Category: General

When I see a headline about students at the University Of Maryland I usually cringe. I’m expecting to read about someone setting fires to power lines or someone going to the hospital as a result of an energy drink mixed with alcohol.

Well, this time time it looks like the students there did something right.

I found this part of Dan Savage’s sex advice column about his visit to the University amusing:

CONFIDENTIAL TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: I was supposed to speak on your campus last Thursday night, but God had other plans. I was at the Cornerstone bar when the blizzard really started slamming and power lines started catching fire and all hell broke loose. The evening’s most distressing development: The bar had to stop serving once the power went out.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to coming back to your campus—the Savage Love Live event/shoot is being rescheduled and may take place this week—and when I return, I’d really like to meet the person responsible for some graffiti I spotted in the men’s room at the Cornerstone: “Don’t Raw Dog a Random.”

That has to be the most effective peer-to-peer safer-sex message I’ve ever read while taking a piss in Maryland. It did take me a second to work out exactly what it meant, as I’m old, so here’s a quick translation for other olds: “Don’t raw dog a random” means “For heaven’s sake, don’t engage in unprotected vaginal intercourse—don’t have sex without a condom—with a woman you’ve only just met, particularly if you met her in this drinking establishment. Bro.”

It’s not a fail-safe strategy for avoiding sexually transmitted infections—people can get very specific STIs from completely nonrandom sex partners—but the number of STIs could be cut dramatically if all male college students everywhere refrained from raw-dogging those lovely lady randoms and vice versa. (I realize that “random” is not gendered… but if you saw this bar, you would know that an exclusively heterosexual clientele can be safely assumed. A straight boy wrote that message, and he was addressing other straight boys, and “random” refers to female pickups, not male pickups.)

I want to add that I was particularly impressed by the use of the word “random” in place of, say, “bitch,” “slut,” “whore,” or any of the other sexist/hostile/demeaning terms that college-town-bathroom-stall-graffitiing types typically use in place of “woman,” “female,” or “young lady coed.” Well done, DIY safe-sex educator!

“A Guide To Personal Happiness” by Dr. Albert Ellis and Irving M. Becker
Publisher: Wilshire Book Company (April 1983)
ISBN-10: 0879803959
ISBN-13: 978-0879803957

Dr. Albert Ellis invented REBT ( Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy ) from which Cognitive Therapy was invented. Cognitive therapy is based on the belief that emotions are caused by thoughts. If you think you won the lottery you feel great. If you think your best friend didn’t call you back on purpose, you feel hurt. Change your irrational beliefs and you will change your feelings.

One of the ways that Dr. Ellis’ system differs from Cognitive Therapy is that REBT holds the idea that there are 4 types of irrational thinking that every human being does, by nature. Work on getting rid of beliefs born out of these 4 types of thinking and you get rid of a lot angst for free. Of these 4 types Dr. Ellis considers “Demandism” as the root of most psychological distress. Demandism is having thoughts that demand that the reality be a certain way when it is not. These thoughts are recognized by the use of words such as “should, must, ought, must, have to, etc…”.

The book opens with a brilliant essay by Dr. Ellis on why people should put their own happiness first to get the best results for their own lives and other people. The rest of the book is filled with partial transcripts from counseling sessions demonstrating how people can reduce ( not eliminate ) their angst by identifying the irrational demands they are making and repeatedly reflecting on why reality does not have to comply to those demands.

In other words, once people accept ( not endorse ) their current situation they turn more (not all) of their energy away from being upset and turn their energy toward doing what they can about making their lives happier. I was never really sure what the head shrinkers meant by “acceptance”, but by reading the case histories in this book it dawned on me that “acceptance” is simply not having a strong emotional reaction every time you look at a situation you don’t like.

The book is light on theory and light on jargon compared to Dr. Ellis’s other books. It seems he made it with the intent of reaching a larger crowd. Being very familiar with Dr. Ellis’ ideas I can’t say for sure if the book will work for someone not familiar with his concepts.

Dr. Ellis wrote many books over the course of his half century career. Most cover similar ground. The best book of his that you can read is the one that he coauthored with Dr. Ron Harder called “A Guide To Rational Living”. The book was revised many times so make sure get a copy of the 3rd edition with 23 chapters to get the most up to date version of his views. To get a good view of what Dr. Ellis considered to be the most important concepts I would start reading that book at chapter 20, finish it and then start over from the beginning.

Before it was “Christmas”, it was “Yule”. Interestingly, many of the trappings of Christmas are really the trappings of pre-Christian European religions based on the worship of nature.

I got this little bit from a friend who emailed it to me from MSN in the 90s:

When jingle bells hang on the bank door and the local bakery is handing out green and red reindeer cookies, you know what time of year it is. But what are these images? Why are stockings, of all things, hung by the chimney with care, and why is everyone handing out peppermint sticks?

Here’s how some of the most familiar icons may have found their way into the holiday:

Santa Claus:
An amalgam of ancient pagan idols, elves and heroes, Santa is one of the most universal symbols of Christmas, celebrated in one form or another from Australia to Europe to China and the Philippines. The American Santa Claus is said to trace his roots primarily to St. Nicholas, a 4th century Christian bishop, and Father Christmas, an English character inspired by the Roman god Saturn. The image of Santa as a jolly old bearded elf was popularized by the late 19th century illustrator and cartoonist Thomas Nast. He’s the same guy who came up with the donkey and the elephant as symbols of
Democratic and Republican parties

Stockings:
As legend has it, St. Nicholas was a shy man who tried to be discreet about his charity. Once he climbed onto the roof of a poor family’s house and dropped a purse of coins down the chimney, and it landed in a sock a girl had hung to dry by fireplace. Hey, it could happen again!

Candy canes:
These confections were created as a tribute to Christ. The pure white candy in the shape of a staff refers to Jesus as the sinless shepherd; a broad red stripe symbolizes blood shed for the sins of the world, and three thinner stripes represent lashes from the Roman soldiers

Flying Reindeer:
Clement Clarke Moore, a New York professor and poet, spread this notion with his 1823 hit poem “Visit from St. Nicholas” (“‘Twas the night before Christmas “).

Mistletoe:
According to Druid superstition, mistletoe was a divine branch that grafted itself to an earthly tree actually, it is a “parasitic” plant), and it was used for casting spells and curing ills. The Druids believed that mistletoe, when held above a woman’s head, rendered her incapable of resisting a man