I will admit to being afraid of almost everything; in some ways, I am a female version of Bob Wiley, taking baby steps to everything. I don't like the dark, don't like certain numbers, don't like horror films, don't like crowds, don't like heights- you name it, I'm probably afraid of it. Yet these are fears that can be conquered for the most part, through practice, exposure, medication, and a general outgrowing of things. The big fears in our lives are usually the easiest to work on, as they can be targeted and broken down into tiny pieces.

And then there are the smaller fears; the ridiculous things we hate to admit to anyone, because they seem so insane and embarrassing. I have a friend who is terrified of clowns, and quite embarrassed about it. "Because I know, logically," she says, "that it's just a dude with makeup on. But it's still so fucking creepy." My younger sister is afraid of "anything with wings" and dreads the springtime, as it signals the return of birds, bees, and moths. It's not a paralyzing fear, just a general sense of being creeped out that she can't seem to outrun.

The Onion piece brings up one of my ridiculous fears: audience participation. When I was in 6th grade, we took a class field trip to see CATS, and as soon as those giant costumed people started roaming up and down the aisle, I had the same reaction as one of the fictional audience members in the Onion piece: "Oh, man, are they? Shit," one audience member was overheard saying as the energetic ensemble began filing down previously unseen stairs and past the front row. "Shit, shit, shit."

I suppose it is a boundary issue: watching the show is one thing. Having the show sit next to you is quite another. I know some people LOVE shows like this, and rave about the interaction, but I still get freaked out, even though everyone teases me for it. This same wave of dread kicks in every time I find myself in a situation where someone suggests "icebreaker games" or when I have to go through the receiving line at a random wedding. Some of us just like to sit back and observe, and it's strange when you suddenly feel the tables being turned on you. Especially when those tables are being turned by performers dressed as giant cats.

So what are your ridiculous fears? And do you have a means of overcoming them?

Oh No, Performers Coming Into The Audience [The Onion]

So, Norah (Kat Dennings) takes Nick (Michael Cera) to the studio her dad owns on New York's Lower East Side. Nick is fondling a sweet Stratocaster but making goo-goo eyes at Norah. Norah decides to take matters into her own hands (quel surprise!) and makes a move on Nick. They start making out and the camera pans off them. Nick makes some cute comment about how her pants are hard to unbutton, and Norah makes some satisfied orgasm noises and the camera pans back to them in post-fingered bliss.

While most movies about teens show them ripping off all their clothes and fornicating pornily after 30 seconds, Nick's awkward third-base meanderings are so much more like what happens with real seventeen-year-olds in the flush of their first hook-up with a new person. Norah later admits she's only kissed one other person before, and this is additionally realistic, as she's brainy and goes to an all-girls school. Also, I've never seen a movie where someone got fingered (well, except for Reese Witherspoon in Fear, and that's on a rollercoaster and then Marky Mark ends up being a terrifying stalker). And also! Norah doesn't touch his penis, and I was glad that for once, a teenage girl is shown getting some pleasure. Far too often teenage girls in narrative cinema and television are only allowed to have the pleasure of a sexual experience if they are later punished with a pregnancy (or having their boyfriend turn into a terrifying stalker).

Final verdict on the film: moderately amusing, good soundtrack, accurate portrayal of teen sex.

Earlier: Why I Already Irrationally Hate Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
The Earnest Fumbling Manchildren Of Film Make Crappy Boyfriends

First off, I participated in a study like this once in college (I sold my body for science pretty regularly; I was poor). The scientists wanted to see whether actual fear or just worry had an impact on sexual arousal, so they set me up with a sensor in my cooter and a randomly-rotating series of film clips that including porn, nature videos that did not show animals fucking, and a "scary" scene from the movie. That scene, unfortunately for them, was the dental-torture scene from Marathon Man. I say "unfortunately" because I am not scared of dentists and so I just busted out laughing and probably skewed their results. The same standard applies here: pictures can or can not be frightening to people, depending on their phobias or preconceived notions. One could just as easily say that conservatives are more prone to being afraid of bugs, or that liberal have more exposure to bugs since they're "outdoorsy" or something and thus aren't scared. Like, you want to get that enormous spider crawling on my face, I think I'd react with plenty of fear, but looking at it once removed it totally fine. I could also argue with the sample size and homogenous population of the study, but at least the author, John Alford, acknowledges that as a flaw.

Look, it's a brilliant study for an election year because it allows people to spin it anyway they want — and if the Newsweek article and the one in the National Geographic News are any indication, people have already started. Conservatives are scared of every little shadow! Liberals aren't scared enough! Politics has its roots in biology! The red state-blue state divide cannot be overcome! Like any survey, you can pull out the conclusions that you like best — and most people will.

Ummm, oh, and Alford thinks that Mark Penn is has "a sort of folk wisdom that exceeds the general knowledge, and even the academic knowledge." Okay, now, that's some scary shit right there.

