White People Go to the Bathroom Like This...

There is a lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy, lazy way of doing sermons, self-help books, relational counseling, legislation, and who knows what else. It involves using facile and sloppy generalizations about categories of people to make facile and sloppy points that apply to no one anywhere but feed an abstract sense of identity that is irrelevant to actual people and so leads to their eager interest in more facile and sloppy sermons, self-help books, relational counseling, and legislation.

It happens to no end, especially in churches, in matters of men and women relating to each other.

Guys you know what I'm talking about, right? Right? And all the ladies are just looking at me, "What? What does he even mean?"

There are entire careers built on convincing men and women in relationships that women need someone to translate their words to men.

Ladies you say: I had a rough day with my boss today.
He hears: Tell me how to fix this problem I have.
The problem is, women are oriented about relationships whereas men, by their nature, need to fix things. He hears the world through his blue earphones.

I suppose, in the world of at leasts, it could be good for people who have submitted to a certain ideological conception of their existence to use the tools of their oppressors to build themselves some sense of relief. I guess if you're a man who has internalized the idea that men are universally barely more than retarded taciturn baboons, incapable of any kind of verbal expression, then it could be helpful if someone came along and offered you a means of communication as the imbecile you are.

I dunno. It seems like giving someone something to drink while they're hanging on a cross. Doesn't quite seem honest, and I'm not sure it's better than nothing. I think if I tried to relate to The Qweenbean as an abstract concept, or the idea of a woman, rather than who she is... well, that would be hell for both of us.

This would be a good intro to a skit about me relating to my wife that way, I would say, "I bet it would look a little something like this..." Then we would dissolve to some scene of domestic hilarity that skewers, skewers, I say, the ideas of men and women by applying the ideas to real situations.

And me, well I'm no better. We always carry some chains. I'm only different from, not necessarily better than, the mouth-breathing ape of a man that refuses to say "I love you". But that's only a bit here or there.

I'm convinced this is part of the reason THE CHURCH panics so much about teh Gay. We're not really interested in how people actually relate to each other- even in what we call heterosexuality. How could we possibly then address the actual complexity and diversity of human interactions that do not fit easily into our simplified categories? MAN and WOMAN as complementary binary already doesn't work, don't ask us to think about the possibility of gender as multiplicity even if that's what it really looks like in existence.

Anyway what got me thinking about this was a reference to research that shows men and women actually hold the remote about the same amount of time when watching TV.

So next time your pastor, family counsellor, camp speaker, or self-help guru says something about how men channel surf and women stay put, you'll know you're being lied to. Just like with that bit about men and women using a different average amount of words in a day. And isn't that what everyone wants?

Indian-White argument over genitals leaves three killed

Three men were shot dead and two left injured after an argument between a group of Indian and white visitors to a bar here, allegedly over the size of genitals.

NRI News

I bet there was an easier way to resolve this argument.

Look What Happened

Long time readers of my online diary are unemployable shut-ins and probably remember me mentioning a few times that the Qweenbean and I had sinny sex. That is, we had sex knowing that it was likely not possible that she would get pregnant, and centuries of Christian doctrine taught that sex that does not lead to a baby is wrong.

Of course there was the Modern rub that allowed for sex if a couple was open to the possibility of conception, regardless of how unlikely it may be. That was sticky because it opened the door to any number of pairings wherein the pair were open to the possibility of conception even if the Authorities were not open to the pair's pairing.

But that was mostly for Catholics. Protestants often lacked the fora for discussing these things with the care or concern of Catholic moral philosophers. Even if Catholic thinkers were wrongheaded and bumbling, they were consistent, thoughtful, and firmly rooted in their horribly bizarre world of original sin transmitted via sex and heterosexual incest being better than masturbation because it was natural and other oriented. Protestants have largely just been wrongheaded and bumbling because we've pretended there is no world in which we are rooted. We pretend there is only The World and it is as it should be for everyone everywhere because the Bible says so. Only, it wasn't... isn't, and so we miss the why we say what we say the Bible says anchor that has us rooted in a world that has no place to anchor for some people called out of the world.

But here I am beating a dead horse. Or perhaps pointing out that we are beating a dead horse- a horse we nevertheless insist on trying to ride out of slavery- but as dead horses are wont to do- it goes nowhere and the rest of the exodus moves right past us. That's okay, as long as we tell ourselves we're the only ones that have the right to ride a horse, and despite appearances, we are getting somewhere. That makes it all okay, right?

