Coupons can’t terrorize anyone

I love The Daily Beast, but their headlines can occasionally be sensationalized to the point of absurdity.  Yesterday The Daily Beast reported on a Groupon deal gone bad. British bakery owner Rachel Brown was forced to hire temporary workers when the 75 percent discount she offered through Groupon on a dozen cupcakes was purchased by more than 8,500 people, amounting to about 100,000 cupcakes in need baking.

Brown ultimately lost money on the deal.

The Daily Beast’s headline for this story:

Bakery Terrorized by Groupon Deal

Not only is the headline inaccurate, but the the word terrorize is often used by news agencies in reporting genuine acts of willful intimidation and violence upon individuals and organizations, making The Daily Beast’s inaccurate use of the word highly inflammatory as well.

Shame on you, Daily Beast.

The pap smear’s biggest problem

In the past, I’ve written about my distrust of flowery, ostentatious names, as well as any name that attempts to make something sound more cosmopolitan or international than it actually is. Previous targets have included Chilean sea bass (Patagonian tooth fish), haricot verts (green beans), sweet meats (organs), field greens and crudités (uncooked vegetables).

I also do not approve of naming choices that make foods sound less palatable than they really are. Examples of this include pulled pork, head cheese and spotted dick (a pudding popular in the UK).

Names are important. They should be accurate, descriptive, opaque, and appealing whenever possible.

Into the pantheon of naming missteps I would like to invite the pap smear.

I realize that the pap smear is considerably less optional than pulled pork or head cheese and therefore less in need of a consumer-friendly name.

I also realize that the name is technically more accurate and descriptive than Chilean sea bass and sweet meats.

Still, it’s a bad name.

It’s an awful name.

There must be something better. Something still descriptive in process but slightly more appealing than pap smear.

It would seem to me that almost any combination of words would be better than pap smear.

Right?

You can’t just say it’s art

In honor of his passing, one of my favorite Rooney rants. And Andy’s right. As usual.

There comes a time when we all have to acknowledge that the twisted piece of metal at the center of a park ain’t art, regardless of who twisted it or how much was paid for it.

Stupid parents doing stupid things.

Halloween was cancelled in my town this year, and rightfully so considering the number of live power lines still all over the road. Certain parents are outraged over this development, but I have pointed out to these individuals that if they want to take their children trick-or-treating, simply drive fifteen or twenty minutes to a town less affected by the recent storm and trick-or-treat there.

Trick-or-treating is hardly geographically restricted.

What I would prefer these people didn’t do is ignore the ban and trick-or-treat in my neighborhood anyway, which is exactly what one family chose to do.

And because Halloween was cancelled, my wife and I never told our two-year daughter that it was Halloween, and we never prepared her for the costumes she would be seeing out and about.

So when she looked out the window and saw a ghost approaching the door in the company of some other kids, she naturally panicked and ran to the back of the house, telling us that she had seen a ghost.

Which she had.

Two days later, she is still talking about it. And she is still nervous about it.

And every time I tell her that the ghost was just a kid in a costume, she says, “Yeah, and there was a ghost with them.”

I’m not the biggest rule–follower in the world, but when it comes to my child and possible electrocution, I tend to err on the side of obedience.

I wish others would’ve been smart enough to do the same thing.

Low self confidence makes people annoying

This is probably mean and judgmental, but I also think it’s fairly accurate: If you are offended more than once a month (and even that is a lot), you have to ask yourself why your self confidence is so low.

If you speak more than you listen, you have to ask yourself why your self confidence is so low.

If you wear makeup to the gym, you have to ask yourself why your self confidence is so low.

If you are unwilling to acknowledge the possibility that you could be wrong at almost any moment of the day, you have to ask yourself why your self confidence is so low.

If you require an apology after your feelings have been hurt in order to restore order to a friendship, you have to ask yourself why your self confidence is so low.

