{"id":2291,"date":"2007-07-09T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-09T22:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2291"},"modified":"2007-07-09T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-09T22:45:00","slug":"observations-on-the-news-the-n-words-nudity-nutrition-and-that-other-n-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2291","title":{"rendered":"Observations on the News: The \u201cN\u201d Words: Nudity, Nutrition, and that other N-word"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, <a href=\"http:\/\/cahwyguy.livejournal.com\/tag\/vacation-2007\" target=\"_blank\">the travellog<\/a> is over, and we&#8217;re back to&#8230; (drumroll)&#8230; &#8220;Observations on the News&#8221;:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>How\u2019s that again?<\/b> Department<\/i>: <a href=\"http:\/\/lordandrei.livejournal.com\/\" class=\"lj-user\">lordandrei<\/a> provided a link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.battlecreekenquirer.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=\/20070703\/LIFESTYLE08\/707030309\" target=\"_blank\">this article<\/a> from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.battlecreekenquirer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Battle Creek Enquirer<\/a>, which points out that this week is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.naturistsociety.com\/events\/index.jsp\" target=\"_blank\">Nude Recreation Week<\/a>. Now, what gets me is not that there is a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aanr.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nude Recreation Week<\/a> (something I\u2019ve always wanted to see (rimshot)), but the suggestions that are made in the article, for in honor of the week, the following activities are suggested:\n<ul>\n<li>Cool off: skinny dip in your backyard pool.\n<li>Make housekeeping fun: ditch those clothes, turn on some music and get out the mop.\n<li>Get in touch with nature: shed those threads and grab your garden tools for some nude gardening.\n<li>Exercise in the altogether: hit the treadmill or dust off one of the workout videos.\n<li>Telecommute in the nude: working from home, in the nude, is in fact increasing in popularity!<\/ul>\n<p>Now, read those middle three again. I\u2019m not sure they are conveying quite the right message.  Also odd is the fact that NRW is <a href=\"http:\/\/honeymoons.about.com\/b\/a\/257445.htm\" target=\"_blank\">highlighted<\/a> on honeymoons.about.com. One usually doesn\u2019t think of a nude beach as a honeymoon resort&#8230; but then again, I once had a high-school friend who when he got married, took his wife to a topless beach in Tahiti to show her off.<br \/>\n<font size=\"-2\">[Disclaimer: All links are obtained from web searches, not personal experience.]<\/font><\/p>\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>Hypocracy, Thy Name Is Government<\/b>\u201d Department:<\/i> Yes, friends, from the same government that gave you a commutation of the sentence of Scooter Libby for being excessive while other folks convicted of the same crime get longer sentences (even Paris got a longer sentence)&#8230; we have this. It appears that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/nationworld\/washingtondc\/la-fg-heavy9jul09,0,2090676.story?track=mostviewed-storylevel\" target=\"_blank\">rations we serve our soldiers in Iraq<\/a> are unhealthy. Specifically, fried food and extra desserts dominate the menu at commisaries at the front. The Army has loaded the menu at the 70 chow halls, run by contractor KBR, with a buffet of fattening fare, from cheese steaks to tacos and Rocky Road ice cream. Many soldiers gain more than 15 pounds on a deployment according to military dietitians. They are also seeing soldiers return from Iraq with higher cholesterol, mostly due to their eating habits. Why? According to dieticians, there are three things that are absolutely crucial for morale: mail, food and showers. Of course, this comes from a government that is attempting to jump on the \u201cAmerica is Obese\u201d bandwagon. Our soldiers are facing enough dangers on the front; they shouldn\u2019t be at increased risk due to the diet our government feeds them.\n<li><i>From the \u201c<b>Let\u2019s Rewrite History<\/b>\u201d Department<\/i>: The NAACP <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/n\/a\/2007\/07\/09\/national\/a140253D83.DTL&#038;tsp=1\" target=\"_blank\">has symbolically buried the N-word<\/a>. To me, this is along the lines of the same rewriting of history that <a href=\"http:\/\/cahwyguy.livejournal.com\/585666.html\" target=\"_blank\">we saw last week<\/a> at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.civilrightsmuseum.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Civil Rights Museum<\/a>, where the strong relationship between Jews and Blacks was never mention, nor the strong relationship of the folk-music movement. The NCRM presents that picture that this was a wholly-from-the-inside movement. Burying the N-work is equally rewriting history. Last night, TV-One was rerunning the 1979 sequel to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Roots_(TV_miniseries)\" target=\"_blank\">the Roots miniseries<\/a>, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Roots:_The_Next_Generations\" target=\"_blank\">Roots: The Next Generation<\/a>\u201d. When <a href=\"http:\/\/www.museum.tv\/archives\/etv\/R\/htmlR\/roots\/roots.htm\" target=\"_blank\">this series<\/a> was on in the 1970s (and I remember watching it), it was heralded as groundbreaking&#8230; a classic telling of the African American story and journey. Today, if you watch it, you\u2019re struck by how much \u201cthe N-word\u201d is used. It would never make it on television today. We can\u2019t rewrite history. History just is, and must be remembered. By burying these words, one forgets and loses touch with the power of words themselves. We need to remember these words, and how they were used wrongly, and permit them to be used, <i>when historically appropriate<\/i>, and not buried.<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yes, the travellog is over, and we&#8217;re back to&#8230; (drumroll)&#8230; &#8220;Observations on the News&#8221;: From the \u201cHow\u2019s that again? Department: lordandrei provided a link to this article from the Battle Creek Enquirer, which points out that this week is Nude Recreation Week. Now, what gets me is not that there is a Nude Recreation Week <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=2291\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-chum","category-lj-xfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2291\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}