sheer potentiality

Many motorists view road signs as simply traffic control devices intended to maintain safety and provide information, but in reality, they contain many hidden double and triple meanings, serving to uphold and represent the predominant white-male heteronormative patriarchy. Examples?

This sign is a prototypical example of masculine sexual power. The wedge shape suggests a purpose of splitting or opening (perhaps with a hammer), as a border of red (symbolic of danger) threateningly surrounds a field of white (symbolic of innocent, virginal womanhood, this symbolism itself rife with racial subtext), with the simple, monosyllabic command to “yield” a mere emphasis of the command. Such sexually-charged displays of dominance demand the (male) driver play the part of the woman, yielding obediently to cross traffic just as a woman is expected to yield obediently to her husband/rapist.

Interestingly, there is a feminine counterpart to the yield sign:

Yellow, symbolic of caution but less directly associated with danger than red, draws the viewer’s eye to the iconic car (a known phallic symbol) treacherously traversing an extremely curved path. The sign’s denotation, “slippery when wet”, simply serves as an encouraging double entendre; while supposedly a caution sign, this sign invites the driver to play the part of the man, boldly traversing the slippery curves ahead, the yellow background symbolizing the accused cowardice he would surely be guilty of were he to not proceed. The overall effect is to portray the woman as a “dangerous” thrill ride presenting herself for male enjoyment: the prostitute.In these two signs alone we have two vastly contradictory portrayals of womanhood, both of which emphasize “traditional” gender roles and male dominance. The virgin bride of the “yield” sign is portrayed as innocent, her virtue in danger from, yet ultimately submitting to, the dominant male. The whore of the “slippery when wet” sign is beckoning and inviting, dangerous, infinitely more interesting but ultimately submissive as well.

The political subtext behind this sign is obvious.

Nerds to Auction Themselves to Women

PULLMAN, Wash. (AP) — Looking to recruit more women, and perhaps date some sorority girls, the largest computer club at Washington State University hopes to hold a “nerd auction.” The idea is to trade their computer skills to sorority girls in exchange for a makeover and, possibly, a date.

“You can buy a nerd and he’ll fix your computer, help you with stats homework, or if you’re really adventurous, take you to dinner!” Ben Ford, president of the Linux Users Group, said on its Web site recently.

Ford acknowledged that some of the group’s 213 registered members may not be ready for the auction block.

“The problem is that we’re all still nerds. Let’s face it, guys. If anyone’s going to bid on us, we’ll need some spicing up,” he wrote. “And who better to help with that than sorority girls who like nothing better than a makeover?”

Source

This is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard of. Of course, the entire reason for this was mentioned later on:

This all began as an effort to recruit more women into computer science progams…

Somehow, I doubt that perpetuating the stereotype that college-age women are too stupid to operate and maintain their computers without the assistance of male nerds will help this. (Even if it is true, it’s more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than any inherent problem with women, and perpetuating the stereotype only makes it worse.) And while it’s no secret that computer enthusiasts are generally male nerds with little ability to attract women, I don’t think advertising this generalization will attract women to computer science programs either.

A public relations class decided to help by studying the social dynamics of the Linux group, which focuses on the use of the computer operating system.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the PR class that came up with this dumb idea; it was Ben Ford, in the shower. I say “fortunately” because WSU’s communications department has a good reputation as far as communications departments go, and after this level of national embarrassment I want there to be something left over for WSU to be proud of.

I seem to have lost a friend. I remember a quote: “It is sad to lose a friend. Not everyone has had a friend.”

My friend didn’t die, or disappear, or get abducted by Marxists. Perhaps she was never my friend to begin with. After all, our friendship was one of the few things I felt certain in, and confident of. If I couldn’t trust in that I don’t think I can trust in anything. I used to confidently think, and say, that we would always be friends, no matter what—that we would always stay in contact with each other. If I was so horribly wrong about one of the most obvious truths to my life, what am I right about? I can no longer trust anyone outside my immediate family. I can no longer let anyone become so important to me.

