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Ben Shapiro is a professional virgin. Morgan Spurlock won't touch Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Do the resemblances end there? Radley Balko explores the unquiet border between food orgies and regular orgies.
|3.1.06 @ 1:22PM|#
I've said it before and I'll say it again: We should invite
Shapiro to a Hit and Run party. Help him loosen up. Maybe help him
get up the confidence to talk to a pretty girl. Even buy him some
condoms if it comes to that.
If he doesn't chill out, at least we can get some humiliating
footage of him.
|3.1.06 @ 1:37PM|#
New? That CATO paper's been up for awhile.
Anyway, I think the comparison is valid. Puritanism is the same on
either side of the political aisle; the underlying concept behind
both being, I know what's better for you than you do. It
doesn't matter if it has to do with your stomach or your
genitalia---it's the same bloody idea. The best point Radley makes
is how funny it is that the two would probably scoff at each
other's ideals.
|3.1.06 @ 1:40PM|#
Somehow this brings to mind the old Reese's commercials where
the chocolate purist bumps into the peanut butter purist &
viola! something new and wonderful is created.
I suppose the logical result of this kind of gene splicing would be
a secular Trappist monk.
|3.1.06 @ 1:45PM|#
I dont know why libertarians really care about this sort of stuff. The more out of touch our government is with the actions of real men - the better, in my opinion.
|3.1.06 @ 1:55PM|#
Why does Morgan Spurlock hate olive oil? I thought that olive
oil was supposed to be good for you. Or has that changed
again?
By the way, are milk and eggs healthy or unhealthy this week? I ask
because I'm thinking of making a cheese omelet tonight.
|3.1.06 @ 1:56PM|#
Libertarians care because "this sort of stuff" has a bad tendency of turning into various types of prohibition laws.
|3.1.06 @ 2:05PM|#
Good article.
[Spurlock] writes, "in 2003, we spent nearly $8 trillion on all
kinds of crap.
What percentage of that crap did his book comprise?
New research actually suggests a modest health benefit from
being mildly overweight.
The local undertaker said that most of his customers were too
skinny.
Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous. - Bill S.
I wonder if Caesar proposed that his gov't intervene, perhaps with
a "Just Get Fat" campaign?
Puritanism is the same on either side of the political aisle;
the underlying concept behind both being, I know what's better for
you than you do.
That's one reason why I think the "politcal aisle" is a false
dichotomy. The real dichotomy is between those who mind their own
business and those who don't.
|3.1.06 @ 2:14PM|#
I suppose the logical result of this kind of gene splicing
would be a secular Trappist monk.
Except Trappist monks don't harass other people to be ascetics,
IIRC. *shudder*
|3.1.06 @ 2:15PM|#
"Why does Morgan Spurlock hate olive oil? I thought that olive
oil was supposed to be good for you. Or has that changed
again?"
I couldn't find anything re: Spurlock's opposition to olive oil
either. I suspect Tim of indulging in wordplay.
Off topic - I thought Spurlock's film "Supersize me" was pretty
funny, quite apart from its fact content.
|3.1.06 @ 2:16PM|#
Check out this site that debunks Spurlock's book one point at a
time:
http://spurlockwatch.typepad.com/front/2005/07/lies_damned_lie.html
Some of the stuff is pretty old, but worth reading. What an
idiot!!!
|3.1.06 @ 2:21PM|#
I also really enjoyed Spurlock's movie. Then I immediately went
to McDonald's and enjoyed a burger.
My favorite comment I usually hear from random people when I'm
going to McDonald's: "How can you eat that stuff? Have you seen
"Supersize Me?" My usual rejoinder: "Yeah, it was great!"
|3.1.06 @ 2:30PM|#
i must have really misunderstood supersize me because i don't
understand the contempt for spurlock (i don't know what he's been
up to other than that movie).
it seemed to me that the message was about moderation, healthy
choices and even an element of personal responsibility. after
finishing his task, didn't he celebrate with mcdonalds?
he also featured a guy who eats it everyday and was healthy - which
i'm not sure he'd do if pushing a solely "mcdonalds will kill you"
meme.
i'll have to rewatch it.
|3.1.06 @ 2:32PM|#
Radley Balko explores the unquiet border between food orgies
and regular orgies.