Suggested revisions to religious services (and an offer to lead your congregation to happiness)

My wife and I brought our daughter to a blessedly brief children’s service a couple weeks ago during Rosh Hashanah. Granted I don’t have a lot of experience with these kinds of things (not being Jewish and all), but in regards to Jewish religious services, this children’s service was just my speed.

Some spirited music (in English), a short play based upon a children’s book, a thoughtful yet short reading, and some apples and honey on the way out.

Short, memorable, entertaining and engaging.

I wish that every rabbi, priest, minister, reverend and other religious whatnot would keep these four words in mind when planning their religious service, because in my experience, almost no one does.

And it’s annoying.

Why not attempt to make these services as entertaining, engaging and brief as possible?

Seriously.

If your service is more than 45 minutes and has failed to generate a single laugh, you’ve probably failed to keep the attention and interest of your congregation.

Why not actually try to engage the audience? Speak in a way that both delivers information and provides a modicum of entertainment. It’s probably not going to make a believer out of me, but I’d be a hell of a lot more likely to accompany my wife to some of these services if there was an attempt to make them palatable and memorable.

Hell, I‘d even be willing to help out. As long as the congregants didn’t mind my lack of faith, I’d be happy to put together a Sunday morning service for a local church.

A couple catchy tunes, a short, humorous yet meaningful sermon, a one-act play performed by a handful of adorable children designed to illustrate point, and a cookie on the way out.

I really think I’d be a hit. And I would not rely on the fear of God, the expectations of family and community, the inevitability of death or a lifetime of religious indoctrination to keep my audience coming back for more.

Oh, and I’d cancel all religious services if the weather is especially beautiful.  There’s nothing more silly than the thought that God would want you stuck inside listening to me (or anyone else for that matter) on a splendid autumn day.

Only one thing upset me about the Rosh Hashanah service that I attended with my wife and Clara.

At one point, the rabbi explained that this is the time of year when we should begin reflecting upon our lives and finding ways to live the life we have always wanted. He encouraged his congregation to be introspective, identifying those areas where improvement is needed, so that we can ultimately become the people we truly want to be.

When he finished, I turned to my wife and whispered, “I am the person I want to be, damn it. Who is he to assume otherwise?”

I really was annoyed. I wanted to tell him that when I was a little boy, I wanted to be a writer and a teacher, and damn it, that’s what I am today.

I wanted to tell him that I’ve also added DJ, life coach and minister to my list of current jobs, and if I could just find someone to hire me as a professional best man, all of my current career aspirations would be fulfilled.

I wanted to tell him that I am married to the best person I have ever known and have the best daughter I could ever imagine.

I wanted to tell him that I set 21 goals for myself back in January and am on pace to complete 16-18 of them, which is pretty damn good, all things considered.

I wanted to tell him that I have the best friends that I have ever had in my entire life.

I wanted to tell him that his assumptions suck.

I know. I’m probably taking a very well meant sentiment a little too personally, but in thinking about the type of religious officiate I might be (thus far I have only officiated weddings and baby naming ceremonies), I can’t imagine standing before a congregation and asking them to try harder to become the people they truly want to be.

While I am certain that this message might apply to some, it certainly doesn’t apply to all.

And it comes across a little holier-than-thou, which might seem appropriate for a temple or church but never is.

It’s easy to be self-righteous and stupid when you’ve never known hunger

Sesame Street decides to portray poverty in an attempt to raise awareness and allow the impoverished and hungry children of America to feel recognized and validated and Fox News decides to attack? Shame on these people.

Have they lost their goddamn minds?

I grew up on the free lunch and breakfast program, which required me to raise my hand in order for my teachers tallied the number of free and reduced meals were required for the students in my classroom.

It was embarrassing, isolating and saddening.

It made me wonder why my parents couldn’t feed me while so many other parents could.

It made me feel like something was wrong with me and my family.

Thankfully, I was not hungry very often when I was a child. These programs served me well.

