Dept. of bad planning

The Texas Senate passed a law authorizing D.A.s and judges to carry loaded, concealed weapons inside courthouses. The reason generally given was a courthouse shooting in February that had to do with -- no surprise -- a child support case. In that incident, a man opened fire with an AK-47 outside a county courthouse.

Can we just think this through for a second? Some cranked-up idiot starts shooting inside a courtroom -- let's say he grabs a deputy's gun. The next thing that happens is that the D.A. and the judge whip out .38s and start firing?

That can't possibly be a good idea.

handguns, concealed weapons, courthouse violence

Another hoax

Publishers are considering finally publishing "The DaVinci Code" in paperback. No doubt this will please the people I used to deal with a couple years ago when I worked as a simple sales clerk at a Borders. They'd come up and ask for the book, and when I pointed to the huge stack of hardbacks, some people would ask for the paperback. I'd say it wasn't out in paperback yet, and they'd whine, "Why not?"

I ran out, really fast, of polite ways to say "Because the publisher makes more money from the hardback, and as long as people like you are coming into the bookstore asking for the book, the publisher is betting that you'll be curious enough to buy the hardback no matter how much it costs." You'd be amazed at how many people found that a difficult concept. The whole exchange, which was repeated at least once a week, got old really fast.

"The DaVinci Code" is, of course, merely a fictionalized version of a long-running myth, or hoax if you look at it that way, about the period between the first century and modern times. I think I know why this unpromising topic proved to be so popular. Most of the book's readers take the Bible at face value; the period between about 50 AD, as documented in the New Testament, and let's say the Declaration of Independence 17 centuries later, is nothing but a black hole to them. You could write just about anything about that period and most Americans would swallow it. Secret societies? "Gnosticism" (whatever that means to people)? Jesus and Mary M. having a hot "Bridges of Madison County"-type relationship? Sure, why not?! Sounds like Shogun to me!

DaVinci Code, Borders, myth, hoax

Hoax concert on NYC rooftop

Courtesy Amy Langfield, this very funny, illustrated prank in which a bunch of bozos decide to stage a fake "U2 concert on a rooftop" across from the site of the actual concert. They printed up fake backstage passes, learned a four-song repertoire, and in true "Let It Be" fashion, were busted by (real) cops. After it was all over, the cops saw the humor of the thing and told the perps they would probably only receive minimal fines. One of the conspirators comments:

So, for $20 I can pretend I'm a rockstar on the roof of an apartment building in New York City, entertain hundreds of passers-by and have a blast all the while, but a right turn onto 7th Ave. from 34th Street between 6-8 PM costs me $75. Another reason why I don't have a car.

Anti-McD strike

Warming hearts all across the land, Billboard Liberation Front jokers transformed a billboard across from a SF McDonald's into an anti-junk food masterpiece, complete with animatronic Ronald force-feeding burgers to a helpless, obese human. Courtesy BoingBoing.

Update: There's more description, and video, on SFist. Thanks, Kalman!

McDonald's, billboard liberation, Billboard Liberation Front, junk food, obesity

Best psycho, Memorial Day event

Jeffrey Ferris, 36, of Corning was arrested on suspicion of two counts of assault with a deadly weapon -- a "wet floor" sign commonly used to warn people of a freshly mopped floor -- Barstow Police Sgt. Mike Hunter said. "He just whacked them upside the head with (the sign) for no apparent reason," Hunter said. "It did some severe damage to these poor victims." ...

When Ferris started to run, four men chased him, caught him and held him for police. While the men were detaining Ferris, he stripped off his clothes and was naked by the time the police arrived, Hunter said.

I wonder where the Christians are on this one?

A bill to allow Oregon ex-prostitutes to become school teachers won't be voted on. A Republican had this explanation:

You don't get past the headline. You just don't get past it.

Maybe you don't, but Jesus did:

And the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

-- Luke 5:30-32

In other news, Dick Cheney suggested that in a head-to-head presidential battle, Laura Bush would totally whup Hillary's butt. Dick, go back to your undisclosed location. Now.

ex-prostitutes, sex workers, hypocrisy, Oregon ex-prostitutes

'In the spirit of the free press, we'll answer a couple of questions'

Courtesy Blondesense, a hilarious column from the Chicago Sun-Times on Bush's tactics for dodging the press.

On Monday, President Bush stood beside Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a "Joint Press Availability."

Asked if the Iraqi insurgency was getting more difficult to defeat militarily, Bush answered with a classic Dubya-ism.

"No, I don't think so," he said, "I think they're being defeated. And that's why they continue to fight."

I've been discovering a bunch of great blogs today. In addition to Blondesense:
Icthus
Slactivist
and the aforementioned Non-Prophet

Dept. of Fundamentalism

Hanging around on this holiday, little to do? Catch up on the enemy. To start, check out the Air Force Academy, where the staff is under investigation for pushing Christianity on the cadets. St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times columnist Robyn E. Blumner has a nice intro; here's another column in the Houston Chronicle. You want the full story, look here and download the report of the Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

While you're thinking about the fundies of Colorado Springs, don't miss Jeff Sharlett's amazing Soldiers of Christ, a profile of the town's largest megachurch, New Life Church. Sharlett is behind The Revealer blog (and was nice enough to give me a shout-out the other day) as well as the author of Jesus Plus Nothing, an exposé of The Fellowship, a secret right-wing fundamentalist cabal that supports reactionary members of Congress and world leaders.

Sharlett's story is having a ripple effect, including this article in Westword, the Denver alt.weekly, and many posts in the blog Non-Prophet.

fundamentalists, Colorado Springs, Air Force Academy, New Life Church, Jeff Sharlett, Soldiers of Christ, Non-Prophet, The FellowshipNational Prayer Breakfast

'If it can burn, it has'

Cool PDF feature from the LA Times showing the history of fire in LA County. Basically every scrap of brush and forest in the county -- which is vast -- has been burned in at least one wildfire since 1880.

Winner, best view from a Taco Bell

If you ever find yourself in San Francisco with a car, you'd like to take a little spin down the coast, but you only have 90 minutes, you want to head for the Pacifica Taco Bell, which is right on a state beach full of surfers, has panoramic windows and a deck facing the sea, and has plenty of parking. You can get there in 25 minutes from downtown SF.

Here's a picture of the front of the place, which is rather beside the point, and here are a couple of random people with the view behind them.

I went down there today, a gorgeous Sunday, and the water was full of surfers and the beach was full of families. Just for a quick bite, then back.

The mind boggles

In a tribute of sorts, one local drug gang distributed bags of heroin stamped with her likeness and the words "25 to Life."

