The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party

I Just Found the Oddest Thing...

2008-12-01T11:44:00.002-05:00

Publishers are making video trailers for new books. Chalk that up as another sign of the end of days.

Apparently this is not a new phenomenon.

Thank you America...

2007-02-10T02:51:00.000-05:00

...for finally healing from the tragedy of 9/11/01.

I mean, is there any way to explain the Astro-nut and the Anna Nicole happening in the same week?

As Irregular TRiNaDP Contributor JTB said, "I feel like I'm back in the summer of Chandra Levy and shark attacks."

I hope I'm not the last to say, it has been a LONG time coming.

p.s. Prince SUCKED during the half time show. I like Prince (although I'm dissapointed that I can't find a wingdings character to represent his true name). But I give a haearty wag of the finger to ESPN Productions for a completely lame half time show. Bill Simons has no balls for not pointing this out.

Congratulations to the NFL...

2007-01-21T22:29:00.000-05:00

...for the best officiated game of the post-instant-replay era. Genious New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick opted to take the cheap route toward securing a Super Bowl birth after a 21-3 halftime lead. Knowing how the impossibly awesome Peyton Manning can change a game, Belichick chose to instruct his team to take every cheap shot possible, and they did. "Tough" hitting comes when the ball is in play, cheap hitting is diving on pile-ups after the ball is dead. The Patriots did the latter for the entire half and got called on a bullshit roughing the passer violation. It was bullshit, but more deserved than any other call all game.

...also thank you for one of the greatest playoffs games ever.

Behind the Scenes of Borat...Behind the Scenes at America's Largest Bank

2006-11-12T23:14:00.000-05:00

This is the most comprehensive look at reactions from the folks who got duped by Borat that I've seen so far.

This is just totally terrible in every way:

Macaca Speaks!

2006-11-12T22:34:00.000-05:00

I was in Nepal when Macaca-Gate broke...I didn't even know about it till I got back and asked the same question everyone else in America asked, only a month later- "what the fuck is a macaca?"

Well, wikipedia has robust coverage of the answer to that question. For the record my favorite antiquated racial slur is and will remain WOG.

Anyway, the alleged macaca (actually a wog) is S. R. Sidarth. He's written an very nice and very diplomatic op-ed in today's Washington Post.

I hope Mr. Sidarth finds whatever he is looking for at the end of the aspiring politico rainbow. He's off to a grand start.

Songs I Haven't Heard in a Very Long Time #1

2006-11-09T01:33:00.000-05:00

Inner Circle are best know for the Cops theme song ("Bad Boys") but "Sweat" is certainly their greatest work. It brings the listener back to the days when sexy music was fun. This song rams it in hard, but with a loveable goofyness that keeps me coming back for more.

P.S. three huzzahs for the democrats, but where the fuck was my invitation to CNN's blogging party?

China is a land of contrasts...

2006-11-08T00:17:00.000-05:00

The first thing that is abundently clear to anyone who has visited china is that there is a bit of a air quality issue going on...

Take, for instance, this photo from Beijing (at the construction site of the city's new largest building):

Chengdu, is about 2000 kilometers south of Beijing. It looks like this:

The problem even overwhelms most trips to the Great Wall:

It even looms, among other things, above Tiananmen:

Also, the country can be a bit crowded sometimes. This is the tiny little ancient village of Lijiang in Yunnan:

And yet...there's still some really beautiful places...like this countryside pagoda, also in Yunnan:

and there are also cool animals...alive... :

....dead... :

...and slightly less dead... :

You can even get lost on strange communist tourist trap islands:

But, after all is said and done, the best thing about China is the people:

For a small taste of how stupid some people can be....

2006-09-08T14:49:00.000-05:00

...I suggest reading this discussion on the Lonely Planet forums.

"Planning to travel to Mumbai and Goa with our 18month old daughter in Dec.She has not had any immunisations and we try to treat most illnesses with homeopathy.Although we have successfully seen her through many colds, fevers and measles with homeopathy i am still worried about all the tummy bugs etc. and i wonder if we're better off waiting a year ...Any thoughts?Thanks"

I really, really want to believe the person writing this has a really dark sense of humor. I'm afraid not.

THIS BLOG GOES PRIME TIME!!!!!

