The Weekend Eudemon

Michigan Week is here. All sorts of functions in my small town, the official celebration "Kick Off" city.

My family is only attending the parade (I'll do more later this week). Last night, we had a baseball game for Jack (10) and out-of-town company arrived. We then drank beer until midnight (yes, I'm hurting this morning; not hungover to speak of, but dragging), and now I'm at the office, trying to catch up on the flurry of work that hit me last week.

A few quick things in my groggy-yet-rushed condition:

You don't need to be Einstein to figure this out: Men have become too concerned about political correctness to give a compliment to the opposite sex, a new survey says. I'm not sure it's entirely political correctness, though. I suspect it also stems from our sex-saturated culture. If you pay a woman a compliment, she just assumes there's sex behind it (see this column for a fuller analysis).

It's a sad day when you yell, "Whoo, mama, shake that money-maker!" and everyone takes it the wrong way.
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Very interesting and short, if somewhat jumpy, essay at Boing Boing by 1960's radical, who quotes emails from Electric-Kool-Aid-Acid-Test characters who are still alive (I guess I assumed they all died in the 1980s). It's about The Sopranos (includes spoiler; you've been warned) and a documentary about hippies on The History Channel.

I have no commentary, but can someone tell me: What does the phrase "recovering Catholic" mean (see end of essay)? Is it an insult or affirmation of faith? I'm pretty sure it's the latter ("Catholic" is the noun) and it means "A Catholic who fell away, but is now back," but I want to make sure it's not just a poor way of saying "A person who is recovering from Catholicism."
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What are the Vegas odds on this happening? Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez demanded Pope Benedict apologize to Indians in Latin America for saying this month in Brazil that the Roman Catholic Church purified them. I don't recall the Pope apologizing after the Turkish comment that fired up the Arab world, though he did try to clarify and calm things down. I don't see him kowtowing to this swarthy pinko.
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The Anonymous Atheist Complaint Box. Funny stuff, but off-color (you've been warned).