-- from a May 16, 2005 New Yorker profile of Leslie Crocker Snyder,
a Manhattan prosecutor said to be notoriously tough

Cris read that to me over dinner, as we were going through some old issues of the New Yorker. It stopped us in our tracks. A quick internet search led to the fact that New York (and perhaps other) drug gangs commonly "brand" heroin as some kind of signal to drug sellers and buyers of the provenance and alleged purity of the dope.

Okay, but what the fuck? What is the message in branding your heroin with a picture of the D.A.? Who is the message addressed to? Who is it from? We spent ten or fifteen minutes trying to figure out what it could possibly mean.

Finally we decided it was a kind of battlefield black humor, like a soldier in Vietnam writing 'Born to Die' on his helmet -- a feeble joke among drug dealers that they were highly likely to end up in prison or dead. I wonder what the buyers thought of it, though. I guess they are too busy getting back to their apartment to shoot up to notice.

On reflection, I guess it's no different from me going to a Shell station instead of an Exxon station, out of habit or just because I like the colors yellow and red. What difference does it make what kind of gasoline I buy? I'm addicted to the stuff, and any difference between the competing brands is entirely illusory. They may as well market the gasoline under the names "Species Extinction" or "Oil-Coated Sea Bird." We'd still buy it.

Too good

Scots are agog over an advertising campaign by a private individual who is putting up billboards saying Stop Lying To Your Children About Santa.

Wow.

Darn it! Take another one

Scientists in Japan are working on camera sensor that prevents pictures with blinking subjects like this one (taken off Google at random).

Next! on Queer Eye for the Dictator

When U.S. troops hauled Saddam Hussein from his cramped hidey-hole at an Iraqi farmhouse, the dictator had a bushy salt-and-pepper beard, mats of dirty black hair spraying in all directions and bristly eyebrows in serious need of a trim.

Aii, those eyebrows -- sounds like someone needed a makeover!

The main page of the Houston Chronicle site has a large photo of the Saddam dummy -- yes, this is a story about an Army museum creating a diorama of Saddam Hussein's capture -- but if you miss it, check it out here.

It's Bad Behavior Friday™!

Nothing can beat this lead from the New York Post:

A one-time porn queen, using brazen beauty and come-hither eyes, ripped off six New Jersey banks to the tune of $40,000 in an identity-theft scam by dolling herself up in a black pinstriped power suit and heels and posing as an actual bank customer, police said.

A wag hoaxed a reality show, claiming to fit the bill when they asked for "a parolee who had something to prove" -- something about proving mean parole officers wrong.

"Hank, this is a really big day for you, because you've been vindicated. What do you want to say to your parole officer?"

I look directly into the camera. "You're a motherfucker!"

I don't even want to know the demographic of that show's viewers.

The FDA is looking into allegations that some Viagra users are going blind. What it doesn't say is that these guys haven't had sex with another person in a long time.

Finally, from the Department of No Surprises:

In most drownings, victim wasn't wearing a life jacket

Viagra, parole+officers, hoax, FDA, New Jersey

Something to be thankful for, come Thanksgiving

Judge Bars Photos of Jackson Genitalia

Bush judicial winner a member of reactionary church

Priscilla Owen, the first Bush appointee to benefit from the "deal" that prevented reactionaries from ending the filibuster in the Senate, teaches Sunday School at an Austin church:

To the nearly 300 congregants at St. Barnabas the Encourager Evangelical Covenant Church in Austin, she is admired as a "caring person" who teaches Sunday School classes for children from kindergarten-age to the fifth grade, says the Rev. Jeff Black. "She's the soul of graciousness," he said.

What the stories don't say is that the church left the Episcopal Church USA in 2004 [use fool/fool@hotmail.com/fool to log in] after the ECUSA sanctioned the election of a gay priest to the post of bishop of New Hampshire -- or, to quote the story, "because members believed Episcopal leadership had abandoned scriptural authority." So yes, Owen is, among other things, a homophobe.

By the way, I love how the newspaper reporter didn't put quotes around the phrase "scriptural authority." They've given up irony in Texas for a long time now.

Priscilla Owen, St. Barnabas the Encourager, St. Barnabas+Austin, homophobic Republicans

To protect and to serve

Police in Wheeling, W.Va. arrested a man for wearing a Grinch mask while walking down the street. Here's the mask in question.

'The Curse of Limbaugh'

When New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza spotted radio announcer Rush Limbaugh in front row seats before a recent game, he went over and asked for the ranter's autograph. "He's my idol," gushed the former Dodger:

"It was like meeting American royalty," raved Piazza, comparing meeting Limbaugh to meeting George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, or the Pope.

Since that pregame suck-fest, Piazza has gone 0 for 9 and failed to throw out four base stealers, leading a NYT sportswriter to announce Piazza was suffering from "The Curse of Limbaugh."

Using the rule of thumb that loudest homophobe is probably gay, this should renew the rumors about Piazza.

Limbaugh, Mike Piazza, Curse of Limbaugh

DeLay: ever closer to personally being thrown in jail

A Texas state court just ruled that a PAC created by Rep. Tom DeLay violated the law by not reporting more than half a million dollars in corporate donations that were designed to "influence elections."

DeLay, Texans for a Republican Majority, Tom DeLay, PAC

If only we could get them to Dodger games

Cows, bearing anti-EU banners, graze in a polder. Caption informs us that the Dutch word for "moo" is the same as for "boo" (as in jeering).

I've been looking for something to replace the dreaded hissing that college-educated young people, especially women, seem to have adopted as their favorite jeer. I hope this catches on.

Stolpa award nominee!

Today we have a nominee for the uncoveted Stolpa Award, which is sort of like those "Too Stupid to Live" awards but has the added requirement that you endanger several members of your family as well.

In Southern California, a woman was arrested for making her children ride in the trunk for more than 70 miles because the car was too full of other kids -- including one on her lap. None was wearing a seat belt.

Dumb idea of the day

An FCC commissioner urged an FCC investigation into product placement in news and entertainment TV and said shows should disclose to viewers when advertisers have paid for mentions or placement.

Seems like a good idea at first, but it's really nothing. Suppose the FCC issues a disclosure rule, or broadcasters voluntarily begin to make such disclosures. You know where the disclosures will end up? Not in some noticeable bar at the bottom of the screen -- that would be too effective. They'll end up in the credits for the show -- yes, those credits that are squeezed to the point of illegibility while the network uses most of the space to advertise what's coming up next.

Instead of this complete waste of time, make the networks and advertisers fund public education campaigns, and show spots on the air that work to counter rampant commercialism -- just as tobacco companies are now forced to do.