2006-09-08T05:58:00.000-05:00

Even though I’m in Kathmandu, it didn’t take long to find out that this humble blog was cited on legal juggernaught The Volokh Conspiracy. I’m honored, and a little scared (I could even make Gawker if I manage to fail the exam). Oddly enough, I was very unhappy with the list of “top ten things not to include in your bar exam essay.” The humor value inherent in the bar exam process deserves more. But, that post was the product of the kind of late night bar exam stress that has you looking on the internet for the real reason for the bizarre rules on ademption.

The internet here is slow, but censor free. I’ve been in China for a month…hence the lack of posts. In case you were wondering, this blog is banned in China. But, oddly enough I managed to get on Blogger once while in Guilin. I wrote a whole post about how the blog wasn’t banned in china. Turns out the whole thing got held up in one of China’s three internet “out pipes.” Does this mean China has a fake version of blogger up and running simply to see who is trying to post to blogs? Or, did I just not hit the "publish post" button? The world will never know.

I did take a picture. See below:

Top Ten Things Not to Include in Your Bar Exam Essay:

2006-07-20T00:44:00.000-05:00

1. God's law (hereinafter "GL") is clear on the following point...

2. 3 generations of imbeciles is enough

3. Whoever is in need of evidence, he shall go on every third day to shout before the witness' doorway.

4. If an overseer or a fisherman ordered to the service of the king does not come, but sends a hireling in his stead, that same overseer or fisherman shall be put to death, and his house shall go into the possession of the hireling.

5. If a woman in a quarrel injure the testicle of a man, one of her fingers they shall cut off. And if a physician bind it up and the other testicle which is beside it be infected thereby, or take harm; or in a quarrel she injure the other testicle, they shall destroy both of her eyes

6. If defendant shirks or takes to heels, plaintiff shall lay hands on him.

7. Evil is as evil does

8. If the wife of a man be walking on the highway, and a man seize her, say to her "I will surely have intercourse with you," if she be not willing and defend herself, and he seize her by force and rape her, whether they catch him upon the wife of a man, or whether at the word of the woman whom he has raped, the elders shall prosecute him, they shall put him to death. There is no punishment for the woman.

9. While the defendant may have escaped punishment on Earth, he will get his just deserts in the afterlife.

10. Since, then, the primacy of the Apostolic See is established by the merit of St. Peter (who is the chief among the bishops), by the majesty of the city of Rome, and finally by the authority of a holy council, no one, withot inexcusable presumption, may attempt anything against the authority of that see.

2006-07-11T14:27:00.000-05:00

Coase's List-->NEW LOW!

2006-07-07T13:15:00.000-05:00

I thought $700 was a bit high for a used matress, so I decided to actually read the email. Here you go:

--------------------------------------------------------------

From: Anon
To: Coase's List (NYU Law's version of Craig's List)
Subject: Luxurious, Brand New Mattress & Box Spring - $700 OBO

Relisting... new, lower price!

Two-week old Simmons Beautyrest Full-sized pillow top mattress with boxspring - the same one as the Westin uses for its luxurious "Heavenly Bed," -for sale, $1000 original price (plus shipping if you order from the Westin).

We purchased this two weeks ago and it is the wrong level of softness for me (though my partner adores it and is bitter that it's going away) and wecan't return it. It's in brand-new condition - totally clean and the tagsare even still on it. $700 OBO.

Here's the skinny on the Westin Heavenly Bed http://tinyurl.com/ebtorWe're in Park Slope, and may be able to work something out with delivery.

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A couple of things- 1) I've always wondered who purchased the on-sale items from a hotel room's furniture 2) Park Slope, BIG surprise there 3) I declare a Fatwa on the term "partner."

Only RARELY am I actually impressed by other people's blog posts....

2006-06-28T15:36:00.000-05:00

...but this one is just fucking great. I wish I could write as well.

Dan Marino to buy Penguins?

2006-06-28T14:01:00.000-05:00

Dan is on board for one of the Penguin's bids. If (as all rummors suggest) Mark Cuban plans to one day buy the Pirates, then Pittsburgh will have pretty bitchin group of owners for its sports franchises.

epic wikipedia post

2006-06-23T14:41:00.000-05:00

sometimes I stumble on a wikipedia article that has either (1) more information about an obscure topic than could reasonably be expected or (2) a really well written summary of a hard to peg down pop culture idea or term. This article falls into category (2).

2006-06-23T14:06:00.000-05:00

Go Sweden!

