In case you don’t think corporations wield too much power in this country, TIME reports that McDonald’s isn’t happy with the word "McJob":

"In 2001, the term finally entered the Oxford English Dictionary, which defined it as 'an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector.' And it has remained there ever since. But not for much longer if McDonald's gets its way.

"The company is leading a ‘word battle’ on behalf of the wider service sector. The object, according to David Fairhurst, a senior vice-president of McDonald's, is to change the definition of McJob to 'reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding ... and offers skills that last a lifetime.'"

Maureen Dowd spends her NYT column today (sorry: Times Select firewall) discussing how Sen. Barack Obama has failed to fulfill his potential on the campaign trail.  Obama, of course, burst onto the national scene in 2004 with his electrifying speech during the Democratic National Convention, but he has run a rather low key campaign, avoiding major events in Iowa and New Hampshire and delivering what he calls “eat-your-spinach” speeches to key interest groups.

Dowd writes:

“[O]ften he reverts to Obambi, tentative about commanding the stage and consistently channeling the excitement he engenders. At times, he seems to be actively resisting his phenom status and easy appeals to emotion. When he should fire up, he dampens. When he should dominate, he’s deferential. When he should lacerate, he’s languid.

“Futilely, he chafes at the notion that debates and forums are rituals for showing a sense of command with a forceful one-liner, a witty takedown or a “shining city on a hill” moment. He keeps trying to treat them as places where he can riff, improvise, soothe, extrapolate or find common ground. He skitters away from the subtext of political contests, the need to use your force to slay your opponents.”

Many commentators like Dowd have expressed apparent surprise at Obama’s tepid performance on the campaign trail and during the first two presidential primary debates.  Maybe I’m being a bit charitable, but I think Obama can ratchet up his campaign when he wants to.  The strategy of sticking to toned down rhetoric and tamping down expectations is perfectly sensible right now, with eight months left until the first primaries/caucuses.  If he were relying on his natural gifts as a speaker to propel him to front-runner status right now, how long could he reasonably keep it up?  The worst thing he can do is set expectations too high and peak now.  Obama still generates a high level of excitement among many Democrats and is routinely drawing crowds numbering in the thousands – much larger than his opponents.  If he can keep that baseline buzz going and hang within striking distance of Hillary Clinton for another six months or so – and I don’t see any reason why he couldn’t – he’ll be well-positioned to “unleash the Force,” as Dowd puts it, and perhaps close strong.

(This is not an endorsement.) 

The Boston University College Republicans are offering a $250 whites-only scholarship in protest of scholarships offered to students on the basis of ethnic background, CNN reports.

This isn't the first time a conservative student group has pulled a stunt like this. Jason Mattera, an old friend of Campus Progress, started a similar scholarship at Roger Williams University in 2004. Note the irony:

Mattera, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is himself a recipient of a $5,000 scholarship open only to a minority group.

Good job, BU College Republicans. Way to miss the point of minority scholarships entirely.

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, a Republican who is up for reelection next month, took time out this week from working on (or perhaps exacerbating) the problems facing my home state to write this thought-provoking
letter-to-the-editor that was printed in yesterday's edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

I finally figured out why your readers no longer have confidence in your opinion.

Sunday's sports page headline ("Dogs get put in their place," referring to Georgia's 51-33 loss to Tennessee, College Football, Oct. 8) is an indication of the way The Atlanta Journal-Constitution views Georgia. From the front page to the business page and now to the sports page, it is as if the AJC gleefully awaits lousy news about all things Georgia and pounces with their poison pens whenever bad things happen to the good people of our state.

Other cities celebrate the successes and mourn the losses of local businesses, individuals and sports teams. The AJC takes the opposite position and -- instead of boosterism -- criticizes, investigates and ridicules all things Georgia.

The AJC, not UGA, is the real loser. In its mean-spirited delight over misfortunes, it has squandered the precious First Amendment right to influence and thus be considered a trustworthy source of objectivity. No wonder more and more people are tuning you out and turning you off.

Evidently, Governor Perdue believes that it is the role of the state's largest newspaper to cheerlead for the UGA football team but not to investigate matters related to Georgia.

The content of his letter raises a few natural questions: Is this just a shrewd attempt to establish common ground with UGA fans before the election, to convince them he's just a regular guy who likes football like them? Or is he so safe from being upset by his uninspiring opponent, Democrat Mark Taylor, that he has the free time to weigh on on local sports?

And, most importantly, how exactly does one "turn off" a newspaper?