TV advertising, product placement, FCC

Dept. of regrets

The man who inspired the renaming of "french fries" etc. to "freedom fries," attracting the ridicule of the rest of the world (as if they needed another thing to mock us for), now has turned against the war and regrets his role in "freedom" fries. Link courtesy Metafilter.

freedom fries

More fascism

I was wondering last night -- why doesn't anyone use the word "reactionary" anymore? I think it's because the word implies a minority is doing the reacting to a majority moderate or liberal trend. And since the right-wing is now in the ascendency in our country, what's to react against? Oh, I know, if you listen to right-wing talk radio (I dare you to bear it for more than 10 minutes), that's all they do -- angrily bitch and whine about some new "liberal" or "feminist" initiative that is supposedly oppressing them.

If the right wing has done anything really impressive, it's allow its mass of supporters to remain feeling oppressed and outcast while the right wing takes and holds power. Neat trick! It turns out that some people just enjoy listening to some fat blowhard rant and rave for hours on end, every day. Who knew?!

Oh -- yeah. If you can handle it, here's a really good Salon article on right-wing training for college students. I couldn't actually bear to read it, but maybe you will.

Then, on the filibuster thing -- only a complete flamer like James Dobson, head of the crypto-reactionary Focus on the Family organization -- the Opus Dei of the Christian Right -- could get upset about the "deal" that ensured most of Bush's judicial nominees will get rubber-stamped. Dobson said the deal was "...a complete bailout and betrayal by a cabal of Republicans" and that "both Democrats and Republicans who betrayed [our] trust" will suffer in elections to come.

In other words, he actually thinks his side lost. Anything short of total victory is a loss to him. That's the fascist mentality right there. Bush and Rumsfield think the same way: "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." Total victory, or total war. No in-between.

Salon,James Dobson,Focus on the Family,fundamentalists,fascism, right wing, talk radio, conservative talk radio

Flexibility important in modern workplace

A Roman Catholic bishop was pressed into service as a getaway driver in the Phillippines today. A gang who screwed up a bus robbery was trapped by police. The deal was, they would release the hostages if they could get away, but they didn't want just any driver. The plan worked like a charm -- the bishop drove them all into the bush, the banditos got away, everyone seems to be OK.

No quotes from the bishop, but a little grace under pressure is always a good thing.

Today's dumass

"By 2050 we would expect to be able to download your mind into a machine, so when you die it's not a major career problem. If you're rich enough then by 2050 it's feasible."

Oh, swell. Immortality -- so I can work more? I can think of a lot better things to do with it.

life extension, immortality

I told you so

Satire is dead, says Village Voice columnist Sydney Schanberg:

Remember the Miami Herald stakeout in 1987 at Gary Hart's townhouse that revealed his marital infidelity and ousted him from the presidential race? That was a landmark in the press's slippery slide. News became more like a game. It was entertainment. Later, of course, we gave the world the Monica saga of sex in the White House. Michael Isikoff, co-author of the Newsweek article currently in dispute, was a major unearther of the lubricious details back then. In devoting such investigative energy and resources to a love-nest story, the press took resources away from matters that actually have a tangible effect on American lives.

The press's proprietors and editors (some of the latter, to their credit, winced as they participated) told us that this was the necessary path to the future if we were to survive financially. They said we had to enliven newspapers and news on television so we could capture those 18- to 49-year-olds and thus draw the big advertisers who yearned to sell them things. "Get jiggy with it!" they told the newsroom doubters.

Just this morning I had to turn off the radio in anger as I listened to a report that Bush had "welcomed to the White House" children who had been artificially inseminated. Why? Something to do with the stem cell controversy. And I cringe that I used the word "controversy" -- it's like saying evolution is still controversial. Sometimes this country really bums me.

Meanwhile, on the Paris Hilton hamburger ad beat, the CEO of Wendy's -- I mean, Carl's Jr. -- said he had screened the ad for his three children, ages 12, 9 and 7, "and they have shown no signs of being corrupted."

journalism, Sydney Schanberg, stem cell, insemination, Paris Hilton, Parish Hilton ad

Hillbillies

Your head will spin reading this story about a North Carolina Baptist church that posted a sign reading The Koran Needs to be Flushed.

The more you read the story, the weirder things get. Start off with the cracker preacher who believes: "It is a statement supporting the word of God and that it (the Bible) is above all and that any other religious book that does not teach Christ as savior and lord as the 66 books of the Bible teaches it, is wrong."

Then we have a local Muslim woman -- perhaps the only local Muslim -- who "moved to Rutherford County for the 'small town friendly' atmosphere." Yes -- it's a small town. And it may seem friendlier than New York. But really, what was she thinking?

Then the reporter, covering the story like a rug, talks to several other people before winding up back at the voluble preacher.

Lovelace said the sign changes every week. "About Friday or Saturday we will have a new sign," he said. "It should state to some effect 'Where are your treasures? Are they at the flea market or are they in heaven?'"

This, no doubt, made the enterprising reporter's ears prick up. I can see him asking, "Oh yeah? You have something against the flea market now?"

Lovelace said that he does not have anything against the flea market that recently opened up down the street from the church. "I enjoy a good flea market, but if people can be down there at eight o'clock why can't they be at church at 11," he said.

Can't you just see Jon Stewart repeating that last quote, very slowly? "If they can be down there at eight o'clock.... WHY can't they be at church... at eleven?!?"

Coming soon to 'Law and Order'

Murder victim's blog leads to killer. (Link courtesy Metafilter.)

Siren

A manatee -- the rarely seen sea mammal, and all the more strange-looking for it -- has popped up at the tip of south Texas, where locals are petting it and giving it water, much to the consternation of wildlife experts. They haven't named it yet, but that's only a matter of time. Since manatees are more common to Florida, I suggest "Jeb."

Squirt

Have you seen the Paris Hilton ad for Carl's Jr. hamburgers? It's pretty lascivious, though I don't know how much credibility the heiress has when it comes to giant burgers. I'm positive she's never eaten one in her life before chomping down in the ad. A single one of those big boys probably equals a tenth of her weight.

Quoted in the story: A university prof who prophesies: "This could come back and bite them in the behind." Now that's really something I don't want to think about in this context.

Paris Hilton, hamburger+ad,, Carl's Jr. Spicy Paris

Have you had your C8H10N4O2 this morning?

A Seattle man got the DMV to issue his Audi a license plate with the number C9H13N, the chemical formula for methamphetamine. A state official called this a "serious concern."

That's right, Fred, we take drugs seriously at our house, too.

Writers, rampant

Courtesy The Morning News, here are two long pieces on writing novels: an interview with Kevin Guilfoile and a piece by Michael Chabon on writing his first novel "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh." That last is on the NYRB site.

