a good one for once

People are gullible. This is an indisputable fact if you've ever been on the Internet. When I first obtained an Internet connection, I was eleven years old, and was immediately met with a barrage of FWD: emails. The worst volumes and volumes came from people who were a) bored and b) older. In fact, in class (the class for which I started this blog), Dr. Losh mentioned that some of her fellow faculty members believed that the Bonsai kitten hoax was real. Although I very rarely if ever receive hoax emails anymore, Myspace bulletins have become the new urban legends battleground.

Remember, kids: the Urban Legends Reference Page is your friend.

Which is why this bulletin was absolutely refreshing to me.

I must send my thanks to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet towel with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put "Under God" on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French (not really) and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore, and Uzbekistan.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 I dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas companies!

If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician...

Have a wonderful day....
Oh, by the way.....

A South American scientist from Argentina , after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

Don't bother taking it off now, it's too late.

beauty is skin deep, ugly runs down to the bones

Scene 1: a young CHILD, probably a girl, is talking with her mother or some other older female figure (OFF) in her life

CHILD. I'm not pretty, no one likes me! I'm too fat and ugly.
OFF. Beauty is the eye of the beholder/plump is pleasing, more for squeezing/it's not what's on the outside, but what's on the inside/beauty is a fading flower/you can't judge a book by its cover/beauty is only a lightswitch away/beauty is only skin deep/beauty is a matter of taste.

Scene 2: CHILD is now confronting the BULLY that has been teasing her (or him, I suppose)

BULLY. Hahaha, you're fat and ugly and nobody likes you.
CHILD (more than slightly smugly, as she (or he, I suppose) has been waiting for this moment ever since Scene 1). It's not what's on the outside, it's what's on the inside!
BULLY. That's what ugly people say. Haha!

Almost every single female on the planet (and maybe some males) has gone through a version of these two exchanges at some point in her (or his) lifetime. A peer teases you about being somehow unattractive, you cry to the OFF in your life, you confront the peer, and guess what? Your cliché of choice falls flat, and you lose respect for the OFF in your life, realizing on a childish level that she is out of touch with reality.

It's easy for the "hot chicks" to go around comforting the not-so-hotties with the same platitudes first heard from the mouths of OFFs. Maybe beautiful girls don't get everything handed to them, but they sure as hell get more chances. Metaphorically and literally, more doors are opened for them.

Ever notice how when men talk about a smart woman who is also beautiful, the monologue will begin thusly: "Oh, I know her. Beautiful girl, so articulate too! etc." as if "beautiful" is superior to the attributes for which she actually worked? No, it's more important to them that she won the genetic lottery for looks; anything else is peripheral. See how the focus on looks not only causes the not-so-beautiful to be ignored, but also trivializes the accomplishments of women who happen to be beautiful?

Needless to say, I am one of those young women in the not-so-hot crowd. Children are cruel, and my male cousins, as well as one of my aunts, were the first to taunt me about my weight. All the clichés with which my mother would comfort me would be met with the devastating retorts that were simply variations of "only ugly people say that". I had latched onto Judge Judy's book title, Beauty Fades, Dumb is Forever, as my personal platitude for a while, until I realized that there were plenty of intelligent women with looks to kill as well. Those women are the competition against whom women like me just cannot measure. I was to quickly find that it doesn't really get any better when you get older, either. People may not overtly call you a fattie or some other slur or be as relentless in their comments, but the abuse continues in other ways. Of course, the gems amongst women and men work on their ability to not judge superficially and to look beyond the surface of the individuals they meet. I am not denying that phenomenon and am appreciative of it. It's just hard to ignore the facts about beauty.

1) To men, just looking at a beautiful woman is like giving a puppy a treat. No wonder hot chicks get into places, whilst not-so-hotties have to wait their turn or fight their way in. If they choose the latter option, of course, they run the risk of not just being ugly, but an ugly bitch.

2) Attraction might grow over time, but what about those who are never even given a chance? Maybe behind that sad, plain-looking girl's expression is a brilliant brain and an even more brilliant smile, but most men wouldn't even bother to talk to an "ugly."

3) Don't blame the girl in #2 for not smiling more, as the statistics are behind her misery. People stop to help beautiful women who need it, "cuter" babies get more attention (which has longer-term effects than most people realize), and hotter lawyers get more attention at trials. (source)

4) Fatness only hinders women. Fatter women earn less, fatter men earn more. More generally speaking, prettier people earn more.

