"What is this feeling that I have inside? It makes me feel gloomy..."

Lena D is out to "reduce shame and embarrassment." Meade laughed much more than I did, and I especially liked the part where the guys in the locker room join the catchy refrain: "It's my PEER-eee-udd..."

"Menstrual Man."

Via NPR.

Now playing in the Theater of Racial Reconciliation: the George Zimmerman trial.

TalkLeft says:

Lawyers for the [Trayvon] Martin family now say the case is not about racial profiling or race.... Then why did Benjamin Crump say race was "the elephant in the room." Racial injustice was the core of their argument. It was always about race to them. Race was what they used to transform this local shooting into a case of national importance.

Meanwhile, at Instapundit:

IT’S REALLY BEGINNING TO LOOK AS IF CHARGES NEVER SHOULD HAVE BEEN BROUGHT HERE: Neighbor, cop back George Zimmerman’s account of fight with Trayvon Martin.

Watching much of the trial these last 3 days, I've come to believe that the prosecution is conducting a theatrical performance in racial reconciliation. It wasn't politically easy to decline to prosecute Zimmerman, even though the evidence showed he could not be convicted, so this prosecution was mounted to demonstrate to the public that Zimmerman should not be convicted. I'm not condoning this use of the power to prosecute. I'm simply observing what is happening. I think the trial is theater, and if it's done right — with people like Crump contributing what they can — the people who got stirred up in Act I can experience catharsis.

Remember Act I? It had that wonderful cameo performance from President Obama:



He told us this was "a tragedy." Catharsis "is a metaphor originally used by Aristotle in the Poetics to describe the effects of tragedy on the spectator":

In his works prior to Poetics, Aristotle had used the term catharsis purely in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the katamenia — the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material).  Here, however, he employs it as a medical metaphor. F. L. Lucas maintains, therefore, that purification and cleansing are not proper translations for catharsis; that it should rather be rendered as purgation. "It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions."...

"In real life," [one scholar] explained, "men are sometimes too much addicted to pity or fear, sometimes too little; tragedy brings them back to a virtuous and happy mean." Tragedy is then a corrective; through watching tragedy, the audience learns how to feel these emotions at proper levels."

In the end, one must hope, we will come into balance.

"The idea that 'shame works' — that stigmatizing behaviors and shaming the people who do them are necessary and honorable tools of public policy..."

"... is a recurring theme in both conservative and more communitarian/paternalistic liberal rhetoric. It’s often based on personal experience, or home truths from one’s mom, and because people do sometimes say that shame worked for them I had a hard time articulating why I rejected this rhetoric so completely."

Writes Eve Tushnet, who figured out the answer from reading "Middlemarch."

What? You're ashamed never to have read "Middlemarch"? I'm not, because I have read it, not that I remember the part about shame.
I remember one thing about the book: Some lady was hugely supportive of her husband's writing, but then — spoiler alert! — after he dies, she gets a good look at his supposed magnum opus and it's no damned good at all. Did I get that right? I read it decades ago, and though I've seen it listed among the top books that you're supposed to read — at least if you want to be considered a reader of serious literature — I don't think you need to read it. You're off the hook — in my book — for not reading it. So no need to approach this discussion with any shame about that. And I'll just leap to what's so bad about shame that reading "Middlemarch" made Eve Tushnet capable of articulating. Then we can discuss what's so bad about shame. (You can also discuss how "Middlemarch," specifically, elucidates things, or how reading serious literature enables us to fathom complex concepts.)

Tushnet looks at "what I was like in the year or two before I quit drinking":

During that time, when I knew that I had a serious drinking problem but hadn’t yet quit, shame completely corroded my moral sense. It isolated me. I felt like there was nobody I could trust or talk to. I had no hope of change and no sense that there was any way out. I was able to imagine taking actions to hide what was going on, but stopping was completely unimaginable....

When people try to shame you, you might "just get[] angry... and totally reject[] their judgment... and decide[] to make [your] way in the world while paying them as little attention as possible."

Shame is closely allied with disgust, and we attach it to things like poverty at least as often as to actual wrongdoing. Few people feel guilty for smelling bad or getting their period in gym class; plenty of people feel ashamed for those things. This makes shame inherently a more suspect tool. It’s also inherently more tied to outside opinion than guilt is. This is part of its usefulness – like I said above, shame forces you to see yourself through other people’s eyes, which can be a powerful corrective – but shame does involve a kind of outsourced or socialized conscience.

"Hi, as a man I must ask why you have lied to us for all these years."

Richard Neill writes on Facebook, addressing Bodyform, a manufacturer of sanitary napkins.

As a child I watched your advertisements with interest as to how at this wonderful time of the month that the female gets to enjoy so many things ,I felt a little jealous. I mean bike riding , rollercoasters, dancing, parachuting, why couldn't I get to enjoy this time of joy and 'blue water' and wings !! Dam my penis!! Then I got a girlfriend, was so happy and couldn't wait for this joyous adventurous time of the month to happen .....you lied !! There was no joy, no extreme sports, no blue water spilling over wings and no rocking soundtrack oh no no no. Instead I had to fight against every male urge I had to resist screaming wooaaahhhhh bodddyyyyyyfooorrrmmm bodyformed for youuuuuuu as my lady changed from the loving, gentle, normal skin coloured lady to the little girl from the exorcist with added venom and extra 360 degree head spin. Thanks for setting me up for a fall bodyform, you crafty bugger.

Bodyform responded (this was last October, but I'd never noticed it before):

"Muslim professor Mustafa Umar explained... that there is 'nothing intrinsically wrong with wearing nail polish'..."

"... the real issue is that this substance forms an impermeable barrier over the nails preventing water from getting underneath."

For years, women have been required to either remove and reapply polish for prayers every day, or wait to wear it during the week they have their period - when they're not allowed to pray.

Solution: "Breathable" nail polish.

"I always start with physicality when I’m writing as a woman. So I always have a vagina and think about having periods."

Said Will Self, who has a new novel, "Umbrella," the title of which is based on the Joyce quote "A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella."

By the way, the first appearance of the word "umbrella" in English, according to the OED (not linkable), came in 1611:

T. Coryate Crudities sig. Lv,   Many of them doe carry other fine things.., which they commonly call in the Italian tongue vmbrellaes... These are made of leather something answerable to the forme of a little cannopy & hooped in the inside with diuers little wooden hoopes that extend the vmbrella in a prety large compasse.

That predates the first use of "vagina," which was in 1682:

T. Gibson Anat. Humane Bodies 20   It has passages..for the neck of the Bladder, and in Women for the vagina of the Womb.

The etymology of "vagina" is: "Latin vāgīna sheath, scabbard." The etymology of "umbrella" is: "Italian ombrella and ombrello, < ombra < Latin umbra shade."

Here's Perry Como singing "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella."

Fill in the blank: Let a smile be your umbrella. Let a _________ be your vagina.