Kaboom at dawn

In my neighborhood I often hear disturbances -- morning, noon and night. Even when I'm sleeping, a part of me is vigilant. But even when I hear something, I don't necessarily rush out the door. Especially if I'm in bed.

Last night, close to dawn, I heard a voice, or maybe more than one, on the street, maybe some other noises -- I was half-asleep. Then a man yelled loudly, "Hey!!" If he had yelled again, I would have gotten up, but there was no more yelling, so I thought maybe I can go back to sleep. Then a car horn started sounding continuously -- a small Japanese car, judging from the "beeeeeeep." It lasted about a minute, and I thought, shit, somebody's just picking up a co-worker -- first he yelled and now he's honking. But after a minute or so, the car's horn shattered into two different notes and then died out. Then: BLAM!

I got up, walked to the front windows in the living room and looked out. A few doors up, a car was engulfed in flames, a ball of fire about 15 feet in diameter. Standing naked in the cold living room, I dialed 911, but by the time I was talking to them, I heard sirens already.

No way was I getting back to sleep after that, and it was almost 6:00 a.m. anyway. So while the firemen put out the fire, I took a shower and got dressed. By the time I got down to the street about a half hour later, the fire truck was pulling away and there was just a cop car, with a cop walking around the scene and making notes. The destroyed car was a small convertible with stuff piled in the back seat -- clothing and books that had partially burned up. Black burned mess, including several partially burned books, were all over the street and sidewalk, sitting in puddles of water.

By the time I left the house to go to church 45 minutes later, even the car had been towed away.

Obama voters sinned: Roman Catholic priests

A Catholic priest in Modesto, Calif. has told parishioners that voting for Obama was a sin that must be confessed and forgiven before they receive church sacraments (courtesy Huffington Post). It's not the first time, according to the Modesto Bee story; a priest in South Carolina told his parishioners the same.

At least The Catholics require an actual act before condemning people. You may recall the Alabama city administrator who told the NYT that people who aren't disappointed by Obama's victory "need to be at the altar" to ask forgiveness.

The Central Valley where Modesto is located is one of the most socially conservative areas of California. Churches in the region's Episcopal diocese left the national Episcopal church last year over the national body's endorsement of an openly gay bishop -- not in their diocese but in New Hampshire -- and voters in Stanislaus County, where Modesto is located, voted 68 to 32 percent in favor of anti-gay marriage Proposition 8 earlier this month.

technorati: Roman Catholics, Obama, Christian Right

One good use for Christmas displays

From the LA Times: Candy cane lawn ornament is used to subdue attacker

Focus on the Fundies: Ted Haggard is preaching again

For some reason, disgraced, defrocked religious leaders always seem to be able to attract new or old followers by allowing the suckers to "forgive" them and thus feel virtuous. And in America, there has never been a shortage of either. Disgraced Colorado Springs megachurch leader Ted Haggard, whose outing as a meth-snorting, gay prostitute-paying hypocrite played a role in 2006's Republican election debacle, and in the disillusionment of right-wing Christians with the Republican party, is preaching again, appearing at a rural Illinois church.

Then the 50-year-old president of the National Association of Evangelicals and a symbol of the relationship between the Christian Right and the Republican Party, Haggard was outed by the male prostitute whom he had patronized and bought drugs from over several years in Colorado. His very public fall, coming just days before the 2006 election, was preceded a month earlier by the fall of Mark Foley, and marked the beginning of the end of Republican domination of electoral politics in the U.S. for several years.

Be sure to read to the end of today's story where an elder of Haggard's former church compares him to a "mouse" in his present state.

Update: Courtesy Jeff Sharlett, here's an ABC News story -- with audio excerpts from Haggard's sermon if you play the video.

technorati: Ted Haggard, Christians, televangelists

Wal-Mart employee trampled as doors opened

A Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death, and four other people were taken to area hospitals, when the Long Island store opened this morning. Among the bargains at the store were a 50-inch plasma TV and a nice vacuum cleaner.