The Morning News, Kevin Guilfoile, Michael Chabon

The long, lonesome road of limo trips

StarryShine asks: Just what are you supposed to do during a long, solo limo trip? Funny.

Maybe we'll finally learn how to pronounce 'Duluoz'

: This story hit the AP news today, but this earlier Guardian piece is superior: a "lost" Jack Kerouac play has been discovered, reportedly about a day in his life -- or rather, that of his alter ego, Jack Duluoz.

"Kerouac wrote the play in one night when he returned to his home in Florida after the publication of On the Road," said Kerouac's biographer and family friend Gerald Nicosia. "He was getting a lot of attention, being put on TV talk shows ... and an off-Broadway theatre producer named Leo Gavin said he wanted a play from him."

Probably sucks, but just the same, some people will be interested. I have to say I've never heard of Best Life magazine. Is it like Boys Life, only for grownups? I thought so.

Kerouac, Kerouac play

And it took seven tries and $14 to finally get him out

Three-year-old trapped inside plush toy claw game

Leonard Bernstein's Mass

I didn't even notice until last night while reading the paper that a local symphony orchestra was performing Leonard Bernstein's Mass. The work is rarely performed, on account of needing 200 performers including a full symphony, a marching band, a full chorus, a boys chorus, dancers, fifteen soloists, and a stage twice the size of a usual stage.

I'm one of the few people who has actually seen a full production of the piece. When I was in high school, my h.s. choir went on a three-week trip to Europe to take part in a music festival. On an off night we had tickets to a production of the Bernstein work, which happened to be staged that particular week in Vienna by an American company from, I seem to remember, Yale. Not that we knew exactly what we were seeing, or were mature enough to follow it, but it was very impressive. What's more, that particular performance was videotaped, and if you've ever seen Mass on a PBS station, that's the performance I was at. For Xmas that year I asked for the recording, and got it -- a three-album boxed set, probably the most expensive and arcane present my parents ever got for me. So then I had the opportunity to listen to the two-hour work over and over. This, probably more than anything else, probably made me queer, because you cannot be a seventeen-year-old Bernstein geek without also becoming a cocksucker.

So I devoted this gorgeous Sunday afternoon to the performance, by the Oakland-East Bay Symphony. It was a semi-staged version, but they certainly had all the singers, players and dancers.

I have to say it was distinctly second-rate. The soloists were miked, and it was a good thing, since the conductor really liked the orchestra playing at full volume during the real loud parts. But the sound board man didn't really control the volume of the miked singers that well. So all in all, the sound balance was pretty goofed up.

There was also miscasting. The guy who had the lead role -- he plays the Celebrant, the priest leading the "mass" -- was a middle-aged man who looked like a an escapee from a performance of Man of La Mancha, and the woman who sang the beautiful "Then I Sang Gloria" number was not an ethereal contralto, as she should be.

Nevertheless, I was glad I went. Though I listened to the recording maybe 20 times, that was over 30 years ago; I hadn't heard it since. What struck me was the familiarity not so much of individual pieces, but of little snatches of things I'd completely forgotten. Rhythmic fragments, intervals, chords -- I never realized just how this work was sunk into my subconscious.

Maybe I'll get another recording. Though I don't know when I'd ever have time to listen to it.

BREAKING: famous author not a fan

I posted in January about how Alexis had mentioned in her blog that the author Chuck Palahniuk, in a visit to her fair city, had mentioned my name in response to a question by an audience member at a reading as to what other authors he liked. Naturally when I read that I felt very excited and flattered. And I would have loved to turn the famous author's putative admiration into, perhaps, a little help getting an agent, but I had no idea how to approach him. I tried to imagine writing him and saying, "Hey, I heard you like my books," but that just seemed really lame.

Then I heard he was coming to town, so I went to his reading tonight. It was a real mob scene. I got there 45 minutes early and there were already over 100 people there and he was already furiously signing books. It was clear there was no way I would even be able to get close to him. I would just have to wait until someone asked the same question: "What authors do you like?"

After reading from his book and telling a few funny stories, Palahniuk took questions, and sure enough, someone asked that question. He mentioned Amy Hemphill, a few more people, and then said: "Mark Richard. That's spelled like 'Richard' only it's pronounced 'Ri-SHARD.'"

So it wasn't me whom Palahniuk praised, but another writer with a similar name. Frankly, my reaction was relief. I'm not sure why -- I guess I was still afraid of having to act like a dork and ask him who his agent is. I stood there smiling while he finished taking questions and then resumed signing books. Another line immediately formed; by this time there were at least 350 people in the store, and there was no way I was going to wait in line just to say hello.

So my instincts were right: When in doubt, just shut up. But for future reference, just in case any other folks who read this blog also attend a Chuck Palahniuk reading: my name is pronounced PRIT-cherd. Not Pri-SHARD.

Update: For more details on the reading, see this blog. Though it actually documents the reading the night before at a different location, everything he describes also took place at the SF reading.

Chuck Palahniuk, Mark Richard, Alexisthegirl, Haunted

Monks in the news

In the U.K., a new hit reality series is set in a monastery. Not that producers have brought in a bunch of 20-somethings and made them undergo a monastic immersion; apparently, the subjects are real aspirants.

Also in the U.K., 1000 monks and nuns descended on Parliament to agitate for more aid to the poor.

An Australian travel writer visits an Ethiopian monastery, a Korean writer retreats closer to home, and an American journalist visits one of the largest American Roman Catholic monasteries, St. John's Abbey in Minnesota.

Finally, here's a review of Journey Back to Eden: My Life and Times Among the Desert Fathers, in which an American monk visits coptic monasteries in Egypt and the Sahara.

A respectable Republican cloth coat

I had occasion today to read Nixon's famous "Checkers speech" in which he humbly -- or humiliatingly, depending on your point of view -- went on television to defend himself from charges of using secret slush funds. (Now that's something that hasn't changed, but leave it be.) In the speech he goes over amazingly personal aspects of his family's finances and household management. The details are utterly quaint from today's perspective.

First of all, we've got a house in Washington, which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000. We have a house in Whittier, California which cost $13,000 and on which we owe $3,000. My folks are living there at the present time. I have just $4,000 in life insurance, plus my GI policy which I have never been able to convert, and which will run out in two years. I have no life insurance whatever on Pat. I have no life insurance on our two youngsters Patricia and Julie.

I own a 1950 Oldsmobile car. We have our furniture. we have no stocks and bonds of any type. We have no interest, direct or indirect, in any business.

Now that is what we have. What do we owe?

Well, in addition to the mortgages, the $20,000 mortgage on the house in Washington and the $10,000 mortgage on the house in Whittier, I owe $4,000 to the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C. with an interest at 4 percent. I owe $3,500 to my parents, and the interest on that loan, which I pay regularly, because it is a part of the savings they made through the years they were working so hard -- I pay regularly 4 percent interest. And then I have a $500 loan, which I have on my life insurance.