Anyway, returning to the point, the Qweenbean and I continued having sex knowing that some someone somewhere may have reason to wag fingers at that, but also knowing that finger wagging was largely irrelevant to who we are together.

Awful, awful people we are.

But now this.

We are well past the point of subtle introduction into the memento that this internets diary is, so there she is, full of creature. I have no more explanation for why she is pregnant than why she wasn't before- I mean in light of our having sex. So that's that.

This being with child has reached a saturation point in our life. There have been other times that I have thought about internets comments stemming from this, but out of sensitivity to the Qweenbean, who has been very superstitious about the whole affair, I have not shared them. But now it's okay to share with you, the globespread mesh, and that which has been background will be more directly present.

The breaking point may have been the incredible dis-ease with which I approached registering for baby gifts. After a brief conversation about how uncomfortable I am with imagining we "need" so much more than other parents throughout history, how insidious it is that babies are introduced immediately to a world of consumption and commodification, the fear on which baby-marketing is parasitic, the compartmentalization I had been negotiating with that was brought to an end. Besides, nobody in Babies Backwards "R" Us wanted to hear any of that, but I knew you would.

There is more that will come, I'm sure. Not that this will become a baby blog, but this is part of the world, and it should be clear it is so.

When I Was a Child...

Middle-Aged Guy With a Harley That I Sometimes Talk to at The Coffee Bar I Frequent- It's not bad looking for a rice rocket
Skybalon- Thanks?
Middle-Aged Guy With a Harley That I Sometimes Talk to at The Coffee Bar I Frequent- When are you gonna get a Harley?
Skybalon- Eh- I really only like the Sportster, but if I got one I would make it look like this.
Middle-Aged Guy With a Harley That I Sometimes Talk to at The Coffee Bar I Frequent- Well, when you're ready, you'll get a real bike.
Skybalon- That's cool, when I'm ready I'll get my Harley and a prescription for Cialis

Then I should've said, "Zing!"

Going To Jupiter

I hope, in the same way I hope televangelists will some day come out as ironic performance artists, that the Enzyte commercial creators are actually mocking the idea of masculinity that they are ostensibly targeting.

It's possible, though very unlikely.

What I hope is since the commercial is offering a product for male enhancement what they mean is Enzyte enhances what it means to be male (an adjective) thus making male characteristics more prominent in the same way someone might enhance what it means to be ugly, or dumb, or malodorous. This is how one makes sense of "Bob's" vacant eyes and wide-mouthed grin. His maleness is enhanced to the point that he is made a vapid, dumb-struck, shell.

I like that.

I don't mean to say that "male" is idiotic so enhanced male is more so. Rather, that the sense of male to which Enzyte appeals and demonstrates is idiotic and so one who practices it is an idiot.

So then Enzyte is intentionally an aposematic marker for idiocy and to that end it actually does deliver on its promise of enhancing maleness.

What do you know?

What I know is now that I've knocked Enzyte out of the way, next to go are Billy Mays and international calling cards. Thanks for the work FSC.

Married? MARRIED!*

Marryourduaghters.org is a site that allows you to sign up your daughter to be married off- for the right price. It's just a listing service. They don't make any negotiations or guarantees. That's up to the families and individuals involved. Though there are no guarantees, there is a hope. It's the same hope that pays the tuition at many small Christian liberal arts colleges: the hope that daughters will stay virgins a little bit longer or be married before girls have to be seen as adults. (I'd have said "women" there, but I don't know if that would suggest the human agency I mean for that term to have.)

Marryourduaghters.org is funny because it could be real. If it was real, it would be tragic. It would be tragic in the same way a lot of the actual attitudes Christians have about women, gender, marriage, and sex are tragic. In this case, instead of being tragic, it's funny- funny in a way that might cause someone to examine their attitudes about women, gender, marriage, and sex, so the real tragedies can be minimized. Isn't that clever?

(In case you're still not sure- Marry Our Daughters is a joke. Though I wouldn't say it's not real.)

I often hope that Jesse Duplantis and the Gold Chair channel will reveal themselves to be hoaxes or some type of performance art with a purpose parallel to Marry Our Daughters: a critique. But in this case, they are a critique of our attitudes about what the church, worship, religious language, and God might be about. I hope my hope is not in vain.

*The title of this post is a quote from Sixteen Candles, so you have to read it that way. I also think I've used it before... So lazy.

