Category Archives: The Petri Dish

Observations of culture

The Twelve Days of Christmas for Millennials

It’s no secret that I have some pet peeves around Christmastime, not the least of which is that you lose about ten percent of any given serving of egg nog because so much of it sticks to the sides of the glass.  Not quite as annoying but irksome nonetheless is the changing of lyrics to a Christmas song in order for the good folks on Madison Avenue to entice your average ignorant consumer into spending hard-earned cash on unneeded and often unwanted products—especially if that song is “Carol of the Bells”.

Since hate is such a strong word that is overused ad nausea and almost exclusively in a political context, let’s just say I harbour an abhorrent detestation for “Carol of the Bells”—even with its original words in tact as it thoroughly and rather creepily resembles the playground taunts of my troubled childhood.  And changing the words to advertise the wares of a personal injury lawyer is less than helpful:

An accident
My fender’s bent
I’ve not a cent
Can’t make my rent… Continue reading →

Happy Holidays Everyone! Except for Bloomington. You may be excused.

In an effort to purge any meaning whatsoever and thus create a more consistent utopian bubble void of any and all significance, the city of Bloomington, Indiana has decided this past week to rename a couple of their more ‘controversial’ holidays.  Columbus Day will henceforth be called ‘Fall Holiday’ and Good Friday will be known as ‘Spring Holiday’.  According to the mayor, the purpose of said moniker modification is to “demonstrate our commitment to inclusivity” (excepting of course, those who celebrate Columbus Day or Good Friday).

Columbus Day is controversial because it celebrates the ‘discovery’ of the Americas by Europeans and its resultant history of colonialism, oppression, genocide, fast food, and baseball.  Good Friday is controversial because it excludes others by commemorating the day Jesus was killed and, um…why is that exclusionary again?  I guess because other people groups weren’t killed equally.  I’m not sure.

My point is Continue reading →

An Open Letter to Those Who Write Open Letters

Dear Open Letter Writer,

While I appreciate the time and effort you put forth in stringing various words together into often complex sentences, and while I also appreciate you usually starting with a positive and complementary tone before going on some sort of impertinent rant, on behalf of literates everywhere I feel I must respectfully request that you refrain from future compositionary activity and stop writing open letters.

I fully understand that writing open letters is all the rage right now and fewer things have contributed to this tiresome trend greater than the marvel of the electronic interweb and its various addictive time-vacuuming social media outlets, but before you jump on the metaphorical exhibitionist bandwagon there are some things you should probably know. Continue reading →

This Post Is Over The Top!

There have been great debates throughout history that have often resulted in shouting matches or fisticuffs or shooting wars such as East v. West, Democrat v. Republican, Protestant v. Catholic, La Niña v. El Niño, The ’97 Bulls v. Ditka; the list goes on and on.  These conflicts are not only dangerous to talk about at full volume in a restaurant, but have come to define us as a civilization who whispers in restaurants.  Butt there is one debate that has divided us such that it is worthy of an extra ‘t’ in ‘but’: that of the Over v. Under dispute with regards to toilet tissue dispensing.

Studies show that a vast majority of users (roughly 70%) are reasonable and right-minded as they prefer their tissue to come over the top of the roll.  If this percentage were to vote one-sidedly in a presidential primary, they would be the ones considered to have ‘stolen’ the election.  The remainder, for some illogical and completely insane reason, prefer to reach behind and underneath for their squares, rapping their germ-infested knuckles along the wall where they conveniently leave their diseased putrescence for future patrons.  These people are thus referred to as Continue reading →

The Only Things Taboo Anymore Are Taboos

Don’t talk about religion, they say.  Don’t talk about politics, they say.  These are no-nos,  taboos, conversation killers.  Pssh.   Whatever.  What else is there to talk about?   There’s no reason we can’t be honest with each other, is there?  Especially on social media.  I’m always converting my so-called friends to my complex political and religious views using 140 characters or less.

Last week I wrote a piece about religion and politics and it has turned out to be the most popular post to ever grace this webtronic page of haphazard electro-bemusement.  So I got to conTIMplating… What other forbidden topics could I write about that people normally shy away from that would consequently send my readership through the roof?  What else are we supposed to remain silent about that would get everybody talking?  I came up with a few ideas…

A big one of course, is Continue reading →