A giddy shopper in Atlanta, meanwhile, rejoiced over a bargain on a designer t-shirt, saying "We have to marinate in our deals." I wonder if that's quite what she meant.

Astronauts relieved as toilet functions with flying colors

NASA was relieved to find that a space toilet was working right, allowing astronauts to recycle piss as drinking water. The gizmo is essential for NASA's plan to double the number of people in orbit.

Meanwhile, you remember the bonehead play earlier this week when a space walker let a tool bag drift away. An Australian hobbyist has captured the debris in a photo.

technorati: space travel, NASA, toilet, pissing

Things I had to look up: fraught

Cris asked, "Is 'fraught' the past tense of the verb 'freight'?"

Huh, good question. Dictionary.com says the words are related. Fraught comes from a Middle Low German word meaning "freight money," which I take to mean the same thing we meant when we ask, "What's the freight on that?" -- that is, the shipping charge, however metaphorical.

Candace Gingrich to Newt: You're the past

Worth reading: Huffington Post piece by Candace Gingrich in which she advises her brother, the scary clown:

This (LGBT movement) is a movement of the people that you most fear. It's a movement of progress -- and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.

technorati: Newt Gingrich

JFK assassination day: the 45th anniversary

Today's the 45th anniversary of JFK's assassination, an event so roundly discussed over the last 45 years that almost no one is mentioning it. I found an article in the Dallas Morning News, but not even the NYT marked it.

Oh, and if you ever had an idea to form a band called the Grassy Knolls -- it's been done.

Things I had to look up: Enarch (n.)

From David Brooks' column in the NYT:

Already the culture of the Obama administration is coming into focus. Its members are twice as smart as the poor reporters who have to cover them, three times if you include the columnists. They typically served in the Clinton administration and then, like Cincinnatus, retreated to the comforts of private life -- that is, if Cincinnatus had worked at Goldman Sachs, Williams & Connolly or the Brookings Institution. ... And yet as much as I want to resent these overeducated Achievatrons (not to mention the incursion of a French-style government dominated by highly trained Enarchs), I find myself tremendously impressed by the Obama transition.

What the hell? It sounds like some kind of weird science fiction term. But I found this:

"Enarchy" derives from the acronym ENA, "Ecole Nationale d'Administration", which selects the 25 years old. students who will take the top chief executive jobs in high civil services. Graduate of this school are called "enarchs."

Not sure how you count that in dollars; I suppose Brooks means "Ivy Leaguers and their ilk."

technorati: words, columnists, David Brooks

Indian tech employee dies in fun team-building event

In one of the idiotic team-building exercises run by Western companies to foster fun and solidarity among their workers, Nokia-Siemens ran a pie-eating contest in their office in Guragon, India, leading to the choking death of a 22-year-old employee.

Such antics, and their unintended consequences, are the subject of the novel I'm just finishing up, Bangalored.

technorati: Bangalore, India, outsourcing

A very nice mention

Thanks to Alexis McKinnis, the sex columnist for the Twin Cities' vita.mn, for today's very complimentary mention of my book How I Adore You. In answer to someone asking for pointers on learning something about power play, she writes:

If you need some inspiration, pick up a copy of Mark Pritchard's "How I Adore You." It's a collection of erotic short stories that mostly focuses on different degrees of BDSM. The first story, "Pretend," is so tastefully salacious that you won't need much more to inspire you, though you probably won't want to put the book down until you hit the back cover.

I'm a fan of Alexis' writing too, and I hope she writes a book someday soon so I can return the favor.

technorati: Alexis McKinnis, sex columnists,

Gingrich: it takes one to know one

Here's Newt Gingrich on Fox's Bill O'Reilly show Friday, speaking in answer to an open question O'Reilly put to him about protests against California's anti-gay Proposition 8:

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.

... I think when the left -- when the radicals lost the vote in California, they are determined to impose their will on this country no matter what the popular opinion, no matter what the law of the land. You've watched them, for example, in Massachusetts, basically drive the Catholic Church out of running adoption services, drive Catholic hospitals out of offering any services, because they impose secular rules that are fundamentally sinful from the standpoint, you know.

What the fuck planet is he talking about?

