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Culturally Speaking #16

By Sarah Stodola

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All of the problems with American taxes miraculously crammed into one little book review. And also the title of this made me chuckle.

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So Canada has this show called Canada Reads; it's a reality show just like Survivor or American Idol, except the contestants are books, and the winning book invariably becomes a literary "star." How very interesting.

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I have always thought of Linguistics as this this impenetrable discipline.  I also thought that I would hate it, because my perception was that it would take all the fun out of literature, turning it into a clinical study of word formation and syntax and explaining away the simple love of good writing. But now, finally, I am studying it a bit in this, my last semester of grad school. And I am finding many aspects of it quite interesting, and not at all the danger to literary appreciation that I had suspected it to be.

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There are so many reason to not like this article.

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I guess the cabaret law in New York City is finally being repealed. Either they aren't making as big a deal as I thought they would about this, or I have just been too preoccupied to notice.

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My thoughts exactly (Scroll down after reaching the link). This commercial embodies everything that is wrong with the American value system.

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Remembering the Cabbage Patch Kid phenomenon. I think I had five of them, but one of them was this knock off that you had to sew yourself, and it was much uglier than the others and I had to name it myself, but I vowed that I would not love it any less for its faults. But if I'm being honest, my two favorites were Doria Octavia and Newton Something. I remember going to get Doria with my mother at Children's Palace. These things were in such high demand, my mom heard from a friend that a new stock had just come in, so we raced down to the store and Doria was the very last one left, like an hour after the shipment had arrived. - Gosh, this can only be interesting to me. Except that, just like the link reveals, every American female my age has a similar story.

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"The majestic purposes" of conservatism? Are these people speechwriters for Bush?

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I need to start getting out more. Officially.

Click here for the last Culturally Speaking.

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Sarah Stodola is the Managing Editor of Me Three.  She can be contacted at [email protected].

© 2004 Me Three