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Bitches and Hoes

When did so many young women — especially those from the middle and upper middle-classes — begin to find pleasure in being called “Bitches and Hoes” instead of slapping the person referring to them in that degrading manner?
Was it the growing popularity of the Hip-Hop movement that numbed young minds of both genders to the debased and insulting intent of “Bitches and Hoes?”

Was it the incomprehensible and insidious rise of non-melodic Gangsta Rap — with its graphic spoken lyric telling tales of treacherous living in the urban core — that somehow made “Bitches and Hoes” acceptable to most high school and many college age males and females?
The only purpose of “Bitches and Hoes” is to make females sub-human so they can be treated less well.

The fact that awful phrase persists in current modern culture is disgusting and its intra-gender propagation as a term of endearment makes the sane wonder how it is possible “Bitches and Hoes” can be perceived by some as both a compliment and a condemnation in the same thought.

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Girl or Woman

If you are female, which term do you prefer if you had to be labeled by one of these words: “Girl” or “Woman” or “Female” or doesn’t it matter?

When I was an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln I was educated, roughly and roundly, by certain forces in the English Department that one must never call a female a “girl” if she has had her period — how one determines if menstruation has happened or not was never explained — and the correct term for the rest of her life was “woman” but never “lady” because “lady” was an Olde Englishe synonym for “bitch.”

Ladies and gentlemen rightly translated to the modern ear, I was told, as Bitches and gentlemen and it was an unfortunate, but culturally accepted, put-down of women who fought to advance their self-worth beyond being seen merely as property.

Continue reading → Girl or Woman

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Sgt. Martha Writes from Iraq

Sgt. Martha is a former student of mine and I now call her a friend. Martha and I are closer now thousands of miles apart than we ever were when we stood next to each other in the same classroom for a semester. I guess war does that to people: It binds you nearer to those you care about because every day there is the danger you will never see them alive again. Martha is somewhere in Iraq serving their country, and ours, in the effort to help build a Democracy in the Middle East.

Continue reading → Sgt. Martha Writes from Iraq

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Mr. Grumpy Goes Blogging

Forgive me for being Mr. Grumpy today.
Here’s a short — okay, it’s longish — list of things that make me grumpy when I read blogs of others and I realize 99% of what I say will insult 95% of the blogs I’ve read so far:

Continue reading → Mr. Grumpy Goes Blogging