5 Places to Visit in Israel (When It’s Safe to Go Back): Part Two

In Part One, I told you a bit about Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. My mini-travelogue continues with an absolute must-see on any trip to Israel:

3. Masada

Each time I’ve visited Israel, we’ve combined a morning visit to Masada with an afternoon at a Dead Sea hotel spa, like the Lot or the Hod, which have private beaches and buffet luncheons.

First, some background on Masada:

Masada is a symbol of the ancient Jewish kingdom of Israel, of its violent destruction in the later 1st century CE, and of the subsequent Diaspora. The palace of Herod the Great at Masada is an outstanding example of a luxurious villa of the early Roman Empire, while the camps and other fortifications that encircle the hill constitute the finest and most complete Roman siege works to have survived to the present day. (…)

With the end of the Herodian dynasty in 6 BCE Judaea came under direct Roman rule, and a small garrison was installed at Masada. At the beginning of the Jewish Revolt in 66 a group of Zealots led by Menahem, one of the Jewish leaders, surprised and slaughtered the garrison. The Zealots held Masada throughout the revolt, and many Jews settled there, particularly after the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple by Titus in 70. They occupied some of the Herodian palace buildings, and added more modest structures of their own, such as a synagogue, a ritual bath, and small houses.

Two years later Flavius Silva, the Roman Governor, decided to eliminate this last remaining centre of Jewish resistance. He sent the X Legion and a number of auxiliary units there, with many prisoners of war for manual duties. The Jews, led by Eleazar Ben Yair, prepared for a long siege as the Romans and their prisoners built camps and a long siege wall (circumvallation) at the base of the hill. On a rocky site near the western approach to Masada they constructed a massive ramp of stones and rammed earth. A giant siege tower with a battering ram was constructed and moved laboriously up the completed ramp. It succeeded in breaching the wall of the fortress in 73, allowing the Roman soldiers to enter.

The Zealots defended stoutly, but there was no hope of resisting the Roman attack for long. Josephus reports that Ben Yair talked to the 960 men, women, and children who survived, telling them that “a glorious death is preferable to a life of infamy.” All but two took their own lives on 2 May 73.

Masada is now a potent symbol of Jewish resistance to tyranny, but that wasn’t always the case.

It wasn’t until the 1920s that a poem about the siege reintroduced the story to the world. (That poem is said to have inspired the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.)

Today, Masada is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Israel.

One of our group bravely walked up the side of the mountain — in flipflops! — but most visitors elect to take the cable car to the top.

You’ll be rewarded with spectacular views and a stirring history lesson.

Bonus: the gift shop is amazing and they’ve just added a shiny new “food court.” (However, do NOT buy the AHAVA Dead Sea beauty products at Masada — there’s an AHAVA discount store in Eilat.)

Wear a hat and sunscreen, and carry lots of water. (I bought a lumbar pack with two water bottle holders for this trip.)

5 Places to Visit in Israel (Once It’s Safe To Go Back): Part One

Folks who say visiting Israel is like traveling back in time don’t know the half of it.

Say: Do you find yourself missing the 1970s — even though, like me, you vowed you never would?

That is: Do you miss litter, graffiti, off-leash dogs, free-range cats, smoking on the beach, 13 TV channels, no wheelchair ramps — plus polyester everything?

Because if so, Israel is the 70s with cellphones! You’ll love it! Heck, the same war’s still going on!

Seriously: This shiksa just got back from her second trip to Israel — not a moment too soon, from the looks of things — and I’m here with the first of a series of articles that will go from macro to micro.

PJMedia’s own Barry Rubin literally wrote the book on Israel. I read it before I left and recommend it highly. But he’s a Jew who has lived there for years. I’m writing as a gentile two-time visitor.

To that end, I’ll start off with an overviews of major cities and regions in Israel, then drill down in the coming weeks, to cover specific attractions; define words that don’t mean what you (or more accurately, your dorky grad student nephew) think they mean (i.e., “check point,” “settlement,” “refugee camp”); then offer tips on food, language, manners and more.