Are You More Likely To Be Politically Left Or Right If You Scare Easily? [Scientific American]
Spiders, Maggots, Politics [Newsweek]
Conservatives Have Stronger Startle Reflexes? [National Geographic News]

MEGAN: So Jason, another typical day in the world except for the harbingers of the financial apocalypse and all.

JASON: Oh but yes. And welcome to the party, AIG! Pull up a chair. Dig that crazy Friday. It's an unmitigated mess.

MEGAN: Ah, yes, AIG, which keeps telling me over the television that I should choose them for car insurance over Geico. Hmmm, maybe next week...

JASON: Not to worry, of course. Our brave politicians will save us, with platitudes:

"The challenges facing our financial system today are more evidence that too many folks in Washington and on Wall Street weren't minding the store," Obama said in a statement. "Eight years of policies that have shredded consumer protections, loosened oversight and regulation, and encouraged outsized bonuses to CEOs while ignoring middle-class Americans have brought us to the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression."

MEGAN: Oh, but, at least it's not John McCain's fault or anything.

"I certainly don't fault Sen. McCain for these problems," Obama said, "but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to."

JASON: Right! And then the next graf is about "sleazy ads." Keep watching the shiny object, America. On the upside of course, is that sleazy political ads are at least an economic growth sector.

MEGAN: Hilariously, actually, I was watching Murder She Wrote last night on the Hallmark Channel and every commercial break was a McCain-Palin ad. For 3 full hours, yo. Old people for McCain-Palin!

JASON: But these are tremendous losses that are being socialized. And what's coming next are the auto manufacturers, looking for their bailout. Of course, THEY DIDN'T SEE ANY OF THIS COMING.

MEGAN: Oh, of course they'll get bailed out — Michigan's a swing state.

JASON: But don't worry about a thing, America! The commercial airline industry will TOTALLY KEEP ITSELF ALOFT on their new business model of luggage surcharges.

MEGAN: Also, fuck those luggage surcharges. That shit is really a pain in the ass to expense!

JASON: Word. Our reimbursement forms need a new line item, "RANDOM GOUGING."

MEGAN: Anyway, did you know McCain already has an ad up about the financial crisis? Amusingly, when it says "end special interest giveaways" (except when it involved giveaways to the lobbyists that work for the campaign), it shows a picture of the Lehman Brothers sign. You know, the organization going bankrupt instead of being bailed out? I laughed. Also, by the way, drilling will fix Merrill Lynch.

JASON: Yeah! That's hilarious the way they stuck it to Lehman! Meanwhile, his running mate thinks that Fannie and Freddie were, prior to their bailout, a "too big" burden on taxpayers. And really, McCain needs to stop using oil drilling as the centerpiece of a platter of economic solutions. Drill, baby, drill. I think we might need to start drilling ACTUAL babies, a la a Jonathan Swift solution to our crises.

MEGAN: Well, they are a big burden on taxpayers now! Before, they were privately held! But they support the bail-out. Like George Bush, they want to cut taxes but they will definitely, definitely increase spending.

Also, hilariously, I tried to write an essay for an essay contest in about 2003 that was Jonathan Swift-esque — the question was about the trade-off between freedom and security. But then every time I came up with something that seemed SO ABSURDIST that it couldn't be true, like eating babies, the Republicans went and made it policy. I finally gave up. I think they're reading my mind.

JASON: I want to point out, again, that Carly Fiorina and Franklin Raines both sit on the corporate board of Revolution Health together, and I wonder what they talk about when they are in the same room together. I like to think that they sigh with relief and joke about how no one in their right minds should take either of them seriously. Fiorina was on teevee this Sunday, armed with many a platitude, and only came off looking okay because Claire McCaskill suddenly and unexpectedly veered into the territory of OMG! JOHN MCCAIN IS TEH OLDZ!

MEGAN: Oh, Claire. Shhhh. Everyone knows he's old, but they only care when it's funny. Do you want, by the way, to talk about cronyism in the Palin administrations? Or is it so blindingly obvious that you wonder how there are still people in the world who don't know that every administration is cronyist?

Oh, wait, whoops, cyncism is democracy's biggest enemy! Never mind, rewind...

OMG JASON, Sarah Palin hired her friends when she was mayor and governor! She fired people that worked for her predecessor! I'm shocked! Horrified!

Fuck, that still sounds sarcastic, I give up.

JASON: We're still talking about Palin in America, but now the story is tied to the McCain-lies-all-the-time backlash. I'll tell you, the NY Times chronicles a cronyism that's going to remind many of the Bush years. Obviously, Brownie comes to mind. But for my money, Palin's cronyism smacks of another old master: Marion Shepilov Barry.

MEGAN: But she trusts them, and trust is so important!

