Hitchens explains Islam and why it is so STUPID.

I may yet forgive Hitchens for his lick-spittle espousal and endorsement of the Iraq War. Maybe not. Let's just say that, in gratitude for his loving, sadistic dissection of Islam, I admit of prayers being offered for the salvation of his non-existent soul. 

FRONTLINE The Shakespeare Mystery

I am desolate to have to agree with a man who thinks it not impolite to say that the Earl of Oxford and Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon had all been (in his slimily inelegant, but what he yet apparently considers to be socially permissible, phrase) "roaring homos"--and that Shakespeare (whoever he may have been) hadn't been--, but he's right about that. And that's the difference between Shakespeare and Marlowe (apart from Marlowe's being, when he's hot, the more magical poet): Shakespeare's straight, Marlowe's gay.

Marlowe, yes, is gay (gay, gay), and Shakespeare's straight--Ma nota bene that what I mean by "straight" is "normally bisexual."  And Marlowe isn't (at all bisexual--being pretty much exclusively a woman-hating, vagina-phobic roaring homo). 

The Epic of Gilgamesh, Lecture by Andrew George

Yet once again we learn that Gilgamesh is not exactly a gay epic poem. And that it should not matter if it were. I'm really really tired of learning this.

What is the Difference between Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodoxy?

 The clergy of the Eastern Rite are not homosexual pedophiles.

What are Metonyms? | Advanced English Vocabulary

This is worth, as they say, "reacting-to."

Most of these Self-Conscious Briticisms are indeed yours, Tom, and you may have them. Some ("tits up" in particular) are in fact old American slang, but of course you're welcome to them. And some--I'm giving you fair warning--I intend to steal: "Jammy" and "Zeh-bra Crossing" are too good to pass up. Especially since "jammies" is already American childish slang for what are in your terms "jim-jams," and it sounds a little weirdly but not unpleasantly cute.

Eating Meat

There is horror in it, which must be acknowledged and overcome before we can enjoy it. So,  whether we be eating our Mother Cow--or nobly philosophic Brother Goose, or gently charitable Sister Hen, or jaunty-to-the-last Cousin Lobster--my general rule is: Have a bite of Something Else with it. 

BEST ULTIMATE MEGA TRIVIA QUIZ GAME | #8 | 100 General knowledge Questi...

For a Culture Quotient test it will do. Yet I would disallow questions of Harry Potter reference, on the grounds that J. Rowling's prose is too wretchedly bad ever seriously to be referenced. Notice that I do not split my infinitives. And my total ignorance of Harry Potter (books and movies) is not feigned. Or at all regretted. And certainly not repented-of.

Hippies: The Rise and Fall of Our Cultural Ancestors

Et in Arcadia ego. Still, by grasping-for, our Continental next-generation somewhat fails to seize: We Hippies brought about the end of military conscription in peacetime in the United States of America. Otherwise, what M. Baudrillard says is perfectly true--but what of it? We were young, and we have grown old. It was to be expected..

The MOST FRUSTRATING part about English! 🇬🇧😩 | Feli from Germany

But seriously, if you're frustrated, you're going at it wrong. English spelling is essentially pictographic--representing the sounds of words approximatively, like a choreographer's chart, rather than being an exact and consistent phonetic description: With pictographs what you get is arbitrary, silly, Old School stuff--things represented not as they are, but as what someone-or-other supposes them to be of-the-order-of. Bullshit. Still, that's what the written English language says about itself: What's important in English is where words come from, and how long they have been here--realizing that, in a language as old and multi-various in its parentage as English, much is demanded of the listener/reader, both of subtlety of perception, and of awareness of historical resonance. I'm sorry for those who think it's all much more fluid and immediate than that--but things have history. And language, after all, is a thing.                                                                                                             

Vortex I : A Biodegradable Festival of Life

Comme je disais.

Vortex 1: How a rock festival saved Portland from chaos | Oregon Experience

So.