Hitler Made The Trains Run On Time...

While I've always liked Weird Al, I gained a lot of respect for him while reading an interview he did over at the AV Club. They used to have a segment called "Random Rules" in which they would have a musician put their iPod on shuffle and justify the first 5 tracks that came up. When it was Weird Al's turn, a song from Hole came up, and after a short defense of their music he ended with "What can you say about Courtney Love...Hitler made the trains run on time, after all," which I think pretty much sums up any defense of Hole or Courtney Love in general.

Well, it turns out she's making the trains run on time again as she prepares to sue Activision, makers of Guitar Hero, over their use of a Kurt Cobain avatar in the game.

I'm glad to see someone finally stepping up to stop all of this "cashing in on the dead who would never have allowed you to cash in on them when alive" crap going on. Seeing as Cobain killed himself rather than continue having his music turned into yet another money-making cog for giant soulless corporations, he probably would not be too keen to have his image rendered in a colossal money-grubbing video game series.

Of course, I also had the same thought when first seeing the incredibly regrettable Rock Band commercial with the digitally-raped corpse of John Lennon standing on Abby Road made to look so excited about the release of his very first video game. The only problem is, I don't think Yoko is going to put up any fuss.

Not being as good to your dead partner's legacy as Courtney Love? Forget breaking up the Beatles, that is truly the worst thing anyone can ever say about you...

A Short Guide to Socialist Indoctrinaition

1) Stay in School

2) Work Hard

3) Don't Do Drugs

Phew! Good thing I'm too old to be stuck in a schoolhouse being force-fed this socialist nonsense. Hopefully America's children will be able to resist this brainwashing and realize that only socialists want to do well by working hard and living sober. Real Americans neither work hard nor remain sober, thank you very much.

Horrifying, Interesting, and Trivial: A News Roundup

1) Over a Randball this morning, a good, snarky dissection of why Derek Jeter doesn't deserve the MVP more than Mauer, even though he seems to be a genuinely good guy who's been lucky enough to play decent baseball for a team that can purchase every player in baseball.

2) So remember how a bunch of people compared Bush to Hitler and were called crazy for it (though attempting to give public healthcare does apparently qualify someone as worse than Hitler)? Well, now news is coming out that CIA doctors likely performed illegal human experiments on detainees. Or in other words, the exact same thing Nazi doctors did that lead to their execution at Nuremburg. So not to go all crazy and say some of the Bush-Hitler comparison may be apt, but...

3) Jason Frank, best known as the Green Power Ranger (and then the white Power Ranger after Lord Zedd destroyed his Green Power coin while Rita Repulsa had control of his powers), is know making a comeback in the world of Mixed Martial Arts. Even though I feel my Gopher loyalty should make Brock Lesnar my favorite almost-real-sport fighter, it's hard not to root for the sworn protector of Angel Grove...

Finally, People Are Starting To Get Serious

The BBC recently ran a report on the work done by a group of Canadian researchers who study unfamiliar infectious diseases and how to combat them. How did they model a debilitating, unknown contagion and its possible effects? Easily, and in the only way that makes sense: they modeled a zombie attack.

The conclusion? Well, I think the article summary speaks for itself:

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.

While the "if" in that sentence is just more clear proof that we're truly not prepared for said attack, it's at least a good first step in the right direction for the inevitable day when undead hordes descend upon our towns and cities hungering for our flesh..

And in fact, that day may be sooner than we think. Inevitablezombieapocalypse.com has unearthed the following footage from a Russian military envoy. I'm not saying you should panic, but if you don't have a survival kit packed and ready by the door, I'd suggest you have some work to do...

Wrapping Up The Regular Season

The regular season of the TCAMBL (twin cities adult men's baseball league, for those not in the know) wrapped up the past weekend. While my season end stats don't look good by any means at .176/.235/.300 (avg/slg/obp), it was my first time playing any form of organized baseball in well over a decade. Plus, being understandably a back up, I didn't get many opportunities at the start of the season, and hitting's a funny rhythm thing. If you knock out the first games where I got one late-game at bat and inevitably struck out looking at better pitches than I ever saw when I played little league/early highschool ball and instead look at just the second half of the season the numbers go up to .273/.363/.313. Of course, those still aren't good, but they are far less embarrassing, and I believe they qualify me to hit second for the Twins. Plus I had one fly out that was about two feet from being a home run, which again means nothing, but I think it makes the shitty numbers seem at least a little less bad...

So on the plus side, I'm peaking at just the right time for the playoffs. Finishing up at a respectable 6-7 drew my Wobblies team a tough playoff assignment in the bracket. While we're got a very good chance of winning our first game, the second game will almost invariably be against the team that twice beat us by margains of 15-2 and then 14-4. (But if we do pull off some sort of miracle, Bad News Bears-esque run at the championship, we get to play that in the Dome, so keep your fingers crossed.)

Anyway, given that the last time I played baseball was my freshman year in high school and I'm pretty confident I didn't get a single hit the whole season, I'm at least seeing some upward progression. And given that I've never demonstrated prowess in any type of physical competition, I have to say I'm extremely satisfied with my mediocre-at-best play...

Why Some Protests Are Taken Seriously

An interesting article on AlterNet this morning raises the question of why right-wing protests over health care are being taken seriously by the mainstream media while left-wing protests throughout the war have either been dismissed as the grumbling of crazed lunatics or (more often) not even offered coverage. While there is the obvious reason -- that major media outlets are owned by multination corporations that have a great deal invested in promoting conservative ideology -- I think another, less obvious answer lies in the way that being a "real" American has come to de facto mean being conservative.

Think about it: during the last presidential cycle (and still today in this whole "birther" movement), the lily-white right-wing candidates project themselves as "real" Americans, while progressives (and their evil henchmen The Minorities) represent all that is wrong with the world. Being a progressive is just simply un-American, and thus progressive protests could never represent the mood of America, even though the number of nutcases showing up to these health care town halls, who supposedly demonstrate the will of "real" Americans, are not even close to a fraction of the numbers of people who showed up to demonstrate against the war.

I think about this a lot in connection to my own life and political views -- I'm a white guy who grew up in small town Iowa in a working-class household, went to public schools, church every weekend, played baseball, and ate copious amounts of red meat. It couldn't be any more All American, according to the criteria set forth by the right-wing.Yet because I believe we shouldn't invade other countries for no reason, I'm now a radical outside of the mainstream. As I prep to teach classes, I often have people ask me if I think I'm alienating my students with my crazed left-wing theories, since after all, they're usually from small rural towns. The fact that I grew up in pretty much the exact same environment as most of those students means nothing; now that my political views have made me no longer a "real" American, there's simply no way I could connect with these salt-of-the-earth types who populate my classes.

Though, of course, if any of the students start to agree with me, I guess they're not real Americans anymore, so the whole point is moot...

Kill one, got to prison. Kill thousands...

Glenn Greenwald has a great piece this morning on why every American should read the IG torture report detailing the abuses suffered by detainees at the hands of American "interrogators." Not surprisingly, some pretty bad stuff is revealed (such as the fact that interrogators repeatedly threatened to bring in suspect's wives and daughters to rape them in front of them). More surprising, however, is that many of the interrogators apparently openly and often wondered aloud at the legality of what they were doing and feared that they would be soon prosecuted for what they were doing. Not exactly the actions of people who are just asking some questions of suspects...