Celebration [of a Type] of Discipline

There may be some "yikes" in the following-

You've been warned.

One of the Bible (read Dispensationalist Theology) teachers at the small Christian high school I used to work at thought it was necessary to tell his students that sexual intercourse not of the so-called missionary variety was wrong. I don't know how this fit into the general curriculum of coloring books and fill in the blank Bible verse memorization sheets, but somehow it was important to communicate this to the children.

And so it was. And since I taught Health there, many students asked me if this was true. And while perhaps some unpleasant, oily, and sticky part of me envied the certainty with which others made pronouncements on matters like what type of sex offended Jesus and whether clones could have souls, I could only say it depends, and ask them why they thought he would say that, how he might justify it scripturally, what it might mean to know God in our sexuality, but, in all, if they wanted to be such and such, they weren't ready for sex. Maybe that helped some.

It's a part of discipline- it's a part of becoming the people we are becoming to be told this is something we do or don't do, this is how we think about this. If we cross that line we are something different, but sometimes it's a weird thing saying where those lines or what the things we don't delineate are.

The chase-

Now any transition that I offer here as an explanation of how I came across the weirdness that follows will sound like a stilted over the top, there's-nothing-to-see-here account of how I came across the weirdness.
So what were you doing that you 'found' that site?- Defense
Though I ultimately have to be comfortable in my skin- I feel the need to justify my existence to others. I could just say I found it at Broadsheet, the feminist blog I often read, and leave it at that, but then I miss the opportunity to obtusely insert how I, the individual, relates and exists in account to some or another community.

That was too confusing for what it might have accomplished. Anyway- this exists. This being a site explaining how one might be a part of a Biblical marriage- a Biblical marriage being one that is marked by a husband that beats his wife. The site goes to some lengths to clarify that such beatings are consensual- a Biblical wife submits to her husband's authority, a husband is answerable to God for how he treats his wife and so everyone is happy- but without a doubt, to them, it is a husband's right and responsibility to beat his wife- or discipline her, as they say- for her benefit. It is a matter of obedience and desire to correspond to the way God wants things.

There are two blogs on the site allegedly written by women who participate in this type of marriage. One is written from the perspective of someone who seems to consent to the idea of being "spanked" by her husband. She says that she needs to overcome her pride and be corrected for secret errors of judgment and missteps, so she regularly asks her husband to spank her. The other is written from the perspective of a woman who never knows when she will be "corrected." She lives in terror of the moments when her husband discovers some mistake she didn't know she made and decides it is necessary to beat her. Both defend their choices as Biblical, right, volitional, and superior. One seems playful and, though not everyone's cup of tea, part of the couple's romantic life. There seems to be a situation wherein consent can be given. The woman is on a footing to give or rescind consent and therefore appears to have some degree of control over the situation. Though perhaps dangerous, there is an element of performance to it; husband and wife are playing roles that they have negotiated and understand as their relationship progresses. The other is written from the perspective of someone who lives in terror and could not possibly consent to the situation in which she finds herself. She writes in the classic idiom of one who thinks she needs and deserves to be mistreated. They are the difference between a boxing match and a street fight.

On their blogs, they make reference to but delete comments that are critical of their lives and choices, to which they offer some form or another of "you just don't understand." They are right, I don't understand, and it makes no difference if I or a million other people stand and shriek in our most nasally Dobsonian voice, fingers wagging, "Wrong!"

Set aside questions of what conditions are necessary to give consent and whether you think this is right, as a grammatical matter, when someone says what they do is God-ordained, that's all there is. There is no reason beyond that.

But to that issue of consent. It seems that when one gives consent they are giving permission, so they have to be in a position to also not give permission. No? Maybe in some instances of this practice, someone wants to be beat and someone wants to be beating, this arrangement provides a nice forum for those actions. They dress it up in their religious talk and with a wink and a nudge they play their game. If it gets to be too much, consent is taken away and it ends. If that escape is not possible, then there is originally no consent. Everything is nice and friendly, even if not exactly friendly.

In this case, it doesn't seem that this group is all that concerned with consent other than their mention of it as a perhaps legal requirement. In the ontological (sorry) justification of their ways- the consent of the wife is as important as my bike's consent to being ridden; it doesn't matter because that's just what they're for. It would be as silly to ask my bike if it wants to be ridden as it would to ask a wife if she wanted to be beat for one of her stupid mistakes.