First of all he uses the classic right-wing tactic of accusing the other side of what you're already doing; in this case it's "fascism," and to that all I can say is, it takes one to know one.

Secondly, what the fuck is he doing, talking about what "traditional religion" is, what is or is not taught in Sunday School, what is sinful? He's a freaking politician. He hasn't had a day of religious training in his life, not since he left the Sunday School he must be referring to. (Unlike O'Reilly, who at least went to a Jesuit secondary school.) He is talking completely out of his ass.

Gingrich is determined to use the next three and a half years to position himself for a presidential run. He thinks enough time has passed since his infamous ethical problems lost him his House seat and he became a laughingstock for shutting down the government in 1995. And he's putting himself out front and center now, while Republicans are flailing, to see whether any of their wounded, run-over dogs will wag their tails.

One look at his scary-clown face should be enough to dissuade anybody from ever voting for him again, but if not, his record should be enough to convince people how toxic he is.

technorati: Newt Gingrich, crypto-fascism, Bill O'Reilly

Blue and beige seemingly ruled book design this year

That's a screen capture from a Galleycat posting about the upcoming National Books Awards; it depicts the five finalists in fiction and non-fiction. Go to the post and you'll see the nominees in the other two categories, poetry and Young People's Literature. Has anybody pointed out that, including the five poetry books (not pictured above), just about all the book covers use only two colors, blue and beige? The poetry books have a little bit of pale yellow and (daring!) on one, a panel colored a subdued orange. What is up with that??

technorati: book design

Fight the power

Man accused of driving in the buff on interstate

The Associated Press

Thursday, November 6, 2008; 6:21 PM

SOUTHBURY, Conn. -- A 30-year-old man faces criminal charges after police said he was spotted driving nude on Interstate 84 in Southbury. Troopers said the man was driving nude on I-84 Wednesday morning near Exit 14, near the state police barracks.

The man, charged with public indecency and breach of peace, was released on a $1,000 bond and is due in Waterbury Superior Court on Nov. 19.

Shit, you meant that's illegal!? I've never gotten caught.

What will anti-8 protests accomplish?

This post may shock my friends, but I am sort of in agreement with this sentence in the LA Times today on today's nationwide protests against anti-gay marriage ballot initiatives such as California's Prop. 8:

And it remains uncertain whether the aggressive tactics ultimately advance the activists' goal: Either having the California Supreme Court throw out Proposition 8 or persuading voters in a new election that gay marriage should be legal in the state.

Right, there is already a lawsuit trying to stop the implementation of Prop. 8, so exactly what are the protests going to accomplish? Of course it's fine to give people an emotional outlet. But I think the reason why people are going to these demonstrations is -- for some of them -- guilt that they didn't do more to stop Prop. 8 before the election.

As I grow older, I look on street protests more and more as simply being theater. And there's nothing wrong with theater, to the extent that it motivates people to do something more than go to demonstrations. But if I were one of the people behind Prop. 8 -- a Catholic bishop, a Republican activist, a Mormon panjandrum -- I might look at the demonstrations and simply smirk. Just as Obama supporters are now feeling a good deal of smugness.

I also wonder: if Prop. 8 had been defeated and anti-abortion Prop. 4 won, would there be these nationwide demonstrations? And why not?

technorati: gay marriage, Prop. 8, protests, demonstrations, gay

Today's hoax: fake pundit not really a 'McCain adviser'

A person(a) named Martin Eisenstadt was behind the assertion that Sarah Palin didn't know whether Africa was a continent or a country, people have reported this week. Now it turns out that "Martin Eisenstadt," his blog, his supposed status as adviser to McCain, and his "Harding Institute" are all an elaborate hoax played out for months. Among the media outlets that were taken in by various postings and press releases made by "Eisenstadt" -- actually the creation of two filmmakers -- were Mother Jones, the LA Times, the New Republic, and most recently with the fake Palin story, MSNBC.

My favorite bit of the story is that the filmmakers based his name on the notion that "all the neocons in the Bush administration had Jewish last names and Christian first names."

