Category Archives: business

Can A Feminist Wear High Heels?

Posted on July 13, 2015 by | 1 comment

And that’s a weird question to ask- especially coming from me.

Yours truly, for any new readers, is a dude. I’ve never worn high heels, and with my long and elegant (if somewhat hairy) legs, I’ve never had cause to.

Like this, only more so.

In spite of my obvious lack of experience, compounded with a whole gamut of cultural-historial-societal variables, I’d still wholeheartedly call myself a feminist. As such, I still feel compelled to ask-

Can a feminist wear high heels?

And I know this isn’t a new issue. For years, folks have generally agreed that high heels are uncomfortable and impractical. There’s not shortage of studies demonstrating the range of health issues they can cause: calf cramps, chronic (and permanent) pain, pelvic issues, callouses and corns, inflammation, pinched nerves, tendinitis, and a host of others which I could spend this entire post just listing.

I’m not going to do that.

According to science and common ****ing sense, no one’s are…

High heels are bad for you. That’s a cold, hard medical fact, and one that most everyone’s familiar with by now. Still, women continue to wear ’em, which again begs the question of “Why in heaven’s name would they put themselves through this?” Continue reading →

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Posted in advertisement, advertising, bizarreness, business, design, fashion, feminism, history

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Explaining American Politics to Non-Americans – Part II: The Republican Party

Posted on March 30, 2015 by | 2 comments

Welcome again readers, to Culture War Reporter’s second installment of “Explaining American Politics to Non-Americans” [Part 1 here], in which yours truly attempts to explain the chaotic carnival that is our great democracy.

This week, we’ll be looking at the Republican party. Or parties, if things keep progressing as they do.

But let’s dive right in.

I won’t pretend I don’t have my own bias but I will try to be as fair as possible.

To say that the “Grand Old Party” has made itself unpopular abroad would be an understatement. The Bush-era wars, sanctions, and seemingly indiscriminate use of military force has created an international image of Republicans as blood-thirsty imperialists. While Obama has been far more liberal (pardon the pun) use of drone strikes, others point to the Republicans shaky relationship with environmentalism, science, and women’s issues to cast the GOP as backwards and puritanical.

But how fair are these assertions? If they’re true, where do they come from?

The History

The “Grand Old Party”, as it was once called was established in 1854, just prior to the American Civil War. Evolving from a number of groups, the Republican party came to stand largely for federal power and industrialization, contrasting with the emphasis on state’s rights and agriculture that the Democrats had (who we’ll get to next week). Indeed, while now struggling now to rid themselves of the accusation of being an “old, white guys’ party”, the Republicans of old were actually the more progressive, liberal and inclusive of the two parties. Although racism would remain an issue across the political spectrum, it was Republicans who could often count on the African-American voter demographic throughout much of the late 1800s.

Exactly when and why that stopped being the case is still a matter of heated debate.

Some would cite that the “Red Scares” (anti-communist witch hunts) of the 1950s pushed the party increasingly towards aggression, militarism, and social conservatism. Others might argue that as issues of civil rights, poverty, and the war in Vietnam caused many African-Americans to shift towards the Democrats, leaving the party almost exclusively in the hands of the white tycoons.

In spite of this shift, Republicans nevertheless have consistently managed to gain and often dominate American politics, the Reagan-era in the 1980s seeing massive cuts to government spending while increasing intervention in Latin America, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. The short-lived presidency of H.W. Bush, however, would see the abrupt end to the Republican Golden Age, with economic downturn and issues from within the party leading to Democrat victories in the 90s.

And then came “W”.

Continue reading →

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Posted in America, bizarreness, business, Christianity, government, history, media, money, morality, news, politics, race, religion

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Explaining American Politics To Non-Americans – Part I: Why We’re ****ed

Posted on March 23, 2015 by | 2 comments

It’s been my ambition for some time now to dedicate a series to explaining American politics to our substantial audience of non-Americans. While this blog is comprised 50% of Canadians (our frosty neighbors north of the wall), the simple fact of the matter is that the land-the-free has long been the front line of culture war. What happens here affects the rest of the globe.

With the already hotly contested primaries underway and prospects for the 2016 election being widely debated, what better time could there be than now to explain just why it is that we the people are fundamentally screwed.

