When I did a report on Walt Disney in the fifth grade, he became solidified in my mind as the quintessential American.  To me, the American Dream is indeed a dream, not a forgone conclusion.  You have to work to make dreams come true.  And when there are Fairy Godmothers, you have to be deserving.  The realms in the Magic Kingdom: Adventureland, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Tomorrowland all glorify the American impulse to actively create and progress, not wait idly dependent on someone else.

Some of the original Disney animated shorts are incredibly profound and insightful reflections on the human experience, which makes me sad that they don't air them anymore on the Disney Channel (that's how I first saw them).  "The Ugly Duckling," with no dialogue, can still bring tears to my eyes.

When I first saw this list, I could not take it seriously.  The number one item that leads off all the rest of the advice is: "1. One old boyfriend you can imagine going back to and one who reminds you of how far you’ve come."  That's the first thing they think you should have.  A past relationship that you regret.  Must we have that?  I mean, I know we all do.  But is it required?  

It's funny how in the two episodes so far of "Girls," the friends have split off and talked about each other's choices behind one another's backs and argued about the best approach.  In the end, the consensus is simply to "be there for her."  They are definitely still judgmental, just not to anyone's face.  That seems worse to me than being either blindly supportive or painfully honest.  I think it makes women passive-aggressive, the one thing I've never been able to tolerate in female friendships.

I think this speaks less to the "everyone's a winner" mentality of our young generation and more to the absurd importance placed on college.  The only reason why people's feelings would be hurt is because they've been told that college is the be-all and end-all.  That's why rejection from a school is such a crushing blow to someone's self esteem.  Not because they can't handle any rejection (maybe they can't) but because they can't handle being unwanted by their choice for the glorious four-year experience that makes all people happy and fulfilled and gives them a good future.  They've been told for all of high school that it's the most important thing.  Can you imagine having the door to the most important thing closed in your face?  Hardened to rejection or not, a kid would be naturally upset.

I wasn't sure if my answer touched on this -- but you aren't precluded.  You'd just have to format it twice for Amazon and B&N.

For Barnes and Noble Nook formatted books you have to use their E-pub, which I haven't done yet, so I don't know much about.

Having it up on Amazon is great.  Once your book has a page you can create an author page and both CreateSpace and KDP have ways of tracking sales.  It's all very professional and feels about as good as I imagine any other conventional publishing experience.  Your book is right there, out in the world, tangible.  It's fantastic!  If you have any other specific questions, shoot me a message.

I've self-published two books through Amazon and it's a separate process for paperback and e-book.  If you would like the book to be available for purchase as a hard copy, use Amazon CreateSpace.  It's very straightforward, although does require some fiddling around with pdfs to get the manuscript portion formatted for the size paperback you are after.  You then can design your own cover using their templates.  Once you go through the proofing process where they send you a sample book, you select your distribution channels.  The free and simple way to do it is just to make it available through the Amazon website, however there is an option to expand distribution through other booksellers for a fee.  Making it available as a Kindle is unfortunately separate and you do that through Kindle Direct Publishing.  In both cases, you set the price of the book based on the royalty you want.

I love the parenthetical clarification at the end of the Gawker post: "Like most left-wingers, I abhor actual violence."  Does this mean we can now attribute any personal preference to a political ideology?  Okay!  Like most people who don't vote straight ticket, I prefer iceberg lettuce.

People need to start calling this whole affair like it is: a botched attempt at retribution.  One unfortunate person with a grudge didn't have the patience to settle a score with any finesse.  He didn't even realize that he was implicating himself! 

Irrational initiation rituals have existed for all of civilization. Colleges have been nihilistic playgrounds forever.  Nothing new is being exposed here.  It's news because people like to find fault with the elite by exaggerating the same vices found in everyone.  

As for Dartmouth, my alma mater too, it doesn't matter how it's portrayed.  The people who were happy there will never think any less of it and the people who weren't happy will never change it.  The vast majority of the population that has no affiliation with it couldn't care less what goes on there.

For someone "subservient to the greater truth of comedy," Alf Lamont certainly takes himself pretty seriously.  He actually bothered to speak to a Professor of Humor before he sat down to write his Huffington Post 'Top Five Reasons Why...' diary entry.  I don't think anyone in the history of that genre has done research.  Although I'm trying to picture the conversation he and the expert had.  "Hey, did you notice there are no jokes in the Declaration of Independence?" "Yeah, what's up with that?" "It just points to a larger trend."  "What trend?"  "Part of the population has no sense of humor."  "Yes.  Good.  Let me write this down."

I guess the t-shirt will make me look cool when I go out, but do I have to get the whole pack?  Even the buttons?  Of course!  The pack isn't complete without the buttons!  The buttons are the linchpin of the pack.  But I don't want the buttons.  Buttons are only good for poking yourself accidentally.  They're a horrible idea.  Yes, but you have to have the buttons.  See, it won't work without them.  The buttons are the whole reason we put the pack together in the first place.  Don't worry, though, they're perfectly harmless!  It's not like anyone's going to take us to court over them, haha!

No, I haven't, but I did spend four years at an all-girls high school.  There was no overwrought reflection on gender identity, save for the "so glad I don't have to wear make-up here" comments every morning.   I didn't realize same-sex educational institutions held such allure for people on their quests for meaning.  I could tell you all kinds of secrets!

There are people who are "uncertain of what box to check" that are subjecting themselves to the application process of specifically single-sex institutions?  

Only a college student would entertain the delusion that human beings exist who would willingly undergo such pointlessly arduous spiritual and intellectual self-reflection of no benefit to the progress of civilization.

It pulled the picture for me.  But it's nice to know that his campaign is an international affair.  Like the O'Bama St. Patrick's Day best-selling t-shirts: it's a (oh, come on, is this for real?) crowd-pleaser.

I am willing to bet money that Rutherford B. Hayes would not have used the word "folks" that many times in one breath.

Folks.  It's like we're not even people to him.

I discuss much of what you have brought up in the second part of the article series, which examines instances of linguistic manipulation.  In this piece, I mostly wanted to focus on the common basis of both language and economy: means of exchange.

As I hope you'll see in this and next week's post, however, is that I am not so much concerned with obvious euphemisms, but with the subtler loss of meaning of actual words we use.  It's easy to see re-labeling and prettifying, yet it's not so easy to notice that there are words disappearing from misuse.

Orwell and others pointed to active manipulation, but there are ways the state is changing our language without themselves realizing.