But as Greenwald points out, the biggest problem with the limited investigation being proposed is that, like usual, it will only focus on the low-level people involved and completely ignore those who came up with these sick ideas, authorized them, and then wrote extensive legal documents arguing why they should be allowed to do this. And lets not forget that over 40 detainees have now died in custody, with at least a dozen of them classified homicides by the Army itself, meaning that by not prosecuting those responsible we are quite literally leting them get away with murder...

How I Think (Apparently I Was Never A College Student)

I got an e-mail from a colleague today touting the new "mindset" list as a way of understanding how those damn kids think these days. Essentially, it's just a big list of things that these kids have supposedly never experienced and how that must influence the way they think about things. Of course, I say supposedly because according to whoever comes up with these stupid things thinks that if something happened a year before someone was born they will never know what it was. But really, I hate lists like this because they're so glib and essentializing and really are just another attempt of out-of-touch middle age people trying to feel smugly secure about their life experiences based on the fatally-flawed logic that because they experienced things the world has long outgrown they're somehow smarter than those who haven't.

But to illuminate my complaints, here's some selections from the 2002 mindset list, which is the closest to when I entered college available (I entered in 2000, so it's not too far off):

1. The people starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1980.

They're starting college at the age of 22? Apparently this generation is really behind or had a bunch of stuff to get done after high school...

2. They have no meaningful recollection of the Reagan era, and did not know he had ever been shot.

I was well aware of both of these events, and I was born 2 years after these people were supposedly born

6. They were 11 when the Soviet Union broke apart, and do not remember the Cold War.

Trust me, you remember nuclear paranoia no matter how old you were when it stopped. Also, I would consider 11 old enough to have memories of that period...

11. Bottle caps have not always been screw off, but have always been plastic.

To this day glass bottles and non-screw off tops made of metal still exist and can be found quite readily.

13. The expression "you sound like a broken record" means nothing to them.

Just because a medium has fallen out of favor does not mean people have no conception of it. I also know what a horse is even though cars are far more popular...

14. They have never owned a record player.

By the time I got to college, I owned two record players.

15. They have likely never played Pac Man, and have never heard of "Pong."

I had played both of these multiple times before I got to college

20. As far as they know, stamps have always cost about 32 cents.

Again, being young does not make you mentally retarded. I'm pretty sure by the time people go to college they have a basic grasp of inflation and the fluctuation of prices.

21. They have always had an answering machine.

I never had an answering machine.

22. Most have never seen a TV set with only 13 channels, nor have they seen a black & white TV.

I had a black and white tv well into my teens.

23. They have always had cable.

I never had cable.

25. They cannot fathom what it was like not having a remote control.

I didn't have a tv with remote control until I was about 7 or 8.

27. Roller-skating has always meant in-line for them.

Didn't get a pair of in-line skates until I was a teenager.

32. They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.

I was afraid to take baths alone as a child because of the high likelihood of a Jaws attack. Movies do get replayed after they leave the theaters...

35. They can't imagine what hard contact lenses are.

I am wearing hard contacts as I write this

42. McDonald's never came in Styrofoam containers.

McDonald's stopped using styrofoam in 1990. By the author's own logic, these kids would have been 10 at that time. Pretty sure people remember things that happened before they were 10...



...And that is why I hate these lists. Even if they were true, they would still be completely meaningless (oh, no! my students don't know what an 8-track is! How can I even begin to teach them about our criminal justice system?!?), but even that doesn't matter because they're never true! It turns out that in a nation of roughly 300 million people there seems to be a diversity of experiences. Shockingly, not every child grows up with the exact same electronics, parents, history books, schools, income levels, etc., etc., and that it just might be a little worthless to speak of an entire generation as if they were one person who had a generic slate of experiences.

And yet highly educated people (these are developed by collegiate professors after all) not only make these lists, but actually take them seriously as if they give some sort of insight into today's youngsters...sigh. Fortunately, I don't trust anyone over 30. Did you know that people over 30 grew up without twitter? And to them, the blue M&M is a recent phenomenon? And the internet still confuses and scares them? It's true! Hopefully these facts will help you communicate with old and out-of-touch people...

Your Fall Semester Plans

From the man who brought you TPP posters galore comes the announcement for my fall course:



You wanna learn about the police? Oh, I'll learn you good...

Not To Argue the Left Wing is a Little Disadvantaged, But...

By now everyone is familiar with the right-wing craziness going on in these town hall meetings (with only Barney Frank so far having the guts to call these people out), but it's really reaching a fever pitch as of late. For the other day, at least a dozen people showed up to an Obama town hall meeting armed with shotguns. Not crazy posters depicting Obama as Hitler, not mean-spirited t-shirts, but fucking shotguns.

Now, for 8 years of a Bush presidency if someone was holding a flimsy paperboard sign asking the president why he was slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people for no reason, they were not only automatically ejected but were usually charged with some sort of crime. And of curse this was justified because once, about 40 years ago, a lefty protestor used violence, so they must all be violent nut cases.

Contrast this with conservative protestors who show up to a presidential speech with fucking shotguns. In a nation where it's pretty much illegal to even imply you want to harm the president, apparently it's ok for conservatives to directly confront him with shotguns.

So just to clarify, if you're keeping score of which ideology is allowed to do what, here' a quick cheat sheet to be your guide for political actions:

Left-wing protestors: Carrying signs is far too dangerous and will be dealt with swiftly and harshly, for everyone's safety.

Right-wing protestors: Feel free to confront the president with a gun. After all, he is (meekly) trying to get poor people health care coverage.

FBI Investigates Mpls PD...again

So you're a MPLS cop and you pull over a hefty black guy who doesn't immediately do what you say -- what do you do? Do you ask him again, or do you claim he punched you despite video evidence to the contrary and then call in 8 of your buddies to beat him so badly he needs to be hospitalized?

Well, I can tell you what the training manual says, or you can watch the video yourself.

What's most interesting about this incident is how the back-up officers fly into the scene and immediately start punching and kicking the poor guy without any knowledge of the situation. In fact, all they know is there was a call for help and when they got there, they saw a man face down in a snow bank with a cop sitting on top of him. Not exactly a scenario that calls you to get down on your knees and start punching him directly in the crotch, as you can clearly see one officer do.

Of course, all charges were dropped against Mr. Jenkins (the victim); not necessarily because he was innocent of the charges, but probably more because he had just been severely beaten for no reason while it was caught on camera.

You can argue that Mr. Jenkins was being uncooperative (though explaining why a Black man in Minneapolis would be justifiably wary of any police contact is an entirely different post), but the force used on him was still clearly inappropriate. For starters, there was no reason he needed to be pulled out of the car at all. But even if you grant that was necessary for some unknown reason, there's simply no defense for the actions of the back up. All that was needed was for one officer to grab his legs and then he was fully subdued. Put some cuffs on him and leave. What makes this so bad is not that he was beaten so severely (though that is really, really bad), but it's the fact that a single punch never needed to be thrown and the situation could have been resolved faster, easier, and far less illegally.

