so much hate!

i had a subscription to vanity fair magazine for a few years a while back. i loved the hollywood issue and lots of the fascinating articles. i still have the one from 1997 with princess diana on the cover--one of the last shoots she did before her death.

that's where i first encountered christopher hitchens. i wish i could remember examples of his articles i liked, but i can't. i'd have to do a little research for that and i don't feel like it. i do, however, know that i read enough by him to recognize his name when i saw it.

and when an article appeared in the new yorker reviewing his book God is not great, i remember having a positive initial response to seeing his name. that review, if i remember correctly (again, too lazy to hunt it down; but i would if i knew the date), didn't have a lot of nice things to say about the book. not that the new yorker is God's latest champion by any means; it was a fair and balanced (huh?) review of a book the reviewer didn't deem, well, great.

i haven't read that book. and it's not just because i happen to think God is, in fact, pretty great. i'm just not interested.

i did, however, just start reading an article by hitchens in today's slate. you can click here to read it. i admit, i didn't get very far. in fact, i got partway through and, instead of finishing, clicked on over to firefox to blog about it. and i don't think i'll finish it.

why? you ask.

i don't know what got hitchens so riled up these last few years, but he's got a serious problem with religion in general and it's getting ridiculous. i'm fine with people writing books based on their beliefs. it's healthy and promotes great discourse, in many cases. but he has reduced himself to a whiny, crabby little boy given to histrionics. he throws around words like 'supposed' and 'alleged' before pillars of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths, and takes every opportunity to make unsubstantiated low blows and snarky swipes at each.

it's laughable. and i'm sorry that slate got in on the action. i'm disappointed that they would print such a poorly written piece, regardless of its author.

while i'm airing disappointments, i've been looking for frank's email address so i can complain about the porn on this week's postsecret. i don't mind nudity or sex shots when there's a profound secret involved, but the postcard he posted this week is blank. just a girl in a bra on her stomach, offering herself up (seriously!) to be taken. what's the point of that? where's the secret? it seems to me someone out there is cashing in on a bet. and instead of being let in on a secret, i'm faced with gratuitous sex, a secret not meant to be shared.

shall i keep going? i can...

lots of visitors to prague comment on the nudity and sex in advertising. after all, would home depot advertise with a topless woman on a newly tiled floor boasting, 'i did it myself!' ?

the other day i was traveling by metro to physical therapy and went through the mustek station, as usual. h&m has been buying up the wall space in the hallway of the station so i'm used to seeing models stare back at me as i walk from the trains to the street. i wasn't prepared, however, to see nearly naked ladies eyeing me coquettishly, clad only in bras and panties, as i followed the mob of commuters through the maze.

it's a victoria's secret catalogue, blown up bigger than life-size.

and, lest we think it's inappropriate, or pornographic or something prudish like that, there's a price tag next to the languidly posed beauties: the price of the bras. (the price of the panties isn't shown. which begs the question: couldn't they be wearing a little more down below?)

this frustrates, saddens, and angers me. how lovely, on a Fat Day or a Bad Hair Day (or any Crap Day) to have one's self-confidence punched down a bit lower by the sight of the heroin-thin but buxom models in the ads. and even more wonderful to feel the eyes of the men on the platform, killing time as they wait for the next train. not an appraising glance, mind you, but a wolfish up-and-down and perhaps a little linger here, and here. for some women it may truly be wonderful, but only because these women don't understand that such objects are not cherished, loved, appreciated or admired. they are savagely used without interest and discarded immediately. or maybe they've already been beaten down so far they're ok with being used. something is better than nothing, right? ...right...?

*sigh*

amazing to go from hitchens' peevish ranting to porn on the metro, but the trail is there. sad that apparently he feels there's enough in religion to prompt such spewage, while a land that wholly rejects religion glorifies such degradation. no wonder so many girls and women here, no matter what age, desire to look a way that seems to them sexy, no matter what the cost.