But there were days when I was hungry. Plenty of them.

And I would have loved to have seen someone in the media representing my plight.

I suspect that these idiot pundits on Fox wouldn’t know the first thing about being hungry.  I suspect that they talk about the free and reduced lunch program but have never eaten a meal courtesy of the program.

I suspect that their children have never been required to self-identify themselves in front of their peers as coming from an impoverished family.

This is not Democrat versus Republican.  This is not liberal versus conservative.

This is sanity versus insanity.  Understanding versus ignorance.  Good intentions versus the desire for a sound bite.

If you don’t want to watch the interview, I have pasted a couple of their most inflammatory remarks below:

Fox News anchor Eric Bolling:

I get it, and boy, take this in the right way here, but are we singling out a poverty stricken little girl? Does my son need to see that?  My little boy need to see that’s going on. You don’t single out other groups. You don’t single out the little gay Muppet, or the little black Muppet, or the little Hispanic Muppet do you?  No, they’re are intertwined in the ensemble.

Republican strategist Cheri Jacobus:

Look, it is up to the parents to explain some of the more difficult aspects of life to their children when they feel the time is appropriate, and one of things we do as taxpayer to make sure we don’t have children who go hungry is we have the school lunch program, the school breakfast program, and in some cases the after school snack that we do. We have a lot of programs, so that while it’s not always a great situation we do have some protections in place, and I think it’s not appropriate for PBS and Sesame Street to take it upon themselves to give these more difficult lessons of life to little children.”

Whoopi Goldberg apparently just learned yesterday that the N-word is considered offensive to some people. She’s also apparently an idiot.

This exchange on The View is stupid in many ways, but I found Whoopi Goldberg’s opening comment especially moronic.

In discussing Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain’s recent use of the N-word, she said:

When the candidate Herman Cain talked about it, how radically insensitive it was, he didn’t use the term N-word, which I guess is what we’re supposed to be saying now.  It’s so hard to know what to be saying now, so I just use the word.

Really, Whoopi?

You didn’t get the memo on the N-word? 

We’ve only been avoiding its use for the last fifty years.

Sure, I have an older friend who will occasionally use the word Oriental instead of Asian, but this is an honest mistake made by a woman born more than sixty years ago, and the word Oriental is still used today to describe items like carpets and teas, so it’s not as though the word has gone completely out of fashion. 

Not to mention Oriental is not nearly as racially charged. 

But the N-word? 

Seriously, Whoopi?

Is it really so hard to know what to be saying now? 

I understand that some people continue to use the N-word word, including African Americans who purposefully use the word as a means of stripping it of it’s power, but am I supposed to believe that Whoopi Goldberg is not aware of the history and nuance involved with the use of the N-word and its general avoidance in most of popular culture today?

Marcel Proust’s childhood sucked

"There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favourite book.” - Marcel Proust As a lover of books and an author, this is a lovely thought, but Proust’s childhood must have really sucked for him to feel this way.

I have many wonderful childhood memories of time spent with books, but can a rainy day spent reading a great book really trump an afternoon of tackle football in the mud or fishing from a canoe with the prettiest girl in school or getting lost for two days in the White Mountains of New Hampshire with your best friend?

I don’t think so.

Proust’s childhood must have really sucked for him to have felt this way.

Are digital wedding invitations acceptable?

In this week’s episode of Manners in the Digital Age, Farhad Manjoo and Emily Yoffe debate whether it's acceptable to scrap the paper wedding invitation and use digital invitations instead. Just for the record, I fully support the use of digital invitations for weddings and wish my wife and I had gone this route. Our invitations were lovely and incredibly expensive.

A few comments from this podcast that I thought were interesting.

First, in posing the question about the acceptability of an electronic invitation for their child’s wedding, a listener writes:

“I’m worried that guests receiving an evite will chuckle derisively…”

I’m always surprised to hear from adults who are still so concerned about the opinions of others when it comes to something so trivial, trite and ultimately forgettable as a wedding invitation.