Now there may be some disciplinary action taken (the FBI has agreed to investigate), but seeing as how this seems to happen pretty much once or twice a year here, I doubt much will actually change. I just hope the MPLS PD remembers this the next time they wonder so loudly why the public distrusts police officers...

And Another Piece of Our Collective Soul Dies...

...by which I mean the ephemeral quality of basic goodness we all share, not the shitty 90s band...

Perusing the fine journalistic list-making of Cracked the other day, I stumbled upon their list of the most questionable charities and fundraisers. Nestled right after a discussion of a Guliani fundraiser in which he charged every guest $9.11 for admission (you cannot make this stuff up), was the wesbite MyFreeImplants.com (borderline NSFW).

It's probably a bit more complicated than this, but essentially the site allows women who would like larger breasts (women only...sorry fellas, your boobs will have to stay the same size) to post pictures of themselves and argue why they should be given the money for plastic surgery. Philanthropic minded gents (or ladies, I guess) can then donate to the cause, and in exchange, they get pictures (possibly nude, I couldn't determine) and "contact info" (again, not sure what all that entails). So basically it's like an expensive online strip club where women with low self-confidence who have been raised to believe they are nothing more than sex objects attempt to bilk money out of sad and lonely men who otherwise would receive no interaction at all with women.

I'll save the righteous rantings about how disgustingly misogynistic such a site is and how both the men and women who use it are desperately in need of a swift kick in the ass, mostly only because I think it speaks for itself. Again, this is a website where you can go to donate toward a woman's breast augmentation and/or solicit donations for your own new breasts. And it's clearly working, because the site keeps a little running tally of many of the women's donation levels, and some are into the thousands of dollars.

But really, that's what makes America beautiful, isn't it? Over half the world lives on less than $1 dollar a day, and even within the most wealthy and powerful nation on earth we have millions living in poverty and dying of easily cured illness, and yet plenty of people are apparently willing to give away thousands of dollars just to know that there are now a bigger pair of breasts somewhere in this crazy world of ours. Kind of warms the heart, doesn't it?

When It Is and Isn't Ok to Use Your Mentally Retarded Child As A Political Prop

All politician's are hypocrites -- it's such a truism that it doesn't even really need to be said. Part of it is the very nature of the job; with 535 senators and representatives, a president, a supreme court, and on and on, it's impossible for one person to deliver on any specific promise they make. And of course, the people masochistic enough to endure months of nationally televised attacks on themselves, their ideas, and their past are obviously a special sub-set of humanity that need attention really bad and are willing to do pretty much anything to get it.

Yet some push hypocrisy to beautiful new heights. Take Sarah Palin, for instance (no, please take her! buh-dum-ching!). We all know she's an incredible idiot and I don't need to pile on more examples of how she's not even fit for managing a Denny's let alone some sort of national office. But beyond her stupefying idiocy, she has truly become a master of hypocrisy, especially concerning her own family.

Leaving aside the whole "abstinence only education and only bad parents have pregnant teenage daughters except for me because this is actually an example of being a good parent" thing, her son Trig takes up most of her hypocritical rantings.

We were all introduced to Trig's Down-Syndrome cuteness during her vice-presidential acceptance speech when he was continually used as a prop to show what an amazing mother she was. Then when the whole drunken-redneck-knocks-up-her-daughter-and-leaves story broke and she started drawing heat it suddenly became out-of-bounds to talk about the family she kept constantly referencing.

And then came her "I'm quitting but I'm not a quitter" resignation speech, when she once again talked about all those big, bad journalists who keep talking about the family she won't stop talking about. So the subject's buried, right? She told us to quit talking about/looking at/being aware of the existence of her family and slunk away from the national spotlight. Certainly we're done with discussions of Mz. Palin and her special needs baby, right?

No! Of course not! For shortly after her "only a monster uses a Downs Syndrome child to further their political causes" speech, she once again used her Down Syndrome baby to further her political agenda, claiming Obama's (unfortunately) not-at-all socialized medicine would murder her baby. (The fact that she did this over Facebook is an entirely different post...)

So what does she follow up her totally level-headed claim of government death panels that murder babies with? A call for "civil discourse" that doesn't get "sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment."

Yeah, because when we're discussing government-controlled baby-murder squads we certainly don't want people to get all hyperbolic and start making wild accusations, do we?

More Re-posting

So summer's theoretically a time when life gets less hectic and you get to slow down a little bit, but this has definitely not panned out for me. Being so far behind, I've had precious little time to devote to my poor, neglected blog (although it should be getting better soon).

In the meantime, while you're contemplating getting up to 4,500 bucks for your inefficient car so you can upgrade to a slightly less inefficient car, remember that the Bush administration made it so that it's virtually free to buy giant, gas-wasting SUVs.

In 30 years when all the fossil fuels have been used up and we're living in a dystopic, Mad Max-esque charred hellscape, at least there will be some cool (albeit inert) old cars to look at...

Shocking News That Shouldn't Shock You At All

It turns out that when you give a shadowy company which remains shrouded in secrecy billions of dollars to enter a warzone and provide "security" and then place absolutely no oversights on what they're doing, they kill people indiscriminately and then kill the people who try to blow the whistle on them.

But then again, who could have seen this coming? I would have figured giving billions of dollars and carte blanche to kill whomever they please to a bunch of radical right-wing steroidal miscreants would have turned out great. Shame on you, Blackwater. You've given the word "mercenary" a bad name.

The Only Living Boy in Jonestown

On the night Obama was elected, the misses dragged me and some friends down to the orgiastic celebration going on at the temporary DFL headquarters in downtown St. Paul. And even though throughout the city people were quite literally dancing in the streets, I just couldn't get too hyped up about it all. I remember very distinctly running into a Professor in my department at the DFL party who was working on a project examining the Obama campaign and racial issues. That night she was carrying around a little digital recorder asking people to share their thoughts on Obama's election. My thoughts? I believe they went (verbatim): "I just wish it meant something."

And at the risk of congratulating myself too early, it seems the election hasn't meant much at all. Obama has already supported the "defense" of marriage act, refused to do anything about don't ask/don't tell, backpedalled on his plan to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, definitively said single-payer healthcare is off the table, and now Obama has adopted Bush's state secrets policy, meaning his administration can shut down any lawsuit it wants in the name of "national security."

But I guess we shouldn't be too surprised. After all, remember his campaign promises?

Why Poor People Are So Lazy (A Market Analysis)

Far be it form me to make the wild accusation that conservatives are sometimes hypocritical (like we all are, blah, blah, blah), but when discussing poverty, they take the cake. For you see, conservatives love to explain how the market solves everything -- from deciding who gets nice houses (rich people) to who gets nice cars (rich people) to who can afford to eat well (rich people) to who gets to go to the doctor and live through illnesses (rich people), the market is the force that solves all and explains everything.

Except when it comes to explaining what poor people do. For instance, they certainly don't sell drugs because they've had no educational opportunities and subsequently have no job prospects. No, they do it because they're bad people.

Or take welfare -- again, the reason poor people go on welfare is not because they've been shut out of our exclusive economic system, it's because they're lazy and don't want to work. Yet ironically, this is one of the few times market logic actually explains human behavior. Checkout the graph below:



The red line is what our government defines as the poverty line (which actually still leaves someone deeply in poverty because it's set way too low, but that's another post for another day) and the bars below represent how much someone would earn working full time at a minimum wage job (adjusted for inflation) throughout the past 70 years. Note that only once does one of those bars even come close to meeting the poverty line.

