A Meaningless Title

If the lecturer says they only have time for one more question, and it's going to have to be brief, perhaps you could consider making your question slightly more specific than "How do you think Rome influenced western culture?"

Hey, everyone? I understand, everyone hates Twilight. I understand, nobody wants to see Twilight crap everywhere. However, in expressing your distain from the series, could you please try and avoid the following arguments:

- Complaints that Twilight vampires aren’t ‘real’ vampires, because real vampires aren’t sexy. Seriously? If you can find one of those ‘real’ vampires that isn’t portrayed as unearthly alluring, I’d be very interested to see it. Come on, people – ‘erotic vampire’ has a long and noble tradition. The element of seduction is practically the defining element of a vampire story. I’ll grant you, Edward and company are a little too domestic for my tastes – but then, they are portrayed as very much in the minority of the vampire population of their setting.

- Complaints that Twilight’s sexist. Hey, I’m not arguing, but a lot of people seem to be singling out Twilight in a way that isn’t really justified. Does it have some extremely dubious tropes? Sure. Is it any worse than the majority of pop culture? No, I don’t think so. Will it somehow corrupt an entire generation of young women with its messages on gender relations? You know, if the last few thousand years of western culture haven’t done that, I don’t think Twilight’s going to be the straw to break the camel’s back.

- Pointing out Stephanie Meyer’s Mormon. I see a lot of people abruptly mentioning this when complaining about the books, generally with no attempts to elaborate as to a, why this is relevant or b, why this is bad.

Remember, Twilight has a great many flaws; there’s no need to keep harping on these three points over and over.

Note to the people campaigning for the student council elections: If someone walks past with headphones on, very carefully avoiding making any eye contact with you, and has begun humming out loud to drown you out... it's probably a waste of time to deliver your entire sales pitch to them.

I mean, damn - when the Mormon missionaries lurking around the campus gates get the message faster, that's really something.

Alright, all you people who think yourselves ever so clever by butting into political discussions to announce that “The United States isn’t democracy, it’s a republic!”? Yeah, shut the hell up, please.

No, the US is not a direct democracy – but that’s hardly the only ‘real’ form of democracy. Representative democracies can be just as legitimately referred to as democracies, alright? Plus, you guys have lots of referendums and initiatives that are put to the popular vote, so you’ve got at least some elements of a direct democracy anyway.

Yes, the US is a republic – that’s not something special you get to brag about. A republic technically is nothing more than a state that is not governed by a monarch. Britain or Australia are (representative) democracies, but not republics, while China or Belarus are republics while not being democracies. The United States is both; they’re not mutually exclusive terms.

So stop saying it, alright? All it does is make you look ignorant.

Thank you.