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

CNN map shows early voting patterns

A map on CNN shows early voting statistics. I tried to post a screenshot, but it didn't work, so just hit this link and see for yourself. Mouse over a state to see, for example, that about 225,000 more Democrats than Republicans have voted early in Florida.

technorati: election, early voting, map

Vox populi

I was in the break room at work, where a TV was playing CNN. A slip showed Sen. Ted Stevens leaving an office building as Wolf Blitzer narrated, "One day after being convicted on corruption charges, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens says he wants to get back on the campaign trail."

A janitor was sitting there watching. "A crook, and he wants to campaign!" the guy said. "'Look at me, I just got convicted, vote for me.' He's just a big crook!"

I said something about how I guessed he already had his campaign donations in hand so why not get out there and spend them.

"That's all they're there for," the janitor declared. "Crookery!"

technorati: Republicans, Ted Stevens, CNN

Dumbass of the day

Rep. Steve King, warming up a crowd at a Palin rally in Iowa:

Obama is ACORN. ... When I see Obama, I see ACORN branded on his forehead.

What the fuck does that even mean? He sees black people with brands? He thinks that Obama is in thrall to this non-profit community development group? What he meant was: ""When you take a lurch to the left you end up in a totalitarian dictatorship," King said. "There is no freedom to the left. It's always to our side of the aisle."

"Lurch" -- yes.

technorati: Republicans, Steve King, ACORN

Rocky lost

Enraged by reports of finger-pointing and defeatism among senior aides -- including a long NYT Magazine piece that's well worth reading -- McCain yesterday took the stage to the theme from "Rocky," declaring he would fight to the end.

Failing to take into account that Rocky was set up to lose and did, in fact, lose. For some reason Americans find this story reassuring; cf. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," the Chicago Cubs, etc. Well-known Republicans continued their predictions of doom.

But even before this development, someone has identified a new neurosis, maverick personality disorder, to describe the McCain-Palin identity.

technorati: McCain, Republicans, maverick

Today's fake: GOP volunteer charged with making false report

Well, that didn't take long: The young McCain volunteer who said she was attacked by a black man who carved a (backwards) "B" on her face has been charged with making a false police report after admitting the story was false.

I mean:

Police suspected all along that Todd might not be telling the truth, starting with the fact that the "B" was backward, Bryant said.

"We have robbers here in Pittsburgh, but they don't generally mutilate someone's face like that," Bryant said. "They just take the money and run."

It's Bad Behavior Thursday™! -- Emergency 911 edition

John McCain's brother was stuck in traffic, so he called 911 to complain. When the dumbfounded operator asked him "Sir, are you calling 911 to complain about traffic?" he yelled "Fuck you!" and hung up. So the operator called him back, got voice mail, and left a message. So he calls 911 again to complain about the operator who left him a message.

Joe McCain: Somebody gave me this riot act about the violation of police.
Operator: Did you just call 911 in reference to this?
Joe McCain: Yeah.
Operator: 911 is to be used for emergencies only, not just because you're sitting in traffic.

Video at the link above. The traffic in question was on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge just south of Alexandria, VA near the nation's capital; amusing that only a few weeks ago the same Joe McCain said the area was "Communist", possibly reaching for the same sentiment a McCain campaign adviser was trying to express earlier this week when she said Northern Virginia was not "the real Virginia."

In other election news, a Politico columnist says the RNCC is running out of fingers and toes to count the dozens of House seats the GOP will lose this time around. And morale among McCain staffers is said to be so low as to resemble the classic formation of a cratering political campaign, the dreaded circular firing squad.

Tra-la!

technorati: police, Joe McCain, 911 tape

As polls suggest big lead, 'Democrats' gloom deepens'

This story is hilarious:

Democrats' gloom deepens

The Democrats are poised on the brink of victory. And they cannot stand it. The news is too good. Something has to go wrong.

On Saturday, Charlie Cook, an independent analyst and author of the Cook Report, wrote: "This election isn't over, but it is looking very bad for Republicans -- and seems to be getting worse."

This plunged the Democrats into a deep gloom. Good news is always bad news for them.

Ha ha ha! It's funny because it's true.

The other funny thing in that article is when the writer suggests that Obama has such a lead in money raised that he could, like Oprah, just buy everybody a Pontiac. No! Make it a green car, built by American workers. Now that's change I can believe in.

technorati: Democrats, politics, polls, campaign

Obama visits NC diner, gets mixed reception but lots of grub

Obama visited a diner in North Carolina and got a generally respectful reception except for one nutbag. Most reports are focusing on her, but note the last graf of the story (emphasis mine):

Obama ordered some food to go for himself and his aides. They ordered chicken, collards, baked beans, slaw and wings. The tab was $13.91.