But the worst part is, there’s one less person in the world I can have a conversation with now. For me there have been few of those people in my life. Maybe some people have a surplus, and can stand to lose one or two.

So be it. This friendship didn’t have the best of beginnings, so I never deserved for it to last as long as it did. I’m not going to go into details, but suffice it to say that when I met this person, I was a different person from who I am today. Back then I was a rather awful person at times. I like to think I’m not so awful anymore, but it’s only in retrospect that I’ll know for sure.

But most people are rather awful at times, and a smaller majority are rather awful most of the time. And one can never really be sure when one has found a true exception. So it is wise to be reserved when dealing with people.

Philip Welch: I’m just not successful with women.
Jennifer Lee: I’d like to disagree with you but.. at this point, I really can’t.

One of these days, I’m going to get married and buy a house. When I do this, I’m going to have a urinal installed in the bathroom. There are three reasons for this. One, it would be an idiosyncrasy to have a urinal in my home bathroom, and that amuses me. Secondly, it would probably be more convenient. Most importantly, however, it will end all those stupid arguments about the toilet seat.

Of course, someone will have to clean the thing. But I have a solution for that too: do the bathroom completely in tile and install a self-cleaning system with a floor drain and high-pressure sprinklers on the ceiling.

This will, of course, necessitate a waterproof door. Somewhat like those from a Navy ship. True, my wife might object to the aesthetics of such a setup. But if it’s such a big deal to her, then she’ll just have to deal with me leaving the toilet seat up once in awhile.

I shouldn’t have gone to work out today.

I left to work out a few hours ago. When I came back, most of the people I wanted to talk to were offline, and I was too tired to do anything else. I might go to bed shortly after writing this post. I might stay up and play Knights of the Old Republic instead, although if I start I’ll feel compelled to record my actions and write a fanfic out of it, and I don’t have the energy to do that.

Two nights ago I decided to shave. I’m pretty happy with my appearance overall. When I take care of it, my hair is smooth and shiny and healthy, my body doesn’t look too bad when I have clothes on (and would probably look great if I took better care of it), and my face is alright. The only thing I don’t like is my facial hair. Sometimes I want so badly to have a thicker beard that’s worth anything instead of this patchy-ass curly shit. I got sick of it today and shaved it all off. It’s really quite frustrating to find that there’s something I don’t like about myself that I can do absolutely nothing about. It makes me feel incredibly powerless.

Something else that makes me feel incredibly powerless is when I see a young woman or girl crying. Unless I know beforehand that it’s her own damn fault, seeing a woman crying makes me feel sympathetic, tender, but completely powerless. I mean, I can’t just approach a complete stranger who’s crying and try to comfort her, can I? (Actually, I tried it once. I don’t know if it helped.)

Sometimes my friends joke that I’m too much like a woman. Maybe so. For instance, I do have mysterious mood swings for no apparent reason. Tonight I’m actually pretty depressed. I didn’t really feel like working out even though I did, and now I’m sad that I didn’t get to talk to anyone. It might strike some of you as strange that talking to people online is so important to me, but to be honest, most of the people who are worth my time and attention don’t live in Pullman, and if they do, I haven’t gotten around to meeting them. Sometimes I think that when I graduate, I’m going to leave this place, never come back, and never care about it again. Sort of like the way I feel about Port Angeles, except there’s a few people in and from Port Angeles that I do care about—more than I’ve met in Pullman, to be sure.

I should have picked a harder major. It’s hard to feel superior to others when you’re a business major, even if it’s MIS. And majoring in philosophy only helps slightly. I don’t know—as much as I hated high school and wanted to get out, it was better in some ways. I had more friends, friends who were just plain better people than the friends I have here. I had a lonely existence in high school and never really spent much, if any, spare time socializing, but it seems that even that was better than now. Inevitably, everyone who was as smart as me went to a better college than I’m going to. And the thing is, I’m too far out of money to transfer or change majors. All I can hope to do now is graduate and get ahead in the real world.

Or maybe I’ll screw that up too and live a dull, meaningless life.