So you tell me, from a market logic standpoint, which makes more sense -- working your ass off 40 hours a week and not even earning enough to meet the poverty line, or collecting welfare and not even earning enough to meet the poverty line? Any good economist will tell you the better choice is to take the free inadequate money rather than the hard-earned inadequate money...

Understanding Palin's Quitter Speech

Apparently the key to understanding what Sarah Palin's ramblings were about as she quit the only job it appears she's ever had, it's because you heard them in the wrong context. The speech was actually a brilliant beat poem, it was just delivered poorly. William Shatner fixes the presentation:

Blog Stealing

I'm running very short on time today, so I'm merely stealing an interesting post from elsewhere. Johnathon Schwarz (via thismodernworld) reminds us that in the game of international politics, whoever lies first is most likely to be believed. A pretty handy lesson for all facets of life, I suppose...

Some Catching Up

I don't have time to write out a full blog post today, so I'm going to just throw some links at you.

It turns out that on pretty much every issue, Iowa seems to be the outlier. We're such iconoclastic people, us Iowegians. Though, I would also note, one way in which Iowa really stands out is in the legal recognition of same-sex marriage...

Norm Coleman, who is finally out of the Senate after switching parties and stealing a dead man's seat, feels the GOP needs to be able to compete on the "ethernet". Say what you will about Franken, but at least I'm pretty sure he understands what the internet is.

Not to be too radical, but I would go so far as to say I think racists are stupid. Here's a great example -- Pat Buchanan thinks America should be for people who butcher English as their first language.

And last, but oh-so-certainly not least, the Pentagon is furious with Fox News for suggesting the Taliban should murder captured soldier Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, going so far as to say Fox is aiding and giving comfort to the enemy. I believe the correct term is "poetic justice."

Saying Goodbye to Uncle Walter

I'm not of a generation that ever really saw Walter Cronkite do his thing, but given his reputation, it's hard not to know who the man was and what he did. And as tribute after tribute fades from the air, we've probably all by now memorized the speech he gave that President Johnson credits as finally swaying the public against the Vietnam war.

What you might now know is that Cronkite was just as much against the Iraq war. It's not surprising, but a still a little odd, that we so celebrate his integrity and fearless reporting yet ignore his more "inconvenient" arguments. You know, arguments such as the Iraq war was "illegal from the start" and a "terrible disaster" serving "no purpose" that has "probably made us less safe."

I don't think Uncle Walter has quite the same pull he used to, so I'm not under the delusion that public opinion would shift any more away from the war because he disagreed with it. But since all of the memorials are focusing on his willingness to take the tough stand and call it like he sees it, it would be nice to not scrub all of his opinions post 1976...

Exactly Two More Weeks of Bachelorhood

As of August 1st, the lease on my beloved li'l apartment will be up for the final time and I take the plunge and move in with the lady. Technically we already live together as we've had our house since early June, but I've still had my apartment the whole time and she's been in D.C. for the bulk of the summer, so we haven't really been living together. But she gets back the same day my lease is up and we move in for real, just like big kids.

And because we're hippies who have little, if any, faith in the institution of marriage, moving in together is pretty much the apex of our relationship. And actually, I argue that moving in together is a far bigger step than getting engaged anyway. Because if you get engaged and then decide things aren't working out, there would certainly be all sorts of emotional pain and whatnot. But if you move in together and then things don't work out, there's all the same emotional turmoil, but now it's combined with a whole mess of material consequences. And being a good Marxist I know that material conditions are far more influential than petty ideological ones.

So I'm trying to squeeze all of the enjoyment out of my last few days of bachelorhood as possible. Of course, I'm a pretty boring guy so instead of cavorting with shady characters or enjoying all sorts of depraved misogynistic pastimes like most guys in such a situation I instead enjoy the real pleasures of not having a partner at home -- showering sparingly, belching often and loudly, letting the dishes pile up into foul-smelling, precarious tributes to my laziness, etc. You know, the kind of things women seem to have some sort of weird problem with.

But honestly, I'm more than ready to settle down with the lady and enjoy the domestic life. Really the only thing I'll miss about my days here is the 5 minute walk it takes to get to my office, as opposed to the 20 minute commute I'll now have. Well, that and the aforementioned ability to live like a pig.

All in all, though, a pretty small sacrifice to make to get to come home to the love of your life everyday. Albeit a love that doesn't appreciate your ability to save water through bypassing showers, but no one's perfect...

The (Western) Human Cost of the War on Terror

The easiest way to get people to support a war is to hide the dead. Witness the first gulf war, which was so popular because there were "only" several hundred U.S. deaths (of course, there were hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths, but who gives a shit about them?). This would also be the reason it was illegal for so long to photograph the caskets of U.S. service members. After all, if people were to actually see the fact that kids no older than 18 or 19 were dying for the constantly-shifting rationale of the war, it would be hard to swallow.

Well, to bring it all on home, the Daily Mail over in the UK has a fascinating article on the Western deaths in the war on terror. For example, here's a google maps image of where the U.S. soldiers and contractors who have died came from:



And this handy map links where they came from to where they died:



Just a nice sobering thought for your morning. Maybe you want to forward it on to your elected representatives who still won't end this pointless and illegal war...

In Case You Missed It...

The Talcott Parsons Project EP is here!

If you like hard-rocking, mystical-creature-centric shred-metal, then this is the album for you. If you don't like those things you are a loser and dead to me.

Either contact me for the whole shebang (artwork, jewel case, etc.) or download your free copy here.


Warning: This album may result in socks being rocked off and asses blown out

Basking in the Glow of Student Reviews

Teaching can be a maddening process. Of course, it can also be a very rewarding process, but it seems like the rewarding moments are sandwiched between multiple disappointing or frustrating moments.

I get where this comes from. I'm only a few years away from having been a college student myself, so I understand the blank-eyed stares and not wanting to talk in class, and I'm a guy who really enjoys talking. The only problem with this is when you get to the other side of things, it's hard to tell if the blank stares are just part of being a teacher or if the students are not understanding a thing you're saying. Or listening to a thing you're saying.

And it can start to wear on you. Class after class of slack-jawed, dead-eyed students quietly staring at you (ok, that may be a slight exaggeration) leaves you questioning not only how good a teacher you are, but your life trajectory in general.

Ah, but then come those rewarding moments, and there you are again, all wide-eyed and filled with optimism about the power of knowledge and educating future generations and blah, blah, blah (not to undermine how important I think education is, I just assume readers of this blog get that point by now). One such moment came today as I finally got the student reviews from the spring semester.

Once again, no one had anything negative to say (though maybe the people who hated me didn't show up that day or bother to fill out the form...), and there were a few pretty touching comments. Without falling too much into solipsistic ramblings, I'll just point out my favorite. One fella (well, I'm guessing it's a guy from the hand-writing) said something about me being a good professor (not technically a prof yet, but who am I to correct him?) and then wrote "please don't get burned out and become really boring like the rest of them."

Can't guarantee it, but enough rewarding moments like these and I should be ok...

It's So Bad in Iran It's Almost St. Paul!

