W.T.Eff?

Banning books? Seriously? First Obama gets attacked from those crazy moms who think he’s out to brainwash children by giving them talks on the importance of education and now reading is bad for children, too?

The whole thing is just absurd. Have people even read the books they’re trying to ban? How can a story about a pooh named Winnie who likes to eat honey and play in the woods with his other anthropomorphic friends possibly be bad? It seems like a book that is deemed “good” and “appropriate” these days is a book that will not inform your child of the existence of sex, racism, violence, homosexuality, the devil, bad language, and any other concept that will cause children to ask you awkward questions. The whole banned books thing will probably cause my AP Literature class to be renamed AP Literature That Will Morally Damage Your Soul.

Does this mean we should ban Pokemon as well, since the little animals “evolve,” which therefore enforces the idea of evolution and is therefore anti-Christian and therefore is Satanic? Winnie the Pooh may be the poster child for the obesity epidemic, his friend Eeyore for depression, and Kanga for single moms everywhere, but that doesn’t mean our younger siblings can’t read about them. I happen to like Tigger, even if he does have ADHD. And although Harry Potter may have “witchcraft and wizardry” and whatnot, it’s still one of the most significant contributions to literature in our lives, and as such, should be available to anyone who wants to read it.

So let’s take the attention and money away from banning books and focus on some more important things that should be eradicated from this planet. Because in 2009 there are so many things worse than kids in capes flying around on broomsticks or finding a lion in your closet.

1) Twilight movies

We can send a man into space but Hollywood can’t make a decent vampire movie. The actors all have a deer-in-the-headlights look on screen and attempt to fly around like people in improperly rigged harnesses. There’s something oddly wrong with that. The only thing that could have made it worse was if they cast Megan Fox, and that’s only because she makes every movie ten times worse than it could’ve been, due to her acting skills, or lack thereof.

2) Crocs

Plastic rubber clogs with holes in them, with the loudest, most obnoxious colors imaginable. Need we say more?

3) Bad Alliteration

Amusing to a certain extent, but gets repetitive after every English major tries to sound like James Ellroy and just ends up sounding like an awful author addicted to annoying alliterations. Again.

4) Livestrong bracelet knockoffs

One yellow cancer bracelet is enough. Do we really need people sprouting an armful of colored rubber with every imagined cause stamped across them? Be a little more original, please. Oh, and true story from a friend:

“Weight Watchers sent me a bracelet after I signed up for a meeting. It was white, with some rainbow stripes on the side. But why would I wear a Weight Watchers bracelet? Is it not obvious enough that I need to lose weight? Do I also need to tag myself with a FAT GUY BRACELET?”

5) Gaming language

Otherwise known as nerdspeak. Common terms include noob, newb, noobsicle, ftw, gg, gg no re, 1337, QQ, lawlz, nub, pwned, pwnage, or even harpwnage (the act of being pwned really hard) should not, under any circumstance, be said in ordinary life.

6) Creepy Facebook ads

Someone please tell me how Facebook has managed to eerily know everything about us and assume what we want. “Discount airfare to China!” What? Just because I’m Asian?

7) A few select man trends

Including: rattails, ponytails, monster trucks, hairy backs, man-purses, chains, a gazillion tattoos, mandals, mandiators, and transparent shirts.

8) Starving Hollywood celebrities

Rachel Zoe, Renee Zellweger, Tori Spelling, Victoria Beckham, Amy Winehouse, and Ashlee Simpson all need to eat a few burgers before they’re fit for the public. Young people these days have enough to worry about besides trying to look like a skeleton. Save that look for Halloween, please.

9) Fat people falling Youtube videos

Guilty pleasure number one, but really should be banned to relieve my soul from residing too much in an immoral state of being. I really shouldn’t watch Scarlet taking a tumble a million times and laugh hysterically every time I see it; it’s bad for me as a conscientious human being, I’m pretty certain.

10) Special athletes that promote the stereotype

As a current student at Duke and avid sports player and fan, I know for fact that you can be incredibly smart and be amazing at your sport. So it worries me when people like this one fail at representing athletes in a more flattering light. Like, um, really.

Anything else you think we should ban?

I just found out about this website, and I can’t tell if it’s the worst thing ever or the best thing since sliced, carb-free bread.

The Skinny Website.

A site dedicated to our obsession with celebrities and their weight. All things “skinny” – what celebs are eating, how much of a cow they look like and many, many blogs that keep track of how much weight our favorite famous gals are putting off and taking on.

Yea, sure, it’s a COMPLETELY superficial website, COMPLETELY representative of everything wrong with our image-consumed society, but for some reason, I’m excited about this discovery. I mean, I can go anywhere to see Ashlee Simpson post-shopping, (boring) but now I can get the “skinny” on what she’s digesting!

Wanna scoff at Tara Reid in a red bikini? How about an ego boost with a whole bunch of celebrities who’ve been packin’ on the pounds? And who knew Jim Carrey was flabby? I didn’t….but now, I do!

Clicking on each blog title make me feel more and more one-dimensional (“Kate Bosworth Eats and Swims” or “Christina Aguilera Has Gained” doesn’t exactly scream “Pulitzer“) but whatever. As long as I know this stuff can’t be taken seriously, I feel it’s okay to peruse….right?

The most hilarious aspect of the site is reading through the cyber arguments between bloggers who clearly do take this stuff a little too seriously. For example, under a picture of Kirsten Dunst, looking rather thin, but no different than one blogger writes:

Eeeek my eyes! She is super gross! Oh and she hasn’t been dieting – she’s a total coke head – the stories are everywhere.

Below that, another says:

She looks beautiful. Her bone structure is lovely.

And, to round out the argument:

She’s a skinny fat girl. She doesn’t look so hot in just a bikini.

This website will provide hours of shallow fun. And really, is there any other kind?

1) To look hot and to get guys to buy them.

2) To send a political message and generate controversy.

3) To show off their pregnant selves.

4) To not look hot, generate controversy, and show off their bigger body – not because of pregnancy, but because it’s simply how a woman is built sometimes. Crazy, huh?!?

Whatever the case may be, naked magazine covers sell, and Beth Ditto of the band The Gossip definitely sells on the cover of NME, a British music and gossip magazine.

It’s been getting tons of attention, from Americans especially, (because for most Americans, this is blasphemy!) and it’s being passed around the blogosphere for obvious reasons. Beth Ditto does not have the stereotypical body you’d necessarily want to see unclothed before your eyes, and she knows this. The cool thing is, and the cool thing about her is, she doesn’t give a flying f*ck!

In the article, she talks about the Skinny Celebrity Syndrome, saying, “The Beckhams are part of the machine; Paris Hilton is part of the machine. There’s that thing Paris Hilton said about Lindsay Lohan – ‘You’re poor, ugly and fat’. It’s always women who are victims of that machine and the messages the machine gives out.”

Her NME cover certainly says a big “screw you” to that machine. And what really separates her from the thinner celebs who are just famous for being richer and thinner than the rest of us, is the fact she actually has talent and she rocks out on stage. That’s what matters most.

She even writes her own (and really good) advice column for The Guardian and talks openly about growing up as a gay, overweight feminist in a small town and how she got to be as confident and comfortable with herself as she is today.

The real question is, would an American magazine ever use Beth’s naked image for a cover?

I think not.