I think Manjoo says it best in the podcast:

“For a guest to scoff or chuckle at the medium someone uses to invite you to a wedding is rude.”

As uncouth, improper, ill mannered or cheap as a person may seem, it is always more uncouth, ill mannered and improper to talk about these perceived flaws behind the person’s back.

I know many people who think quite highly of their manners and sense of decorum who could benefit from this lesson.

Not surprising, the very traditional Emily Yoffe does not support electronic invitations for weddings, but she says a couple very important things during the podcast that I admire:

1.  She acknowledges that her opinion will probably change in 5-10 years.

2.  She tells the concerned parents who have posed this question that once they have stated their opinion regarding the invitations, they need to step back and allow the adults who are getting married to make the final decision without any protest or pleas for reconsideration.

I cannot tell you how often the parents of brides and grooms place their own concerns for image, appearance and taste over their child’s desires for their wedding day. Some parents are downright rotten when it comes to their child’s wedding, and I will never understand it.

When and if Clara gets married someday, the last thing I will be worried about is what my friends think about my daughter’s wedding.  Clara can do as she pleases, as long as she is happy.

3.  When asked what she would think if she received an evite to a wedding, Yoffe answered, “I’d think I’m really old.”

She wouldn’t think that the senders were cheap or stupid or ill mannered.  As traditional as Yoffe tends to be, she is also flexible in her thinking, adaptive in her attitudes and relatively open minded.

She’d probably make a great mother-in-law.

An addendum to my list of flaws and shortcomings

Last week I posted a list of my shortcomings and flaws and asked for any other suggested additions to the list. Not surprising, there were plenty of suggestions.

One of my friends from high school, who is now a licensed clinical psychologist, analyzed my list of flaws and made this comment:

Starts off with a strong hint of Asperger's (and Feeding Disorder), moves into a touch of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, then gives us probably the most likely DSM diagnosis - Simple Phobia (needles).

To be honest, that analysis hit a little too close to home for me.

And when I read the comment to my wife, she was uncomfortably agreeable to all of my friend’s comments as well.

Nevertheless, I offer you five additional flaws to add to the list. Each of these have been vetted and approved by the committee of two who know me best:

My wife and my best friend of 25 years.

The additions to the list are:

1. Bees kill me dead.
2. I am incapable of carrying on small talk for any length of time and become extremely irritable when forced to do so.
3. I pout and become sullen and sometimes inconsolable when the New England Patriots lose a football game.
4. I lack compassion and empathy for adults who are not very smart or resourceful. While some might argue that this flaw was already covered by item #6 of the original post, it was agreed by all that this is an important distinction.
5. I can be judgmental about things that I have limited knowledge of and are inconsequential to me.

While this last item survived the vetting process and made the list, it is the suggested flaw that I disagree with the most.

I find nothing wrong with formulating an opinion on a subject based upon the information that a person possesses, even if the person’s understanding of the subject is incomplete, as long as the person is flexible in his or her thinking as more information is acquired.

The example cited by my friend was my opinion of yoga.

No, I have never attempted yoga, but yes, I think it’s kind of stupid based upon what I have been told by people who do yoga.

Am I really supposed reserve all judgment on yoga until more data is obtained?

Is there something wrong with formulating an opinion based upon the data I have already acquired?

Must every opinion be based upon a full and complete analysis of a subject?

If this is the standard, how can we have opinions about anything unless we are experts in the field?

When I try yoga and discover that it is not stupid or am convinced by someone that it is not stupid, I will be more than willing to alter my opinion.

In fact, I have paid for 20 yoga lessons via a recent Groupon that I am just waiting for the opportunity to use. So although I have already formulated an opinion on yoga, I am also aware that there is more to learn on the subject and that my opinion may be flawed.

But still, can’t I have an opinion on the subject?