Well, that's about it. That's what we have. And that's what we owe. It isn't very much. But Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we have got is honestly ours.

I should say this, that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat, and I always tell her she would look good in anything.

Thus Nixon established a pattern that would work very well during his presidency, which began 16 years later: He went straight to the public and gave them what sounded like a no-nonsense, no-frills, pants-down view of himself and his motives. He did the same thing in 1974:

Speaking to John Dean, I said: "Tell the truth. That is the thing I have told everybody around here." ...

In giving you these records -- blemishes and all -- I am placing my trust in the basic fairness of the American people. I know in my own heart that through the long, painful, and difficult process revealed in these transcripts, I was trying in that period to discover what was right and to do what was right. I hope and I trust that when you have seen the evidence in its entirety, you will see the truth of that statement.

And it worked -- for some people. I remember watching that broadcast with my mother. When it ended, she said, "Ya know, I believe him! I think people should give him a chance. He really just wanted to do the right thing."

She was, and is, the perfect Republican.

The digerati are different from you and I

They have each other.

Read this funny post on Amy's Robot, then the post on Smartypants she links to, for great blog entertainment.

Amy's Robot, Smartypants, Wil Wheaton, Xeni Jardin

Finalist, Onion write-alike contest

Picture yourself on a cake

BARSTOW -- Have your face on a cake and eat it too.

A new cake shop called The Cake Store will be opening, and it will enable residents to have personal photographs on their cake using photo imaging technology.

The photograph is put into a computer, which prints the picture onto sugar paper with edible ink.

The owner, Janice Miller, hopes to open the store by June 1 in time for high school graduation.

"People can bring in their graduation photograph to put on a cake," Miller said.

Miller has been decorating cakes for the last 25 years. She worked at Vons in the cake-decorating department for 20 years until she decided to open her own store.

The story continues in that vein for several more paragraphs.

Air Force Academy 2d-in-command: officially insane

At the U.S. Air Force Academy, where management is under fire for running the government college as a Christian fief, the school's second in command, Gen. Johnny Weida, has further stirred the controversy by writing a letter partially in Hebrew to an academy critic.

Weinstein called the letters "bizarre in the extreme."

"Why does he have to cloud it in an ancient language that almost no Jew is conversant in? Oh yeah. That’s right. Because he sees me as a Jew first," he said.

Air Force Academy, Christian proselytizing, Johnny Weida, anti-Semitism

Here we go again

With the resolution of the chili finger story -- a classic SF story even though it actually happened in San Jose -- I think we have another good one coming down the pike.

No, it's not about an amputation.

A well-respected doctor and medical researcher was brutally murdered yesterday outside his home in the city. The Sherlock Holmes-worthy clue the killer left behind? Cherry pits. That's right -- police found cherry pits both inside and outside the house, suggesting the murderer snacked on the seasonal fruit as he lay in wait. The "fondest hope" of the police -- that's just the way they are -- "is that we can find DNA from the pits," a detective said.

Fondest hope. Isn't that sweet? It's like I see the flatfoot at his desk in the homicide bureau, gazing lovingly at the phone. "Oh, that the lab would call me with a positive DNA result!" he sighs.

It's Bad Behavior Friday™!

Must start with this one: Combine gay porn on the DVD player with frantic exerbike pedaling, and you too (women only!) can have a "body shaking orgasm" in ten minutes.

Dept. of bad planning: Charity drops glitzy, potentially illegal poker fundraising event.

It's another finger story! Victim bit off part of attacker's finger, providing evidence to convict. No, nothing to do with the chili finger thing. The "victim" bit off an attacker's finger; the guy pled guilty to (deep breath) false imprisonment, aggravated assault, criminal attempt to commit rape, aggravated sodomy, kidnapping and aggravated sexual battery, and got 40 years.

Still on the amputation beat, a woman is suing the Colorado Rockies after she lost her leg in an escalator accident. No "bad behavior" was involved in this case, but I felt we were on a roll with the amputations.

Let's see, the Australians are usually good for one.... Oh yeah! "While parents are out watching live sex at the cinema, their children are at home seeing it for free."

Finally, Gawker Media magnate Nick Denton was heavily pied the other night.

Block that metaphor!

Newsday quotes a filmgoer who refers to the new S.W. film as "the Super Bowl of movies". Well... except for the fact that the movie does not show actual competition, the ending is already known -- indeed, is pre-ordained -- and the performers aren't using steroids.

Probably.

Two can play at that game. Match the cultural figures, metaphors, and genres:

This...                is the...                of that 
---------------------  ------------------------ -----------------------
Paris Hilton           Arc de Triomphe          shrubbery
chipotle               Lined notebook paper     transportation systems
Donald Trump           Eucalyptus bark          ancient Egypt
Law school             Keifer Sutherland        poetry slams
Tom DeLay              blue ink                 Freedom Fries
Richard Branson        Keith Moon               Republican Party
Chick lit              blown manhole cover      con artists
Jerry Falwell          blow jobs                auto manufacturers
Paul McCartney         Nigerian spam            Spanish literature
Barry Bonds            stale turkey gravy       oral sex 

Smackers

With Katia last night to the Smack Dab open mike event in the Castro. She read from her forthcoming book, Crashing America. As with most open mikes, the quality of the evening was uneven. A few really good writers, several mediocre ones. One good comic and two mediocre ones. One of the bad comics especially had "I took a workshop and learned the following shtick" written all over him. The talented comic, on the other hand, made it look so easy.

Katia was, of course, smashing and scrumptious. Her book is going to be so great.

Smack Dab, Magnet, Katia Noyes, Crashing America

Underage prankster used social engineering to hack Parish Hilton's mobile

The Washington Post reports the methods used by teen hackers to bust into Paris Hilton's cellphone and make off with her address book and revealing camphone pix. The same squad of hackers broke into Lexis Nexis, the story says.

Paris Hilton, TMobile hackers

Dept. of Yeth

If you need a laugh this morning, nothing will deliver so surely as Anthony Lane's New Yorker review of the latest Star Wars film.

So much here is guaranteed to cause either offense or pain, starting with the nineteen-twenties leather football helmet that Natalie Portman suddenly dons for no reason, and rising to the continual horror of Ewan McGregor's accent. "Another happy landing" -- or, to be precise, "anothah heppy lending" -- he remarks, as Anakin parks the front half of a burning starcruiser on a convenient airstrip. The young Obi-Wan Kenobi is not, I hasten to add, the most nauseating figure onscreen; nor is R2-D2 or even C-3PO, although I still fail to understand why I should have been expected to waste twenty-five years of my life following the progress of a beeping trash can and a gay, gold-plated Jeeves.

