The List

• Wal-mart's corporate "ethics"
• Flip-flops as formal footwear
• Inappropriately mature children's clothing
• Cult stores, including but not limited to Pottery Barn and Gymboree
• Americentrism
• Vulture Culture
• Parents who dislike their child(ren)
• Those who used the tsunami as an occasion to clean out the attic and send useless items to people who have no need of them
• Those who think ribald synonymous for witty
• Adults who throw public tantrums

The above are all things for which I feel disdain. When I come across one, I have to fight my impulse to make a face like I've tasted a lemon.

disdain
noun
1. lack of respect accompanied by a feeling of intense dislike: contempt, scorn.
2. a communication that indicates lack of respect by patronizing the recipient: condescension, patronage.

trumpets sound

I've changed the settings to let anyone, rather than just registered Blogger users, comment. This is to accomodate a large contingent of regular, but heretofore silent, readers.

(Also I didn't realize before it was set that way.)

Comment away. :-)

Utterly Aside

This photo made me involuntarily mewl.

So a gull, a lamb, a pigeon, and a monkey walk into a bar...

pigeon
slang noun
A person who is easily deceived or victimized: butt, dupe, fool, gull, lamb, pushover, victim, sucker, fall guy, gudgeon, mark, monkey, patsy, sap. Chiefly British mug.

(PS: a gudgeon is "A small Eurasian freshwater fish".)

Excouth me

couth
noun
Marked by or possessing a high degree of class; refined.

Couth was lacking in the obituary section today. Contrary to what many think, couth does not always accompany money, experience, or breeding.

Simba?

 
I wish all of you could have read this straight from the above photo. Clearly it's too fuzzy, so let me relay here how the last item in the Pork section on tonight's take out menu reads:
"Shang Hai Lion's Head.....9.75
(Pork meat ball braised w/ cabbage)
(We did not kill the lion's king)"

Um.
Hmm.

What a dandy!

peacock
verb
To walk with exaggerated or unnatural motions expressive of self-importance or self-display: flounce, prance, strut, swagger, swank, swash.

I know more than one human peacock.

Nappy Afromaniac!

Afro: An afro, sometimes shortened to 'fro, is a hairstyle in which the hair extends out from the head like a halo or cloud. Some people wear their afros long, to several times the diameter of the head. An afro can be very difficult to maintain, requiring tight curls and often, but not always, coarse hair, which typically only people of indigenous African descent naturally have, hence its name. Virtually anyone can get an afro, however, by using curling tongs and hair gel. With naturally kinky hair, the spiralling, tightly coiled curls can be straightened out somewhat, giving the hair added volume and length, by first braiding the hair, then separating the coils using an afro pick. The afro pick is an adaptation of a traditional African grooming instrument, which is essentially a narrow comb with long, widely spaced teeth.

Got that definition from here.

I don't know why the afro went away honestly. It's so natural. Before I had one I used to admire people's afros and twists and braids, etc. I was fighting all these coils all the way, too. For years. Went in the bathroom one day and chopped off all my hair until it was a 1 inch baby 'fro. Muuuuuch better!

Here comes the indignance because you know I am a 1/4 indignant on my momma's side. Why the afro wigs? Huh? Why? They should be outlawed in at least 48 states. All the dillholes with afro wigs can hang around in the other two states. Who the hell in their right mind would chose to tie-dye their afro? What the devil?!

*Maglet makes claws and an angry face at the air* Grrrrrr....

My 'fro is MUCH bigger now... It IS like a halo. A super-curly halo.

Do the Humpty Hump

Remember the beheading of Betty Boop?

Now someone has stolen Humpty Dumpty.

I'm not sure I find the theft as troubling as the item stolen. I mean, if you are going to commit a felony, in FLORIDA, that could send you to prison, wouldn't you steal something better? Talk about setting yourself up.

"Whatcha in for?"
"Stealing Humpty Dumpty."
"Huh. Bend over. You're MY Humpty now."

Then again, who would pay more than five thousand bucks for the statue in the first place? Ah, yes, someone who would say "We will pen him up. There's always one bad egg who spoils it for everyone else.'' Har-de-har-har.

slaptastic
adjective
Utterly deserving of a good slapping.

In a Russian dictionary, you'd look up головоломка

Quotes from this article:

Russell Wayne Wagner, the convicted murderer whose ashes were deposited last month in Arlington National Cemetery, probably will not be going anywhere soon. But the controversy surrounding his final resting place might make it harder for others convicted of similar crimes to be buried there.

