The Gadfly “To persuade and reproach” - Socrates, The Apology
Vol. XII, Iss. III February 25, 2010
The Speed of Anger or
A Problem of the internet
What with all the hoopla of the media, many emotions are flying through the internet. Triumph, disappointment, anger, fear, hope, relief... whatever the emotion, it can be seen here. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. The bad thing is that we can get an emotional response out to the public before we
have time to cool down. And once it's out there, it's out there. Kinda like toothpaste. Unable to be put back. The web has become so fast and so easy that our very first thoughts can be broadcasted while the emotion is still fresh in our heads. Thoughts are like wine...or trees...no! Pizza! Thoughts are like pizza. Yes, they're good
when hot out of the oven. Yes, the cheese melting off while you're taking a bite is glorious... but the real enjoyment is in letting it cool down. Giving it enough time to stop steaming. Heck, left in the fridge over night. Ideas are like that. Reason needs enough time to make sense of the new insight. The internet tends to cut reason out of the deal. Continued on page 4
Let’s Just Be As I sat people-watching rather than studying today, I had another epiphany. We women have such versatility in appearance. To be viewed as attractive, a woman may be short, tall, skinny, curvy, muscular, etc. However, attractive men have been expected to be tall, muscular, and broad shouldered for centuries. Within the 20th century alone, the en vogue body type for women has changed over and over again: flat-chested in the 20’s, more buxom in the 30’s,
super skinny in the 90’s, athletic in the 80’s, and currently, either very curvy or super skinny. The idea of a woman’s body has changed with the fashions, but the knowledge that male body expectations have and will remain consistent must be very stressful. For a woman, there is hope that in the next decade or so, her body type will be the “it” look and that her day will come. However, for a short, shrimpy guy, that same glimmer of hope does not
exist. Not only that, but Spanx, Victoria’s Secret bras, and the myriad of inventions I have failed to mention enhance a woman’s body shape. Where is a man’s Wonderbra? There are no artificial biceps and pecs for them. Women do not just hide and enhance their body shape, but their face, hair, feet, hands, legs, eyebrows, eyelashes, skin… clearly the list could go on for days. We women can, to a degree, appear as we wish to be seen. Continued on page 6