The ‘Me’ in Social Media: The ONLY Online Etiquette Rule You’ll Ever Need

My social media “creds” are all over the place.

I was a very early blogging adopter, didn’t “get” Twitter for years (then got hooked), and consider Facebook a giant bore.

All that to say: I don’t think of myself as some kind of “guru,” even though part of my “real” work involves managing other people’s social media accounts.

I certainly don’t have some Grand Unified Theory of online etiquette and best practices.

In fact, my one “rule” is about what you might call expectation management:

Don’t expect anything in return.

That is, whatever you say or do online, never expect or demand apologies, admiration, understanding, cooperation — or overnight wealth, fame, or results.

And that way, as the old joke goes, you’ll never be disappointed.

Bear in mind that right after I post this article, I will go on to violate all my own online etiquette “rules.” If  you google hard enough, you’ll be able to dig up all kinds of “own goals” I’ve scored.

What can I say?

I may spend most of my day hooked up to a machine, but I’m still human.

Gravity Doesn’t ‘Card’: Cyber Bullys and the Laws of the Universe

The unedifying saga of Amanda Todd is one with a single victim, no heroes, and too many auxiliary vampires and vultures.

Every update about the adorable looking 15-year-old girl who was apparently driven to suicide by online “jailbait” bullies simply increases the world’s toxicity.

Learning that vigilantes have (or haven’t) tracked down and publicly shamed her alleged tormenter (and other accused online lowlifes) somehow doesn’t reassure me.

So I hesitate to add to this mess, and am unsure whether I have anything original or useful to say.

Except one thing, the thing I haven’t seen mentioned much in all the bandwagon-jumping articles condemning “cyberbullying” and “rape culture,” and calling on Somebody (always Somebody Else) to Do Something.

Here it is.

Are you ready?

DEAR FEMALES:

DON’T POST NAKED PICTURES OF YOURSELF ON THE INTERNET.

Mugged and Ann Coulter Derangement Syndrome, Part 2

Last week, I talked about Ann Coulter’s new book Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama.

Like all her books, this one is difficult to write about in a thousand words or less.

They’re always packed with quotable quotes, shocking discoveries from MSM archives, little-known historical nuggets — and infuriating stylistic tics (like speed-bumping serious arguments with sarcastic, and sometimes obtuse, jokes).

So I’m back with more about Mugged, along with an investigation into what I call Coulter Derangement Syndrome, or CDS.

You know what I mean:

Ann Coulter’s very existence sets millions of folks off.

(Some of those people even call themselves conservative.)

What’s that about?

And how does CDS impact the reception for, and potential impact of, Mugged?

Ann Coulter’s Mugged: A (Mostly) Frank Monologue About Race — Part 1

Speaking as a foreigner, can I just say on behalf of the rest of the world that America should either have that “frank discussion about race” pronto – or shut the hell up about it.

Yeah, yeah, slavery, blah. We know.

But it is SO weird watching you guys from a distance, obsessing over a horrible thing that happened 150 years ago.

When the topic turns to race, the same nation that invented Hollywood, jazz, and manned space flight transforms, Hyde-style, into a shriveled hypochondriac with Tourette syndrome, nervously taking its “tolerance” temperature (rectally) every half hour and announcing the embarrassing results to all within earshot, between yelling “Selma! Juneteenth!! Tuskgeegee!!!” over and over again.

We kinda wanna slap you.

The 47% Solution: Yes, If You’re Poor, It Really May Be Your Fault

My last piece, “The Poor Get Poorer: 3 Character Traits That Undermine Prosperity,” received a mixed reception, at least if some of the comments are any indication.

If I can address just one persistent theme:

A few commenters raised the “problem” of “the homeless,” which only ever seems to be a “problem” when a conservative is in office, be it at the national level or a municipal one.

Just as it’s been said that it used to cost a fortune to keep Gandhi living in poverty, in like fashion, the “homeless” have made not a few people — professional fundraisers and “community activists” –  if not rich, than certainly quite well off.

This is particularly amusing, in a grim way, because the “homeless” have never really existed in the numbers their advocates claim, particularly the “homeless veterans” without whom Hollywood producers and Law & Order writers would be unemployed themselves.