I read much of the article to Cris, who said, "It isn't very funny."

I said, "It's meta-funny -- it's making fun of the whole superstructure of blogs, pundits, opinionators and so forth who form a sort of mulch that feeds the news cycle." (I thought I was clever for coining a neologism, but "opinionator" turns out already to be in common use.)

technorati: fakes, hoaxes, Martin Eisenstadt

The year in blogs

I was sad to read today that Valleywag, a tech industry gossip blog I read because I work in the high tech industry, will be collapsed into its parent property, Gawker. As I wrote two years ago, I stopped reading Gawker a long time ago, and it would be a pain to have to start again, because I really don't want to have to sift through a bunch of crap about... oh, just to take a random example from today, Alex Kuczynski.

I know, who? Thank goodness, then, for RSS and Google Reader. I hope the Valleywag-only posts will have their own feed. Of course, there's always Silicon Alley Insider.

Speaking of Gawker properties, io9, their science and sci-fi-related property -- whose queen Annalee Newitz I interviewed early this year -- always makes me want to surf porn. I don't know why.

My new favorite blog site of the year (new to me, that is)? The Politico site. But now that the election's over I have the feeling I won't find it as compelling.

I wish Michelle Obama would start a blog. That could be awesome. But in the meantime, let me offer this post on Jezebel by writer Megan Carpentier. Recounting the opening today of the Republican Governor's Conference, she writes in part:

Former GOP pollster/strategist Frank Luntz took his turn shitting on the party and McCain today, too, saying, among other things, that "Stevie Wonder reads a teleprompter better than John McCain." Luntz, who was a GOP star in 1994, is so far up Newt Gringrich's ass that he knows what donor's cock Gincrich just finished sucking to fund his campaign in 2012 from the taste alone.

Suddenly I have something to look forward to.

technorati: gawker, valleywag, io9

Today's fake: woman stages daughter's kidnapping

A British woman staged her 9-year-old daughter's kidnapping, going so far as to drug the girl and tie her to a roof beam in order to gain access to £50,000 in reward money. The 33-year-old woman is on trial with a 40-year-old male acquaintance who claims he had acted "under duress" with the girl's mother telling him what to do. The British press is having a field day with the case, calling the man "pervy ex-lover of abducted Shannon Matthews's mum" and "vile."

Graphic novel by Jason Little

I don't know how I stumbled on it, but here's a site called New Partisan with a great portion of a graphic novel by Jason Little, "Motel Art Improvement Service." Fun!

technorati: Jason Little, comix

Focus on the Fundies: Still stuck in early stages of grief

The NYT did an article about hillbillies who are shocked at Obama's victory. Finding a remote county seat, they walked into City Hall and started chatter with "the" (sic) administrative assistant who, asked for his reaction to Obama's election, said:

This is a community that's supposed to be filled with a bunch of Christian folks. If they're not disappointed, they need to be at the altar.

That's one Don Dollar, in Vernon, Alabama, seat of Lamar County, where 76% of residents voted for John McCain -- a 5% increase over the number who voted for George Bush in 2004.

By "to be at the altar" he is not suggesting marriage, but contrition. Fundamentalist churches have "altar calls" in which people are invited to dedicate, or rededicate, themselves to Christ.

I think he's saying, "I thought everybody here was just like me. I can't believe almost a quarter of people aren't. And since I do everything I'm told, anybody not like me must be a sinner.

"Of course, they aren't so far like me that they don't share my religio-cultural context, so surely they belong to a church just like mine, with identical values. I fully expect them to feel they have sinned in not mourning the victory of the Democrat, and to repent of it."

The word "Deliverance" comes to mind -- the film, not the doctrine.

