2 Cents on The Bromance

For months, I couldn’t bear the word “bromance” without rolling my eyes in disgust.  Articles like this one were some of the offenders.  Why was I so put off by men having guy time with their buds?  

It took me some time to sort all this out, but I finally did - at the movies.

Male-oriented comedies have been everywhere in recent years.  And since I love movies, I’ve seen a lot of them.  There’s a question of life imitating art or art imitating life that I won’t delve into too much, but film is often a high-profile participant in cultural discourse.  And what we’re seeing in these stories are men, their problems, and their friendships, all couched in some variation of the of men-behaving-badly ethos: the bromance, once an innocent enough expression of male bonding and friendship, has gained such traction in our culture as to become a prescriber of and apologist for bad behavior.  This aspect of the bromance trend bothered me so much because these behaviors ultimately hurt women, though in recent films that hurt has rarely been shown, let alone examined. 

6 Cents on Driving Stick

I've never been much into cars.  That I drove a grandma-mobile in high school bothered me only slightly.  When I finally graduated to a cooler, younger car after college, I was certainly pleased, but I cared more about the fact that it was new and clean and had a CD player than I did about the make or model.  As for the engine, or anything else operating under the hood, I still couldn't tell you what any of that is about, even after 8 years and 100,000 miles together.

But, I'd always wanted to drive a stick shift.

4 Cents on Driving Stick

For my 1976 high school graduation, my daddy asked (and answered), "What kind of car do you want, a Chevette? Good.  That's what you are going to get." So... for a graduation gift, I received a pea green 4-speed manual transmission Chevette. I waited with bated breath for my parents to bring my new car home. Upon their arrival, and since I had no idea how to drive a stick, daddy put me in the passenger side and proceeded to demonstrate "how easy it is" to drive a manual transmission vehicle. My demo lasted around the neighborhood block.

2 Cents on Driving Stick

There are many reasons why I love my car. One, it fits my personality (at least, I think). It’s a red, two-door coupe, it’s big trunk allows me to carry a lot of cargo, after eleven years there have been few mechanical issues, and even though the car has had a few, minor incidents, as my grandfather says, “It takes a licking, and comes back kicking.” And because I keep a fairly clean car, I (usually) don’t mind driving and showing if off. But the best thing about my car: the look of surprise on people’s faces that it’s a stick shift.

Six Cents on Citizen Journalism

In undergrad it was always interesting which professors were pro and anti-Wikipedia. Some professors were certain that Wikipedia would lead to the end of academia. Some professors felt confident that the website was always one hundred percent factual and ended any debate. More commonly, professors would advise the use of Wikipedia only for “light reference” or brainstorming. These were my favorite professors: the ones who when asked a question, “How many times was Henry Clay Speaker of the House?” would answer with, “I don’t remember—look it up on Wikipedia.” They were my favorite because they were not naive enough to think we spent hours and hours looking for obscure sources in the library, but they also realized to ban Wikipedia from the classroom would also make us use it more.

Four Cents on Citizen Journalism

The truth is ... I probably haven't given "Citizen Journalism" much thought until I read this blog. And honestly -- I haven't given it much thought after reading this blog either. With that said, however, it sure seems like the tools available make it easy for everyone to contribute, so what's really the problem?

Two Cents on Citizen Journalism

I'm pretty excited about this blog.  

I admit I've created - and abandoned - several blogs in the past.  That's probably due to a number of factors: my extreme laziness; an inability to stick with anything even remotely demanding for which I'm not getting paid or being graded; a perfectionist's reluctance to put anything into the world that isn't, well, perfect; dread of public sharing that is too private and/or too confessional and a fear that anything I write might end up to be just that; and, perhaps most important, a growing ambivalence toward citizen journalism. 

Welcome to Six Cents!

This is how we're thinking it's going to work. Someone will post on any topic the heart desires - "Two cents on ..." Then, two posts will follow that should draw from, reflect on, or be informed by the original post.

No other rules exist, really: just three posts, more or less related, for a total of "six cents."

Once we have our six cents, the cycle starts again with someone's two cents on a new topic.

There's no reason why we're limiting it to three posts except three people are originating the blog.

Plus we think we're being pretty clever with the whole six cents / sixth sense pun. Get it?