Stars n Moons 9/05/07

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

By PJH Staff

In on it
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Jackson Hole is a great place to bring the folks. Mine came in August and I took them to those places you take your parents: Snow King (“This is a ski lift, Mom! It’s like a roller coaster, but slow!”), Yellowstone, GTNP, art galleries, Shades, and even a little fingernail-biting adventure to Yurt-ville in Kelly (“I’m not moving into a tent, Dad. All I’m saying is that I’m not NOT moving into KIND OF a tent.”).

Bringing your parents here revives your “ooh, Jackson” exhilaration. Big ups to the service industry, which consistently gave us indulgent smiles when we were too loud, annoying and couldn’t order food correctly.

“Where are you from?” they would ask. My family would chime in, and then I’d say “I live in Jackson.” At that, the ski-lift operator or waitress would shoot me a Significant Look that made me feel like they were going to invite me to their tree house or supersecret fort later, because we were cool – both in on it. “Ah, the folks,” it said. So get the ’rents out here. You get the best of the tourist world and the thrill of feeling in on it all at once.
— Grace Hammond

Pageant values
A couple of weeks ago, Miss Teen South Carolina Lauren Caitlin Upton, a lovely, toe-headed 18-year-old from a region occasionally stigmatized for holding women in some traditional if mythological role of “Southern Belle,” became instantly famous for her complete disregard for grammar and understanding of, well, pretty much anything.
Nearly 20 million YouTube viewers have watched Ms. Upton’s response in the Miss Teen USA competition to the question of why a recent study indicated one out of five young Americans could not locate the United States on a map.

“I personally believe,” she began, “that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because some people in our nation don’t have maps. And I believe that our education such as in South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere, like, such as … ”
It actually gets worse, though she does cleverly wrap it all together at the end with a last ditch “for our children.”

Criticism and parody lobbed her way in the wake of her solecism is the new village response in this viral online era, and it was admirable that she confronted all of the attention with a few morning show appearances. Still, what all the hoopla seems to be about is that the sheer lack of intelligence in her response was not merely a crack under pressure, but points to a value system that emphasizes youthful her beauty and downplays the ability to string words together in a lucid sentence.
— Ben Cannon


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Stars n Moons 9/05/07 | Planet JH News Article: Stars & Moons

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