Cheese Burger in Paradise

Ah. The sweet smell of fried pickles, Twinkies, Oreo's, corn, burgers, and basically anything you can fit into a deep fryer. The feeling of stickiness everywhere you go. The slight bit of haze in the air from all the smoking grills (and people). The sounds of motorcycle engines, Jimmy Buffet, and endless chatter fill the air. That my friends is the Cheese Burger Festival - also known as Cheese Burger in Paradise - in Caseville, Michigan. Every year my family drives 2 hours to stuff our faces with an endless amount of greasy burgers. Despite my previous explanation, I actually look forward to going to the festival every year. I even own a cheese burger hat! 

If you are interested in joining in on the fun, here are some tips you should know before venturing into cheese burger paradise. 

1) Make sure to wear elastic pants. Pants, such as jeans, will cut off your circulation as your stomach gradually gets larger from all the burgers. 

2) Wear sunscreen! You're going to be having such a blast scarfing down carbs, you won't even notice the horrendous farmers tan you've acquired. Also as your T-zone (forehead, nose, and chin) gets more oily from all the fried food, it starts to act like tanning oil. Except instead of getting a nice golden glow, you go home looking like a tomato.

3) Bring money for souvenirs. You don't want your only memory of the Cheese Burger Festival experience to be you with a horrible stomach ache, do you? To make sure this doesn't happen, invest in a cheese burger hat or an overpriced t-shirt that is very poorly made. 

Now that you know all the tips and tricks, you are ready to make the most of your trip to Cheese Burger in Paradise! Have fun, and remember calories don't count if you don't count them! 

I Want a Husband

I want a husband. I want a husband who is handy. If the kitchen faucet is leaky, I want it fixed today. Not tomorrow, not in a week, today. I want a husband who can keep it together - emotionally- when I can't. If my hamster dies, I need him to stay stone faced and show no emotion while I am a crying mess. I want a husband who will give me a fairy tale ending. I want everyday to feel like one of those "once upon a time" stories. In order to do so, it is mandatory that at least every week my husband plans an extraordinary night out, to keep things interesting.  I want a husband who is comfortable with his masculinity. If I buy him a nice button up top with pink elephants on it and a magenta tie, I better see him wearing it the next day to work. I will not tolerate a husband who complains. "Everyone will make fun of me if I wear this!" I would passive aggressively respond, "well I guess that means you don't love me" and that would be that. I want a husband who is intelligent. I need to be able to have a conversation about things other than football, or any sport for that matter. My husband will need to speak with perfect rhetoric when he deals with all the negotiating he does for me: phone bills, tchotchkes I don't need but buy anyway, convincing the Starbucks barista that I actually ordered a grande, not a tall, so I get to keep both, etc. I want a husband who makes a lot of money. My husband will need to be able to pay my credit card bill, buy me expensive gifts, and send me the most luxurious flowers he can find, just because. Jesus, who wouldn't want a husband. 

Gender Typing in Toys

At a very young age (I'm talking straight out of the womb) men and women are placed into categories. Baby girls are swaddled in pink blankets, and boys in blue. Little girls are given dolls, and boys receive toy trucks. Likewise, girls enlist in dance classes, while boys participate in sports. Thankfully these gender stereotypes are becoming a thing of the past. I am proud to be growing up in a generation were gender isn't so concrete, but rather more fluid. Young girls are encouraged to play with legos and other toys that were once considered masculine, and young boys can now try ballet without feeling like their masculinity is being tarnished.
Many toy brands have recently put out more gender inclusive toys. With this being said I feel some brands are making the divide even bigger, when in reality their intentions are the exact opposite. For example, the brand Nerf now makes Nerf guns for boys and girls. Which is wonderful, but they had to name it Nerf Rebelle. In the words of Deborah Tannen, "endings like ess and ette mark words as 'female'". In this case the ending elle presumably makes this product 'girly'. In addition to the name of this toy, the design is just as feminine. Lets look at a side by side shall we....

As you can tell, the Nerf guns on the left are obviously meant for girls, and the toy on the right for boys. Why couldn't Nerf just picture a boy and girl together on one product, rather than making two categories? This is a result of the archaic way of thinking that if you make a product pink, girls will buy it. Hopefully the changing perspective of consumers will in turn effect the way manufacturers  make their products. 

Airport Security

While I’m currently bed ridden with the plague, I’ve had a lot of time to stare at walls and painstakingly refresh Instagram every 5 minutes. But more importantly, I’ve been able to further ponder our disscusion from class about racial profiling. 

Especially in this day and age, racial profiling is extremely prevalent in airports. In security lines it is unfortunately more common to see a Muslim couple pulled aside for further inspection, rather than a white couple. In a debate between securityologist Bruce Schneier and critic of religion Sam Harris, about whether we should profile Muslims in airpoint security, Harris states “we know who the danger is, it ain’t old ranchers from Texas or pretty blondes from San Diego—it’s Muslims, so let’s focus airport security on them” (ACLU.org). Sadly, if we adopted this close minded and bigoted way of thinking, secrurity officals would overlook threats that come from all races and religion. 

In a New York Times article titled “Traveling While Muslim Complicates Air Travel”, by Michael T. Luongo, he interviews Nafees Syed a lawyer and writer in New York. Syed tells Luongo that she has to go “an extra hour earlier than anybody else [to the airport], because it’s not random checking”. In addition, she explains how she is often pulled aside “at security check-in for secondary screenings and pat-downs, the examiner feeling her head through the hijab.” The racial profiling done by security officers in airports is a byproduct of the views our society holds today. With such influences as the media, and even our own president, it is easy to unconsciously profile others because it is viewed as socially acceptable. The only way to stop racial profiling is to educate others on cultural differences, maybe then a trip to the airport won’t be as daunting to those of others religions/ethnicities.