Thursday evening roundup and catty ramble

Zakaria on culture. In related news, Israel is hardly the only actor in that conflict who doesn't always help its own cause.

"Fetal pain" is not a scientifically sound concept.

Meet Puerto Rico's most offensive German.

Are all-women's business schools best?

Really? People are gonna hate on Gabby Douglas' hair? Also, has it come to this--the Post essentially asking, on its front page, whether the women's gymnastics team is smiley enough? Notice they don't ask that about the men.

I enjoyed Conan's Chaz-the-intolerant-chicken videos, but they're too much for even me to post here. In the meantime, enjoy Mike Drucker's tweet on the issue of the day. Also, Josh Ozersky has changed his mind. Maybe now that Hooters is getting an image makeover, he can go there for his chicken fix. No? Well, there's always the douche burger. Even if you eat in, read those supermarket labels carefully so you don't get a complimentary dose of antibiotics with your chicken.

The Onion's recap of the Indian power outage is funny because it's true.

We all need our space, especially when we travel, but there's no need to be discourteous.

Manolo is there for those of you trying to get your guy to replace those shabby mandals.

Gwyneth Paltrow might want to get a new publicist, because this isn't going to help her image.

So as not to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth, let's close with a celebrity who appears to be on the opposite end of the "out of touch" spectrum: Rashida Jones:

We’re going through a major evolution, and men haven’t had the same evolution. At some point we’re going to have to do something to bring them along. What are they doing? Get it together! We’re going to have an entire generation of smart, stable successful women go without men, because they’re just playing video games and dating younger girls.

 ***
That's a decent segue into my ramble. It may come off as catty, but I mean it to be uplifting. Here it goes:

A guy I used to work with once described another guy we worked with as “the kid you wanted to beat the crap out of in middle school.” This description was so apt—so apt that even the fact that this man was now an adult did not detract from its resonance—and that, years later, over drinks with a former colleague—I was already working elsewhere—I used the description because I couldn’t remember the guy’s name, and the former colleague instantly knew whom I was referring to.

I share this anecdote to demonstrate that though annoying may be a relative term, some people are more universally annoying. And other people who are not necessarily annoying themselves—perhaps it's because they are patient—consistently attract and retain annoying company. A friend of mine falls into this category. A colleague of her husband’s is so annoying that he alienated everyone in his office. So I'm not the only one to find him exceptionally irksome. He’s not unlike that guy I used to work with—the one you wanted to beat up—only that guy's wife is a perfectly annoying complement to her massively annoying husband, whereas Mr. Exceptionally Irksome’s wife is perfectly lovely. It pains me to watch her husband drive her crazy at the mutual friend’s gatherings. I asked Mutual Friend what Perfectly Lovely wife sees in her Exceptionally Irksome husband; her response, to some extent laden with her own experience, was: “sometimes the drive to have children is so strong that you blind yourself to things... but even PL is getting to the end of her rope with EI.”

So, Mutual Friend has another very annoying friend—so annoying that MF warns me when VAF’s going to be at her gatherings. MF acknowledges that VAF is annoying but shrugs it off, citing her high tolerance for annoying people (yet, honoring my substantially lower tolerance). VAF invokes Janice from “Friends,” or the queen of annoying, Fran Drescher, in whiny substance as much as in style. Imagine my double-take, then, when I read in a recent Smith Alum Quarterly that VAF was living with her “great boyfriend.” There really is a Jack for every Jill. I say this not out of spite—bless her, bless them both! I think it’s awesome; I say it to reiterate the very point I’ve been making for years: there really is someone for everyone.