Let me break it down here.

I. The Person Who Wins Isn’t Always The Person Who Gets Elected

In spite of our praise for democracy, the American republic does not have a one-man-one-vote policy. Every four years, there’s a decent chance that the candidate with the most votes will still lose to his opponent.

See, we have something called the “electoral college”- a staggeringly complex system that not even this succinct TED video can completely cover. At its simplest, the system boils down to states having “points” assigned to them on the basis of their populations and number of congressmen and senators.

This system means that a political candidate doesn’t necessarily have to get a massive number of people to vote for him- just a majority. So long as he or she gets that majority, no matter how slim, they still takes away as many “points” as if they had won a landslide.

What that means is that a person can get elected president in spite of his or her opponent getting more actual votes. Just look at this image below:

While the majority of votes cast in this example are blue, red still wins by virtue of this system. While supposedly protecting states with smaller populations (preventing them from being drowned out by heavily populated states), the result is that a person’s vote can very well be rendered utterly pointless. Plenty of folks simply don’t even bother voting, especially in states dominated by one party. Alternatively, states with greater electoral power (more points, that is) and a habit of swinging between parties (Ohio and Florida, most famously) get disproportionate amounts of attention.

In spite of being viciously despised by folks on both sides of the political spectrum, there’s really very little hope for any reform on this point. While part of that can be blamed on tradition, plenty of it also boils down to a little thing called- Continue reading →

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Florida’s War on Context

Posted on March 12, 2015 by | Leave a comment

Florida, one of the crazier states in the Union, has taken climate change denial to a whole new level.

Apparently, Florida’s Governor Rick Scott is responsible for an off-the-books ban on the terms “climate change” and “global warming” (among others) at the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

I mentioned “others” because, according to some, DEP employees have also been pressured to avoid using the term “sustainability.”

That’s the last I’ll say about that one, because, if it’s true, the stupidity of it could very well give me a brain aneurysm. Continue reading →

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“Us Vs. Stuff” or “What The **** Is Up With Subscription Services?”

Posted on March 9, 2015 by | 2 comments

Readers, this rambling only semi-coherent post comes from the sickbed of yours truly, where I am currently battling a cold that I just don’t have time for right now.

With that in mind, you might be e’er so slightly charitable when you hear me ask: “No seriously, what’s up with subscription services?”

For those of you who were as unaware as I was (up until a few months ago), the latest trend has folks being sent, well, “boxes of stuff”.

How it works is essentially as follows: one will pay a monthly fee to a company who will, in turn, send said person a box/crate full of items they believe the individual will like. While there is some customization available (I could get a monthly shave-kit delivered, for example), there’s often a certain degree of chance involved. BlueApron.com, for example, will send subscribers recipes with per-packaged ingredients. Other sites, like LootCrate.com will send whatever nerd and geek accoutrements they decide to.

Now readers, maybe its the ongoing battle in my sinus cavity or maybe I really am just a mean, cynical miser, but I just don’t get it. And I don’t mean to come across harsher than I probably will, but I really don’t quite like what this seems to say about us as a culture. Do we really have so much excess cash that we’re just giving it to some strangers and saying “surprise me”? Continue reading →

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2 Broke Girls, S4E8 “And the Fun Factory”: A TV Review

Posted on January 6, 2015 by | 11 comments

funfactory

This is not a great start.

Look, this is my first post of 2015, but even that can’t offset the fact that before this I saw the 13th, and last, episode of Selfie, a show that never even got a proper season finale while this show staggers forward into the second half of its fourth season. That already had me primed to be somewhat less than gracious, but then we have the following happen in the first five minutes:

  • the diminutive Asian diner owner referred to as “Han Jobs”
  • the implication that he knows more about gadgets than Caroline because “formerly rich doesn’t beat currently Asian”
  • his immediate defence of the Australian woman he’s flirting with online, saying “she’s part Aboriginal but has a great personality!”

So allow me to say, right now, eff absolutely everything about this show. This is some straight-up racist garbage and it physically pained me to have to listen to these lines. They made me want to visit the writers’ room with a sock full of so many quarters people would think I was about to spend two weeks at the arcade. Continue reading →

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