Goodness, even during “Tulipmania,” at least the tulips were real…

In any event, by sheer coincidence, Mitt Romney’s comments about “the 47%” made headlines around the same time, inspiring a national debate — actually, more like a barroom brawl — about poverty.

I don’t pretend to have a Grand Unified Theory on the topic.

However, all the statistics and theories and studies folks can throw at me can’t detract from my lived experience, and my observations of individuals — rich and poor — over the course of almost half a century.

The Poor Get Poorer: 3 Character Traits That Undermine Prosperity

“Times have changed and now the poor get fat.”
- Elton John, “The Bitch Is Back”

PJ Media’s John Hawkins recently posted a thoughtful piece called “Golden Chains: 5 Ways America’s Wealth Undermines Our Character.”

Hawkins said things that many patriotic conservatives and libertarians might not like to hear:

America is running on fumes. We can sometimes be like the kid who gets the run of his family’s big house while mom and dad are away and forgets how that fridge got so full (and that someone had to invent the fridge in the first place).

Throughout the West, many of us (right and left) are wasteful, indulgent, and entitled, with no sense of history and no thought for the future.

All very true.

However, it’s equally true that our “character undermines our wealth.”

That is – to turn Hawkins’ telescope the other way around – the way many Westerners live keeps them “poor.”

3 Turning Points in the History of Blogging

This year marks my 12th “blogversary.”

That’s right: Before Instapundit, before LittleGreenFootballs, even before PJ Media  — I AM.

Inspired by proto-blogs RobotWisdom and PopCultureJunkMail, and powered by the free, easy-to-use Blogger platform, I originally set up something called RelapsedCatholic (now FiveFeetOfFury) as a swipe file/staging area for my Toronto Star religion column.

(Amusingly, Blogger itself started out as just a quick and dirty way for PyraLabs staffers to discuss the company’s “real” projects.)

My Toronto Star column is long gone,  but my blog is still up. So are thousands of others.

But in those early days, I could complete my morning blog-reading rounds before finishing my first coffee.

One of those must-reads was the Drudge Report, of course. One Tuesday morning, at the top of its third column, Matt posted a tiny photo and a one-line “breaking” story: reports of a small plane hitting the World Trade Center.

“Not another Kennedy,” I tsked, remembering John Jr.’s death not long before.

Sadly, no.

Shoes, Sheetrock, and the Skipper: 3 Surprising Things That Make a Man Sexy

What’s the female equivalent of “I’ll never get an erection again”?

I experienced that abysmal sensation when I learned that actor Alan Rickman was directing a play about deceased Jew-hater “activist” Rachel Corrie (or, as I like to call her, “St. Pancake”).

You see, women’s sexual fantasies are notoriously… odd, as anyone who’s read Nancy Friday’s 1970s sensation My Secret Garden can attest. (I’ll give you Mr. Spock, ladies. But Terry-Thomas?! Seriously?)

And up until the day he broke my, er, heart, my idea of a big thrill would’ve been sitting on Alan Rickman’s lap while he read aloud from the Manhattan telephone directory.

His face has been politely and aptly described as “anachronistic,” and he’s not as young as he used to be. And now we learn he’s a leftist.

But that voice!

(What are you laughing at?)

Yes, gentlemen, you can fake a British accent and maybe get lucky (unless you happen to be in Britain at the time, where your American one will do the trick). But a permanently sexy voice is a gift.

Rather than focus on the things you can’t change, why not consider those you can?

3 Weird Things About the U.S. This Pro-American Canadian Doesn’t Get

There’s a “THANK YOU PRESIDENT BUSH” mug on my desk with an American flag sticking out of it.

The most popular newspaper column I ever wrote was called “I’m An American Trapped in a Canadian’s Body.”

I know all the words to “The Star Spangled Banner” — although a lifetime of Hockey Night in Canada probably helped.

All that to say:

There are a few things this (rare) pro-American Canadian still doesn’t understand about your wonderful country.