Lots of fun legal news today...

2006-06-23T10:09:00.000-05:00

1) I'm sure these guys in Florida were real assholes...but something about this case ("no money, no independent means, but they had the desire to blow up buildings") seems a tad dubious. The whole thing makes me wonder whether Alan Ginsberg could, these days, be prosecuted for his attempt to levitate the Pentagon via meditation during the 1969 March on Washington.

For one thing, the indictment is strange. Count 1 is alleges a violation of 18 USC 2339B...Count 2 alleges a violation of 18 USC 2339A. I don't have the time or the desire to look in to this more, but what the hell is the difference between these two statutes...at least as to this particular case? 2339B is about aid to specifically designated foreign terrorist groups. 2339A is about aid to "terrorists" more generally. In classic poor draftsmanship (maybe because the ole Patriot Act was "written" and passed in 2 weeks), 2339A (terrorists generally) has a specific definition of "material aid" including "personnel," which seems to be the legal theory in this case- by pledging support to al al queda, the Miami group offered themselves as personnel as material aid. 2339B (designated foreign terrorists), has no such definition. What I'm trying to figure out is if the Feds are going to try to charge both violations and get 15 year sentences under both...this seems fishy to say the least since the two statutes appear to have been written to address separate situations. I understand that the "personnel as aid" theory is stronger under 2339A, but the scenario here (Al Queda) seems a better fit with 2339B. Wouldn't the more proper route be to just charge under 2339B and at trial argue that the definition of aid in 2339A should be incorporated as a matter of statutory interpretation into 2339B. The two statutes were written at the same time, written together, and designed to capture the same sort of activity.

Look, I don't have a problem with actively seeking out aid FROM Al Queda or supposed Al Queda being criminal behavior. But, its just odd that that this activity is being charged under statutes designed to prohibit aid TO terrorists.

Also, if this seeking help of Al Queda versus helping Al Queda distinction has legal significance (again I don't think it should, it just seems like it does by the way these statutes are drafted), then the entirety of the conversations between the FBI undercover agent and the group are going to be poured over at trial...who suggested the Sears Tower? who suggested the FBI Building? who suggested the loyalty oath? If the defense can make it seem that the group was "tricked" then they could lose the case. Which, again, I don't think they should. My only point is that we really should have a law against seeking the help of Al Queda if we think that should be a crime.

2) here's an article about some super-shady dealings between the SEC, a major hedge fund, and a vigilant SEC attorney.

Another mini-scandal for this blog

2006-06-20T15:50:00.000-05:00

Today, the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (an almost-insolvent, right-wing Pittsburgh paper) ran a story about the negative attention and harassment that has been focused on the woman who's car Roethlisberger collided into last week. Obviously, such idiots give Steelers fans a bad name.

Folks on steelcityinsider picked up the story and started looking for blood (its currently a two page string of posts...page 1 here, page 2 here). By 3:30 in the afternoon someone had, they claimed, emailed the Tribune Review for the source blogs, and was told this blog (and, probably, this post) is the bad guy. I just posted a response there you can check out. Since almost no one came to this blog on the day of Roethlisberger's accident, I can be pretty sure that I didn't start the harassment. But, still, I feel bad because that was never my intent. As regular readers know I almost never post anything non-ironic or non-satirical on this blog. This gets me in to trouble when people read posts out of context.

Just to clarify, the point of the post was to show how irresponsible the PGH media was for listing Fleishman's name and city neighborhood so early in the story's development. She was being tagged in every article in the local news media well before any other real detail of the accident was known (also well before the extent of Ben's injuries were known...which makes it doubly irresponsible). I put a link to google to show just how much info is easily available online once someone's name gets out in the "real" media. I know it can be read otherwise, as a wink or a nod to people to actually call up the poor lady, but that really wasn't the point. I also accused the Patriots of arranging the whole thing, but I wasn't serious about that either.

Now, to the tirade....the poster on steelcityinsider appears to be posting info from a Michael Hasch at the Tribune Review saying my blog was one of the sources for the story (Hasch is not the attributed author to the original article). The story says:

"One blogger, who posted Fleishman's home address and telephone number, was typical of the merciless Internet attackers. "She had Maine license plates. ... freaking New England fan ... I don't think she will be getting the key to the city any time soon.""