Star Wars, Anthony Lane, Star Wars review

Anti-gay tactic loses race for mayor in California town

Two Republicans were on the ballot for mayor of Redondo Beach, a coastal town of 65,000; one of them was openly gay. His opponent had consultants send out an anti-gay mailer and as a result lost by a landslide.

Mike Gin, Redondo Beach, Redondo Beach mayor

Product placement for peace

Motley Fool, an investment news feature, remarks on the all-too-obvious product placement in a recent episode of The Show That Assures Us Torture Is All Right, and suggests we might see this next season:

President Palmer: You know, President Hu, if your consular guards were armed with less-lethal weapons manufactured by Motley Fool Rule Breakers pick Taser, they wouldn't have accidentally shot and killed your consul.

President Hu: Duh! Why didn't I think of that? Thank you, President Palmer, and thank you, Taser, for saving lives and preserving world peace.

Colorado Rocky Mountain high

In Aspen, "A new business called Toasty Chicks Delivery hopes to profit from an invasion of construction workers this summer by having women in snug T-shirts drop off lunches from area restaurants." My God, sometimes America just kills me.

Missed the zeitgeist by that much

The Houston Chronicle runs its 1977 review by Jeff Millar of the original Star Wars. I don't know what explains the sloppy grammar and punctuation -- surely that's not how it was originally published? They probably got some intern to type it up fast.

But the phrase in the review -- "They were lined up all the way past the Galleria skating rink" brought to mind the day I was there.

No, I was not on line at the first day of the original Star Wars. I was there the day before -- when the film was sneak-previewed.

It was a hot Thursday in June. I was spending the summer in Austin, but I had gone back to Houston to take my erstwhile girlfriend to get an abortion. We agreed that while she was in there, I could go see a movie or something, so I went over the Galleria to see Robert Altman's 3 Women, which I had already seen probably three times. But when I got to the mall, the theater that was supposed to be showing 3 Women was instead showing a sneak preview of some space movie I'd never heard of. Star Wars -- what the fuck was that? And there was, as the review said, a line stretching through the mall past the skating rink.

I remember being a little ticked off that I couldn't see my precious art film -- that shows you how self-involved I was, that while my girlfriend was off getting an abortion I was mad because I couldn't see a movie for the fourth time -- and I had no desire to get in a line full of twelve-year-olds to see some movie I'd never heard of. I can't remember how I spent the time before I went to pick up my girlfriend, but I remember she was waiting for me when I got back to the clinic.

A few weeks later when I finally saw Star Wars I was like, Oh, so that's what that was.

Star Wars, 3 Women, Robert Altman, abortions

Luftballoons

In case you're keeping score at home, we now have a big piece of the chili finger puzzle: where the finger came from, and why. And with that revelation, I think this story is officially all over but the shouting -- unless the defense attorney gets down on her knees in court and barks like a dog.

chili finger, Nedra Ruiz

Dept of cluelessness

I don't get it:

Someone please explain. Why "moment of triumph"?

Yeth.

Since you go so far to point out "(which begs the question as to why Vader and the Emperor conspire in Empire Strikes Back to try to turn Luke Skywalker to the dark side, since it would mean one of them would have to die.)"...., you have no BASIC UNDERSTANDING of the first trilogy at all. Since you recall that moment in ESB, can you not also remember the dual between Vader and Luke, when the Emperor says "strike your father down and take your place by my side"....HE WANTED LUKE, NOT BOTH OF THEM.

That choleric response to a mild-mannered column on the San Diego paper's website is the epitome of a fan's reaction. Someone comes even remotely close to criticising your cherished object of fandom? They must be VANQUISHED.

God, this fucking Star Wars hype is utterly unavoidable. Only a few more days until the opening, thank God, and then, paradoxiaclly, everyone finally shuts up about it.

Buchanan: Culture war has been lost

Pat Buchanan, the angst-ridden cultural warrior who is the single most-blamed person for Bush I's re-election loss in 1992, waved a white flag today in a Washington Times interview, saying "I can't say we won the cultural war, and it's more likely we lost it." He points to the prominence of what he calls "social liberals" at last year's Republican convention -- Schwartzenegger, Giuliani and Pataki -- and bemoans the changes in "what Hollywood produces today and what it produced in the 1950s. The alteration is dramatic." And:

"We say we won a great victory by defeating gay marriage in 11 state-ballot referenda in November," he says. "But I think in the long run, that will be seen as a victory in defense of a citadel that eventually fell."

Pat Buchanan, culture war, Republican Party, Schwartzenegger, Giuliani, Republican Convention

Puzzle

The British are mad for a puzzle printed in daily newspapers. Sudoku involves writing numbers into a grid. Apparently it's merely a matter of arranging, not adding -- the row and columns don't have to add up to the same sum or anything. Sounds stupid!

In Paris, a Norwegian man died after jumping from the Eiffel Tower with "a parachute that didn't open." There's bound to be video of that someplace.

Impolite conversation

She calls it "the social equivalent of the Titanic," but the unintentionally confrontational tone of conversation at her church-sponsored social event makes it sound like a much more interesting evening than most church dinners, to tell you the truth.

Get a woman who teaches at a local university and get her to say that she doesn’t think healthcare should be provided for seniors or poor people and put her across from a Scottish pastor (who sings songs by the wobblies from the pulpit) and watch things get so bad he calls her hateful from across the table. ...

Get a young perky girl and get her to ask the three of us if religion plays a part in who we date and then one of us says No and watch us suddenly get on the hotseat about why we were deacons then.

churchgal, church social events, Wobblies

Pfft

I sure don't see much to post about today. Even a story like this -- The Posse in the Pulpit, about the ties between the Christian Right and the GOP, leaves me bored. Much better is this op-ed by Leonard Pitts Jr., laying out the issue very plainly:

As a wise person once said: A church is not a museum for saints; it is a hospital for sinners. But too often these days, it seems to be neither, seems to be little more than a refuge for human meanness, pettiness, partisanship and smug self-satisfaction.

One is embarrassed to have to remind such people of what ought to be patently obvious: God is not a Republican.

And one great (unrelated) thing on BoingBoing: professional, inexpensive logos for your website or small business. There's always at least one really cool thing on BoingBoing every day, and if I don't credit them every time I get a link, it's only because they're already one of the most-viewed sites on the web.

Christian Right, Leonard Pitts Jr., Christian, BonigBoing

Pentecost

Today is Pentecost, the Christian festival commemorating the gift of the Holy Spirit to believers. Do something inspired -- or at least get drunk on new wine.