The great thing about television news is that it doesn't need to make sense. 24 hours is a lot of time to fill with news, so no one seems to bother to see if what they're saying makes any sense at all as they desperately try to fill far too much airtime.

For example, they show scenes like this from Iran:



And then they talk about how repressive the Iranian government is that it would call out riot police simply because freedom-loving citizens were protesting the election of an abusive, reactionary government. Certainly this means the Iranian government is corrupt and beyond contempt -- after all, what kind of sick government abuses its own people when all they are asking for are democratic rights to speak out and be heard?

Of course, just under a year ago they were showing scenes like this from St. Paul:



But these were accompanied with stories about dangerous anarchist protestors intent on destruction and those poor police, who despite being heavily armored and carrying nearly a half-dozen weapons each, were afraid for their safety against these unarmed people and reacted like anyone would when faced with the menacing threat of hippies carrying poster board.

Just an interesting little example of how a simple change of location seems to make certain behaviors suddenly perfectly fine (like protesting an abusive government) while others oddly become suddenly deplorable (like beating and mass-arresting innocent protestors).

On Being a Minnesota Sports Fan

Baseball fans know that Tony LaRussa hit win number 2,500 as a manager last night, a feat only surpassed by two other people and unlikely to be touched again for a long time (the next closest active manager is Bobby Cox, and he's a couple hundred games away and heading to retirement soon).

LaRussa used his post-game conference to give a shout-out to some other managers he said would also be in his place if they had the chance to be a skipper on the clubs he has. One of those was longtime Twinkies skipper Tom Kelly, much to the surprise and amusement of the Sports Center crew, which is typically the reaction they have when reminded that people who don't reside in major media centers are capable of doings things well.

And it got me ruminating, as I often do, about what being a sports fan in Minnesota teaches you. As I've mentioned before, it definitely teaches you to have lowered expectations, which is good thing to learn in life. But this is a great example of the humility it teaches you. Tom Kelly never had the talent LaRussa had -- his big names were Jack Morris, Kent Hrbeck, Kirby Puckett, Gary Gaietti, Dan Gladden...all good players, but certainly not the superstar household names like MacGuire and Pujols.

And yet, with a fornt office rarely willing to spend money and a playing and living environment unlikely to tempt big-time free agents, TK managed to win two World Series Championships, which is no small feat in any market. Yet Larussa's mention of him as one of the best managers in the game is met surprised laughter.

But that fits well with the type of values we like in the Midwest, anyway -- you work hard and it doesn't matter if anyone rewards you for it wth praise and adulation. Or more cynically, it teaches you another great life lesson -- you can work really hard and accomplish great things, but usually no one really cares...

Sorry About The Nonexistent Blogging

Spent the past two weeks moving into, painting, and fixing a new house. It is never-ending, but I have proclaimed today a day off. Well, a day off from house work, which I conveniently get to spend doing school work. Blogging to resume normally next week...

Love in the Club, Showbiz Pizza Style

Again, although I hate to be the "lookie what I found on the internets!" guy...well, lookie what I found on the internets (or more specifically, look what Gutter the bus driver showed me on the internets):



There's a whole variety of hits and standards as performed by the Rock-afire Explosion band, so please do waste your entire morning giggling at childhood memories as filtered by some dude with an internet connection and a lot of time on his hands...

Welcome to Reality, Mr. Cheney

Well, Richard "Call me a Dick" Cheney has finally admitted there's absolutely no link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Of course, what he fails to mention is that this was clear all along to anyone with a second-grade education or higher and that he intentionally lied about it to go back to a war he'd been itching to finish since he started it with Daddy Bush a decade earlier.

And, of course, despite the hundreds of thousands (likely millions) of people who have died because of this very intentional bald-face lie, he will never be punished in any way at all. Nice work if you can get it...

How To Talk You Way Out of Torture, in Just a Few Easy Steps!

Via Digby:

To help you keep track of all the morally duplicitous arguments for why it's ok that we're torturing people, here's a handy flow chart. To see it in a larger, more readable, format just click n the picture. Enjoy!

Continuing to Ignore Actual Terrorism

The funny thing about the government's incessant spying on leftist groups in the name of preventing terrorist attacks is that there is no known terrorist activity involving a left-wing group since the weather underground some thirty-odd years ago.

However, if you take a moment or two on the Southern Poverty Law Center's website, you can see the dozens upon dozens of right-wing terrorist attacks this country has seen in the past 10 years. And let us not forget that the single biggest domestic terrorist attack, the Oklahoma City bombing, was carried out by a group of staunch right-wingers.

Well, once again the right wing has attacked and killed an abortion-services provider. And now all of the "mainstream" anti-choice groups are up in arms about how they're being unfairly persecuted just because they suggest you should kill abortion doctors and abortion doctors keep coincidentally getting killed.

It's funny how I've earned a FBI file for suggesting that we shouldn't kill people (and been quite ignored in my suggestions) and yet those who encourage violence which is then carried out are seen as fine, upstanding citizens. The kind of citizens who, in reaction to a man being brutally murdered in cold blood, react by saying "well, he didn't really deserve to live. Let's go get some beer and chicken wings!"

R.I.P. Northland Poster Collective

One of Mpls' great labor institutions, the Northland Poster Collective, is now going under. A sad reminder that while the companies who started this whole mess are getting billions in free money and will most likely continue on with little to no problems for their executives (cough, GM, cough), the people who have been fighting against this insanity are faltering left and right.

Giving When It Means Something

Like most things that challenge people's world views, I've often had to deal with a lot of misconceptions about being a Marxist. For example, I often go on a long-winded rant about how people with less money are almost always more generous with their limited resources than are people with far more money. Those who don't like Marxism always accuse me of re-arranging reality to fit my political beliefs, when in reality, it is the exact opposite. A good deal of what pushed me to becoming a Marxist was noticing things like how the people I knew in my life who had little were always willing to help others out, while the people I knew who had plenty liked to keep their plenty for themselves. And it makes sense -- after all, you don't get rich by giving your money away.

Well, whether you believe my story of political evolution or not, at least the numbers back up my thinking. According to a recent study by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on consumer expenditure, the poor donate money at rates far exceeding the wealthy. You can read the article for specifics, but essentially the poorest 5th of Americans give at rates exceeding their capacity, the next two lowest 5ths give at capacity, and the top two 5ths give well below capacity.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that, but if nothing else, at least it offers solid evidence as to why trickle-down economics doesn't work...

Who Is This Guy?

Check out this all-done-in-one-take live instrumentation cover of "Let the Beat Build." This is the first I've heard of this Nyle guy, but I gotta believe good things are coming after this:



"I don't need no sample/gotta girl with a banjo"

Yup, Still Torture

As I've mentioned here before, waterboarding is definitely torture, thus definitely making it illegal and completely immoral.

Well, as so often happens, yet another conservative asshole who insists it's not torture has undergone waterboarding to prove their point. And once again, they proved themselves wrong. This time it was conservative radio jock ManCow, who underwent the procedure last week to prove how easy it was to endure. Well, he lasted all of 7 seconds.

So on this Memorial Day, let's honor our vets by actually upholding the ideals they supposedly fought for and call on our reps to ban the use of all forms of torture.