I can see how my post was close to the above paragraph. But, if this blog really is the source than the above is an out-and-out misrepresentation of what I said....pure FICTION if you will. Also, for the record, I use the word "fucking" instead of "freaking" on this space. I have no doubt that the Trib had enough integrity to actually find one of the many posts that displays actual anger against the woman and to quote it accurately. I'm sure many people picked up on the connection between the Maine license plates and the New England Patriots.

The real question is why would this guy at the Trib, after the fact, claim that my post was the source for the story? Furthermore, why haven't the Pittsburgh news outlets that are actually responsible for all this negative attention actually looked into how and why the info was released so early. Where did her name come from? The police didn't release it...

I do feel bad to have been involved, even slightly, in the bad judgment of a few rotten apples. But, I really think the true story here is how the Pittsburgh news outlets found the woman's name and why they chose to release it the way they did.

2006-06-20T14:11:00.000-05:00

ING-GA-LAND, ING-GA-LAND!!!

As the premier "Is Ben Roethlisberger Jewish?" blog...

2006-06-15T14:39:00.000-05:00

...I was negligent in not pointing out the religious tensions underlying The "Accident." Here's a good blog post that hits the major points.

A comment rightly points out: "I don't want your loyal readers thinking I am some paranoid nut. I mean when they say "Martha Fleishman, 62, of Squirrel Hill" you know that the rest of the burgh is reading it as "Jew Lady from Jew Hill."

So true.

A recent comment on this blog (scroll to the bottom) shows a little bit of the pogrom potential underlying this whole incident. Maybe it isn't so paranoid to be worried about Cossacks sweeping into Squirrel Hill.

Also...here's a very entertaining article in the Post Gazette outing some of the gleeful reactions to Ben's misfortune. The entertaining part comes from a clinical psychologist trying to explain why people might revel in the Steelers woes:

-----------------------------

Friday said the human brain does not fully develop until 25 years of age, which, he said, might explain why Roethlisberger, who is 24, decided to ride a motorcycle without a helmet. Friday said the posters are either too young to know better or are people whose brains never completely wired, which can happen due to a number of circumstances, including class and culture.

"The people who are blogging in Cincinnati, they're the ones whose brains never fully develop," Friday said. "They don't perspectivize human tragedy. They don't learn to think effectively. These people are not normal. We're talking about a fringe element. We're dealing with the screaming people who are venting. These are elements that are not representative of their communities. They are representatives of their own minds."
Friday said posters on Internet message boards hide behind their keyboards and write things they would never have the courage to say aloud in public. He said posters who write tasteless messages use football and the rivalries between teams as a way of getting out their aggression in a non-violent manner. It's not necessarily a new phenomenon, just one that is more evident because of the instant communication that is available via the Internet.

"We have a degree of transference on sports figures," Friday said. "It's a way of vicariously going to battle. People can blog and send thoughts, and feel a self-induced empowerment."
The Steelers' success also is part of the equation, he said. If the Steelers had not won the Super Bowl in February, people would not post such vitriolic messages. The Steelers are kings of the mountain, and their players are being transformed from humans into symbols, waiting to be knocked from their high perch.

------------------------

I had an eye opening experience wearing my Roethlisberger jersey around NYC this week. People at Bar Bri laughed at me. Most dudes on the street (Jet's fans no doubt) laughed in my face. A couple people asked me if I heard what happened, which I found funny. All in all, there was a lot more hostility than sympathy.

Obiviously Roethlisberger's absurd decision to ride around Pittsburgh w/o a helmet reflects more his stupid-hick-from-Ohio side than his jesus-incarnate-champion-for-the-ages side, but it is weird to laugh at someone while he's still in surgery.

Personally, I have to think that the vast majority of the anger stems not from undeveloped brains or transference but rather the simple fact that the STEELERS ARE THE MOTHER FUCKING WORLD CHAMPIONS AND ALL YOU HATERS ARE JUST JEALOUS AS SHIT. SUCK IT. That which does not kill you....

Not that I encourage harassing phone calls...

2006-06-12T15:41:00.000-05:00

...BUT, if you want to make a friendly call to the car owner who Ben Roethlisberger cashed into...you may be able to do so here. Stupid Mainers...this stinks of New England Patriot shananigans.

P.S. Post Gazette article irresponsibly outing the car owner's name can be found here.

