Our poll question to take us into the summer was:

What five trends, clichés, people in the news would you like to see disappear from the culture radar IMMEDIATELY?

Below you'll find a representative sample of the things G21 Mailing List members, you, wouldn't miss.

At the end of the sample, please find my own choices and out next Poll question. Enjoy!

Hi Rod

I replied to your poll question almost immediately. BUT now that one of my wishes has been answered in the only sad way possible, I would like to remove my choice number three regarding Terry Shiavos and her family and replace it with

1. George W. Bush
2. All of the Far Right NeoCon ideology and ideologists
3. Kim Jong Il
4. Michael Jackson
5. Congresspeople that don't know what their job is or want to rewrite their job description daily.

I know, I know, Michael Jackson hardly belongs in the class with the others, and should be pitied but I could pity him a lot better if I didn't have to see or hear about him daily. Its rather like a mosquito, most are pretty harmless, a few carry disease but you just what to whup 'um because they are all a nuisance. For me it doesn't matter what it is - enough is enough.

Five things that should go away NOW:

The Hilton sisters (can that count as one since collectively even one is a stretch?)
Shiraz
Michael Jackson's Trial
Reality game shows
George Bush

1. George W Bush
2. Homeland Security's attacks on privacy -- especially the new ID requirement
3. Outsourcing to other countries
4. Synergy in mergers. (It NEVER happens) (I absolutely HATE the word and a red flag goes up whenever I hear it)
5. Unemployment of educated black writers

(not necessarily in order)

LIST OF THINGS/PEOPLE TO MAKE DISSAPEAR IMMEDIATELY.

1. Machine made pop music
2. Almost all sports except frisbee (they are a kick back to our blood lusting past and breed unhealthy competitive urges in people)
3. All politicians of all types and breeds
4. Pro-gun lobbyists
5. Any form of nationalism, fundamentalism or xenophobia
6. Passports - why do we need to have permission to travel on our very own fucking planet?

OK, sorry Rod, that is 6!

I'd like to see:

1. Tom DeLay fall into a resistant legislative state, and Congress vote to remove his PAC feeding tubes.
2. Ann Coulter stranded on a desert island with Garrison Keillor, with nothing to eat but tofu.
3. James Dobson committed to a mental hospital, forced to share a room with Michael Jackson (a two-fer).
4. Paul Wolfowitz captured by Osama bin Laden, forced to wear a burka while begging for his life on Al Jazeera.
5. Dr. Phil crushed under the weight of every piece of fatuous advice he's ever given.

Pet Peeves:

1. Disposable nappies. What excuse do people have for using the things? If I get one more round eyed look, or a gentle titter and accusation of tree-hugging I'll pop. In most of the world the biggest expense of having a baby is water to wash the darn nappies -- not to mention elbow grease, there being no electricity, water supplies or funds for purchase of machines. In the West, where water gushes madly from all taps at wondrous pressure, and everyone has a WASHING MACHINE, why the hell would you wrap your baby's bottom in?the same chemicals that you get in garden centres to improve water retention in your soil? A new and refined form of baby torture -- 'How to guarantee nappy rash'. Do people realise that the child has to spend 2 years in the noisome things? That every baby adds a ton of landfill waste to the world? Talk about starting life with an ecological debt. In a world where everyone knows someone who's dying of cancer, why would you increase your child's exposire to chemicals?

2. Artificial baby formula. How was this allowed to become a cultural norm? Feeding a newborn God Knows What out of a tin. In a world which doesn't produce enough calories for everyone to have a reasonably healthy, varied diet with a choice of two vegetables in the month, what madness condones the stopping up of a major natural resource like mother's milk? A recent study valued Australian mothers' milk at 2.2 billion dollars per year - fortunately in Australia most women breastfeed. In a sane world baby formula would be unavailable except by prescription - you'd have to get a note from your doctor explaining why you couldn't breastfeed. So far only Papua New Guinea has that sorted. This is Breastfeeding Awareness week; I went round the maternity wards of one London hospital, saw 40 new babies, only one was fully breastfed. None was more than 4 days old. How does a society allow itself to come to this? I saw educated women who claimed to want to breastfeed, forcing full stomachfuls of formula on newborns who are designed to get their nutrition from teeny amounts of colostrum, only getting proper milk when it comes in on the third day. Why? They had no explanation. I concluded it's a sign of a sick society -- problems feeding and reproducing.

3. Cheapo 'celebrity'. This may be more of a problem in the UK than elsewhere -- but if I have to see one more busty blonde cheered as she enters a TV talkshow, famous for no other reason than having courted the cameras, I'll throw up. Somehow I don't mind so much when they're pictures and articles in the tabloids -- but to see real live humans expending energy and getting excited about being in their presence makes me want to parcel people up and put them down in a semi-arid area where they'll have something to do with their lives.

4. Big airy banking halls. Why so much space for a bit of money, okay, a lot of money,?when humans live in rabbit-warren-like blocks?