Modern Art and Social Capital

One of the best things about living in the Twin Cities is the appreciation for the arts and the attenuate benefits that come with that appreciation, such as free Thursday nights at the Walker Art Gallery. The only problem? Modern art is incredibly stupid and pretentious.

For example, there was a collection of works by a guy who had simply cut a line into blank canvases. You see, he wasn't wasting canvas (as I might argue), but instead he was commenting on the hegemony of canvas in Western art, while critiquing ideas of space and conventionality. Or, he was just cutting a line into a piece of canvas.

I could give multiple other examples, but they all remind me of a good buddy's high school art project. When asked to make a wire sculpture, he mashed a bunch of wire together into an oddly-shaped ball and called it "The Wrath of Youth." He received an F and had to re-do the assignment.

This is why modern art can be better understood with some sociology. You see, what separates my F-receiving friend from the large-amounts-of-money-receiving artists is social capital. You see, social capital is analogous to regular capital -- if you learn the values and mores of a social clique (like the art world) and increase your social capital, you can "buy" more respect and believability, much like the more regular capital you have, the more goods and services you can get. Now it gets more complicated than that, but that's the quick version.

And you can see it in action in the art world -- when I (someone with no artistic social capital) cuts a hole in a canvas, I have wasted some perfectly good canvas. But once one has become a famous artist (and has a large amount of social capital in the art world), such random destruction becomes a highly-valued work of art. The only difference is the social status of the two people involved -- one has high social capital, the other has little.

That's one of the best things about sociology -- it can easily be used to puncture the over-inflated egos of pretentious artistes. Sure, they would probably just argue I'm looking at it all wrong, but it's hard to argue the idea that the same piece of work produced by a high school student wouldn't be nearly as valued as it is when it's produced by an already recognized artist. Thus, it's pretty hard to argue anything other than that the value lies in the social construction of the object, rather than the actual object itself...

What Happens When You Justify the Use of Torture?

You get your very own newspaper column!



John Yoo, the man whose twisted logic and complete lack of respect for human life or decency paved the way for torture scandals revealed and yet-to-be-found, has been rewarded by the Philadelphia Inquirer with his own op/ed column.

The Inquirer claims they were aiming for balance by adding a conservative voice to their opinion columnists, but this is either A) them covering their ass for a monumentally stupid decision, or B) proof that we as a nation have become evenly divided on the issue, to the point where the debate is now "torture is wrong" versus "sometimes you've got to crush a few testicles."

Either way, this is not a good sign for anyone...

Your Depressing News of the Morning

You know the now long-established cultural joke of photos of missing children on the milk carton? Let's not forget it was once an actual program. I wasn't able to find out any information on how successful the program was, though I do know that the great majority child abductions are committed by disgruntled family members (usually the non-custodial parent after a divorce), and as such, distributing photos is probably not super likely to be effective.

And as some anecdotal evidence of that claim, it turns out the first kid ever on a milk carton is still missing.

Happy Wednesday!

Piracy Pioneers

DJ Danger Mouse, who's probably currently best known for being half of Gnarls Barkley, got his slightly-less well known start by mashing the Beatles White Album and Jay Z's Black Album to create the hip-hop masterpiece (and most appropriately titled album ever) The Grey Album. And, of course, what made The Grey Album such a fascinating piece of the pop culture landscape wasn't just that it was a good album, but that it was only available via illegal download, and thrived despite constant cease-and-desist letters from the owners of the Beatles and Jay Z's publishing rights. It also showed a person could achieve international stardom completely through free and illegal file-sharing.

How do you follow that act up once you've become an established star? Simple. Danger Mouse's new album will be released as an album of packaging, artwork, and a blank CD-R. That's right, no music will be included at all -- it will be up to the purchaser to find the music through their own illicit channels (there will be no legal downloads available).

Agree or disagree with the methods, you've gotta give it to the fella -- that is a cocky way to release an album, especially one with a line up like the one featured on the poster above.

If you can't wait to find it or have some sort of perverse objection to file-sharing (not that this website in anyway advocates the cool crime of illegal file-sharing), you can listen to it track-by-track here, courtesy of the latte-sipping liberals at NPR.

And We're Happier, Too...

From Cartophilia, via the misses

Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently conducted an extensive study asking American about their stress level. From the CDC:

This county-by-county map shows the percentages of residents who reported "frequent mental distress" (FMD)—defined as 14 or more days of emotional discomfort, including "stress, depression and problems with emotion," during the previous month. Three days of mental distress is considered average, the researchers say.

Amongst the obvious notables on the map (it sucks to live in Kentucky, it seems pretty nice to live in Hawaii), the map also lets on about my beloved Midwest. Amongst so many things we have that the holier-than-thou outer reaches of the nation lack, you can put happiness right up there on that list.

And really, that explains a lot. You see, people who spend so much time making fun of other people and putting them down for not acting the same way they do are usually pretty sad and empty people...

Please Quit Copying Me

It's interesting what difference a couple of months make. For the last 8 years, we've been constantly told that all people who would dare question presidential policies or (even worse) actively protest them are the most spineless, anti-American hate-mongers that exist. And to even begin to compare the rightist police-state tactics of Republicans to fascism was the highest form of treason, and just another example of how hyperbolic that loony left is.

Well, at barely over 100 days into the Obama administration, it's amazing how quickly he and the rest of the Dems have become HitlerStalin to right-wingers. And I'm not even sure why; I think it's about him raising the taxes on rich people a little. Now, I'm no Obama fan, but if we can't yell at the guy who started an illegal, immoral, and unjust war (to quote that late JPII) and completely destroyed our economy, why do you get to suggest secession just because a guy wants to change the marginal tax rate?

But my bigger beef is well encapsulated in the above photo (via Tim) -- the portrayal of Dems as both Nazis and Communists. Now I know that Republicans can't tell the difference between all people who are different from them (like when their names are hard to pronounce), but you can't be both a Nazi and a Communist; they're completely antithetical ideas.

Communism is a political system based on wide-spread political and economic equality, whereas fascism is a totalitarian corporate system of no representation and economic exploitation. Or, as an even simpler demonstration, 90% of all German Nazi war deaths occurred on the Eastern front, at the hands of the Soviet military. My guess is that if the commies single-handedly defeated the Nazis, they're probably not chomping at the bit to become best buddies...

But regardless of things like irony, obvious hypocrisy, and historical fact, it just never ceases to amaze me how quickly protesting the government has changed from the worst thing anyone could do to the highest calling for a patriot. Man, I wish everything I did was automatically right...

What Makes the "Hard" Sciences so Hard?

Something I try to get across to my students is that just because everyone has an opinion on the criminal justice system, it doesn't mean informed scientific research on the subject is useless.

You see, people tend to think the physical sciences are "real" sciences, in which experiments build upon past knowledge and discover the laws that control our universe (as opposed to the social sciences, which are just a bunch of egg-heads sitting around making stuff up). But as any researcher will tell you, the "hard" sciences have no more hard and fast hold on the truth than social scientists do; it's still pretty much a guessing game for everyone.