2006-06-12T14:14:00.000-05:00

The above photo, taken by Steve Mellon, of Post-Gazette photos...shows the scene of Ben Roethlisberger's accident.

Dear Ben Roethlisberger....get better soon!

2006-06-12T11:38:00.000-05:00

This story makes me very sad (the Pittsburgh paper, www.postgazette.com, seems to be crashed at the moment by people looking for more news. UPDATE: post gazette story is here, with more details including a pool of blood and pictures of the crash site). What's worse is I found out about it as the Czechs went up 2-0 against the USA. For the record, I am rooting for a Germany-France final...which will essentially be a referendum on the future of the EU. In the alternate, my team preferences are 1) USA 2) The Netherlands 3) ING-GA-LAND.

OK, this is the end. The broadcasting package that ESPN/ABC put together for the World Cup is just atrocious. If anyone in the rest of the world had any idea what these clowns were saying, they would be rolling on the floor laughing. The first day was dominated by bad analogies to mainstream US sports. Today, one of the announcers just said, as the audience watches Jan Koller (Czech striker) writhe in pain as he is carted off the pitch after what appears to be a horrific hamstring injury, "well, too bad for him but this has to be good news for the US side." Completely tasteless.

2006-06-05T15:01:00.000-05:00

Possible alien abduction?

2006-06-01T14:32:00.000-05:00

read it here.

Good lord, this has to be one of the most tragic news stories of the year

2006-06-01T14:19:00.000-05:00

In case you were wondering how one family could bury what they thought was their daughter while another family sits vigil by a comatose woman they thought was was their own...only to find out months later that the identities were reversed, you can read about it here. Just don't even attempt to think about how mangled these poor people had to have been. Wear your seatbelts kids.

Sue Bar Bri, sue them now

2006-05-26T14:42:00.000-05:00

join the class action here. although I doubt that they'll ever be able to prove this "gentleman's agreement" with Kaplan. if they can, then someone really fucked up in the document management at bar bri.

Frank Bruni: Close but No Cigar

2006-05-25T23:29:00.000-05:00

Here is a great article writing up NYTimes foodie-in-residence Frank Bruni's fast food trek across the United States. Let me first say what I loved about the piece:

1) props to Whatabuger...this Texas chain has it all. I had seen ads on some national cable channels and wondered what the hell it was. While visiting The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party's Irregular Heckler JTB in Houston, I got to try this gem. Whataburger is cheap, very good, and fast...while nothing stands out as the best ever, the whole package is clearly superior to almost every other chain in the country.

2) Wendy's gets high marks in the top 10 list....I love Wendy's and it was a central part of my childhood. As you can see from this map, I grew up equidistant between 2 Wendy's (Mt. Lebanon allegedly has an ordinance that forbids fast food, so the locations are all on the border of my town). One of the most embarrassing things that ever happened to me was when I thought I left my retainer on my tray at the Wendy's in Castle Shannon. Back at that time, Wendy's distinguished itself not only with its superior food product but also a liberal policy regarding self-bussing of trays. This particular Wendy's had a mentally challenged man who would clear the trays. After the retainer was declared missing, we rushed back only to find out that the trays had been bussed. The poor guy went through the entire garbage can looking for it. No luck. We left, and cruising back home on Bedling Road, I reached into my pocket and realized it was there. My dad made me go back and apologize. He is a good man. I am an idiot.

Two other wendy's anecdotes:

I, me, yours truly, INVENTED the use of the chili sauce in the gold packet on the chicken sandwich (great on the fries too). The manager at the Greentree location picked up on the idea and started pitching it to other customers.** Its just a small skip and jump from that to the ridiculously successful spicy chicken sandwich. For the record-skip the spicy and get the regular chicken sandwich with EVERYTHING EXCEPT TOMATOES....this means, in Wendy-talk, that they put everything (except tomato) that would go on a hamburger on the chicken sandwich...more institutionally challenged (read: urban) Wendy's have a big problem with this and the counter people will refuse to hit the "everything" button, interpreting "everything except tomatoes" to mean "everything that would usually go on a chicken sandwich (lettuce, tomato, mayo)hamburger." This retardedness results in a sandwich which is just lettuce and Mayo, you don't want that. You want ketchup, mustard, mayo, pickles, onion, and lettuce....often at the urban Wendy's you have to recite these things while the people look at you like you are insane. Don't even try pointing out the "everything" button, they don't like that. Anyway, get the sandwich as above and smother it in the chili sauce. Bliss in a bun, I tell you, bliss in a bun.