It should also be noted that this flaw only seems to apply to negatively-held beliefs. If my opinion of yoga was positive despite my lack of personal experience, I don’t think my friend would consider my ill informed opinion to be a shortcoming.

Only when the opinion is critical do people complain.

I find this intellectually inconsistent and stupid.

But I’m willing to hear more on the subject.

This is the best they could do?

Professional Building? Seriously?

They couldn’t name the building after someone slightly deserving?

Just for the hell of it?

A former President perhaps? A war hero? An Eagle Scout? A suffragette?

The owner’s dog?

Wouldn’t the Fido T. Bone Professional Building still sound better than nothing at all?

Not many people could make it through this chart

I’d laminate this and carry it around, but people would either be dishonest when answering the questions or naive about their own prejudices.

Don’t trust a good name when it's too good.

I distrust convenient names. For example, does anyone else find it a little too convenient that the fastest man in the world is named Usain Bolt?

Bolt?

C’mon. Doesn’t this just scream of a track and field conspiracy?

I used to feel the same way about Joe Montana, one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play football.

Joe Montana? Has there ever been a better name for a quarterback in the history of the world? And he just so happens to win three Super Bowls?

A little too convenient for me.

Why don’t quarterbacks ever have names like Ned Flendersheld or Eugene Muntz?

Again, conspiracy.

I also distrust alliterative names that people assign to concepts or ideas.  For example, I was recently reading that school curriculum must be “rigorous and relevant.”

Sure. I agree. Rigorous and relevant are good.

But I’m left wondering what words not beginning with the letter R were left out for the sake of alliteration.

Engaging? Differentiated? Student-centered? Scaffolded? Prioritized? Aligned with assessment?

These words and phrases are often used to describe the characteristics of effective curriculum today, but none of them conveniently begin with the letter R.

Were these characteristics left out because they are significantly less important than “rigorous and relevant” or were they simply not alliterative?

Your words are doing more harm than good

Today’s Living Social deal for Providence reads like this (with my added commentary):

In a city that's dripping with design (Cranston, Rhode Island?), it's sometimes difficult to define your own personal (font) style (Font? Is that supposed to be a play on words? The world’s first and hopefully last attempt at a font joke?). Walk away from the Wingdings (Another bad font joke? Seriously? And how many people will actually understand this unfunny joke and how many will be left wondering what the hell a Wingding is?) and into the salon with today's deal from Wil.O Design Studio in Cranston.

For $100, get a Brazilian blowout (What the hell is a Brazilian blowout? Do I even want to know?). Or sit for a women's haircut and eyebrow shaping for $27. Spend just $20 to mix that perfect shade of bronze without touching Photoshop (Seriously? A Photoshop joke, too? “I’ve got the perfect shade of spray-on tan for you and I didn’t have to use Photoshop to find it! Ha!”) with a full-body spray tan (Who does this anyway?). Armed with eco-friendly products and a fierce sense of what you need (Someone please explain what the hell a 'fierce' sense of what I need is), the artists at Wil.O know what it takes to stay unique in a copycat world (Spray-on-tan will keep me looking unique? Are you kidding me?). And, after getting confident with today's deal, crafting the next design standard needn't take more than a single mouse-click or pen-stroke (Could they have constructed a more convoluted and confusing sentence is they had tried?).

After reading the copy twice, I was compelled to send the following email to Wil.O Design Studios this morning:

To Whom It May Concern:

Your Living Social deal arrived in my inbox today. Though I do not currently require a full body spray tan or a Brazilian blowout, I would like to humbly offer my services in the future when it comes to writing ad copy for your business.  While I am certain that you are highly effective in your area of expertise, the copy for your Living Social deal leaves a great deal to be desired. For a small fee, I would be more than happy to put my expertise with the written word to work for you, crafting a clear, cohesive ad that will appeal to discernible readers everywhere or editing ad copy that you produce.

I’d be more than happy to send you a list of my credentials if you are interested.

