Best Of The Fray

How To Use Your Death Points

Subject: Solving the Litter Problem
Re:
Hey, Wait a Minute: What’s So Great About Septuplets?
From: Yukon
Date:
Fri Jul 20 11:15 a.m. PT

Perhaps there ought to be a point system of some kind so that individuals and families can flexibly exercise their rights to choose life and death for themselves or others, but things don’t get out of hand. For example, if you abort two fetuses, you have to keep a senile relative alive for three years instead of killing him. If you commit suicide, you use up your family’s whole allotment of “death points” for a generation. This would be fair and rational, as opposed to the present “system” in which emotional and moral issues keep producing messy and inconsistent results.

[Find this post here.]

Subject: Interns Are Scabs

Re:
Assessment: Washington Interns

From: Wrongshore

Date:
Fri Jul 20  11:26 a.m. PT

To the extent that interns serve so vital a role that they replace what should be a full-time job, they are taking away jobs from people who could earn a decent living doing the vital, unglamorous functions of the government. As taxpayers, we think hurray! But as workers, we should be in favor of expanding good-paying federal jobs. … Of course, people who understand themselves as workers might be less inclined to sleep with aging congressmen, so concerned taxpayers can sleep easy at night, knowing that this money-saving system is safe.

[Find this post here.]

Subject: Ads Are Bad for You

Re:
Moneybox: Ad Report Card—Mercky Message

From:
Texwiz

Date:
Wed Jul 18  12:43 p.m. PT

Is no one going to state the obvious, that we really need to ban the advertising of prescription drugs in anything other than professional medical journals? I am as big a free speech advocate as anyone, but if we can restrict tobacco and liquor advertising, doesn’t it make sense to restrict the advertising of a substance considered dangerous enough that you have to get a doctor’s permission to purchase it? … Advertising to the layman (who may also be a raging hypochondriac) only muddies the waters, scares consumers, and irritates health care professionals.

[Find this post here.]

Subject: Silver Lining

Re:
Culturebox: Fashion Do’s

From:
A-Z

Date:
Tue Jul 17  2:29 p.m. PT

The only characteristic that these magazines are focusing on in their choice of audience is their gender. I find it encouraging that this causes a dive into the lowest common denominator, because it means that women’s intellectual and cultural interests are sufficiently varied that the only way to appeal to mass quantities is to aim low. This wasn’t always true—once women could be counted to have similar professional interests because of the restrictions in jobs and so forth. So, I conclude that the awfulness of women’s magazines is a good sign for women.

[Find this post here.]

Fray Notes:

There are five new Fray Stars this week. Welcome Marylb, Marti, Ferdinanda, Thomas, and Dilan Esper, and see their excellent posts throughout the Fray. Meanwhile, Thrasymachus says he doesn’t know why he has a star. We know, and we think Hedgehog knows too: He says Thrasymachus is “changing the world one Frayster at a time.”

Texwiz—see also his post above—posed a great question about women’s magazines: You can find it in the Fray Notes on the article (click here and scroll to the end), but we won’t reproduce it here because we have been told off by him for quoting it out of context. We urge you to read the whole thread and to know that he is thoughtful, kind, and literate—of course he is, as he was so careful in deciding what the plural of “ho” might be.

We are going to go with Fraysters: official new name for posters. No one has disputed Richard Walrath’s claim to be the first to mention it, but as Mr. Walrath later decided he liked another suggestion—confrayers—better, we are withdrawing the enormous prize we were going to award to him.

Ender has started a new and very promising contest: He is looking for the word that gets the best results when entered into the Fray search engine. There are many excellent suggestions in this thread—chocolate, hogwash—but there’s room for more.

In a thread called “Why do you post?” Robespierre came up with a description that we think will appeal to all true Fraysters: “When I plant a real winner on the Fray, I hoist tight fists up in the air. Yeah! That is exactly what I wanted to say. No more. No less. Just right.”