Sorry, Steph, that movie was (is?) one of the least pleasant cinematic experiences of my long life. "Joe" shouldn't quit his day job. Thanks for the warning about this new one. Why would you want to understand it less?

Girlfriend, you need a vacation.

xxxoooxxx

Did you know that The Greatest Man Who Has Ever Lived And The Hem Of Whose Garments We Are Not Fit To Touch, Jon Stewart, belonged to a fraternity? Yes, he left after 6 months. But he still has that shameful spot on his resume.

According to most Salon readers, to make a generalization about a group of people and to suggest that they all share the same traits and beliefs is just one step above stomping puppies to death, and just below child molestation. At least when the victims are black people, Muslims, gays, or liberals. But "Frat Boys"? F-them. They're all the same. They all tell racist jokes, slip Rufies to their dates, torture mice during drinking games, dump fizzies into the swim meet, deliver the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinners, etc etc etc.

I was not a member of a fraternity. I thought it was pretty stupid in college, too. But to use "Frat Boy" as an adjective is pretty lazy.

Sometimes it needs to be played with. There's more than one way of telling a story. Just ask Laurence Sterne or James Joyce or John Barth or the Oulipo. The worlds of art and literature would be pretty boring without the experimental kind.

You're correct that it's not fair to paint all fraternity members with the broad brush of bad behavior. I recall several examples from my college years of upstanding young men who defied the legacy of drunkenness and stupid pranks that has reigned in many fraternities for decades.

But I noted an odd turn of logic in your letter, when you complained that it's acceptable to ridicule frat boys, but not certain other groups. Among the groups you listed were black people and gays. Now, you may be among those who think that being gay is a choice, but being black (and according to most rational sources, being gay) is not something you choose--it's just who you are. Skin color and sexual orientation are not behaviors--they're characteristics. Ridiculing or shaming someone for bad behavior is fair game; ridiculing or shaming someone for just being who they are is not.

Fraternity membership isn't something that one is born with, or that one simply falls into by accident. It's a conscious choice, taken no younger than the age of college admission (unlike religious affiliation, I might add), and it requires considerable time and effort. Joining involves a more or less stringent and selective pledge procedure, and no small amount of cash. Nobody in this country reaches college age without being fully aware of the reputation fraternities have for bad behavior, so joining such an organization involves shouldering a share of that reputation. Jon Stewart surely understood that, and so do you.

Every year the Taoist Tai Chi Society celebrates Tai Chi Awareness Day in Toronto. Thousands of members from countries all over the world gather in front of Toronto's city hall to practice tai chi and to raise awareness. You can find out more about the society at taoist.org.