The Chinese company Gigimo advertises its Artificial Hymen Virginity kit across the Arab world. The kit, which allows women to fake sexual purity on their wedding night, is the sort of product one might find in a novelty store or sex shop in America. But in Egypt, nuptial night virginity is deadly serious business. Women who buy the product may be nonvirgins afraid of discovery, or just brides looking for a little extra insurance that they’ll be able to fly the bloodstained sheet.
Lawmakers from Egypt’s conservative Muslim Brotherhood party have called for a ban on sales of the kit. Sheik Sayed Askar, a member of the party who serves on the parliament’s religious affairs committee, proclaims, “It will be a mark of shame on the ruling party if it allowed this product to enter the market.”
What a crazy idea. I’m glad I don’t live in Egypt. I wouldn’t fit in at all.
Lineage: The Wilson Quarterly, probably Winter 2009 issue.
Purchase and intentionally age soft drinks before giving them to someone. The drinks will retain their bubble and taste, all the while becoming cerebrally carcinogenic dietary saboteurs.
Using images from the SELENE craft, Moon researchers have found a giant hole (hundreds of feet wide and hundreds of feet deep) in what they think is a lava tube. The lava tube provides protection from meteorite strikes, cosmic rays, UV radiation, and harsh temperature variations, so it is an excellent candidate for further exploration inhabitance. Although the hole is probably the product of a tube collapse approximately 3.5 billion years ago, today the lava shield does not appear to be prone to collapse.
In most of its operations, the CIA is by definition a conspiracy, using covert actions and secret plans, many of which are of the most unsavory kind. What are covert operations if not conspiracies? At the same time, the CIA is an institution, a structural part of the national security state. In sum, the agency is an institutionalized conspiracy.
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Don’t Tip
Why tip? People say that it gives the waiter an economic incentive to do his job better. Because of this incentive, the meal will get to the table faster and the experience is generally more enjoyable.
Makes sense, no?
A waitress who takes your food 10 meters from the bench to your table deserves a tip, yet a man who spent weeks dealing with clients and sorting out technical issues for a large engineering project doesn’t? If tipping is to reward hard work and good service, then the engineer has done a hell of a lot more of both than the waitress. Why don’t we tip doctors? Why don’t we tip the mailman, bus driver, and dry cleaner?
The answer is because it tipping is nothing more than a tradition. It’s so locked in as tradition, that instead of tipping existing as a form of authentic personal charity, many people will take out their cell phones to calculate exactly how much 14% of the bill is. People who are short on money still feel obligated to tip, because the waiter would be insulted if he wasn’t paid extra. Countries like England, Japan, and Australia have no custom of tipping. In Switzerland, tipping is expected, but not more than 1.5% of the bill. In some countries, offering a tip would be considered condescending or demeaning.
Tipping became standard when a few rich people started doing it. It spread throughout the upperclass as a “socially responsible” thing to do and made people feel good for helping out the poor. This idea turned into an etiquette (read: required rules of society). The middle class inevitably emulated the rich, and the poor inevitably emulated the middle class.
Some take the stance that you should tip to get waiters up to minimum wage—but before you do this, you have to ask yourself why they are paid below minimum wage. Employers are allowed to pay waiters below minimum wage because tips make up a significant percentage of their income.
By tipping waiters to get them up to minimum wage, you are perpetuating the very system you seek to defeat. The more that you tip, the further restaurant workers’ real wages will fall. All you’re doing is increasing the restaurant owners’ profits by eliminating one of his highest costs and throwing away good money. It’s the employer’s job to pay his employees for their services, not the customer’s.