Most commented posts
- Short Men — 64 comments
- Bare Breasts: Objections and Replies — 27 comments
- Why Do Men Spit? (and women don’t) — 26 comments
- Short Men — 19 comments
- Walking Alone in a Park at Night — 11 comments
Peg Tittle
Author's posts
Jan 24 2013
A Man Shaken by a Bomb
I picked up a sci-fi novel the other day at a used bookstore. The jacket said it was set after a nuclear war and written by someone who’d rubbed shoulders with a lot of military people. Well, I figured it’d be interesting to see what they imagined life’d be like after a nuclear war. (The …
Jan 19 2013
To Wail like a Brat – and Advertise
On what basis do you claim the right to publicize your desire for money – at my expense? You use forests full of trees for unsolicited mailouts, you produce and then dump tons of nonbiodegradable plastic for oversized packaging aka advertising, you destroy beautiful landscapes with your ubiquitous signs, you stuff my emailbox with your …
Jan 11 2013
Poor Little Kids
So I heard on the news the other day about the poor little kids whose school backpacks are so full of books they’re developing debilitating back pain… Oh please. If they’d worked on their homework during the time allotted for just that purpose, instead of text messaging the person next to them, one painstaking letter …
Dec 27 2012
Assholes or Idiots (take your pick)
Every now and then I hear something really insightful on tv. What recently caught my mind was an explanation of the behavior of one of the alphas on, of course, Alphas. Rosen says that Marcus can see twenty moves ahead and doesn’t understand why others can’t; so when what they do harms him, he believes …
Dec 21 2012
Rules of Combat
Why are there rules of combat? Rules apply to civil interactions and games. Combat is neither. Rules give the impression of fairness, decency, civility. They thus make war permissible. But if war is really about defending your loved ones, wouldn’t you do whatever is necessary? Wouldn’t you ‘fight dirty’ if that’s what it takes? Rules …
Dec 13 2012
The Waiting-for-the-Elevator Thing
So I’m sure this has happened at least once to every woman. You’re standing in front of an elevator, waiting for it, and a man comes up and presses one of the buttons. Oh is that what those are for? I saw the two buttons, one with an upward-pointing arrow and one with a downward-pointing …
Dec 06 2012
In Praise of Dead Air
People are uncomfortable with silence. On the radio, over the telephone, in person. It’s a curious thing. We are obsessed with filling up the air space. That sounds very male – the need to occupy territory (take a look at how men sit, their legs crossed open and their arms resting on the backs of …
Nov 27 2012
Crossing the Line
I crossed a picket line once. The Ontario Federation of Secondary School Teachers (OSSTF) in the Toronto area was on strike in 1983, and one of their demands was that union members be hired to fill night school and summer school teaching positions. They were concerned about quality of education: they didn’t want these courses …
Nov 22 2012
The Road to Hell
I’ve reconsidered intent-based moralities. They’re bloody irresponsible. I’m giving new meaning to “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” (or maybe I’m just finally understanding it). Intention-based moralities are for people too stupid or too lazy to consider the consequences of their actions. “But I didn’t mean to” is the cry of an …
Nov 15 2012
Business Rules the World. Do we want it to?
One of the most common – and most serious – weaknesses of codes of ethics, and indeed, most ethical theories, is that they don’t prioritize values. They’re fine for many of the simpler ethical questions, but when goods and interests conflict, when virtues and rights collide, they don’t provide a way to determine which interest, …
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