Mini-polemix by Alison Ross

SUV = Sucky, Ugly, and Vicious/Surly, Uppity and Voracious/Soulless, Unpleasant, and Vindictive/Superfluously Useless Vehicle

I will potentially peeve some readers with this, but oh well. Besides, SUVs are far more obnoxious than any anti-SUV rant could possibly be. They pollute and they terrorize. It's bad enough that we have any vehicles at all (including mine, though I do try mitigate environmental injury with a humble hybrid), spitting their toxic smoke into the air, and menacing all in their path. But SUVs are a true sinister symbol of American hubris. They are hulking, and hideous. When someone nestles him or herself behind the wheel of one of these monstrous machines, it catalyzes their inner Beezlebub. They think they reign the road, and that the "little" vehicles are like toddlers that need to be put in their place. SUVs are ubiquitous, ridiculous, dangerous, and, most pitiful of all, completely gratutious. There is no good defense for their existence. Oh, sure, there are invented defenses, such as, "I need them to transport my dogs, or my 10 kids, or the groceries, or the lawn equipment, or my blow-up dolls." Well, guess what? When I was growing up, we all made do WITHOUT SUVs... and guess what? People then also had kids, and dogs, and lawn equipment, and went shopping (blow-up dolls had not yet been conceived). And guess what? WE LIKED driving smaller cars. So, really, any and all defenses of the SUV are just excuses, not real rationale for the existence of these Vehicles of Evil (if Baudelaire were alive, this might be the title of his modern book of poetry). So in addition to car-makers manufacturing these superfluous monstrosities, people manufacture excuses for owning them. But how can you reasonably defend something that so "crudely" exacerbates our fatal addiction to oil, that so outrageously jeopardizes life and limb, and that, finally, is just an embarrassing emblem of the egregiously supersized America ego? Here's a little hint: YOU CAN'T.


Boo to Birthing Babies!

I make no apologies for my "I ain't birthin' no babies" stance. I do not want kids, and the older I get, the more eagerly I anticipate menopause. In fact, I have been very hopeful that one day, my doctor would declare me "barren," but I guess I would have to undergo certain fertility tests or whatever for her to do that, and I don't even want to get within two billion miles of anything related to fertility. The idea of childbirth is so foreign to my physiological being, I might as well be male. This is not to say I wish I were a male, because I love being a woman in almost every way, especially in the breast department. Boobs rule. But anway, let's just say this birthin' babies thing ain't for moi. Which, for some people, is such an audaciously bizarre statement, it's as though you told them that you urinate from your forehead or something. These folks cannot wrap their itty bitty brains around the fact that a female does not feel such strong maternal instincts that she doesn't immediately copulate with 20 males just to increase her chances of spawning 500 children (although the prospect of immediately copulating with 20 hot males does intrigue me). And, actually, it's interesting, because I DO have nurturing instincts, and I love children. Of course, this again perplexes people. For if you love children, why don't you want them? You must HATE children if you don't breed roomfulls of them and covet to breastfeed at all times. But besides not physically fathoming birthing children, I can't imagine rearing them - it would intrude upon my solipsism, for one. And the worries it would entail... I'm anxious enough without having to worry that my two-year old might drown in the toilet, or my teen might overdose on spermacide, or whatever. And furthermore, I have an ardent ethical bias against reproduction for the overpopulation reason alone. Babies suck resources, and then they become kids who suck resources, and then they become adults who suck resources. In short, people are just one big suck-fest. The planet is simply too cramped, too encumbered by idiots who won't stop breeding. So yeah. Fuck childbirth.


Hippies Versus Hipsters: Who's More Fucking Annoying?

Y'know, I really do appreciate when people do their own thing, fashion-wise, and when they listen to forward-thinking music, and read forward-thinking books, and watch forward-thinking movies. But what I DON'T appreciate is when people dumbly adhere to the herd psychology that dogmatically dictates styles and tastes. Sure, we all fall prey to the mass mentality in some ways, but when people are too predictable, it's just numbing. What's even more disheartening is when the counter-culture becomes mired in its own monotony. At first these anti-predictability pioneers forge their own savvy sartorial style and make their own audacious art. But then everyone in the counter-culture begins to look the same, mimicking the very culture it was rebelling against initially. Sure, the styles are DIFFERENT from the mainstream, but pretty soon everyone in the counter-culture looks like they are wearing a uniform, and their tastes can be apprehended from 200 miles away. There is very little idiosyncratic variety in any of it. And THEN the mainstream begins to co-opt the counter-culture look and preferences, and the ethic of "counter" in counter-culture is obliterated. So it goes with hippies and hipsters and all manner of "counter-culture" types. I will be the first to admit that I can embrace some of the fashion elements of all of these groups (from the hippies, to the punks, to the goths, to the metalheads, even), and that my artistic tastes likely coincide with some of theirs. But what I cannot tolerate is when EVERYONE starts looking like EVERYONE else, with their sleeve of tattoos, and nerdy glasses, and Converse shoes, or their curtain-hair and flower-skirts and peace-beads or whatever. Have some fucking originality! Mix it up - be a gothic-preppy-bohemian-jock! Or whatever. Just stop looking like everyone else in a fucking tribe! Wear an green Izod shirt over zebra-printed chaps with the ass cut out, with spike-heeled penny loafers! Have some freakin' originality and listen to Journey's Escape when everyone else is listening to the latest neo-ambient-goth-prog-punk phenomenon! Or read Teenbeat when everyone else is reading Anton LaVey! Better yet, write your own Satanic Bible for Teens in LOLspeak! Yay!