I’m not pretending to ask these questions either, like this shameful and embarrassing federal government employee, whose CBC TV show is paid for by my extorted tax dollars. Note that while ostensibly mocking Americans, all he does is accidentally highlight how patient and polite you guys really are:

3 (Conservative) Reasons to Admire Helen Gurley Brown

Yes, I know:

She advocated for legal abortion and contraception.

She made the world safe for Sex and the City.

Worst of all, she insisted on wearing mini-skirts well after menopause.

Yet I can’t help but admire Helen Gurley Brown, the author of the early 1960s self-help phenomenon Sex & the Single Girl and longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine who died last week at age 90.

I’ve always had a soft spot for “outsider” female writers of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. It’s hard to imagine two women more different than Grace Metalious and Jacqueline Susann, yet I inhaled both their biographies.

Helen Gurley Brown was part of the same cohort of fiercely ambitious, sometimes uncouth “literary” females of the era.

But while those novelists created vivid fictional worlds in which to play out their fantasies of beauty, romance, fame, and revenge, Helen Gurley Brown’s accomplishment was far more audacious:

She too imagined, in pointillistic detail, her ideal realm — then set about remaking an entire society to match her personal vision.

The old joke goes, “It’s Sinatra’s world — we just live in it,” but it would be more accurate to say we’re living in Helen Gurley Brown’s.

Not everyone is happy about that.

However, there ARE three things to love about the brash publishing icon.

The 3 Most Poisonous Movie Clichés of the 60s and 70s

Ed Driscoll and I had fun last week with my brainwave about the preposterously-named Adam Smith’s freakish drive-by harassment of a (preternaturally Zen) Chick-Fil-A employee.

I was struck by the incident’s similarity to the famous “diner” scene in Five Easy Pieces (1970), right down to the “chicken”:

Ed quoted a film critic who held up that scene “as the point where American movies began to celebrate gratuitous anger.”

Anyone who’s watched other drivers careen out of the parking lot after the latest Fast & Furious movie has to admit that films affect our behavior; that cinematic ideas and attitudes trickle into the cultural water table, and sometimes pollute it.

To take one trivial instance: I’ve written before about the influence all those 1970s “Satanic children” flicks had on my decision not to have kids.

Three other movie tropes from that era impacted audiences in ways that continue today.

(Language and content warning:)

If I Were Queen: My First 3 Acts Upon Becoming Your Beloved Empress For Life

A hundred years ago, lunatic asylums were packed with inmates convinced they were world historical figures.

What happened when these men encountered each other in the hallways, I wonder?

Were there death matches between (literally) dueling Napoleons?

Did rival Jesuses (Jesuii?) challenge each other to miracle-working showdowns in the sunroom?

The closest one can get to experiencing such a circumstance first hand today is to go to an AA meeting, or five.

At some point (if you’re doing it right) a troubling thought enters your still-twisted brain:

“Hey, hang on a minute. Did these idiots get the memo? I’m the greatest person on earth! Don’t they know who I am?! Who let all these other Anastasias in here?”

Eventually, someone quips, “A alcoholic thinks they’re the piece of crap around which the entire world revolves” and everyone laughs knowingly.

Except you, at least the first time you hear that – you’re too busy trying to control your embarrassed flush.

Dammit, have these people been bugging my apartment?

Fantasizing about being all-powerful emperor of the solar system can’t be restricted to drunks, though.

Isn’t it a bit like musing about what you’d do with your Power Ball winnings?

As the only child of two only children, perhaps I’ve given such fantasies more thought than the sober and the sane amongst us.

Nurse Ratched, My Hero: 4 Female Movie Villains I Love

Earlier this month at PJ Lifestyle, Chris Queen asked, “What drives the Disney villain fascination?” — specifically, those female Disney villains who are popular enough to merit an all-new, rebooted merchandise line.

Clearly, moms forced to indulge their daughters’ “princess” phases are eager to add an “edgy” treat for themselves to their Disney Store shopping carts.

I doubt they ponder the Miltonian “glamor of evil” implications behind their purchases, unless they hang out at the Disney forums Queen perused.