Best of luck with your Living Social deal and with all future endeavors.

I’ll let you know if someone responds.

Convenience would be a shoe shine boy and a bidet. Not an unlocked door.

I found this sign hanging on the restroom in the local Marshall’s department store.

Note that the restroom contains three urinals and two stalls. It’s a large restroom. Not a single person suite.

And thankfully, it is "unlocked for my convenience."

Unlocked for my convenience?

Someone explain this sign to me. Please.

And don’t tell me that it has something to do with department stores often requiring customers to obtain a key in order to use the restroom, because although this may be true, I still don’t need a sign telling me that the restroom is unlocked. It’s one of those things that are easily determined.

More importantly, it is assumed. The default for 99% of all public restrooms is unlocked.

And what if the restroom was locked to prevent theft? Would there then be a sign that reads:

Despite the inconvenience, the restroom is locked.

Probably not, even though informing me that the restroom is locked is slightly more helpful than telling me it’s unlocked. At least I wouldn’t push on the door a couple extra times or assume that it is occupied.

But worst of all is the audacity in attempting to take credit for something that is standard almost everywhere except for roadside gas stations and New York City fast food restaurants.

The restroom is unlocked for my convenience? Does Marshalls think it’s doing me some kind of favor?

Why not add:

For your convenience, the restroom is equipped with toilets and sinks and (in all probability) is stocked with toilet paper (though it would be wise to check and be sure before needing any).

Or how about adding some actual convenience to the restroom?

For your convenience, the restroom is equipped with televisions tuned to the latest sporting event as well as a shoe shine boy, a monkey with an accordion and a bidet.

Now that might warrant a sign.

The Wikipedia entry on "receptionist" is fascinating. Little did I know that it would lead me to the body of Christ.

I find it amusing when someone says that they work “in reception.” As if reception is a department akin to accounting or marketing or IT. In truth, I’ve only had one person ever say this directly to me, but the phrase came up in conversation last week, and I’ve heard it referenced before. I find this seeming deliberate avoidance of the word receptionist slightly offensive to receptionists everywhere.

When I managed a McDonald’s restaurant, I didn’t tell people that I worked in food service management or that I worked for a Fortune 500 company.

I said, “I manage a McDonald’s restaurant.”

You’re a receptionist.  There’s nothing wrong with that.

If you think there is, get another job.

In the process of writing what I thought would be a short post, I searched the phrase in reception online and returned thousands of hits.

Most interesting among them was a Wikipedia entry on receptionists that sounds like it was specifically written by a receptionist who loves his or her job a little too much.

It’s not your typical, passionless Wikipedia article. It reads like a sixth grade term paper. In terms of irony, obtuseness, and sheer entertainment value, it’s worth a read.

I’m equally fascinated by the photos of the two receptionists used for the entry.

 

Does this man (working at the Hampton Inn Suites based upon the data contained within the photo) and these two women know that their images have been used to help illustrate the meaning of the word receptionist?

Even more compelling:

Is the partially concealed woman in the second photo annoyed that her colleague has received front billing?  Has she always been jealous of her prettier desk mate?  Did this photograph sadly reinforced these feelings of inadequacy and self doubt?

Even better, are any of these people (I strongly suspect Mr. Hampton Inn Suites) the author of the Wikipedia entry?

I think it’s entirely possible.

Paragraphs like this would seem to support this theory:

At times, the job may be stressful due to interaction with many different people with different types of personalities, and being expected to perform multiple tasks quickly.

Sounds like someone complaining about his job to me. Perhaps a desk clerk at a busy Hampton Inn Suites in New York?

Or how about this paragraph?

A receptionist position… could be perceived as having a certain veneer of glamour with opportunities for networking in order to advance to other positions within a specific field. Some people may use this type of job as a way to familiarize themselves with office work, or to learn of other functions or positions within a corporation. Some people use receptionist work as a way to earn money while pursuing further educational opportunities or other career interests such as in the performing arts or as writers.