Now that's value. And that's the white diner -- the one for black folks was down the block.

technorati: Obama, North Carolina, economy

Strippers are the cowboys of the 21st century

It came to me while I was viewing this comic strip (which has a great joke in the last panel, but -- warning to A. -- contains "the Z word"): strippers are the cowboys of today.

In the last century, the cowboy in his many guises -- sheriff, outlaw, drunk, cowhand, bandido, gaucho, cattle baron, oil baron, redneck -- was the blank slate on which politicians, artists, real estate developers and an infinite number of children drew their dreams, anxieties, pieties, and truisms. The object of, and receptacle for, nostalgia for all we imagined we had lost in the transition to mechanized, bounded society, the cowboy represented manliness, rebellion, independence, self-reliance, and strength. Ronald Reagan (an actor) and George W. Bush (scion of a rich east coast family) self-identified with this figure, and by applying the "maverick" label to himself, Republican presidential candidate John McCain attempts to do the same.

In the last ten years we've been seeing stripper culture saturate society -- as in the Bratz dolls, movies like Showgirls, weird institutions like strippers at birthday parties, and so on. It seems like everybody knows what a lap dance is, and -- in San Francisco, at least -- it seems like everybody knows somebody who has been or is a stripper, is dating a stripper, or at least fantasizes about being one.

The comic strip convinced me. Until now it has been: police versus the zombies, doctors versus the zombies, ordinary people versus the zombies; now strippers versus the zombies. Now this is the transitional moment. Instead of going on with the zombie meme, which I think has been completely played out (and yes, there has just been a movie about zombie strippers), from now on everything's going to be about strippers. Stripper lawyers, stripper crime-fighters, stripper real estate mavens, stripper executives, etc. They may not be actual strippers, just as the sheriff in a western film wasn't actually a cowboy; he merely embodied what were supposed to be cowboy values. The "stripper politician," say, might not really take her clothes off for pay, but she is going to embody stripper values.

And what are stripper values? In a way, a little like what were supposed to be cowboy values: independence, horniness, toughness, panache, daring; being sort of an outlaw even if you are, say, a cop (cf. Dirty Harry, Serpico, the Die Hard films, etc.) Substitute over-amped femininity for being macho, and voilá:

Sorry -- I guess that was even scarier than zombies.

technorati: sex work, strippers, zeitgeist

The Astyk Award: first winner

The NYT has an article about people who victimize their families in the name of environmentalism: a mother "couldn't find a (Little League baseball) league that wasn't a long drive," so her 6-year-old is stuck playing catch with her in the yard; in the winter they heat with a wood stove and the average indoor temp is 52 degrees. A man is collecting every bit of waste his family generates, including the recyclables, and blogging about it. And so forth.

Perhaps we need a companion to the Stolpa Award, which recognizes people who fit into the "Too stupid to live" category but manage to menace their whole family in the bargain. All right, let's name it after, and give the first award to, the mother who can't be bothered to live in the 20th (much less the 21st) century: The Astyk Award. (Although the article itself contains another phrase which is wonderfully evocative: dark green.)

I mean, really -- you want to reduce your carbon footprint? Don't have kids. She has four.

technorati: waste, recycling, green

Bad behavior extra: foamer's comments lead to avalanche of donations -- for opponent

On Friday, arch-conservative nutbag Michele Bachmann, a first-term US Representative from Minnesota, suggested the media investigate members of Congress to determine whether they hold "un-American" views:

By today, disgusted contributors from across the country had donated nearly $500,000 to her opponent, one El Tinklenberg, a former Methodist minister, mayor of Blaine, Minn., and state transportation commissioner.

I just sent him $50.

technorati: Republicans, Bachmann

It's Bad Behavior Saturday™! -- scare tactics edition

A firm hired by the GOP to register voters is under investigation in three states for duping voters into registering as Republicans when they thought they were only signing a petition. In southern California the firm, Young Political Majors (YPM), set up a table outside a supermarket and told voters they were signing a petition to increase penalties for child molesters.

There are so many ways this is fucked up. Primarily the hoax, of course, but also the use of a cliched red flag -- child molestation -- as a ruse, as if "penalties for child molesters" was some sort of magic incantation similar to "three strikes and you're out" or "no child left behind."

In San Bernardino County, two men were sentenced to four years in prison for robbing a paraplegic man in his home. And in Florida, a prostitute was arrested after she robbed a man who died while she was having sex with him in his car.