Women are supposed to be nice, nurturing, and harmless. But those types of women don’t make memorable movie characters, unless they’re memorable for being annoying. (Can you imagine Gone With The Wind with Melanie as the main character?)

Fortunately, I have a rather masculine personality type, and have no qualms about revealing my affection for particular female cinematic villains, even the most loathsome.

What do my favorite film femme fatales have in common?

Defensive walls constructed over the course of decades, starting in childhood — and not built according to code, so they’re starting to crumble. A horror of human frailty. Epic vanity. Hermetical self-containment.

Oh, and in one case, wicked karate skills…

No One Is Ever ‘Just Kidding’

I guess if I wanted to be totally pompous, I could call them the Upani-Shaidles.

But I don’t, so I’ll refer to them instead as Kathy’s Rules For Life (which barely sounds much better).

We all have a set of expressions we carry around like a mental Swiss Army Knife – handy, almost foolproof “tools” we use to cut through BS and navigate our surroundings.

Expressions like “Go with your gut” or “What would Ferris do?”

The one’s that saved me untold hours of confusion is “No one is ever just kidding.”

My husband hates it.

He grew up in a big family of brothers. Teasing was the lingua franca.

I’m the only child of two only children who watched The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and envied John Travolta.

That’s Not Funny: The 5 Biggest Comedy Taboos

Remember around 2009, when you were always hearing about how “important” Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show was because “that’s where young people were getting their news”?

Studies and polls abounded, and an avalanche of op-eds speculated on “what it all meant.”

Notice how you haven’t heard that meme as much lately?

That’s probably because another Comedy Central show, Tosh 2.0, gets even higher ratings than The Daily Show.

And the liberal elites don’t dare ponder the implications of that.

You see, comedian Daniel Tosh’s eponymous program “celebrates” Black History Month with features on “crackhead tossing” and February markdowns on Kool-Aid.

And Tosh’s “Web Redemption” segments dare to do something all good little grad students are taught to avoid: judge and shame miscreants and morons.

So anyone attending one of Tosh’s live stand-up gigs has got to know what they’re in for, right?

They have no right to complain about being “offended” by his act.

You might almost say they were asking for it…

How Women Ruin Romance by Talking Too Much

To the consternation of Jezebel.com and other progressive “girly” sites, we’ve recently witnessed an uptick in “controversial” articles by women, for women, with titles like “Why You’re Not Married.”

That HuffPo piece by Tracy McMillan, based on her new book, reiterates stuff I read as a teenager, in 1950s tomes reissued in mass-market paperbacks — sporting covers of pensive, bell-bottomed strawberry blondes posing in soft-focus fields, designed to make them more saleable in the ’70s.

Similar dating advice can be found in arcane classics like Advice to a Young Wife from an Old Mistress and the more recent Secrets About Men from the Mayflower Madam (who trained her “girls” in deportment and other finishing-school finer points).

Advice like: Don’t act like a slut (in public). Listen. Be gracious and grateful.

And don’t talk too much.

Vengeance Is Mine: The 5 Best Revenge Songs

To hell with “living well.” Revenge is the best revenge.

Some say creativity is fueled by sublimated lust, but what gets me into the “zone” is the juvenile, ultimately soul-destroying desire to give the world the metaphorical finger.

Maybe its’ the “revenge of the nerds” impulse, mixed with a Napoleon complex, and an unhealthy sprinkling of free floating, anti-authoritarian resentment. Whatever.

I know full well that if I were to really go back to my high school reunion the way I always did in my cheesy Grade 10 fantasies — stepping out of a limo, wearing a floor-length mink – the fact is, nobody would even remember who the hell I was anyhow.

I still don’t care.

(And those stunts can backfire, as Janis Joplin discovered. What she didn’t get is that letting yourself die means the losers win.)

‘That’s the Ultimate Race, Poor People’: In Praise of Adam Carolla’s Brutal Honesty

As far as I know, Loveline was never broadcast in Canada. Or maybe I just didn’t stay up late enough to hear the fondly remembered sex-and-drugs (and rock & roll) advice show co-hosted by Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla.