BREAKING: Star Wars film not open yet

See, this shows how much attention I pay to such things. Last night I wrote of going to a multiplex to see the new Star Wars film and not finding it. So I just checked the SFGate listings and, duh, it's not even open yet. All the hype I've been trying to avoid for the last three weeks has not yet climaxed.

This just in: Lucas always thought Darth Vader was more interesting than Luke.

George Lucas, Star Wars

To the barricades! Mainstream American film strikes back!

Anxious that his product not be rejected as pro-American propaganda, George Lucas has put a few obvious slaps at George Bush in his last Star Wars film:

(At the Cannes premiere) there were murmurs at the parallels being drawn between Bush's administration and the birth of the space opera's evil Empire.

Baddies' dialogue about bloodshed and despicable acts being needed to bring "peace and stability" to the movie's universe, mainly through a fabricated war, set the scene.

And then came the zinger, with the protagonist, Anakin Skywalker, saying just before becoming Darth Vader: "You are either with me -- or you are my enemy."

To the Cannes audience, often sympathetic to anti-Bush messages in cinema as last year's triumph here of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 attested, that immediately recalled Bush's 2001 ultimatum, "You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror."

However, another film at Cannes had the opposite message:

George Bush and Tony Blair will whoop for joy. A strongly pro-war film has been premiered at the Cannes film festival -- and it comes from Iraq.

The main part of Hiner Saleem's Kilometre Zero, premiered in competition for the Palme d'Or, is set in 1988 against the backdrop of the deaths of thousands of Iraqi Kurds at the hands of Saddam's cousin, "Chemical" Ali Hassan al-Majid.

The Hollywood Reporter said: "Commercial prospects are negligible unless the Republican Party gets into the film distribution racket."

George Lucas, Star Wars,George Bush,Kilometre Zero, Cannes

Saturday night in San Francisco

Had tix for the symphony tonight, but Cris needed to study for finals, I couldn't get anyone else to go with me, and I didn't feel like going by myself. So I turned in the $54 tickets, that is, I donated them back. That means they can sell them again and I get a tax deduction whether they do or not.

I went to Writers with Drinks where I saw Liz and Violet read, as well as a comic who was pretty funny but went on a little too long. I got drunk on two gin-and-tonics, which was pleasant -- it felt bouncy and made me feel graceful. I encountered a woman I'd worked with a couple of jobs ago, and I talked with her without feeling horribly self-conscious and stuttering slightly as I usually do.

I left after the intermission because I couldn't remember who was reading next and I thought I'd maybe catch a screening of the Star Wars movie. I walked to the BART station, still drunk, and rode downtown and went to a large multiplex, but they were either not showing the Star Wars film (I hadn't bothered to check) or had sold out. So I bought a ticket for The Interpreter instead. I stood it for about half of the length before I got sick of it. Whether or not some fictional African bandit gets killed -- who gives a shit?! Not even the leading characters cared! So I decided I didn't either, and I left. I rode home on BART. I wasn't drunk anymore.

We haven't dropped the Happy Slapping issue yet

"There is a moral panic over hooded teenagers," gasped the Guardian today, with a lead that can't be beat:

Happy slapping, binge drinking, hoodie-wearing feral yobs have been swearing and spitting their way across the country this week. Tube drivers said yesterday they would strike over intimidating behaviour by gangs of youths on the District line. John Prescott recalled 10 "fellas with hoods" trying to beat him up and film it at a motorway service station. Tony Blair said people were "rightly fed up with street corner and shopping centre thugs" and promised to make the restoration of respect a priority for his government. Both endorsed the approach taken by Bluewater, which has banned hoods and caps.

Marketing 331 question: If you were the newly named marketing director for Neighborhoodies, would you:
a.) Get into the British market as fast as you can and reap the "outlaw" hype,
or b.) Get out as fast as you can?

Fundie of the month

Have we already had a fundie for this month? No matter -- turn over a rock and there they are, wriggling in the light of day.

Comes Dr. W. David Hager, a prominent obstetrician-gynecologist and Bush Administration appointee to the Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs in the Food and Drug Administration. Now it turns out the Hager marriage celebrated some unusual family values: Hager anally raped his wife over and over, then left $2000 checks "on the dresser" to compensate her. (Thanks to Badger for the link.)

In other words, it may well have been he whom Bush was talking about in Bush's often-satirized comments during last fall's Presidential campaign:

We've got an issue in America. Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.

And surely this was what the University of Texas student Ajai Raj was referring to when he asked archconservative Valkyrie Ann Coulter "You say you believe in the sanctity of marriage. How do you feel about marriages where the man does nothing but fuck his wife up the ass?" (Coulter was, for once, speechless. UT -- both my and Badger's alma mater. I know I feel proud.)

So that's what Wonkette has been joking about all week. I read Wonkette all the time but as soon as I see the words "The Nation" my eyes glaze over. I'm not used to finding juicy anal sex details there. And even without the anal rape stuff, the piece is worth reading just for the use of the phrase "Asburian nabob."

Ann Coulter, anal sex,badgerbag,Ajai Raj, W. David Hager, anal rape

Another damn novelist

Here's another blogger with a book deal. A fellow has been writing a regular dispatch for The Morning News about his struggle to become a "rock star." A savvy editor at Plume made a deal, and the writer will now write a novel on the same theme. Dunno if that's going to help him become a rock star, though, if that really was his ultimate aim. P.S.: he's 23.

Winner, Onion write-alike contest

"Today I will enjoy a burrito for the 34th day in a row. ... Indeed, silver-encased burritos are beyond acquaintances; they're more like cheap hookers I pay $6 to hang out with for 15 minutes. But in those 15 minutes, they satisfy me in ways a whore never could."

Link courtesy Obscure Store.

In other fast food news, Police announced this morning that they had "linked" the infamous chili finger to an "associate" of the husband of the woman who claimed to have found it in a cup of Wndy's chili. You know what one of the most pathetic aspects of this whole story is? The scam artists picked Wendy's.

burritos, chili finger,Wendy's,lunch, The Onion, whores

It's Bad Behavior Friday™!

In the U.K. there is a new trend called happy slapping. You go up to a stranger and slap or punch them without warning as an associate videos the action; the video is then sent to cam phones. Also in Britain, newly re-elected PM Tony Blair promised a crackdown on yobs:

"People are rightly fed up with street corner and shopping centre thugs, yobbish behaviour sometimes from children as young as 10 or 11 whose parents should be looking after them, Friday and Saturday night binge-drinking which makes our town centres no-go areas for respectable citizens, of the low-level graffiti, vandalism and disorder that is the work of a very small minority that makes the law-abiding majority afraid and angry."

Perhaps if they were only slapping each other.