Actress Maureen McCormick, who played Marcia in "The Brady Bunch," was a drug-addicted mess who traded sex for drugs as a teenager and "led an off-screen life of nonstop debauchery." That makes it sound much more fun to read about than it probably is, in her just-released tell-all.

Las Vegas police, the DEA and the FBI are investigating reports that a six-year-old boy was kidnapped by a Mexican meth gang in retaliation after the child's grandfather failed to pay them for millions of dollars worth of drugs. The grandfather -- a 51-year-old handyman with three mortgages on his home who also seems to have ties to the recording industry -- has not been seen for months. Update: Oops: Grampa has been arrested in California, the Amber Alert for the lad has been canceled, though further update: police were still looking for the kid as of 3 pm.

A program in Australia to snitch on neighbors you suspect of welfare fraud garnered more than 100,000 tips in a year. That news story introduced me for the first time to the expression "to dob in" which seems to mean to inform on someone.

Today's fake: Stephen Hoch, whose inflated resume got him a $300K job as Washington State University Provost. Amazingly, Hoch is not only complaining that the Provost job did not give him enough power, but is being permitted to return to his previous post with the U. as a professor, at $245K.

Finally, two examples of people whose collapse has been more spectacular than the slight fame they achieved. A former Milwaukee alderman, already convicted of bribery and other charges, may have falsified records in order to get a new driver's license after being convicted of DUI. And an actor who appeared in a small part on several episodes of "The Sopranos," Lillo Brancato, will be tried for murder later this month in a case where a cop was killed during a 2005 burglary. Brancato attempted suicide in Rikers in 2006 when the gravity of his situation hit him; he's been there ever since. By the way, Brancato appeared with fellow Sopranos actor Drea DiMatteo in a 2001 film by director Abel Ferrera, 'R Xmas, which "follows them through a nightmarish Christmas Eve in which the husband is kidnapped and beaten up by a corrupt policeman (Ice-T) and two accomplices, and the wife dashes around accumulating the king's ransom necessary to set him free."

technorati: Republicans, voter fraud

Reporter visits New Life Church, manages not to mention Ted Haggard

On Huffington Post, a reporter visits Colorado Springs, and writes 1600 words about New Life Church without mentioning its disgraced founder Ted Haggard. How impressively fair.

Strangest thing in the story is her description of "a half-used tray of communion wine, its thimbles of juice with frayed pull-tops." They have little bitty juice containers with pull-tops for communion? Now that's déclassé.

technorati: New Life Church, Colorado Springs, Ted Haggard

It's Bad Behavior Friday™! -- getting around pretty well edition

A Kentucky high school student who wrote a story about a high school overrun by zombies was arrested for making a "terroristic threat" involving a school. Worst of all: his grandparents turned him in after reading the story in his journal.

In order to convince a court he had followed its order to return his illegally-imported pet monkey to Mexico, a man staged a picture showing the monkey with a Mexican newspaper and red and green decorations in the background. The judge was not swayed. ¡Ai carumba, dude! Maybe you should have included a Tecate Light.

Speaking of advertising: In the L.A. subway, you can't even stare out the window without seeing an ad. An electronic system shows commercials on the insides on train windows (right). Click the link for a larger version of the photo as well as a video showing a man startled by an ad. And (courtesy Jackson West) Kerouac's "On the Road" is now being used to sell cars in a European commercial. The ad shows an actor not only performing a dramatic reading of a famous passage from the book but shows the cover of the book itself, in case viewers were having trouble connecting Jack Kerouac with the cars being sold -- BMWs. (I just realized that entry from West's blog is ancient. Oh well, the commercial is still outrageous.)

"Mad Men" actress Christina Hendricks, who plays the formidable office manager Joan, says any suggestions her breasts are not real are "absolutely mean." Somewhat deflating this comment, elsewhere in the interview she says that when "Mad Men" won an Emmy, "I remember feeling high, like after an operation or something."

In New York, a 58-year-old real estate broker said to "have anger-management issues" hit his business partner with an ice bucket during a meeting. The victim was 11 years younger, but had recently had surgery on the parts of his body, the right shoulder and hand, that his assailant chose to whack him with the bucket.