5. Unpaid maternity/paternity/parental leave. Excuse me? Who do you think is going to produce the next generation of workers? You want us to do it unpaid, round the corners of our lives? This one is down to the habits of the dominant capitalist economy, where,?in an apparent environmental friendliness drive to stop?Americans having little Americans, maternity leave is a staggering 8 weeks (even 8 months wouldn't cut it), unpaid apart from sick pay. This is such a ludicrous situation that it?deserves grandiose prose about The Patriarchy. I note, by the way, that if you instead foster other people's children, you get to stay at home on a staggering £300 a week!

i can't pick out just five. just eliminate all trendy journalism. besides which, journalism has all become nothing but a house organ for bush and his ilk.

In kind of bad to worst order:

5. Star Wars. Drag the stinkin' corpse to the nearest black hole & say good riddance.
4. Bringing democracy to the Middle East. Tell it to Ho Chi Minh.
3. Creationism. If it can't be disproved, it ain't science. Why is this even a subject? This is fucking embarrassing.
2. "We're making progress." Makes you wonder who the hell he's working for.
1. People of Faith. Faith? Excuse me? Call them bigots with an incapacity to understand what their lord & savior meant by: Love thine enemy & turn the other cheek. Hell, they don't even do the golden rule.

1. Paris Hilton
2. the bush kids, muzzled or not
3. all the bushes
4. if I tell you I'd have to kill you
5. pants with the waist at the thighs ... :-)

OK Rod, here are just five of maybe hundreds off the top of my head (not in order of importance):

1) Rap "music" (particularly the stuff with crude language)
2) tailgating drivers
3) saying "You know..."
4) backwards baseball cap wearing
5A) George W. Bush
5B) (in case we can't erase GWB, or because the FBI will visit me if they find out I suggested it) using the f-word as THE catch-all adjective

Cheers-
g

Survey says.

Bill O'reily.
O'reily Factor.
Fox News.
"Fair and balanced news"
Fox news facts.

there are many others but this is the worst one.

1. Naming children - particularly girls - with three random syllables put together in random order, instead of honoring our ancestors by naming a new generation after them.
2. Lying by responsible national political leaders - of whatever stripe or persuasion, from wide left to wide right - then denying that it was a lie and was instead a misquote or misunderstanding.
3. The ignorant misuse of history in political argument - e.g., the parallel between Sadam Hussein and Adolf Hitler (Hitler declared war on the U.S., not vice versa; Hussein just played the U.S. for fools).
4. The ignorant misuse of religion in political argument - e.g., the Law of God used against homosexuals, but not against stubborn children (they are to be stoned to death).
5. Price gouging by reducing the weight of the product - e.g., canned goods that were once 16 ounces, then 15 ounces, then 14 ounces, now 13.5 ounces.

donald trump

fundamentalist christians who think they have a lock on the truth starting with tom delay, karl rove and george bush and donald wildmon

bad laddie mags

hip hop that is about the bling bling and the big thing yet it pretends to be 'gangsta' rap

any corporation that rapes the environment and then says that it's okay--we can worry about it later

bill frist

From the Editor's Desktop

I have to admit, there was a lot of laughing around the campfire at the responses to this opportunity we provided you to vent some spleen. Laughter is a good thing.

I hope that you enjoyed reading the responses of some of your fellow readers -- and got to laugh, too -- as much as I did.

From the analytical tip, I did note that -- though our readership statistics tell us that the divide between readers from the USA and readers from other countries runs approximately 50-50 these days, changing our demographic of previous years -- not many of our readers abroad took the time to respond to this poll. That speaks to the nature of my question, I'm sure.

It was of interest, to me at least, that most of our writers -- and particularly those based in Africa -- expressed extreme difficulty in responding. This is unusual when you look at the history of the polls we've run here in the past.

Finally, I had some difficulty with limiting my own personal list to just five tends/cliché/people. But, since you showed me yours, I have the obligation to show you mine.

Rod's List of Things to Disappear from the Culture Rader IMMEDIATELY

1. The trend toward presenting celebrity gossip, blogosphere rumors, government-generated press releases or "lifestyle"-fluff items as "news."
   
2. Disinvestment in public transportation in the United States while highways are clogged with single individuals in fossil-fuel depleting trucks, cars and SUVs. (As an addendum, under-taxing American gasoline consumption.)
   
3. Government policies that foist tax-cuts for the wealthy and corporations, militarism and cynical, conscious deception on the citzenry down our collective throats.
   
4. All so-called "reality" broadcast programming from MTV to "The Apprentice" to "American Idol." You're making network execs richer than Croesus while feeding swill to the masses.
   
5. Conspicious consumption as exemplified by Wal-Mart and Sam's Club, the Hardee's and Wendy's triple beef burgers, SUVs and the cultural presentation of shopping as a form of recreation and fulfillment in the West.

Please take a moment to consider and respond, at your leisure, to our next Readership Poll below.

The G21 READERSHIP POLL

THE POLL QUESTION: What five people in your personal life or community have had the greatest impact for good for you and/or your family and neighbors?

DEADLINE: 30 JUNE, 2005. The responses and results will appear in July. Thanks in advance!

+++ G21 BOTTOM 10 OF 2004 +++ THE NEXT G21 POLL RESULTS +++

RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
We want your feedback on this stuff. Go to the TALK BACK page and tell us what you think!

via e-mail