

While I won't share my paper on critical literacy I will pass along three or four of my favorite quotes (as pulled from the writing of some seriously smart people). 

 *****

"If the mass media are showing kids how to resolve their conflicts through violence or unfettered consumerism, we have to encourage them to reflect. We have a responsibility to help them question their ideas and values, to figure out where these ideas come from and whose interests they serve."


“What knowledge is most worthy? and its corollary, What should we teach our children? are deceptively simple questions….In recent years, the question of what knowledge is most worthy has emerged as part of the contemporary debate on education and schooling. It is related to the larger questions of who and what is an American? Contemporary conservative critics…believe they have the answer. America is what its most successful and powerful people have been- their literature, history, personal stories, and traditions” 

“Education is suffering from narration sickness. The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable…His task is to ‘fill’ the students with the contents of his narration – contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity”