Rebel Yelling: Volume VI- Matthew Jarzen Column from the Past!

Last fall, when I was in the heat of the Rebel Yelling original quintology, I was contacted by actual real-life acquaintances of our favorite conservative undergraduate opinionator Matthew Jarzen. The feedback was uniformly positive. This is because the videos are awesome. Anyway, before Christmas some time we filmed this video and I just very recently remembered/got around to editing it, so here goes. BTW: remember "Climategate?"



Original article at the UNLV Rebel Yell: Climategate: The story of the century!

Yes, that is a weird furry Anne Geddes baby doll. It was part of a costume, okay?

Odds 'n ends

Good news for all you hungry fans (hungry for my WORDS--if you need food, you should go get a snack, I can only provide intellectual sustenance): my part-time temporary office job may turn into a full-time temporary but for the whole summer office job. In which case, I imagine between commuting to Toledo, living off of Diet Coke and granola bars, and copying and pasting shit into spreadsheets all day, I may begin blogging more regularly, what with the being stuck a computer for eight hours in a row-ness. In other news, I graduate next week (finally). I suppose I'm going to do the whole walking thing; I think Isaac has a cap and gown I can borrow. If for some reason you would like to download the PDF full text of my thesis, "Raising a Monster Army: Energy Drinks, Masculinity, and Militarized Consumption," you can do so here. Totes related, via Emily, I saw this cool collection of soda packaging at Web Urbanist.

In light of an alternative energies documentary we watched recently on NOVA (slightly less depressing than the "American Experience" on My Lai the other night), I dug this photo collection from Chernobyl then and now at Sociological Images. There is a bar in Chernobyl where disaster tourists and occasional residents can get drunk on vodka AND lingering radiation poisoning!

A poignant (and I mean that sincerely) piece on girl-on-girl middle school bullying: The Lessons My Bullies Taught Me at No Points for Style (I read it first re-published at Jezebel). It just reminded me of how bitchy I was to one particularly friend of mine in the seventh grade. I thought she acted really young and got sick of having every class together and being compared to her all the time (we were both in advanced classes and went to church together and did all the same after school activities), so I basically did my best to ditch her and get our other friends to do the same. Eventually her mom called my mom and my mom gave me shit, igniting the ol' Mormon guilt, and I started to repair the friendship, which lasted a few more years, though we were never particularly close again. I never did know how to say I was sorry (and I genuinely was and am). I never really knew why I would do something like that when I had been ditched by girl friends before and spent a huge chunk of my time talking trash about all the mean "popular" girls who were doing the same thing I was. It's not an excuse, but in some ways I think thirteen year-olds are some of the least well-adjusted humans on earth. I thought I knew some shit, was smarter and more mature than the other kids my age, but it turns out I was just as big of an asshole as they were.

Wikipedia failed me, so now you get Pluggers

Can you believe I thought of a controversial American historical figure to write a post about, and the 'Pedia let me down with a completely inadequate entry? PSHAW, people. I was required to shake off my hangover and go get three books from the library to research him instead. Though perhaps for the next few days I should really read the two books and write the paper for class Monday, continue working on PhD applications, and work in some thesis reading if I've got spare time. And/or watch a bunch of Buffy episodes with Isaac because the Pop Culture Library has the complete series and we busted through season one in three nights. Anyhow, in the meantime, until I get to my nerdy self-assigned research project, here is some Pluggers: Two possible explanations here: 1. Baby Pluggers (shudder) don't know what alligators are because the global warming their grandparents don't believe in has caused the sea levels to rise and completely wipe out their natural habitats in Florida. OR 2. The kid suspects his grandfather of smuggling something large and conspicuous under his be-alligatored shirt. Also: WTF lack of question mark, Gary Brookins? Do Lil' Pluggers not understand how voice inflection helps convey meaning? Answer me, goddammit!

Ways in Which the World May End: An Apocalpytic Vlog

Recently, via Crooks and Liars, I found out that Stephen Colbert found out from crazy Glenn Beck that the world is probably ending pretty soon. And so Stephen built a Doom Bunker. Which is awesome. So Isaac and I got drunk and built an apocalyptic hobo fort, which has less fancy lighting and fog machines, but is slightly more realistic when you consider the resources most of us will have on hand in the event that we survive the apocalypse.

Ed Begley, Jr. continues his quest to top Bill Nye's awesomeness*

A while back, my BTVFF Ka$h emailed to inform me that apparently Ed Begley, Jr. is now selling his own environmentally-friendly cleaner. Here, much like yesterday's laziness of copying and pasting a gchat as a blog post, I will directly quote Ka$h from her email:

Ed Begley Jr. has his own brand of eco-friendly cleaning products called "Begley's Best"! The bottles have a large picture of his face on them!! I almost bought one to send to you when I saw it at Rainbow but the picture was creeping me out too much, so you should look it up on the internet. I think he is blatantly ripping off Paul Newman, but I guess Paul Newman hasn't gotten into eco-friendly cleaners yet.

Hey, RIP Paul Newman. Your salad dressings are delicious. *Previous discussion of their nerdily adorable earth-saving competition.

"If you use petroleum, you're a murderer. That's a fact."

I fucking love I ♥ Huckabees, especially Mark Wahlberg's character. ("Where are you guys? I'm at the fire!") Anyway, here's a sweet clip that seems apropos what with people finally figuring out that this whole "burning oil to power everything ever" thing might not be working out: "If Hitler were alive, he'd tell you not to think about oil."

More posty post

Still living the ROCKSTAR® lifestyle here, and not much work to do (avoiding a tedious project with no real deadline that I was only given because I ran out of other stuff to work on), so I'm a-gonna link link link to some good stuff on the Toobz. I'm just going to clear out my list before the weekend, so hold on to your hat! -Remember a while back when I was complaining about how HuffPo condemned their "Living" page to the Pink Ghetto? Well, apparently they took its former green color and made a "Green" page. Okay, fine. But you still didn't have to make all the articles about feelings pink. The Sexy Gay Jesus thinks it is in poor taste, too. And you should always trust The Sexy Gay Jesus on these issues.* But ANYWAY, through the new green Green page, I saw an article about one of my favorite afterschool television heroes, Bill Nye! He and Ed Begley, Jr., another ridiculous person, are neighbors and are trying to see who can be more environmentally friendly. Nerdy competitions that are good for the earth? 100 points awarded to each. Hey, remember when Bill Nye made that grass car? (Featured very briefly in video.) Glad to hear the Billster's still around, up to science-y shenanigans. Bill Nye, Ed Begley Compete to See Who's Greener. (Noaki Schwartz, Huffington Post) -Okay, so crazy, crazy Jesse Ventura has been talking about jumping into a Senate race close to my heart: AKA Al "Awesome Glasses" Franken v. Norm "How Do You People Not See What a Huge Douchebag He Is?!" Coleman. Colleen Werthmann has made some helpful (and awesome) diagrams to help you figure out who you should vote for in what is soon to be known as the 2008 Senatorial Clusterfuck. Minnesota's U.S. Senate race is crazying up nicely. (HuffPo's 23/6) -Apropos of the fact that I am (still) reading Naomi Klein's awesome, awesome book and learning about how Milton Friedman was an evil genius, I appreciated William K. Wolfrum's take on McCain's "economic plan." Prepared to run Milton Friedman's sixth term: John McCain lays out plans to 'starve the beast'. (William K. Wolfrum/Shakesville) -From a while back, The Apostate talks about turning into a bitch. And how it's awesome. I totally agree. Being a nice girl never got me shit, it just got me shit on. Learning to be assertive (still working on it) is a skill too many women never achieve. Don't put up with bullshit, people. You're a person.** I don't care if I come off as bitchy just because I stand up for myself. I'd rather be a bitch than a pushover. Any day. Learning to be a bitch. (The Apostate) -Our dear Hugo wrote a while back about boys and education. The Kathleen Parkers of the world like to claim that education is a zero-sum game: if girls do better, boys must do worse. This is, obviously, bullshit. There's not a finite amount of literacy in this world, people. Anyway, Hugo always comes at things in a really interesting way, and here he tackles some issues that have bothered me for a while about the whole gender/education/achievement mess. Poor white boys: school leaving, male under-performance, and the disaster of masculine anti-intellectualism. (Hugo Schwyzer) -And one more: My sister is the biggest badass at BYU. Pretty much. Goal: Become a legit Led Zeppelin fan: Led Zeppelin I (Cheerful Cynicism) *NOTE: I definitely get a good number of hits from people searching "sexy gay." These people must be severely disappointed that I am just talking about my imaginary gay best friend/deity of choice and do not actually feature porn. Sorry, gay Googlers! I hope you like nerdy U.S. history posting! Hey, Ulysses S. Grant was pretty hot. That's the best I can do. **"I'm a person. Bret's a person. You're a person. That person over there's a person. And each person deserves to be treated... like a person."