See that? Pursuing other career interests such as writers?

The writer of Wikipedia entries, perhaps?

And a veneer of glamour? C’mon!

This paragraph reads like a guy trying to explain to his parents why their son, a graduate from Hofstra with a degree in philosophy, is working the front desk at a Hampton Inn Suites.

“It’s just temporary, Mom. It’s paying the bills while I work on my career. I’m up for a small part in an off-off-off Broadway production of a modern day adaptation of The Tempest, and Billy and I are writing a screenplay about two slackers living in a Volkswagen. This is how people get started in the business.”

In fact, the whole entry on receptionists reads like the first draft for a pamphlet designed to elevate the esteem of the position of receptionist to prospective high school student everywhere.

It really is an amusing read.

And I’m not done.

The following two sentences appear along the top of the entry:

This article is about an employee. For those who believes in the doctrine of receptionism, see Receptionism.

There is so much to be said about these two sentences.

First, “This article is about an employee.” One specific employee? Perhaps Mr. Hampton Inn Suites? An odd choice of words, to say the least. And it sure as hell sounds like something the guy in the photograph would say based upon the nothing I actually know about him.

Then there is the grammar problem in the second sentence (“For those who believes”), but even more interesting is the implication that only those who believe in the doctrine of receptionism are permitted read about it.

For those who believes in the doctrine receptionism, see Receptionism?   

If I don’t believe in receptionism, I can’t click?

Naturally, I clicked, dragging me further into the wormhole that is Wikipedia.

Receptionism, it turns out, is a Christian theological doctrine which states that in a Eucharist service, the bread and the wine do not transform into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ until they enter a person’s mouth.

Apparently this has caused quite a bit of hullabaloo in various religious circles for reasons I don’t quite understand.  Read for yourself and see if you can make any sense of it.

I’m left thinking this:

If you truly believe that bread and wine are magically transformed into the actual blood and body of a man who died more than 2,000 years ago, arguing over when this magic takes place amounts to little more than the splitting of hairs.

Thus ends my journey through Wikipedia for another day.

Please don’t taint our trashy brand name with your douchebaggery

Abercrombie & Fitch is hardly a store that I hold in high esteem. I could list the number of discrimination lawsuits that the company has lost in the past decade, but all you really have to know about this company is that in 2002 Abercrombie Kids sold a line of thong underwear sold for girls in pre-teen sizes that included phrases like "Eye Candy" and "Wink Wink" printed on the front.

They have also sold women’s tee-shirts displaying messages such as Who needs brains when you have these? and I had a nightmare I was a brunette.

Men’s tee-shirts included messages such as Show the twins, Female streaking encouraged and Female Students Wanted for Sexual Research.

If you’re purchasing clothing at one of these stores, you have to ask yourself what the hell you are thinking.

If you’re purchasing clothing for your child from one of these stores… I don’t know what to think.

Even if you didn’t know about Abercrombie and Fitch’s reprehensible track record, shouldn’t a poster like this, hanging in the store’s window, been warning enough?

Nevertheless, even the most vile of institutions are capable of humor.

On Tuesday, the clothing retailer said it would offer "substantial payment" to MTV's The Jersey Shore's cast members to stop wearing the brand on air.

"We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino's association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image. We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans," an Abercrombie & Fitch spokesperson said in a statement. "We have also extended this offer to other members of the cast, and are urgently waiting a response."

The extent of my knowledge about The Jersey Shore amounts to the following:

• It is a reality television show on MTV.
• It features a cast of materialistic, ego maniacal douchebags.
• People in New Jersey hate this show for giving their state a bad name.
• There is guy on the show who calls himself The Situation who invaded ESPN for a day and littered my sports programming with his vile presence.
• A girl from the show wrote a book that Washington Post book critic Ron Charles made fun of on Twitter.
• No one should spend a second be watching these cretins, but lots of people spend hours watching these cretins.
• People like to make ridiculous excuses for wasting their precious time watching these douchebag because to admit to liking the show absence any caveat is unthinkable, even though its probably true.

