Words Of The Season

According to the NYT T Magazine, the word of the season is wine flu, as in "an annual pandemic whose outbreak coincides with the holidays, usually the morning after an office party". I love it!

And while on the subject of words, let's not talk about Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanzaa/Solstice anymore. Or at least in a way that's fraught with fragile pc overtones. If you do Christmas, then say Merry Christmas. You should be able to evoke your holiday sentiments and others should accept them. My holiday sentiments, or lack thereof, do not have to mirror yours. You can Happy Wicca Solstice Pagan Druid Day me to death and I will accept it with grace and a smile. If I only celebrate Festivus, then I should be able to Happy Festivus you without a lecture. Can't we all just get along?

And also while on the subject of words......I have been asked many times why I insist on self-identifying as a feminist. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that the hard work is over and we're all just one big gender-neutral equal society. As someone who works in a traditionally male-dominated career, I can tell you that is far from the truth. Not to be a downer in a post that started with wine flu, nevertheless I feel compelled to shine the light on this asspipe's letter to the editor concerning Tiger Woods and his wife Elin. It appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal, a once proud and compelling journalistic enterprise that is now sadly 16 wafer-thin sheets of AP drivel bound together by ads for thermal windows and mattress stores. This particular pulitzer-worthy piece is no longer showing up in the archives but in essence the writer started by saying that Elin was "just a bikini" when she met Tiger Woods and as such, would never be able to repay him for marrying her and giving her the life of a queen. He also said she should now focus on fulfilling her marriage vows to him because no matter what he did to her, the scales would never be balanced. Really attractive stuff. This is why I am a feminist. People want to think that a nutjob like this is an anomaly but what he really is a the darker side of many of our beliefs. He just doesn't have a filter.

Nothing like a rant. I feel better. Happy Festivus Chrismukkahzaa to you all!