5) Judge Judy isn't that comforting, really. Not all beautiful women are stupid. In fact, some of them are really smart. That means that the smart but not-so-hot women have major, major competition.

I remember when the Samantha Runnion case was big news; another child was kidnapped around the same time but received no attention, presumably because she wasn't a blond little white girl. The same goes for the JonBenet Ramsey vs Sherrice Iverson kidnappings. The blond little Ramsey girl, as a participant in the child beauty pageants that serve as pedophile fodder, got more attention than poor Sherrice. Being pretty apparently can help your chances against an abductor --- a life-or-death matter. The sad part is that I can hear a deep voiced retort in my head already, as the more uncouth amongst males might deign this "natural selection" against "uglies". It's so ingrained of a response, to hear that voice, that I can't tune it out.

None of us really tunes it out, and so the human understanding of other human beings remains superficial.

This is one of the areas in which Myspace bulletins are actually right. There was a popular one called "I'm sorry" that I've seen make the rounds several times, and I'm inclined to actually agree with its message. Girls are forced to measure up against an impossible standard, leading to low self-esteem; boys are supposed to act macho and only go for "hot chicks," causing them to not pursue the not-so-hottie in whom they might be interested. Low self-esteem is not attractive, feeding the cycle; unhappy relationships with people with whom you have nothing in common but physical attraction gets in the way of building something more lasting and more real.

This is the world as I find it, not the world I hope is out there. Pretty people only dominate without breaking a nail or mussing that hairdo only because the not-so-hot let them do so. We're all guilty of it, hence its existence.

BS Factor:
18 political women judged for their looks instead of their ideas

Preying Using Prayer

Regardless of the religious beliefs of an individual, it's rationally impossible to prove in a testable, repeatable (and by those two adjectives I mean "scientific) manner that prayer really does help people. Why Won't God Heal Amputees is a website based on that idea, and essentially debunks the idea that prayer actually helps people.

By all means, if people have faith and feel better via prayer, they ought to pray. After all, one has a duty to oneself as well as to others. If prayer (or secular meditation, whatever) centers a person and makes him/her feel calmer and better, then it has a benefit. To claim that it helps those about whom the supplicant might be praying, however, can lead to a sense of dangerous complacency.

Perfect example: the recent wildfires. A relief fund that is accessible on-line has been set up, so people can help with monetary donations at their convenience. Various companies offered discounts and even waived fees to help the then-evacuees, now survivors who are trying to pick up the pieces.

Additionally, I have read and heard many, many stories of people who packed up their cars with the types of supplies needed and drove over to help the victims of the fire. Personally, I helped clean up the house of my boyfriend's business partner's family. The type of breather needed to prevent inhalation of dangerous fumes and particles was hard to come by even in Orange County, but I called every hardware store in the area until I found some. I took them south with me. It was the first time I had directly participated in such an endeavor, and I hope that it is the last (footage of the house and Dan's business partner's reaction can be found here).

Whilst people were mobilizing to help others in a solid way, others were content to merely sit and pray, or send out Myspace bulletins urging people to pray. My response was a bulletin of my own:
re praying for the California wildfire victims:
Don't just pray, do something. If you feel like prayer is good thing, then by all means do so, just don't try to convince anyone that you're actually contributing anything. Everyone prays for any number of causes, but there is no statistical reason to believe that asking your god of choice for help will help in this dire situation.

People who pray and then tell others to do so as well as if it's some grand gesture are lulling themselves and others into a false sense of complacency.

A friend of mine responded:
Maybe people should do both?

I'll tell you now, If I've been helping people evacuate and put shit out, and it comes a time where I can't do anything, I'm gonna pray. When someone tells another person to pray for victoms, it's not like they're saying "fuck doing anything else."

Not trying to step on you here. Just saying.

(He raps, check him out.)

I realized that I hadn't really defined what I was trying to say, so I'll say it here. The idea that prayer actually, directly, and significantly helps those who are the subjects of the prayer preys on the tendency of the average person to not get truly involved with helping others. No one but the supplicant actually benefits from the prayer; that feeling of having done something good in their own eyes is enough for most people, which is the reason I call BS on the Myspace bulletins (aka "bullshitins"), emails, and websites urging people to pray instead of showing them how to take action to help. Saying a quick prayer in a moment of despair or praying when there's nothing else you can do is one thing, feeling self-righteous and satisfied because you said some words for someone to a deity in which that person may not even believe is what is wrong.

BS Factor:
the safety gear that was my small contribution