On Monday, a U.S. District Court Judge ordered Georgia Tech to revise its speech code, finding the portions of the code prohibiting speech designed to "injure, harm" or "malign" others on the basis of race, religious affiliation, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, etc. unconstitutional.

The policy, which applied to on-campus residents, was challenged by two conservative students who argued that the "politically correct" speech code violated the first amendment. One of the main sticking points for them is that the speech code did not seem to allow conservative student groups to challenge feminism or homosexual lifestyles.

That judge may have opened Pandora's box. Now Tech students will be able to call their hallmates fags when they refuse to drink vast amounts of alcohol. Oh, wait...


Update: This op-ed piece, written by the two students who filed the suit, ran in the AJC yesterday & provides a bit more context.

Oh, how the high-and-mighty have fallen.

Ralph Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition, has just conceded the Republican primary election for Georgia Lt. Governor to state senator Casey Cagle. At the time of the concession, Reed was trailing 57-43.

Hmm...is God losing his touch?

In other GA primary news, Cynthia McKinney (you know, the one who punched the Capitol Hill police officer) is trailing former county commissioner Hank Johnson in the Democratic primary for the 4th Congressional District seat 49-41, with 26% of precints reporting. This could go into a runoff.

Presenting: the only piece I've ever read by Jonah Goldberg that I pretty much agree with, despite its sometimes sloppy analogies. It's actually a topic I've written on at some length elsewhere since I find it so aggravating how journalists give so-called centrists like Joe Lieberman and John McCain free passes.

I recently stumbled across this piece on HuffPo written by Tucker Max. In it, he seeks to position himself as part of an emerging social movement: masculine pride. For years, he argues, many feminists have suppressed masculinity to the point that many men have, "adopt[ed] a PC attitude that apologizes for nothing more than men being men." You know, being ashamed of flatulence and stuff like that. What he hopes to help create is an atmosphere in which men can talk frankly and openly about what being a man is all about (though he does not suggest what that actually may be).

For those of you who haven't heard of Tucker Max, you can check out his site here. Max's site features an abundance of rambling personal narratives about his alcohol-fueled sexploits, and he has earned a cult following not unlike that of Maddox. In fact, both men have new books that have made the NYT bestseller list.

Max's writings have been criticized as crass and misogynistic, despite his protests to the contrary. You can judge for yourself. Whatever the merits of the "Tucker Max Stories," Max (along with Maddox and others) seems to be part of what could be a nascent cultural trend of men taking pride in being men - something that (some argue) has not taken place in recent memory because of the success of the feminist movement in foisting a politically correct mentaility on American men so that stereotypical male behavior is frowned upon.

Just look at the Burger King commercial currently being played on every television station in America six thousand times a day. The extended version of the commercial opens with a man sitting with his date at a fancy restaurant and being served a tiny entree. He gets up from the table and ditches his date and the "chick food" in favor of a Texas Double Whopper or something, all while singing "I am man, hear me roar." The implication is clear: Don't be ashamed to eat like a man.

But is this really anything new? Hasn't the boorishness of men been celebrated for ages? (I honestly don't know - I haven't been alive long enough.) Maybe I'm making too much of all of this, but I can't remember machismo ever being as self-aware as it is now: a recent commercial (within the past year) for the new version of The Man Show assured its viewers, "It's okay to be a man again."

"A man"? Manliness, if we look to Tucker Max and his ilk as an example, is about drunkenness, promiscuity, and hostility toward those not blessed by being as great as you. What about men who aren't into all of those things? Men who take pride in appearing presentable? And why have more old-fashioned concepts like chivalry not enetered into the dialogue? Tucker does in fact address such questions:

What does it mean to be a man?

Honestly, I don't know the answer to that question. I definitely like to think of myself as a man, but I do not think that I am the model or definition of manhood that everyone should aspire to. Even though I cannot define manhood, I do know that we will never define it if we cannot discuss it openly and freely, without fear of being castigated or vilified for exploring the boundaries of these issues.

It's kind of funny how he intellectualizes his writings like that, but it's still a good point in a general sense. The danger lies in seeing the debate devolve into hostility toward women and feminism.

I suspect that a lot of what we're seeing right now - like the BK commercial - is a reaction against the recent metrosexual fad as much as a reaction against feminism. I think a lot of guys were never quite comfortable with it, and commercials celebrating conventional maledom appear to speak to their trepidation.

In any case, it will be interesting to see how it all develops.