But what if it's not possible to give consent to certain things? What if by saying I consent to be eaten by a bear perhaps suggests I am not fit to give consent? What if this is something like that? What if by saying I want to be eaten I am saying I lack the capacity for deciding whether I should be eaten because anybody who could properly think it through would not want to be eaten? Of course it's possible that play is a different situation and what consenting adults decide to do is done in a spirit of play. So if they're faking it- then it's great, or, if not great, at least tolerable.

But then if it's tolerable, don't I have to say, "It's okay that they do that- even if it offends my vanilla sensibilities?" It's not for me, but I guess it is for them. But think of the children- doesn't it seem like this is the kind of thing we desperately want to say is a no-no? It's the kind of thing we want to tell kids they shouldn't do when they ask if this thing or another is right or wrong.

I say it's wrong, but I would bet that matters very little to the Christian Domestic Discipline crowd. I would bet it matters as much as any of us saying some or other practice of a 12th century Mayan is wrong. We're not a part of the same world. There is no reference for relation between me and the Mayan, so it really doesn't matter. Though the Christian Discipliner and I might have more in common, as I described what they were doing as wrong and laid it all out for them, they might only hear clicks and clacks in my moral assessment. In fact, they seem to make it clear that that is all they hear from their critics. If we want to describe what they are doing, or more specifically, make some moral claim about what they do, we should be clear that such a claim is about who we are and what we do. Maybe though, as we're clearer and clearer about who we are- we might provide a point of contrast through which some sense of difference may enter. It's only in this sense of difference where any moral dissonance can occur (did I really say only?). We only have moral dilemmas in those areas where we have actual choice.

Even after all this talk- whether I should beat my wife is not a moral dilemma for me- beating my wife is not a real possibility, it's not a choice for me (although- if she keeps leaving her shoes where I can trip all over them...). I think I'm part of a group that says we don't do that. More broadly, there are things we are and do because of what we understand God to be for us. As we're clearer and more direct about who we are, what we do and why- we are possibly that context for contrast. Maybe that has something to do with being the Body of Christ. There are things we (some very fluid, but identifiable group of we) say are wrong and it makes sense to us. It just doesn't makes sense to do such and such if we say we are 'x.' There also seem to be those things we don't quite agree on- even as we are still the same group. Though, in this case, for this to work we may have to be much more public about things that we describe as private- namely sex, and saying it's private- or at least our conception of what private is- seems to be part of the problem- the problem that makes us want to create lists of dos and do not dos rather than something that is a part of the life of who we say we are.

That is, even our sex lives need to be public- political even. If we understand ourselves to be a creature of God, then our lives, our sex lives included, need to be subordinated to the needs of our community that worships God rather than my individual needs or desires. For some this might mean only a certain objective set of practices are appropriate in relation to a god that has revealed itself in history to have a unique interest in foreskins and distaste for bodily fluids. For others it might mean that we are part of the ongoing and still unfolding story of people struggling with God that has most clearly been revealed in Jesus.

It seems we should be saying something like this is what we do as a people who are learning how to respond to God. This is where and how we learn to overcome the understanding that we are a people who struggle with God even in light of what we increasingly understand God has done for us, or this "we" we are trying to be is an analogue for the Word in flesh.

Or, what is right or wrong is clearly written in some leather bound catalogue or vellum scroll of dos and do not dos wherein the acceptable and unacceptable actions for all people everywhere and anytime are found.

I don't know, though I do suspect.

It turns out the site no longer allows visitors; it has probably been receiving extra attention lately. You have to somehow prove you belong to their community in order to navigate their site. Since the public at large has been blocked from the site- I tend to think it is real rather than fantasy.

Proof That Bats Are Birds

A woman in Australia has been killed by her pet camel after the animal may have tried to have sex with her.

BBC News

Wouldn't you know it? No sooner do I go and write a post like this wherein I question the magical above the world objective description of nature and law status of the Bible, then this happens.

I had believed in the truth of the Bible, but it was only in a way in which I understood the truth of the relation of God to the world in Jesus. That way made me unsuitable to teach private Christian high school Bible (read Dispensationalist Theology) classes. It's a way that made that previous post possible. Clearly that's no good. There is something about a woman and an animal getting it on that violates an objective natural law and deserves death. Even if it was the camel's idea. This is a reminder, it's not just that we find something morally reprehensible; we don't simply say, "We just don't do that," and so punish it. What we see is that what we should find morally reprehensible is a reflection of some cosmic "should." Morality is exactly like gravity. Of course now, the camel needs to be killed. Then, everything will be as it should.