Even with this limited knowledge of the show, I find this decision by Abercrombie & Fitch to be brilliant. Hilarious.

And yes, a little mean as well. Perhaps even cruel.

But it’s kind of like watching a cockroach chew on a dung beetle.

It’s hard for me to have sympathy for either party.

Why lift weights and run when you can fuse with your gym towel?

Towel Fusion? Really?

“…guaranteed to create a total body fusion!”

With your towel.

What’s next? Tube sock fusion? Jock strap fusion? Contact lens fusion?

Just when I am finally willing to accept the concept of spin class (though I still don’t see why everyone can’t just get on a bike and motivate themselves) comes what has to be the most absurd fitness class in human history.

If I didn’t have a wedding to DJ that night, I’d so be there.

 

An admittedly heated response about the notion that a librarian can't read Shakespeare

One of the students who I'm working with this summer told me that he doesn't like Shakespeare. I told him that he doesn't like Shakespeare because he doesn't know Shakespeare, and he hasn't had a teacher who loved Shakespeare enough to pass the love onto him.

Shelf Awareness featured a librarian who answered the question, “Book you've faked reading?” with this: 

I have never faked reading anything but I am embarrassed to say that I have never read Shakespeare, though I have tried.

I adore librarians, so the last thing I want to do is criticize one, but I have been turning her response over in my head for the past day and find myself unable to refrain from commenting.

Her response annoys me.

It annoys me because if you are a librarian in an English speaking country, shouldn’t you have read at least one title from Earth’s most well known and well respected English writer? Isn’t this the minimum that one should expect from a caretaker of the written word?

It annoys me because there are thousands of resources available to assist in the reading of Shakespeare, and many of them are probably sitting on the shelves of her library. There are Spark Notes and side-by-side language comparisons and novelizations that would assist immensely in comprehension, so don’t tell me that you tried.  Any literate adult can make sense of Shakespeare with the use of these resources.

It annoys me because I have been reading Shakespeare with my third and fifth graders for fifteen years now, and I have yet to meet a student who cannot make some sense of his plays. Granted we read abbreviated versions of them, often after having read a novelization of the same play, but we read the text in the original Old English. If 8 year-old and 10 year-old children can do it, I suspect that this librarian can as well.

It annoys me because this librarian expressed embarrassment for never having read Shakespeare, and yet she has not yet rectified the situation. This is not the kind of embarrassment over having never visited a famous landmark even though it is located in your hometown. This is professional embarrassment, akin to a teacher expressing embarrassment over never having mastered a mathematical concept that he must teach. This is not trivial stuff. Kids undoubtedly enter that library every year with assignments dealing with Shakespeare. Pointing to the books is nice, but wouldn’t it be nice to have some familiarity, if not expertise, with them as well?

But it annoys me most because responses like this help to perpetuate the myth that Shakespeare is impenetrable and boring, when this could not be further from the truth. Shakespeare’s plays are stories of love and tragedy, treason and treachery, life and death. Even my most skeptical students end up loving these plays. Shakespeare has helped me turn children who do not like to read into lifelong readers. They are stories that engage both boys and girls and have resulted in some of the most fascinating, in-depth and heated conversations that have ever taken place in my classroom. I have watched learning disabled students, deaf students, students who barely speak English, and emotionally troubled students take the stage and recite Shakespearean lines from memory with all the emotion and understanding of a professional actor.

Don’t tell me that you tried to read Shakespeare.

And don’t for a second tell the world that you tried. I have about 250 former students who would scoff at the notion that an adult, and a librarian at that, tried to read Shakespeare but failed.

There is a reason that Shakespeare has lasted hundreds of years, and it is not because educated, English speaking adults were unable to read and fall in love with the work.

Try again, damn it.