I, for one, think this comes from the fact that the basics of social science are far easier to understand, thus making everyone feel qualified to comment on them, regardless of their (lack of) knowledge regarding the situation. For example, it's pretty easy for any Joe off the street to question your recommendation for new policing policies, because they know what the police are and probably have some opinion on what they should do. Contrast this with string theory, when few people are probably going to argue with their physics prof about the fundamental matter of the universe because one time their uncle had a bad experience with Einsteinian philosophies of matter and gravitation.

However, as the good folks over at Scatterplots point out, if you measure it in terms of cumulative knowledge and replicability of findings, there's no measurable difference between the "hard" and social sciences.

Far be it from me to make this more sociological by suggesting that it might be our culture-wide worship of technology and scientific progress, rather than actual research findings, that make the "hard" sciences appear more reputable, but I'll let you form your own opinion on that...

The Greatest Announcement of the Past 15 Years

Punch Out (with Mike Tyson's visage conspicuously missing) is coming to the Nintendo Wii.




Though I'm almost always opposed to re-makes of my beloved childhood memories, if the above video is any indication, these folks know what they're doing with Punchout. Now, if I could only afford a Wii...

Why We Need Torture?

The above video was put out by the Republican party, ostensibly to make us support what's going on in Guantanamo. In the video they identify three dangerous people currently housed there as a reason why we shouldn't close it down.

This is a classic example of specious reasoning, but let's examine it a bit shall we? What the video leaves out is that dozens of the detainees in Gitmo have no charges pending against them. It also omits the fact that out of those prisoners that have died in U.S. custody, over two dozen have been classified as homicides by the Army.

And, of course, closing Guantanamo by no means forces us to let those three people go. I hate to call it too early, but is an ad this desperate hinting at the complete irrelevance of Republican war-mongering? Well, we can hope...

tourture and hypocrisy

Over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald has a great piece on American hypocrisy regarding torture. In a recent New York Times obituary of an American fighter pilot who was captured by the Chinese military during the Korean war, he was described as being tortured by having to stay in a dark cell with no bed, substandard food, and subject to sleep deprivation.

If this sounds familiar, it is because it's the basic starter package at Guantanamo and other U.S. holding facilities. Only we have declared it not torture when we do it. This is a great example of one of the more pertinent arguments against us using torture (other than the fact that, you know, it's illegal, immoral, etc.): how are we now to condemn it when it's done to our soldiers? Track down any description of what passes for our "interrogation methods" and you'll see it's some pretty sick shit; well, when our soldiers get captured by Taliban operatives (or coming soon: Iranian forces!) and get tortured within an inch of their life with these same tactics, there will be no one to blame but Bush, Cheney and company who have repeatedly argued this stuff isn't torture and is just fine and dandy.

I'm sure that will be plenty of solace for American G.I.s as they're being waterboarded and electrocuted somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan...

New Rock Band Versions

Very late in posting this, but with all the rage surrounding the Beatles Rock Band release, Medialoper has this list of other versions of the game soon to be released.

They're all pretty good, but there were assuredly my favorites:

Rock Band: The White Stripes will deduct points if you hit more than one of the drum pads at any given time.
Rock Band: Prince will force you to play all of the instruments at the same time.
You will have to reprogram the colored buttons in order to play Rock Band: Sonic Youth.
Every time you play Rock Band: U2 absolutely perfectly, an indebted country becomes debt-free.
Rock Band: The Rolling Stones will require that you play the same 20 songs for 30 years.
Rock Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival will sue you if you actually play any of its songs.
Rock Band: Neil Young has been delayed until 2029.
Rock Band: Ryan Adams will never quite live up to its potential.

When "Everyone's Doing It" Is Your Best Defense

The revelation that Manny Ramirez is using steroids has caused the baseball world to go into another frenzy of denial and hand wringing. Especially Red Sox sycophant Bill Simmons, who penned a lengthy essay imagining how he would explain the steroid era to his child.

Without completely defending users, he eventually gets to the point of saying cheating is bad, but since everyone was doing it, it wasn't that bad. But as a fan of baseball who knows there are teams outside of New York and Boston, it's easy to point out that that's simply not true.

The Twins, for example, have never been in the middle of a steroid scandal. Sure, we had one minor relief pitcher get in trouble for using, but that's not quite the same as a 50 home run clean-up batter using. Throughout the entire steroids era, the Twins never had a guy suspiciously bloom into a giant, home-run hitting monster. In fact, we had guys like David Ortiz hit 48 homers in 6 years with the Twins and then go to Boston to hang out with noted steroid users and was suddenly able to easily hit that many homers in a single season...

This could go on and on, but the point is that not everyone was cheating. And while the Twins were always competitive throughout the first half of this decade, they kept getting bumped out of the playoffs by teams with hulking monster men who suddenly got a lot smaller when the steroids investigations got going. Maybe if the Twins had been cheating as well we could be looking back fondly on some tainted championship banners instead of a string of disappointing playoff runs.

There Have Been Worse People Who've Won It...

Fresh off a star-studded salute in Madison Square Garden for his 90th birthday, Pete Seeger is at the head of yet another movement. Though this time he's not leading it, but being honored by it, as there is now a push to get Seeger the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sure, it may seem a bit strange that a folk musician would be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, as those awards are typically reserved for major world leaders who have made some sort of break-through in international negotiations, or some other such major geo-political move. Seeger, on the other hand, has "merely" inspired countless people with his music and rabble-rousing politics, but if one really wanted to, it wouldn't be too hard to come up with an argument as to why that's as least as important as most of the major events leading to others receiving the award.

And while I understand that he's a pretty big long shot, you've got to admit he's a bit more deserving than Teddy Roosevelt and Al Gore, both of whom presided over multiple non-peaceful bombings and raids in their time in the White House...

Happy May Day

As go most things in America, May Day has morphed from the world's Labor Day to a day where you make little baskets full of candy. If you learn anything historical about it, it's usually limited to people dancing around a pole. But seeing as we're the only nation on earth that doesn't celebrate this as Labor Day, I think you can go ahead and take the day off of work. Tell them Jesse said it's ok...

Conservatives and Irony

In a not-too-surprising revelation, it turns out that conservatives don't get Colbert. In a recent study done at the Ohio State University, it was found that many conservatives think he's being serious, and that he really is an arch-conservative who uses humor but really means what he says.

No word on whether the Republican party is gearing up to increase our nation's bear-security, but I'm guessing it's coming soon...

What's Your Congressional Rep Doing?

Rarely am I proud of a politician, and even more rarely does someone I voted for get elected to office. Yet both of these things are now true. Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of Congress and my rep, was arrested yesterday at the Sudanese embassy, protesting the expulsion of aid workers form Darfur, and generally trying to raise awareness of the genocide.

Of course, a more depressing take on it is that our government's inaction in the face of a clear genocide has gotten to the point where a half-dozen members of the U.S. Congress have to get arrested for people to pay attention, but for now I'm just going to bask in the glow of having an elected official representing me actually do something I agree with...

Happy Day in IA

Today marks the first day gay folk can apply for marriage licenses in Iowa.

Can't say much more than has already been said, but it's an exciting day nonetheless...

Only WHEN It Happens Is a Question

The good lads and lasses over at Cracked have given us the five most plausible (likely?) scenarios from which the Zombie apocalypse will come. The 5th and final scenario seems most convincing. I won't give it away, but it will involve parasitic nanotech cyborgs...but in a scientifically plausible way (we already have the technology, we really only need the evil/accidental application of it).

