Suboptimist
I’m not quite a pessimist. I’m more of a suboptimist.

Utah kind of makes me laugh some days. This is from the Deseret News a few days ago:

I’m in Provo for school, a senior studying English and editing at Brigham Young University. I have limited experience with reading the Deseret News, but the article I read (Oct. 4) could well turn me off from reading it again. While berating the BYU team, Dick Harmon riddled his column with countless and highly offensive sexist comments. These weren’t just vague, in-passing turns of phrase that could be argued to be bolstering his style. They were blatant and chauvinistic. He equated everything that went wrong with the Utah State game on Friday with femininity, and his tone is so outrageously disparaging that your readers can’t help but mentally equate those feminine things with weakness. Since when is “a Band of Sisters” a negative term? Don’t forget his list of “chick flicks” as parallels to the way the offense played. And of course the most offensive: his use of the sexist term “chicks” and apologizing for the offense that they “were playing without (their) Midol.”
How did this article ever get past the editors? I would appreciate reading an apology.

Cassie Randall

Provo

Well reasoned, right? Here’s some of the responses:

I’m also a student at the Y and I thought the article was funny. No need to get worked up

-Chris

You’re a guy.

I read Harmon every day. While I haven’t been bothered by his “sexism”, I normally find his columns to be full of errors, omissions, and poor grammar.

-Dick

You’re a guy

I hadn’t read the column, but I’ve read it now.

Do you really think this is any kind of a serious swipe against women? If you are truely offended I suggest you learn to tell the difference between something which demeans and something which is just talkin trash. They aren’t necessarily the same.

I don’t think there is one person who read this column who afterward has a lower opinion of women that before they read it, it was all in fun and

In case you hadn’t noticed, so far as physical strength, women are the weaker sex.

-re Cassie

Ummm…?

First things first, WTF?

Unfortunately, that’s as specific as I can be on this forum without being brought up on Masonic charges.

I’ve been way the hell too busy to write in my blog since school started. Such is the life of a grad student. I figured I’d give you all an update on how my classes are going so far. There is no way to justify not going to class this semester. First, I only have three; one each day, Monday through Thursday. Second, all of my professors know me by name. Third, there are only four people in my Wednesday seminar. So yeah, I can’t sluff, notwithstanding the graduate student paradox: we’re held to a higher standard in class while simultaneously expected to research. Meh.

So, Syntax III, the last syntax class I will ever have to take at the University of Utah. Unfortunately, that offers no consolation. I still dread every Monday as a result of this class. It’s three hours long, one day a week. Usually by the end of second hour I’ve lost all will to live. When you’ve lost your will to live, time moves very slowly.

Child Language Acquisition, a normal-length class taught two days a week has the distinguished honor of being the only one-and-a-half-hour class to pass slower than my three-hour syntax class. I honestly stopped caring how the little bastards acquire language. That’s not true. The class is actually very interesting…it just…it’s just not fun.

Seminar in Arabic Linguistics is my most interesting class. The topic is diglossia. My variationist tendencies give me ample opportunity to be critical. At some point, once I hammer out the details, I’ll detail my research for this class.