JASON: Ha. Funny you should mention trust! Because the added ingredient that Palin brings to Barryism is fear. The one big takeaway from that story, for me, isn't that Palin inserted her unqualified friends in positions, hither and yon, it's that she's rooted not in a populist style of politics - which is how McCain paints her - but in a paranoid style of politics.

MEGAN: See, the only thing I remember about Marion Barry is that he's a crack-smoking whoremonger. I don't fear crack-smoking whoremongers because they're usually too busy smoking crack and paying for sex to mess with me. Oh, you mean Marion Barry made people fear other things, like rampant crime and being caught by someone other than just your wife for being a crack-smoking cheat.

JASON: She's Nixonland's Arctic Circle outpost. Cronies got advanced, loyalty tests were handed out, opponents trashed and fence-sitters squeezed.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, I am a hater. Like terrorists, I hate her freedom. Her freedom to do whatever the hell she wants in government, like solicit and spend the Bridge to Nowhere money and claim no less than 9 times that she turned it down.

JASON: In just my brief toe-dip into AK politics, I've come away with a strong impression that paranoia rules out there. Here's a true story, in fact:

Some time ago, I did a short "Bridge to Nowhere" post. In the course of selecting an image to run alongside, I accidentally grabbed the wrong bridge to nowhere (yes, it seems there were many). I got an email from someone, correcting me, pointing me to the correct image. And I ran a correction, lauding the assister by name. Not fifteen minutes later, I got another email from another Alaskan, warning me to NEVER name anyone who helps out in the course of writing anything critical of Palin. He said, "Everyone knows everyone out here. You could make things very difficult for people."

MEGAN: Oh, that's just sad.

JASON: He went on to list a handful of helpful Alaska blogs, and closed by saying, "DO NOT THANK ME! DO NOT MENTION THAT I GAVE YOU THIS INFORMATION!" I was like: "O-kay, nutlog!"

MEGAN: He then proceeded to erase every electronic mention of his very existence and drop off the grid Ted K. style to escape the clutches of Sarah Palin's minions.

JASON: Exactly. Retreated back into the tundra. Gonna live Jack London-steez.

MEGAN: WAIT! You know what that kind of paranoia reminds me of? Kathleen Willey, who thinks Hillary Clinton's minions killed her cats.

JASON: To think I associate Willey with a more innocent time!

MEGAN: Switching gears, did you know it's all our fault that John McCain is going negative?

Ours and Obama's, of course. We forced him into it! It's the only way he can get press coverage without talking to the press!

JASON: Yes. It's high time we all took responsibility for McCain going negative. It's everyone else's fault. The man has got to win news cycles, after all. Had Obama lent his "celebrity" to McCain's planned "Shambling Town Hall Meeting Tour 2008," everything would have been hunky-dory. But Obama wouldn't get with the program, so America needs to be taught a lesson.

MEGAN: And that lesson is that Barack Obama wants to bring sexytime to your kindergarteners.

JASON: Of course, this shit works, to a certain extent. If Spencer were here, and hopefully, he'll return safely, he'd probably note that ravaging the airwaves with demonstrable lies helps McCain get inside Obama's OODA Loop. "Lipstick on a Pig." I cannot believe GROWN UPS subjected us to pillar-to-post coverage of a fucking APHORISM.

MEGAN: He called her a pig! He called her a pig! LALALALALA I can't hear your logic!
(In other news, yes, I too hope Spencer gets back safely from Afghanistan.)

JASON: It's worth pointing out that at the Pundit Forum in Denver, Stephanopoulos talked about how he and his colleagues had to become "editors" as well as "reporters" because they are besieged with campaign emails on a daily basis and needed to be selective in what they ran. America should remember that it was "Lipstick On A Pig" that everyone decided they'd run with that day. Days before a trio of financial institutions went in the shitter. It took 9/11 NOSTALGIA to end that particular stupidity.

MEGAN: Wait, it's over? Has the media begun its post-mortem yet, trying to explain/apologize for going over the top and running with a fake and stupid story? Because that's the real fat lady singing.

There I go again! I just insulted Snuffleupagus's weight and gender identification!

JASON: Oh, no. That's not going to happen. But I cannot imagine working for a news organization, covering that story. I couldn't believe there wasn't SOMEBODY at, say, MSNBC, who couldn't have suggested, "You know? We could say no to this story. It's really simple. We could just not talk about this."

MEGAN: Oh, see, there you go, doing your part to not destroy democracy with too much cynicism. I won't ruin it by pointing out that the conversation went something like "OMG, Fox News is going to cover this wall-to-wall and we can't miss out on this shit-fest. Advertisers love shit shows!"
Fuck, wait, just ruined it.

JASON: Well, if advertisers love shit-shows, SURELY they'd enjoy the sight of Steve Capus being chased down the street, pelted with dogshit. Honestly, if I could incite your readership to do just that, I'd be a happy man. I'd probably be a JAILED man, but fuck it.

MEGAN: Ladies and gentlemen, start collecting canine fecal matter now!