Any good orgy would have both sex and food. The Romans would laugh
at us.
|3.1.06 @ 2:35PM|#
Douglas,
Trappist monks actually make delicious beer and cheese. The most
likely result of crossbreeding these two strains is a Baptist
church lady who puts soy cheese in her green bean casserole instead
of canned cream of mushroom soup.
Tim Cavanaugh|3.1.06 @ 2:38PM|#
he also featured a guy who eats it everyday and was healthy
- which i'm not sure he'd do if pushing a solely "mcdonalds will
kill you" meme.
Not only that, but the end-title crawl refutes the central points
of the movie-that he had sustained some kind of wino-level damage
to his liver, now had the physique of a 90-year-old, etc. The crawl
says that after a few weeks or months of the "recovery" diet cooked
up by his boring, whiny succubus girlfriend, he was completely back
to normal.
I agree though, the movie was totally entertaining.
|3.1.06 @ 2:38PM|#
"i don't understand the contempt for spurlock (i don't know
what he's been up to other than that movie)" ... "it seemed to me
that the message was about moderation, healthy choices and even an
element of personal responsibility. after finishing his task,
didn't he celebrate with mcdonalds?"
You really think that someone who paid people to eat dog shit and
hair+mayonnaise balls, has the capacity for that kind of
intellectual complexity? No, his level of thought stops at
"McDonalds make me fat. McDonalds bad." If you missed out on his
obviously anticapitalist drivel, perhaps you should read his
book.
|3.1.06 @ 2:47PM|#
Jesse,
I think it was posted here first a few weeks ago and has been on
CATO.com since then.
|3.1.06 @ 2:47PM|#
Jesse:
Here
Published a few weeks ago. Maybe I'm just not sure how pubs get
passed around the blogosphere.
|3.1.06 @ 2:53PM|#
Attention skiny bicycle thieves downtown: The proliferation of meth is a scare story, a devil myth. Please resume not using your meth and not stealing bikes to get it.
JA$ON|3.1.06 @ 3:17PM|#
Spurlock's galpal mentioned that he wasn't all that great in the sack during "Supersize Me." We should introduce her to Shapiro. Does anyone else here see a win-win here?
|3.1.06 @ 3:25PM|#
"Abercrappie and Bitch"
That's not nearly as funny as the "Afercrombie & Bitch" that
I've been using for several years.
|3.1.06 @ 3:25PM|#
Spurlock's galpal mentioned that he wasn't all that great in
the sack during "Supersize Me." We should introduce her to Shapiro.
Does anyone else here see a win-win here?
I dunno, faced with the prospect of putting up with her for an hour
or so, virginity might start to look like a pretty good option.
Tim Cavanaugh|3.1.06 @ 3:42PM|#
Evan, the Cato version is the reprint. This is an article from
the March issue of Reason's print mag.
Also, it's true: I don't know how Spurlock feels about Extra Virgin
Olive Oil. Although he strikes me as more of a canola or peanut oil
type, he may be swilling down Bertolli by the half-gallon. I was
just making a funny.
|3.1.06 @ 3:56PM|#
My suggestion that we unleash the power of the blogosphere to get Shapiro an "escort" went nowhere. But right now I'll double my contribution to a full $.50. Who's with me?
|3.1.06 @ 4:19PM|#
Although he strikes me as more of a canola or peanut oil
type, he may be swilling down Bertolli by the half-gallon. I was
just making a funny.
Well, the fact that people can't tell if you're being serious or
not is an indictment of him in its own right.
I've always thought the premise of the movie was asinine, anyway.
If I eat nothing but chocolate for thirty days I'll be in miserable
shape by the end of the month, but that doesn't mean chocolate is
inherently bad for anybody.
|3.1.06 @ 4:22PM|#
Brian:
I'll chip in too.