Disproving what coaches always tell you -- "Come on, the ball won't kill you!" -- an 11-year-old Oregon boy was killed by a football to the chest as he blocked a punt during a game at recess.

technorati: Bad Behavior, football, Mad Men

Small-town high school renames yoga after 'concerned citizens' object

After a group of "concerned citizens" objected that offering yoga might amount to a promotion of Hinduism, a small town New York high school has renamed the exercise "Raider relaxation" after the school's mascot. But the best paragraph from the story was this one:

The debate around Massena's yoga program is not unprecedented. In 2002 in Aspen, Colo., a group of Baptists objected to a proposed yoga program in the public school district, citing separation of church and state as well. In the end, all of the Sanskrit terms were dropped -- "meditation" became "time in" and "yogic panting" became "bunny breathing." The only term that remained was yoga.

technorati: yoga

Woman convicted in Clear Lake quadruple murder case

The fucked-up suburb where I lived and went to high school is in the news again today. Last time it was because it got the shit knocked out of it by Hurricane Ike. The infrastructure having sufficiently recovered to stage a murder trial, a jury yesterday convicted a graduate of said Clear Lake High School in the quadruple murder in 2003 of several other youths, some of them her classmates, in a disastrous home-invasion robbery.

The so-called Clear Lake Area, a suburb of Houston, had a real run of infamy around that time, starting with the day in 2001 Andrea Yates killed all her children, following up with the day a year later when Clara Harris ran over her husband in the parking lot of the same Hilton hotel that all the weather reporters stay in when hurricanes hit. I prophetically set several of my short stories in the suburb, stories written a few years before these incidents, in which I proposed that the Clear Lake Area is actually a pit of violence and horror just waiting to erupt. Clearly I was correct.

technorati: Clear Lake City, Clear Lake High School, murder, Christine Paolilla, suburbs, Houston

On Open Salon: far right sees likely Obama win as an opportunity

On Open Salon, I blogged:

Just as the ruling by the California Supreme Court created a fabulous opportunity for conservatives to raise funds and solidify the base through the usual fear-mongering, the prospect of a black man with a funny name being elected president could be the greatest thing for far-right conservatives since Hillary Clinton.

More at the whole post.

Hospital notes

Cris just spent a few days in a hospital getting orthopedic surgery. She came home today and she's doing well. But while she was there this week, I spent a lot of time up there over four days, and I discovered two things.

One, the day nurses were invariably awesome; the night nurses were mostly mediocre. Makes sense: the day shift is more desirable, so the best nurses choose it. The main distinction between the great nurses and the mediocre ones was that the latter are more inflexible and tend to cite rules and policies when you ask them a question, while the good ones actually answer your question and know the science behind whatever you're talking about.

Two: due to the much worse condition of the other patient in the room, I now can say with some experience just what TV programs brain-damaged people like to watch:

Jerry Springer

Nancy Grace

Glenn Beck

Und so weiter. Poor thing, it wasn't her fault some drunk ran into her car. Now she's stuck watching Nancy Grace.

Clusterfuck in the wake of Hurricane Ike

Hurricane Ike happened three weeks ago, making landfall at Galveston on September 13. Today the almost-always-useless local paper went against type and ran an actual news article, reporting about angry residents of a condo complex called The Landing who have been booted out of their buildings because more than two-thirds of the complex is deemed unlivable.

I was struck by the article because I lived in The Landing in 1970, when it was an apartment complex. (It was the first place my family lived in Texas, at a time when my father wasn't sure he was going to be transferred permanently to the Shell refinery there. We lived there about 10 months.) It is located [satellite map] right on the shore of Clear Lake, and even back then the parking lots would flood during a bad storm because it was so close to sea level. At some point in the 1980s, on one of my trips back for Christmas, I drove by and noticed that the ground around the complex had been built up somewhat, raising it a few feet. Not enough in the case of a major hurricane, and in any case there must have been extensive wind damage, as the eye of the hurricane passed just a few miles to the east.

As I've written many times, I've no love for that area, which I consider a mistake and the worst example of suburban sprawl. It isn't a town and never was; it's just a collection of subdivisions plunked down between two towns, Webster and Seabrook, that were barely more than rural hamlets before LBJ got NASA to locate its headquarters there. As I wrote previously, the area has "no center, no landmarks, no history, no culture, and no taste." I have no reason to go back there anymore, as my mother moved out of the state following my father's death.

It's too bad for the people who were tricked into buying as condos these small apartments which were kind of nice in 1970 but were located in a flood-prone area. But if you choose to live in that area, it's hard to feel sorry for you, because it was a disaster before the hurricane, and the hurricane just made it more obvious.

technorati: Ike, Hurricane Ike, Seabrook, The Landing, FEMA, El Lago

Unfortunate name of the month

If you change your name to Jesus Jihad, no good is likely to come of you.