Link to churches in and around Vernon, AL. Five of the first ten are Baptist, two others are Church of Christ, and one is simply a "Full Gospel Worship Center."

technorati: fundamentalists, Baptists, Alabama, election, Christians, sin, repentance, white trash

Chicken-or-egg question

"Sunset Boulevard" is being shown in rotation on TCM these days, and it brings to mind a question I've never seen properly addressed: Which came first, Gloria Swanson's portrayal of the compensating, overly made-up past-it movie star Norma Desmond -- or the campy, overly made-up, deliberately outrageous drag queen who, explicitly or not, evokes her? Did the makeup artist on the film consciously or unconsciously imitate the way drag queens portrayed women, or did drag queens use "Sunset Boulevard," with its misogynist portrayal of a washed-up, delusional former star, as a Rosetta stone for their own complex portrayals of femininity and self-hatred? If Norma Desmond had never been conjured by Billy Wilder and Gloria Swanson, would they have had to create her anyway? (Or was Joan Crawford enough?)

technorati: drag, cinema, Billy Wilder, film, Gloria Swanson

Focus on the Fundies: Dobson 'jubilant' over anti-gay election wins

Focus on the Family head James Dobson was "jubilant" over passage of gay marriage bans in Florida, California and Arizona, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported. While Dobson praised the election of Barack Obama as "historic," he also said he was concerned that Obama is "in favor of much of the homosexual agency" (sic -- don't know whether this is a typo in the news story or just a brain fart by the sexegenarian Dobson; he undoubtedly meant to refer to the well-known, if non-existent, homosexual agenda).

Dobson's group contributed half a million dollars to help pass California's Proposition 8, which intends to amend the state's constitution to disallow gay marriage. Pro-marriage groups sued Thursday to keep the vote from being enforced.

technorati: James Dobson, Focus on the Family, gay marriage

The first thing I've seen that makes me like Sarah Palin

Now that it's safe to do so.

At the GOP convention in St. Paul, Palin was completely unfazed by the boys' club fraternity she had just joined. One night, Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter went to her hotel room to brief her. After a minute, Palin sailed into the room wearing nothing but a towel, with another on her wet hair. She told them to chat with her laconic husband, Todd. "I'll be just a minute," she said.

That's from a Newsweek article rounding up bits and pieces from the campaign.

technorati: Palin

Where the bigots are

Look at this map from the New York Times, showing the change in voting, county by county, from 2004 to 2008. For example, it shows how Indiana changed from a red to a blue state.

But the most interesting thing it shows is which areas of the country got more conservative in the last four years:
- hillbillies, who are bigots through and through
- areas devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, where all the black people moved away

Focus on the Fundies: sad faces in Colorado Springs

In El Paso County, Colo. where Colorado Springs is located, votes by the Christianists still went heavily to McCain:

Also, they re-elected their Republican congressman.

technorati: Colorado Springs, election

Vote-shy

technorati: Palin

My near-misses with the near-famous, part 1

In August 2002 I went to L.A. to do a reading for Too Beautiful, the first edition of my first book. It was a strange event, held at the Hustler Store in Hollywood. Of all the writers who appeared, I was the only one who actually read anything; everyone else just talked for a few minutes. Among those appearing was a woman who did a strange sort of grad-student presentation about bukkake porn almost illegible blown-up photos that had been turned into a sort of black-and-white poster-sized comic book. She had "researched" the subject by attending the filming of a bukkake video, but was at pains to say that she, personally, was not into it. My whole reaction was, yeah, whatever. This turned out to be Suzannah Breslin, who has become internet-famous. Just as I didn't get her presentation, if that's what it was, I have never really gotten her blog or her writing.

technorati: Suzannah Breslin

Twitter your voting experience

Read this Silicon Alley Insider post to learn how to code a message to Twitter on your voting experience.

Focus on the Fundies: Anti-abortion prop, vague fears stoke New Lifers

Salon visited New Life Church, Ted Haggard's old stomping grounds, now somewhat diminished by changing demographics and Bush fatigue. In addition to the kind of sentiments you'd expect -- one woman had "heard Obama wanted to change the flag and the symbols of the country somehow. 'He wants it to be this one big -- I don't know -- it's not America. It's going to be something else, and I don't know what it's going to be'" -- the writer found a former Bush supporter ready to vote for Obama. It's people like the last guy who are going to give Colorado to Obama this time.

Read previous posts about New Life Church.

technorati: New Life Church, Colorado Springs, election