On second thought, he doesn't need a hooker... send him over to me,
I can take him to a nice bondage club that would be right up his
alley. Sheesh, if he wasn't a case of a guy who could use a good
beating from a lovely lady with a riding crop, I don't know who
is...
|3.1.06 @ 4:30PM|#
Why does Ben Shapiro get so much attention here?
For the same reason people stare at gory car accidents even though
we know we really shouldn't.
|3.1.06 @ 4:32PM|#
Why does Ben Shapiro get so much attention here?
Because whiny adult virgins inherently make for witty repartee.
|3.1.06 @ 4:44PM|#
"Why does Ben Shapiro get so much attention
here?"
Making fun of Ben Shapiro is kinda like throwing a hand grenade
into a barrel of fish.
Easy.
Fun.
|3.1.06 @ 5:03PM|#
Strange as it sounds, I'm skeptical of Mr. Shapiro's virginity claim. Making an issue out of a choice like that tends to make some people want to go out of their way to change it, and having a hard time seeing him fighting them off. I'm imagining all sorts of girls attempting to seduce him. It's not a bad strategy, actually.
Timothy|3.1.06 @ 5:06PM|#
I've said it before and I'll say it again: We should invite
Shapiro to a Hit and Run party. Help him loosen up. Maybe help him
get up the confidence to talk to a pretty girl. Even buy him some
condoms if it comes to that.
I think the sight of Ms. Howley or any of
the lovely H&R would probably give the poor boy a heart attack.
Especially of one of them talked to him...
WAIT! Your plan is perfect!
|3.1.06 @ 5:34PM|#
Most of these guys turn out to be frauds. I would be willing to bet good money that Spurlock still indulges in the odd Big Mac or two and that Shapiro is secretly spanking it to the latest Evil Angel release.
|3.1.06 @ 5:44PM|#
"I am a member of a lost generation," Shapiro writes. "We
have lost our values. We have lost our faith. And we have lost
ourselves."
"I thought of Miss Stein and Sherwood Anderson and egotism and
mental laziness versus discipline and I thought who is calling who
a lost generation? Then as I was getting up to the Closerie des
Lilas with the light on my old friend, the statue of Marshal Ney
with his sword out and the shadows of the trees on the bronze, and
he alone there and nobody behind him and what a fiasco he'd made of
Waterloo, I thought that all generations were lost by something and
always had been and always would be and I stopped at the Lilas to
keep the statue company and drank a cold beer before going home to
the flat over the sawmill."
-- Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast
|3.1.06 @ 5:56PM|#
Strange as it sounds, I'm skeptical of Mr. Shapiro's
virginity claim. Making an issue out of a choice like that tends to
make some people want to go out of their way to change it, and
having a hard time seeing him fighting them off. I'm imagining all
sorts of girls attempting to seduce him. It's not a bad strategy,
actually.
Hmmm...
Larry A|3.1.06 @ 6:50PM|#
Anyone notice the conjunction with today's (3/1) brickbat? Maybe we can get some of those fur-lined undies for our authors. XXL of course.
|3.1.06 @ 10:43PM|#
The human brain can't really distiguish between food and sex, it
just knows it likes it.
My brain can't really distinguish between right-wing nannies and
left-wing nannies, it just knows they both suck.
Michael Price|3.2.06 @ 1:07AM|#
Note that Shapiro used Ted Bundy as an example of the harm of pornography, despite the fact that cops found no porn any of his domiciles, just "cheerleader magazines" with clothed women. Skimpily clothed sure but not naked. Most men have some porn but Bundy had none so why use him as an example of how sex destroys our society?
|3.2.06 @ 1:56AM|#
Warning signs that a person may be a serial killer:
- Knows a lot of interesting facts about serial killers.
|3.2.06 @ 8:24AM|#
Michael Price
Shortly before he was executed Bundy gave an interview to a
preacher (either fundamentalist and/or evangelist) and he gave all
the gory details of how porn had caused him to act the way he did.