Michele Bachmann: a case study in delusion

Definitely the highlight of the 2007 State of the Union drinking game.

I'm not actually going to write a case study. This is why I dropped the social sciences and have gravitated toward the humanities: not so much with the case studies, much more with the wordy analysis. But anyway, on my way out the door this morning (as always, about ten minutes after I should've already left the house, but seeing has how I'd still been in bed ten minutes ago, that's just kind of how it goes) I glanced at yesterday's newspaper on the dining room table and saw this headline screaming up at me, just begging to be mocked: Bachmann says $2 gas achievable.

Dear Michele Bachmann,

I myself once said I could read Moby Dick in a weekend. Four months later, I finally finished that shit.* I was in a high school English class. You are in the United States Congress. Someone elected you. Dear lord.

But for laughs, you may as well just keep bringing the crazy.

Love and Jesus juice,
Lauren

"The question is one of supply and demand, and we want to increase the supply,'' M-Bach says. I've never taken an econ class because there are limits to my self-hatred, but I'm pretty sure that not only is that analysis painfully simplistic and inaccurate, but there's not actually much we can do as far as "increasing the supply" of oil. Congresswoman Crazytrain just wants us to drill some more. Dude, I bet she reads Parade in the Sunday paper and actually enjoys it. So I will direct her to this week's Ask Marilyn column by resident genius-for-pay Marilyn vos Savant:

It’s hard to believe that there were ever enough plants and animals on Earth to create the huge volume of fossil fuels that we’re now consuming hourly. Even though the material accumulated over millions of years, the residue one might expect from a sizable dinosaur might be a pint of crude oil. How is it possible that this much fuel was ever produced?
—Rich Neel, Brownwood, Tex.

The geologic processes began more than 3 billion years ago. When one considers that all this matter may be used in only a few hundred years—just a thin sliver of that time—one might instead find it hard to believe that we could use so much so fast.

Now, Michele Bachmann doesn't so much "believe" in newfangled haberdashery like "science" or "evolution," so let me try to explain this in a way she can understand:

THE EARTH'S CORE IS NOT ONE BIG SELF-REPLENISHING OIL REPOSITORY. IF YOU USE A BIGGER STRAW TO SUCK IT OUT OF THE GROUND, IT JUST DISAPPEARS FASTER. JESUS ISN'T GOING TO MAKE YOU MORE JUST BECAUSE YOU HATE GAY PEOPLE ENOUGH OR BECAUSE YOU NEED TO DRIVE YOUR 1036898759 KIDS AROUND IN BIG VANS.

(If you are still somehow blissfully unaware of the magic of Michele Bachmann, see this old but still awesome and relevant profile of her from the City Pages--you may have to refresh a few times to get it to display, but it's worth it.)


*It is a terrible book that is actually mostly about the particulars of 19th-century sailing and whale anatomy.