Wagner, 52, died in February while serving two life sentences for the 1994 murder of Daniel Davis, 84, and Wilda Davis, 80, in Hagerstown, Md. After their son objected last week to his parents' killer being interred in Arlington, the Army and the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee said they will take a deeper look at the issue.
~~~~~~
"He served his country honorably in uniform. What he failed to do was to serve society honorably as a citizen," (Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States) said of Wagner, adding that the two sides posed a problem.

"If you looked up 'conundrum' in the dictionary," he said, "this should be the example for one."

Conundrum
noun
1. A riddle in which a fanciful question is answered by a pun.
2. A paradoxical, insoluble, or difficult problem; a dilemma.

you probably think this post is about you...

vain
adj.

1. Not yielding the desired outcome; fruitless.
2. Lacking substance or worth.
3. Excessively proud of one's appearance or accomplishments; conceited.
van·i·ty
n.
1. The quality or condition of being vain.

Bathroom vanity.
I truly felt a bit uneasy shopping for a new vanity. Why does a bathroom cabinet have to correspond to one of the seven deadly sins?
Vanity plates. I prefer to call my plates "personalized," to avoid the stigma. But realistically, paying an extra $70 a year for flowers on my plates does probably correspond with definition #2.
Vanity Fair. Yep. No contest.

. 

At least it wasn't Kafkaesque...

The article, which details the whole, sordid mess, contains the following two quotes.

1. A lawyer hired by the 15-year-old's family called the juvenile court's actions "Orwellian."
2. (The same lawyer) said that Alford's refusal to let David go upped the ante and brought down "unfair, Draconian measures" upon her son.

Orwellian
adjective
Of, relating to, or evocative of the works of George Orwell, especially the satirical novel 1984, which depicts a futuristic totalitarian state.

Draconian
adjective
Of or relating to Draco, who was the first law scribe of ancient Athens, Greece. His laws, transcribed in 621 BC when he was archon eponymous, were particularly harsh: the death penalty was the punishment for even minor offenses. Any debtor whose status was lower than that of his creditor was forced into slavery. The punishment was more lenient for those who owed their debt to a member of a lower class. The stringency of these laws gave rise to expressions such as "draconian punishment", "draconian laws", and more generally, the far-reaching "draconian measures".

It's not a doublewide trailer; it's a "Learning Cottage".

doublespeak
noun
Language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a "communication bypass". Such language is associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions. Doublespeak may be in the form of bald euphemisms ("downsizing" for "firing of many employees") or deliberately ambiguous phrases ("wet work" for "assassination"). Doublespeak is distinguished from other euphemisms through its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions.

Here is a fabulous list of doublespeak. They've omitted the category of educational doublespeak, or "Learning Cottage" would be right there.

Mmm, mmm, good!

Two quotes from this article: Sonya Thomas, at 99 pounds, gobbled her way to another speed-eating title over the weekend by attacking a Wisconsin staple _ the bratwurst.

The woman known as The Black Widow on the competitive-eating circuit downed 35 brats in 10 minutes to win the first Johnsonville Brat-Eating World Championship.

and

Her various eating records include ones for hard-boiled eggs (65 in 6 minutes 40 seconds) and chicken wings (167 in 32 minutes).

The day before the bratwurst-eating contest, she won a grilled-cheese-sandwich eating contest in San Diego, eating 22.

Two quotes from a very different article: Emergency operations to feed 2.5 million people in Niger have reached some of their first beneficiaries, but there was only enough for some of the hundreds of women and children who came in search of help.

Mothers who left their homes at dawn to trek to the village of Yama northeast of the capital swelled a crowd of expectant faces to more than 1,000 by the time aid workers began handing out biscuits and flour from a stock designed for 500 people on Wednesday.

and

"I came for food. We have no food in our village, and the children are hungry," said Hamsou Kadi, who walked three miles (five kilometers) with her nine-month-old son Saaid.

Once word had gone round that food was coming to Yama, about 300 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of the capital, Niamey, hundreds of women left farms scattered across the area to pick their way across muddy fields in the hope of a share.

profligate
adjective
1. Lacking in moral restraint: abandoned, dissipated, dissolute, fast, gay, incontinent, licentious, rakish, unbridled, unconstrained, uncontrolled, ungoverned, uninhibited, unrestrained, wanton, wild.
2. Characterized by excessive or imprudent spending: extravagant, lavish, prodigal, profuse, spendthrift, wasteful.

HA! HIT ME! GOOD GOD! WHAAAAGH!

funky
adjective
1. Frightened; panicky.
2. Having a moldy or musty smell.
3. Having a strong, offensive, unwashed odor.
4. Combining elements of jazz, blues, and soul and characterized by syncopated rhythm and a heavy, repetitive bass line.
5. Earthy and uncomplicated; natural.
6. Outlandishly vulgar or eccentric in a humorous or tongue-in-cheek manner; campy.

I'm betting at least four of these meanings apply.