Best Of The Fray

The Truth About Beauty—and It Isn’t Pretty 

Subject:  Selective Rights
Re:Explainer: What Does the Second Amendment Say About the Right To Own Guns?
From: Munguza
Date: Tue Jul 10 9:01 p.m. PT

[There is an argument that] the Framers intended this right only for citizens serving in a formal “well-regulated militia” and that they never wanted any person to be able to possess a firearm. But the same can be said about women, blacks, and Native Americans voting—the Framers clearly didn’t want them to have the right to vote, and later generations found it appropriate to extend this constitutional right to a larger segment of the citizenry. … Rights always expand and contract according to the needs of the day.

[Find this post here. More than 300 Fraysters have already replied to Munguza.]

Subject: Don’t Believe Everything You Hear

Re:Everyday Economics: Hey Gorgeous, Here’s a Raise!

From: Andrea

Date: Tue Jul 10  5:11 p.m. PT

Beauty may very well be skin deep and one’s true self may be what ultimately matters, but the fact of the matter is that those empty platitudes are a first-line defense against the kind of uniform cultural bias discussed in this article and nothing more. In other words, they are what you tell little kids in hopes that they will mimic and parrot you and grow up believing that. There comes a point in nearly everyone’s life, however, that the feebleness of those chirpy sayings becomes clear. … [It is] alarming how many borderline-intelligent people are out there, raising their fists against cultural awareness because it clashes with their idealized nursery-rhyme picture of the world.

[Find this post hereandread two closely related posts in the Fray Notes on the article.]

Subject: Intern Affairs

Re:The Breakfast Table: Kathryn Harrison and D.T. Max

From: Shark

Date: Mon Jul 16  11:31 a.m. PT

It doesn’t help anybody to understand these situations by pretending that the women involved were empty little china dolls broken by big, bad men. I don’t know what the deal is with Levy and Condit, but anyone who read that turgid Starr report saw that Monica Lewinsky was a participant, not a puppet, in what happened. There are women who are attracted to power, and there are women who play on the shortcomings of powerful men for their own reasons. To suppose otherwise is to deny them the very three-dimensional existence that women’s empowerment is supposed to provide.

[Find this post here.]

Subject: Cross With Crossover

Re:Culturebox: Stay Right Where You Are

From: Cato the Censor

Date: Wed Jul 11 10:43 p.m. PT

The article [on crossover music] forgot to mention the hideous Elvis Costello album The Juliette Letters with the Brodsky Quartet. An avid Costello fan, I dutifully ran out to buy this monstrosity as soon as it was released. Fortunately, the School of Hard Knocks only costs about $19.95 when it comes to buying CDs. It is no wonder that the recording industry wants to slay Napster at all costs. Had I plunked down $2 to download a single before purchasing the album (which I would have gladly done), the company would have lost $17.95.

[Find this post here.]

Fray Notes:

More of the week’s great posts can be found in the Fray in “Moneybox” (here and here) and in thisSlate Fare,” including a ringing defense of the Fray from Mangar.

The best new Fray feature is one we can take no credit for: “KFDR ((((><)))) Talk Radio” has become a Sunday evening regular in the “Kausfiles” Fray—see here and here for recent examples. Dave Phoenix is your talk show host (Loree O’Neil stood in for him this week) and runs a great discussion: If you want live interaction with fellow Fraysters, high-quality arguments, and lots of jokes, then tune in on Sundays.

In another move to Fray self-government, the mysteriously named “Missy Elliot & the Hague” decided to make awards to the best Star posters. This was such a good idea that we’re sorry we didn’t think of it: Vote for your favorites in this Fray. Zeitguy makes an outrageous claim here, but he’s right: We are amused.

Fraysters” is pulling ahead as the new favored term for posters: Enter the word into the Fray search engine (at the bottom right of any Fray page) and see all the citations. Fraywallahs, affrayers, confrayers: They were all good suggestions, but they just didn’t catch on.

About those never-endingdiscussions on how to get a star: Gthestrngr, our favorite minimal vowel poster, has the answer for when all else fails here.