When three protesters attended a Bush "town hall meeting" on social security in Denver last month, they were escorted out by a man wearing a dark suit and an earpiece. Now the Secret Service is investigating whether the man -- merely "a staff member with the host committee" -- can be prosecuted for impersonating a Secret Service agent. No word on whether he was actually a Matrix fan impersonating Agent Smith.

Democratic Sen. Gene Salazar, fed up with attacks from Colorado Springs fundie leader James Dobson of Focus on the Family, called Dobson the anti-Christ, though he later backed away from the comment. The Revealer has analysis.

happy+slapping,The Matrix,yobs,, Gene Salazar, James Dobson, Focus on the Family, Tony Blair

I hate your success and fear my own

Pretty amazing piece by Kathryn Chetkovich in Granta, laying out all the envy and tsuris involved in being a semi-successful writer with a partner who's 100 times more successful and famous. The scathing honesty is all self-directed; the essay feels like she's purging herself of negative emotions by confessing them.

On the other hand, the second sentence begins: "I met the man at an artists' colony..." And what of those of us who have never been to an "artist's colony," who aren't even quite sure what is meant by that, and have no idea of how to become even semi-successful enough to go to one?

Who said American lives have no second acts?

Country singer and mystery author Kinky Friedman is running for governor of Texas, taking the opportunity to poke fun at the process (his slogan: "Why the hell not?"). But he's also serious.

A little to the east, author Anne Rice is writing an apparently straight-faced book about Jesus's early years. The author's note quoted in that article is truly weird. If she's serious, this book might well be placed on the same shelf as Mark Twain's unreadable hagiography of Joan of Arc.

Kinky Friedman, Anne Rice, Mark Twain, Texas governor campaign

Air Force chaplain exposes pro-Christian bias at AF Academy

A chaplain at the Air Force Academy in one of the nation's most fundie-packed cities, Colorado Springs, confirmed allegations that academy staff commonly used its influence over cadets and academy programs to push a pro-Christian message. Saying she was speaking without authorization from the school or the Air Force, she acknowledged that speaking out means "the end of my Air Force career." For more on the situation, read this report from Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Update: The chaplain said, in a May 12 story, that she had been fired for speaking out.

Air Force Academy,separation of church and state,MeLinda Morton,Air Force chaplain

BFD of the month

Pushing the envelope just as high school seniors are supposed to do, an 18-year-old wore a dress to his prom and was turned away. He then put on male drag over the dress, got in, and removed the suit. Then he was "escorted out by a security guard." When he returned to school the next day, a school cop gave him a $250 ticket for disorderly conduct.

It doesn't say whether the other students supported him or not. And judging solely from the article, this is not so much a case of gender discrimination as a kid just cutting up and the adults over-reacting. Anyway, I hope that kid fights the ticket like hell, and moves to New York where he becomes a rock star. Stupid adults.

Good taxes make good neighbors

Nevada brothels want to be taxed by the state -- they think it will reinforce their image as legitimate businesses. But the real reason I'm blogging this story is the photo showing a hooker who works at the Moonlite BunnyRanch in... wait for it... Mound House, Nev.

First cunnilingus, now hookers. Boy, my hits for today will really go up now.

Nevada,brothels,BunnyRanch,Bunny Ranch

The best and the buffest

Headline of the week candidate:

Stanford students set sights on Playboy

Includes SFW photos.

Be all that you can be -- or else

In Houston, Army recruiters admit to harrassment of recruiting prospects. One overzealous recruiter left a message on a man's phone machine telling him to show up at a recruiting office or a warrant would be issued for his arrest. The recruiter explained that this was a "marketing technique."

Army recruiting harrassment,harrassment,Houston

The 21st century marches on

Courtesy Wonkette, this is what an emergency evacuation of the Capitol looks like:

There were emergency response team members, those are the men with the rifles and machine guns and they were also of course the uniformed division of the secret service. they were yelling at us to run. one man told me this is not a joke, and he said run, get off of the grounds. there's a group of reporters and producers that are actually lockdown inside of the white house in the briefing room area. at one point, we were given a choice, he said either get back inside or leave the grounds, and then the tone changed. at that point, i yelled, i asked him do we go inside or get off the grounds? we wanted clarification, and then he started yelling, get out of here, get off of the grounds, run. and that is when we started moving rather quickly. that is when we saw them positioned on the front lawn. that is when we saw them walk around with the dogs, guns drawn, and we were instructed to leave the white house grounds and to keep walking beyond the park that is right in front of the White House."

Turns out a single-engine plane had entered restricted airspace. Or maybe some interns with senioritis, remembering their high school days, pulled a fire alarm.

By the way, that link was to a site that apparently archives the closed captioning from CNN, essentially a document of whatever was said on the channel. Wish I could afford that membership!

Wonkette,U.S. Capitol,Secret Service,evacuation

Insidious product placement

I really liked this story on Morning Edition today: Movie Marketers Turn to Subtle, Sophisticated Tactics. They're going way past traditional product placement in movies and TV. New techniques include paying scientists to fudge dates in press releases for "discoveries" tied to film premieres, and buying television show subplots to pump new releases. Appalling, and well worth listening to. It'll make you want to join a monastery, or at least go live in Chugwater.

NPR, Mornign Edition,advertising,Hollywood,television,product placement

Russians to have more oral sex

Violet Blue writes that her books on cunnilingus and cocksucking are going to be translated into Russian and released in Russia next year. Just another bullet in the fight to redress the U.S. trade imbalance.

Now watch my hits go up like crazy, because I put "oral sex" into my blog.

East Bay Daily News,Violet Blue,oral sex, cocksucking

Pulp

The Knight-Ridder newspaper chain, which early this year bought a string of local tabloids published in various Peninsula* communities, has launched a new East Bay** paper, the East Bay Daily News. I don't know about other cities, but the SF Bay Area*** is rife with free tabloids, from the relatively venerable East Bay Express and San Francisco Bay Guardian to specialty papers like Poetry Flash and Psychic Reader -- not to mention ubiquitous catalogs and advertisers. I think it's all the coffee houses: we have to have something to read while we drink coffee. At least I do.

* Peninsula: The communities immediately south of San Francisco, all the way down to Palo Alto and as far as Santa Clara, but not inluding San Jose.
** East Bay: the communities on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay, including Richmond, Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Oakland, and Alameda.
*** SF Bay Area: All of the above, plus San Jose, San Francisco, and Marin County. A more inclusive definition includes all of nine counties that somehow touch the bay, though this definition is more a product of television news and real estate developers.

East Bay Daily News,East Bay Express,San Francisco Bay Guardian,Poetry Flash,Psychic Reader, San Francisco Bay Area, coffee houses