(We had our own late-night call-in show called Sex with Sue, which, being Canadian, wasn’t as exciting as it sounds because “Sue” was an earnest, erudite elderly lady who looked like the school librarian, if the school librarian had barely survived a three-alarm blaze.)

So I first heard about Adam Carolla when Dennis Miller had him on his show to talk about Carolla’s first book, In Fifty Years, We’ll All Be Chicks:… And Other Complaints From An Angry Middle-Aged White Guy.

Despite my advanced age and previous ignorance regarding everything “Aceman,” after reading that hilarious, ingenious, politically incorrect book, I turned into what stand up comedian Marc Maron dismissively refers to as a “Carolla-tard.”

(How serious an affliction is that, you ask? “Superfan Giovanni” supplies the farthest-gone with six-hour long — that’s not a typo — bootleg compilations of old Lovelines. Some messengers on the CarollaBoards have been “getting it on” since 2003. Fans set their phones to “ring” with “It’s just a waste of my time,” hoping to aurally locate each other, bat-fashion, in airport lounges.)

Catholic Nuns: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone?

I expect more from Rush Limbaugh.

The Maha-Rushie’s grasp of American culture and history is powerful. Yet, commenting on news of a “Vatican crackdown” on a group of “dissident” U.S. Catholic sisters, Limbaugh remarked earlier this month:

Do you know what the nuns are doing? The nuns have gone feminazi on everybody. This small group of nuns in the Catholic Church is going feminist, and the Vatican is obviously — well, a figure of speech, slapping them down. And the Vatican is trying to tamp it down and say, “No, no, no, that doesn’t happen. There’s no such thing as a feminist nun.”

Where has Limbaugh been living? In a convent?!

American nuns went “feminazi on everybody” more than 40 years ago. Catholic religious orders are as riven left vs right as anywhere else in the country.

As in the media and the academy, the “left” cadre of sisters outnumbers the “right” one. The liberal nuns battling the Vatican today are (literally) the same ones who’ve been doing so for decades.

The latest skirmish comes after the Vatican’s four-year investigation into what American “women religious” actually believe (and more importantly, tell other Catholics, through teaching, counseling, and writing):

The Vatican looked at three particular “areas of concern,” citing “problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal, errors” (…), policies of dissent, and a prevalence of “certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic Faith.”

If the notion of pro-abortion, New Age nuns sounds like heavy handed satire, then obviously you’re not a Catholic.

(Neither, some would argue, are these nuns.)

As layman Mark Shea explains with characteristic brio:

The Church is reining in nuns who are no longer Catholic from oppressing nuns who are and from poisoning the faith of people subjected to their loony quackery, goddess worship, Marxist theory masquerading as orthodoxy, bizarre sexual experimentation, substitution of Rogerian psychobabble for the Tradition, and naked hostility to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Amusingly, you’d think the Vatican itself — never mind (Protestant) Rush Limbaugh — had just found out about outrageous nun-related goings-on that millions of current and former Catholics have complained about for years.

Take me, for instance…

I Kid You Not: The Top 4 Reasons I Don’t Have Children

I bow to no one when it comes to admiring conservative author Mark Steyn.

I’ve traveled miles to hear him speak and even own “Mark Steyn” t-shirts.

However, he and I disagree about arguably his most famous conviction:

That we in the West need to have more children, pronto.

The European demographic collapse Steyn warned about in America Alone and After America acts itself out every night on the news.

I might joke that the best argument against Steyn’s conclusion is, well, this.

But obviously, I know Steyn’s right.

However, like Al Gore with his private jet, I just don’t plan to do my part to ameliorate this state of affairs.

I never have.

When I was playing with a doll, all of age four, some nice lady bent down and chirped, “I guess you’ll want a real one of those of your own one day…?”

I recoiled in horror. Normally a quiet (nay, catatonic) youngster, I can still hear myself bawling, “NO!!”

I have never entertained a different answer. Not even for a moment — passionate, drunken, hormonal, or otherwise.

Why is that?

(Besides the obvious answer: Because gross!)

The 3 Biggest Myths About Generation X

Warren Kinsella is the Canadian James Carville: that is, an extremely well-compensated, high-profile Liberal Party consultant and insider.