The preacher swallowed it hook, line and sinker, and spread it
throught the fundamentalist/evangelist/conservative universe.
Thus was an urban legend born. Ted Bundy, true to the way he acted
most of his life, was a manipulative bastard to the end.
The porn/rape connection has been around atleast since J Edgar
Hoover drew the conclusion from the fact that porn was found in the
homes of nearly all rapists. Without going into whether that is, in
fact, true, it knits with your observation that, "Most men have
some porn...".
I'm getting ready to send my email reminder to Shapiro that he is a
cowardly little shitbag who needs to gets his ass down to the
recruiter. I will, of course, attach the websites of all the
services to him so he can take his choice.
Dan T.|3.2.06 @ 9:55AM|#
Sometimes I think Reason Magazine should change its name to
�Rationalization Magazine�, as this is where you go to be told that
things that people say are not good for you really are okay, and
anybody who expresses concern about the subject is really a puritan
who is obsessed with keeping you from having a good time.
That having been said, I don�t doubt at all that Spurlock and
Shapiro have written lame, preach-to-the-choir books on these
�moral panics�. But that doesn�t mean that there are not legitimate
reasons to be concerned about the social costs of America�s
overindulgence of fast food and pornography.
|3.2.06 @ 10:26AM|#
"But that doesn?t mean that there are not legitimate reasons to
be concerned about the social costs of America?s overindulgence of
fast food and pornography."
Yes, for example, pornography is absurdly overpriced. $9.95 for a
50 minute PPV block? Outrageous! There needs to be a Congressional
investigation as is done with the oil companies every time gas goes
up a nickel.
|3.2.06 @ 11:06AM|#
"I'm getting ready to send my email reminder to Shapiro that
he is a cowardly little shitbag who needs to gets his ass down to
the recruiter. I will, of course, attach the websites of all the
services to him so he can take his choice."
Keep us posted. In fact, this ought to be a website. It should have
a daily counter like the one at the James Randi website that mocks
Sylvia Brown.
Larry A|3.2.06 @ 12:55PM|#
Sometimes I think Reason Magazine should change its name to
"Rationalization Magazine", as this is where you go to be told that
things that people say are not good for you really are okay, and
anybody who expresses concern about the subject is really a puritan
who is obsessed with keeping you from having a good
time.
Once again I'll point out the difference between a book that says,
"If you weigh 300 pounds you probably shouldn't keep eating a dozen
cheeseburgers a day" and the book that adds, "therefore we need a
federal law prohibiting cheeseburgers for everyone."
BTW, I remember when the nannys were campaigning to prohibit
flattop haircuts and swing music. And all the other "crises" they
went on to protect us from. IMO these people really are puritans
obsessed with keeping you from having a good time.
|3.2.06 @ 1:27PM|#
BTW, I remember when the nannys were campaigning to prohibit
flattop haircuts...
I sure am glad the banned those flattop haircuts. They were real
ugly.
Oh, wait, you mean that's not why noone has them
anymore?
Larry A|3.2.06 @ 4:39PM|#
I sure am glad the banned those flattop haircuts. They were
real ugly.
Oh, wait, you mean that's not why noone has them
anymore?
Well, you see, the Beatles came along with Rock 'n Roll, and that
was much more dangerous, at least until they were replaced
by...<and so forth>
And Swing was what was dangerous after Jazz.
|3.3.06 @ 12:34AM|#
"IMO these people really are puritans obsessed with keeping
you from having a good time."
It's patently obvious that such people get off on bossing everyone
else around. How come no one's mounted a campaign to keep
busybodies from interfering in other people's lives.
You know.
For their own good.
|3.3.06 @ 3:33AM|#
Moralists left and right want to control your carnal
desires.
A plague on both their houses!
BTW, Olive oil is very good for you.
http://ahavj.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/atvbaha;01.ATV.0000062884.69432.A0
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