My way of understanding the Bible is true is lame- I'm sorry, my old way of understanding the Bible is true is lame. It's not truth; it's a catalogue of facts.

We should look forward to more of the following:

A teenage couple having sex for the first time were interrupted when candles set fire to the girl's attic bedroom and forced them to flee naked from her parents' house...

Reuters

Gay Bomb

"A Berkeley watchdog organization that tracks military spending said it uncovered a strange U.S. military proposal to create a hormone bomb that could purportedly turn enemy soldiers into homosexuals and make them more interested in sex than fighting."

CBS News

It turns out the Pentagon is run by Jr. Highers.

This explains the new uniforms made of rubber- unfortunately we couldn't get our enemies to wear suits of glue...

Or maybe the strange obsession with a caricaturized homosexuality explains the suits of rubber.

...

I hadn't realized it was a challenge to get soldiers interested in sex. In fact,* certain strains of chlamydia are so evolved/intelligently designed that they hover in clouds over military barracks.

*By "In fact," I mean "as a joke."

...

How's this add anything?

I thought that fighting was often a surrogate for sex. A twisted, sad, disturbing, and destructive surrogate- but surrogate nonetheless. So how does making soldiers more interested in sex take them away from fighting? Never mind the history of phallic weaponry, enhancing codpieces, etc..., just watch how intensely homo-erotic Ultimate Fighting is.

Why The Oblique Face?

WARNING: The following may cause some readers' monocles to fall out as they gasp, "Well- I never!"

If I say so and so is a pussy to mean so and so is weak or lame, I don't mean so and so is like a vagina- I don't know if that's what you think it's supposed to mean- but that's not what I mean. I mean someone is weak and lame. I also don't mean the "weak and lame someone" is womanlike by being weak and lame or that womanlike is weak and lame.

It might be that someone or someones used pussy to mean weak and lame because they thought vaginas were weak and lame and so connected the two ideas. Or it might be that some men identified all women as weak and lame, and since women have vaginas- perhaps it is vaginas that make women women- some men decided to call someone- most likely another man- weak and lame by identifying them as that which they thought made a woman a woman. So for some, pussy may be shorthand for "woman," which is itself shorthand for "weak and lame." I don't think there is anything essential to women that is weak and lame, so for me that connection doesn't make sense. I understand it, but it doesn't make sense.

Or maybe someone or someones used pussy to mean soft and effete and some other one or ones used it to mean vagina so they needn't be explained in relation to each other. Oh homophones- the confusion you can cause.

If vagina's the only thing pussy could mean then I wouldn't use it. I would instead say pansy. Of course I wouldn't mean a flower when I say pansy- I would mean someone who is weak and lame- and by that you may think pussy. And if you're still thinking vagina- I can't do anything about that. In fact, you should probably avoid the interwebs if your mind so quickly goes to vagina.

I also don't mean penis if I say dick, or anus if I say asshole.

So, I will purposefully say pussy, and you might take issue with it. If you do, I think it perfectly appropriate that you say something- only make sure you're saying something about my use of the word and not something else.

That said:

I finally brought myself around to trying to finish John Eldredge's Wild at Heart. I started it a long time ago when a friend of mine said it had changed her life. This change was evident by the fact that she continued looking for romantic relationships to provide her some sense of worth, only now she would no longer try to convert gay men and instead focus on finding fulfillment in the comic book masculinity of Eldredge's Christian men. I still couldn't do it- read it that is.

I looked up bullet ants after reading a pain scale for bug bites on BOING. They're the worst. I've been bit by fire ants and didn't think they were so bad- now I know why. They actually aren't so bad. Here's what I found about bullet ants though:

"Bullet ants are used by some indigenous people in their initiation rites to manhood (Bequaert, 1926). The ants are first knocked out by drowning them in a natural chloroform, and then hundreds of them are woven into sleeves made out of leaves, stinger facing inward. When the ants come to, boys slip the sleeve down onto their arm. The goal of this initiation rite is to keep the sleeve on for a full ten minutes without showing any signs of pain. When finished, the boys' (now men) arms are temporarily paralyzed because of the venom, and they may shake uncontrollably for days."