People laugh at my zombie-preparedness levels now, but it seems one day soon it won't appear so foolish...

Earth Day and All That...

So it's Earth Day, and we're supposed to do something to care about the world today before it implodes and we all die and whatnot. But as a handy little reminder that the devastation were visiting on the earth effects some of us more than others, here's a handy image of how toxic waste and race interact (via the incomparable SocImages)

Americans and Sexuality

Americans have a really weird relationship with sex. We're obsessed with it, yet at the same time, have determined it is rarely, if ever, appropriate to discuss or display any modicum of sexuality. Plenty of other people have discussed this far more intelligently than I, so I won't rehash all the thoughts on why we act this way or what it means, but I will point out a great recent example of our collective insatiable thirst/disgust for/with sex.

As you may or may not be aware, PETA recorded a commercial deemed "too sexy" for the Super Bowl halftime, which is a pretty high bar to surpass. The commercial features very scantily clad women erotically rubbing themselves with vegetables and is accompanied by text noting that studies have found vegetarians have better sex.

Well, CNN was recently discussing the commercial and the fallout over it. But my favorite part? Because of the sexual nature of the commercial, CNN blurred out certain portions of it. But what did they blur? A pumpkin.

Yes. A pumpkin. As a woman is rubbing herself with a pumpkin, this was apparently too erotic, so the pumpkin had to be blurred out. I'm guessing this is so our precious children don't see it and get prurient ideas about gourds, but I can't help but think this is a little over the top...

Fuck. Yes.

After years of wonder, innuendo, false starts, copyright problems, and many, many broken hearts, seminal sketch-comedy show The State is finally being released on DVD.

Words cannot describe how happy I am right now...

More Torture Memos Revealed

In case you had any lingering belief in the judicial process or constitutional safeguards, some of the most disturbing torture memos yet have just been released.

The memos discuss some pretty graphic things, all in that dry legalistic tone that lets us not recognize the horrible things happening. Approved torture methods range from the infamous waterboarding to how exactly to slap someone in the stomach to shoving people into insect-filled boxes after telling them there are poisonous insects in there.

Of course, Obama has already said he's not going to prosecute any of these people, but I wouldn't recommend trying out any of these yourself, as you undoubtedly would be prosecuted...

Best New Book I've Heard of in a Long While

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

In addition to having a fantastic title, this classic of literature meets the undead has been garnering some positive reviews.

I haven't read it yet (though I plan on picking up a copy soon), but it does make me wonder what other classics can be improved with the inclusion of Zombies -- imagine the urgency of Moby Dick if the ship is crawling with the undead, or Hamlet if all those who dead rose again to continue their quest for the Scottish throne...I think this may be the best literary invention since the printed word...

Oh, PETA

I'm not a vegetarian, but I have sympathy for PETA -- they're definitely fighting an up-hill battle, and in a way, you have to admire how committed they are. I would seriously doubt there's any other culture as meat-centric as the U.S. Think about it; meat is a status symbol, a necessary for masculinity, and oh so many other things to Americans.

So PETA's got its work cut out to change this. But I can't help but feel they're going at it the wrong way. For instance, only a few years after they insisted the Green Bay Packers should change their name to the Pickers (to give props to the state's cherry-cultivating heritage rather than it's animal-slaughtering heritage), they're now asking the Pet Shop Boys to change their name, preferably to the Shelter Boys.

I get it, PETA: most pets from pet shops come from horrible mills were animals are force-bred in terrible conditions. But do you really think people listen to a British electro-pop band and think they should support puppy mills? For some strange reason, I don't think so...

A Little Victory for the RNC 8

The RNC 8, a group of organizers arrested under suspicious circumstances and charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism, got a little good news today as the terrorism charge was dropped.

Of course, they still face the conspiracy to riot charge, but apparently the rioting is now not considered terroristic. But just as the charges and trial are entirely a political move, so too was the dropping of the terrorism charge. Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner, the woman who brought the terrorism charges in the first place, is putting her hat in the ring as DFL candidate for Governor. And as you may guess, persecution of anti-Republican activists doesn't sit well with a number of people in the DFL, so she's in political-management mode.

So they're still looking at 5 years if convicted, but little victories are still victories...

Hypocritical Post

I think one of the worst/stupidest things about the internet is the mindless passing of mildly-amusing videos. I could rant for a long while about how inane it is to send people a video of some animal acting funny as if this were ground-breaking cinema.

But I won't, because that's exactly what I'm doing today. While it's obviously quite hypocritical of me to do the exact thing I deride so forcefully, the combination of monkey, segway, and slapdash song describing what's happening make this irresistible.



It's a monkey! On a segway! It's like the peanut butter cup of youtube videos -- two great tastes that taste even better together! Is there anything more hilarious?!?

April Snows Bring May...something

Had quite the eventful weekend with much to report -- I mean, who saw it coming that Iowa would legalize gay marriage?

But possibly my oddest story of the weekend was heading back home. You see, Iowa got a freak April snowstorm which dumped 6 inches of snow in a matter of two hours. Of course, this snow happened to fall exactly where I and the lady were driving.

As a result, we were parked on I-35 for over 4 hours, as the road had been shut down and deemed "impassible." Adding insult to injury, we were only a few miles on the road before this happened, leading me to calculate that we had an overall moving average of about 1/4 miles/hour.

But, if nothing else, it did lead me to seeing not one, but three snowmen built in the middle of a major interstate, which is something I'll probably never see again in my life, especially not in April. Not that it makes turning a 4 hour trip into a 10 hour trip, but at least it's something.

No Coast!

It's no secret that I, as a general rule, disdain the coasts and most of the people that live thee. They very much like to look down on Midwesterners as some sort of ignorant, backward people. Well, while everyone in California was busy overturning gay marriage, Iowa just became the third state to legalize same-sex marriage.

That's right -- not urbane New York, not liberal California, but good ol' corn-pone, middle-of-nowhere, backward Iowa.

I can't begin to express how proud I am of my home state today, and how happy I am that I'm coincidentally in Des Moines today and get to join in on the victory celebrations. Today Iowa has made one the biggest steps in the new civil rights movement, and we'll be moving forward from here!

Life Imitating Art...Again

I don't think I need to go into detail about why The Simpsons is not just the greatest television show of all time, but one of the highest forms of American pop culture art.

But to throw further evidence on the pile, I never cease to be amazed at how prescient the show has been over the years. For instance, in the plant softball team episode (Homer At the Bat), there was this absurdist running joke in which Mr. Burns angrily demanded that Wade Boggs shave his non-existent sideburns, going so far as to kick a now mohawked Boggs off the team for failing to do something about whatever it was Burns thought were sideburns. And as Bogss ambled off the field he quipped "I still like him better than Steinbrenner..."

Of course, as any baseball fan knows, in a brilliant fit of life imitating art, Boggs and Steinbrenner did end up having a very public fight about his sideburns over a year later, even leading to Boggs getting benched for a short period after his refusal to shave.

Well, now they have presaged a new phenomenon, as the world sees its first actual whacking day.

Unfortunately, Barry White is no longer with us to serenade the sexy slither of a lady frog, but perhaps another basso profundo is available...

April Fools!

Insert joke...here!