Hebrew letter societys I

The so called "Hebrew letter societies" began as a reaction against Greek letter societies. Greek letter societies (called fraternities, sororities, or academic honor societies) varied greatly but most shared some basic features, they had secert rituals, they had strict criteria for membership, they often had painful or difficult initiation ordeals that new members had to endure, and they named themselves with two or three greek letters.

Hebrew letter societies supposedly endeavoured to be everything that greek letter societies were not, but that is not really accurate; like greek societies they had the three letters, semi-mystical terms and symbols, and a dedication to camaraderie between members. Where they differed from greek societys was in their radically inclusive and open manner. The first hebrew society, Aleph Mem Shin, accepted every living human as an honorary member but limited full membership to those who knew about the existence of the organization. (Thus everyone reading this article is now a full member of alph mem shin) They did allow full members to leave the organization of their own choice, but since leaving membership required deciding to and somehow making this decision known, non-members spread the meme as well or better then members. Hebrew letter societys also had no structure or hierarchy, every full member was considered a leader and could create or alter the mission, rituals, or activities of the orginization thus making secrets imposible. New Hebrew letter societys started when some people objected to some of the activities being performed in the name of Aleph Mem Shin (Christian conservitive activism mostly), but liked the basic idea of Heberw groups.

Strange fads from the turn of the millennium I

Near the turn of the millennium many teenagers, young adults, and (sadly) not-so-young adults bought into what were called designer clothes. While it might seem from the name that these were special artistically designed clothes, that was not frequently the case. In reality these were simple clothes like any others set apart only by two characteristics. First, the (often prominently displayed) logo of the designer; and second, the many times higher price. (As a side note, "the designer" was often not a designer at all but rather a company or brand) The fact that they were paying more for the privilege of advertising for a specific brand was not lost on the consumers of these clothes (jokes were frequently made to the same effect) but they bought and wore the clothes all the same. The reasons for this seemingly irrational behavior can be traced to the feedback loop created by the fact that everyone was seen waring certain logos, causing those logos to be viewed as a normal part of clothing, causing more people to buy logo-carrying clothes.
How did such a loop begin though? Many factors, but sex appeal was among them. Often stores would carry both average everyday clothes and immodest outfits together. While one would account for most of the sales, the other would fill the marketing materials. This would create "positive" associations with the brand name, thus making any clothes bearing that name trigger a small part of the response triggered by the immodest adds.
This was also done in many more subtle ways, but perhaps i should move on to the wonderful developments that freed us from this odd trend. Already at the turn of the millennium some web-business allowed people to design their own clothes, but these were expensive and only really allowed people to chose images to put on stock clothes. When these started allowing people to design the shape and makeup of their clothes, and more so when three dimensional printers allowed people to do the same thing at home, designer clothes soon went the way of CDs

After Abortion I

In the decades after legalized abortion ended--as we began to come to terms with the holocaust we had been blind to for so long--the realization that a unique human life begins at the moment of conception began to seep into all parts of society. A number of memorials to the unborn began to crop up around the country. The main one, at the old headquarters of Planed Parenthood in Washington D.C., comments on the fact that about as many little ones were killed everyday as there were people who died in the 9/11 attacks. In a central area It displays 365 unique sculptures of little ones, each with a scalpel crossing their bodies, and next to one such sculpture another of the twin towers falling. In the area around this-reflecting these icons over a hundred times-there are mirrors, one for each of the years that abortion was legal and a few more to memorialize the little ones killed by illegal abortions. Looking in on this are statues of women in poses of mourning, symbolizing the mothers who lost children to abortion.