That's some expectation isn't it? Being a man means being bitten and poisoned by ants. I don't think that I could do that- I also don't think that has anything to do with being a man. But then, I'm afraid of bees.

So some five years later and I still haven't finished Wild at Heart and I don't think I ever will. That being the case perhaps I am not qualified to say if you think being a man is about being a literary type while somewhere else in the world children become men by being bit thousands of times by bullet ants, you're a pussy. But I'll say it anyway; if you think being a Christian man is about being a literary type while somewhere else in the world children become men by being bit thousands of times by bullet ants, then you're a pussy.

It's not that being bit by ants is more manly than wanting to be Batman. If you're a Christian, it makes as much sense to become a man by being Batman as it does being bit by hundreds of bullet ants. So in addition to the above, I should say if you think being a Christian man is about being a literary type even if nowhere else in the world children became men by being bit thousands of times by bullet ants, then you're a pussy.

Of course stoically being bit by bullet ants for ten minutes is more painful and requires more self-control than trying to be the movie character William Wallace. And post-ant-bites, there's probably strong connections from the shared experience that only the ant-bitten know that is stronger and likely more meaningful than the men who share the desire to be Robin Hood. But I wouldn't say it's more "manly." I would say it's more painful, requires more self-control and a sense of trust before and, builds camaraderie after.

I certainly think we should be able to endure much more than we do without complaining, and I'm all for the "spirit of camaraderie that exists between men, like you'd find only in combat maybe or in a pro-ball club in the heat of the peenant drive," but it's nothing to do with manliness.

But then, my point is not to compare the two. It's about what it might mean to become a man in light of being a Christian- or if it can even make sense to pose the question like that in light of being a Christian.

There is a difference between an adult and a child- there is some becoming involved but is it the Christian man's calling to become manly let alone more manly? Or, El Guapo, could it be that once again we are using words and categories that do not make sense for us as Christians to use?

I'm sure I am way behind the curve on this whole Eldredge nonsense, but the gender roles we idolize and the meanings Christians give to words like masculine and feminine are timelessly stupid, as are the things we say and do in light of these concepts. Our ideas of what makes someone a good leader or how one might perceive their own leadership could be a couple of those stupid things.

And now, true to form- I will leave this idea hanging there- underdeveloped. Ha ha.

You Say You Love Your Wife- You're Such a Woman
This Guy's In Love- Burt Bacharach
Adagio for Strings- Munch, Boston Symphony
Who Made You So Smart- The Briefs
I Wish I Had An Evil Twin- Magnetic Fields
Red Rain- The White Stripes
Island In The Sun- Weezer
Gimmie Some Salt- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Misty Mountain Hop- Led Zeppelin
Blue In Green- Miles Davis
'Tis Autumn- Stan Getz
Painter Song- Norah Jones
How Could I Just Kill a Man- Rage Against The Machine
It's Magic- Sarah Vaughan
3 Speed- Eels

Crap, I Think I'm Overtly Sexual

“She got what she wanted,” said Stokke. “She’s an overtly sexual person.”

A jury of one woman and 11 men—many white and in their 50s or 60s—agreed with Stokke. On Feb. 2, after a half-day of deliberations, they found Park not guilty of three felony charges that he’d used his badge to win sexual favors during the December 2004 traffic stop
OC Weekly

It turns out, if you're overtly sexual, it's okay for a cop to ejaculate on you when he pulls you over. I'm not exactly sure what "overtly sexual" means. I guess you're overtly sexual if someone can tell your sex by looking at you. Too bad if that describes you.

...re We Came In?

So 2006 began with this. I'm narcissistic enough to want to go back through my posts and see how this was an anchor for the year's posts and then see what should be my first post for 2007. I'm narcissistic, but also lazy so don't want to do the work of reading 2006's posts and see if there really is some sort of tone to 2007's oeuvre. To be honest, I would say there isn't... ever. But for the sake of this post we'll say there is and that the tone suggested by 2006's first post made 2006 a mopey, picturesque, navel-gazey, baby rankling at authority year.

That means the tone for 07, set by this year's first post, will be self-referential, lazy, artificial, circular, and topically comical.

"Oh sure, I see the conceit," you say, "but where's the topically comical?"
Well dig this...

John Mc Cain indicates that he and the AEI are actually compensating for something with their Iraq policy recommendations.

So expect a year of penis jokes.

2007 Does Not Yet Rock
Fashion Nugget- Cake