(It’s surely just an unlucky coincidence that since he started working for them, the Liberals went from “Canada’s Natural Governing Party” to placing an impotent third in the last federal election.)

Some of us had another great laugh at Kinsella’s expense recently, after he praised a rival party’s “innovative” campaign commercial because it starred, and would presumably appeal to, members of “Generation X.”

Except the young people in the ad were just that: young — all in their twenties.

And Generation X hasn’t been in its twenties for twenty years.

I know, because I’m a member of that cohort. As is, hilariously enough, highly paid, powerful and influential Liberal Party consultant Warren Kinsella. (See: “third place,” above.)

See, being a Gen-Xer means my irony detection meter is always switched to “ultra sensitive.” And Kinsella’s gormless mistake almost broke the damn thing.

You’d think that being Canadians of a certain age, he and I would be on the same page on this matter, if nothing else.

After all, the term “Generation X” was popularized by our contemporary Douglas Coupland’s titular 1991 novel. (And Coupland swiped his title from the name of Billy Idol’s old pop-punk band; my fellow ex-punk Kinsella should know that, too.)

There are lots of things “great minds” got wrong about Generation X since they started writing and worrying about them. (I mean, us.)

After Coupland’s novel — about over-educated, underemployed pop culture addicts who’ve formed an ad hoc “family” of friends – swept the planet, countless “consultants” (including, briefly, Coupland himself) started marketing themselves as experts on my demographic.

These consultants made a whole lot of money, keynote-speaking to job-for-life CEOs about why we Gen-Xer’s were all so broke and unemployed.

And the most irritating (and yeah, ironic) thing is, none of these “experts” (“X-perts”?) even agree on when we were born.

Mean Girls: Why Are Women Turning Against Tina Fey?

New York magazine writer Ariel Levy’s 2005 cultural study Female Chauvinist Pigs described a new kind of misogyny perpetrated by women who curry favor by “Uncle Tomming” mainstream frat behavior in the guise of sexual empowerment. Chelsea Handler, whose raunchy essay collections My Horizontal Life and Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea sold 1.7 million copies and spawned a number of Chelsea Lites, is one offender. The so-called Fempire — the Hollywood woman-screenwriter foursome of Diablo Cody, Lorene Scafaria (now dating Ashton Kutcher), Dana Fox (writer of big-budget rom-coms What Happens in Vegas and The Wedding Date), and Elizabeth Meriwether — is another. A 2009 New York Times article brought most of the backlash on ringleader Cody, who taught us that there is such a thing as “stripping ironically,” for her smug attitude. There wasn’t an ounce of “everywoman” among them. They were a female Entourage without a chubby Turtle.

Such female chauvinist pigs are supposedly guilty of play, and Levy admonishes them: “If you are the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that women are inferior, you haven’t made any progress.” But it’s less the Fempire and the Handlerites who need to heed this advice then the likes of Tina Fey, whose “nerdy” onscreen persona and adamant faux feminism masks a Thatcherite morality and tendency to slut-shame.

– Anna Breslaw, “The Unf*ckables” (The New Inquiry, May 2012)

Since I’m what’s apparently now known as a “comedy nerd,” someone sent me Anna Breslaw’s essay in The New Inquiry called “The Unf*ckables,” which is all about the new wave of raunchy post-modern female comedians, and feminism and sexual politics and conventional standards of beauty.

I think.

“The Unf*ckables” actually reminded me of Norman Mailer’s hugely influential 9000-word 1957 opus “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster.”

That is: I read it a couple of times and I still didn’t get it.

See, I didn’t go to college, so stuff like this by Breslaw zooms right over my skull:

The only funny women who are free to cross over to mainstream audiences are the ones who are free from the beauty hang-ups that limit their jokes to female audiences. The game, then, is how effortlessly and subliminally someone like Fey can convey her exceptionalism using ironic male touches and the [sic?] feminism as an alibi for their looks advantage, reinforcing the patriarchal standards she often pretends to critique.

So I’m stupid. Sorry.