Second, at Tufts, Wendy's were more hard to find. Luckily, the Revere Beach Parkway location was just far enough away for a good drive letting the muchies build up. We would get baked and drive past the Orange Line, arriving at Revere Beach practically frothing at the mouth. One time, Dre, Edsall, and I were waiting in line and Dre (who looks like an overgrown skater boi) was told by two locals, "you aren't from around here, are you?" Before Dre could respond, the same guy threw a sucker punch at the group in front of him, resulting in a minor brawl that almost stopped us from getting bliss in a bun. (follow-up...last fall, I was at the now defuct Wendy's on 6th Ave. and some hate-filled racist got furious about his sandwich not being right...he called the counter people "monkeys" and threw his fries and his hamburger at them, then he picked up and threw a chair...it was out of control).

Bottom line, I take Wendy's seriously and I'm glad Bruni gave the Chili some love. However, the chicken sandwich really is the best.

3) I'm glad Bruni recognized the superior product turned out by Baja Fresh (a formerly Canadian chain that was bought by Wendy's...I f'ing love Wendy's)

Now to the screw-ups in the article:

I don't think Wendy's got enough love. It really is heads and tails above the other national burger chains. A more glaring mistake was the love heaped upon KFC. I like KFC-who doesn't?- but the simple, undeniable fact is the Popeye's is SO MUCH BETTER. I only learned to love Popeye's in Washington D.C....the Popeye product there is better than everywhere else. But, when you get a good Popeye's and its churning out fresh chicken, there is nothing better. Bliss in a bucket, I tell you, bliss in a bucket. If, dear Bruni, you need more than unsubstantiated superlatives, here it is. Popeye's has a spicier batter and the chicken is plumper.

But, more importantly, I think Bruni missed the whole point that I have gained from a lifetime of eating fast food around this great nation. The really interesting thing is that fast food, despite the fact that its supposed to be consistent across geography, actually varies tremendously by location. A McDonald's in Queens is not the same place as a McDonald in my leafy suburb. Inside of the tight strictures of the "rules" of chain life, each location takes on a character of its own. Some are fun, others are depressing. Some serve fresh burgers, others serve 3 hour old burgers. Some are willing to throw out old fries, others will serve them until someone yells about the shit they were served. Fast food is not a homogeneous experience, the familiarity of the "rules" actually allows an aware eater to gain a great deal of info about the location of the chain and the people living there. The "rules" of the chain actually make the little difference more acute. Loving places serve loving Big Macs. I know this sounds insane, but I'll stand by that observation. You're not going to eat a bad fast food meal in a town that cares about hospitality and customer service. Unless you're in an airport, then all bets are off.

P.S. you can see what I feel about In-n-Out burger here.

** check out this ebay "I want it now" posting to see just how popular said chili sauce has become in Pittsburgh. You can find other lovers and haters of the gold packet sauce via this google search.

NY Times Book Review goes lowbrow for the week...

2006-05-17T01:04:00.000-05:00

...here are the results of a poll of the literati as to the best novel of last 25 years. The article is being published this Sunday in the Times Book Review. The winner, sadly imho, is Beloved. I don't know how they can, in good conscience, pass up Roth for Morrison. (I loved Underworld, but I understand that it was destined for the number 2 slot). I don't think there is any question that Phillip Roth is the greatest living American writer. I guess American Pastoral isn't "big" enough for the win. But, that's the beauty of the book--it has the page turning qualities of a detective novel with the lyric language of Faulkner and the thematic content of Dostoevsky. American Pastoral isn't confusing, it is a straight attempt at the great american novel, without whistles or bells. And it comes as close as anything I've ever read to hitting the mark.

Also, its fun to note that Jonathan Safen Foer WAS a judge by Norman Mailer WAS NOT. ouch. double ouch.

GET READY KIDS.....

2006-05-17T00:45:00.000-05:00

...its Billy Corgan's Indie Rock Summer Camp (its about appreciation).

Here's some background reading. Highlights:

BC: How old are you?

Pitchfork: I'm 29.

BC: Oh, that's the tough one. Twenty-eight to 31 is the tough period.

Pitchfork: Really? Great.

BC: You have to be really careful because it's so cataclysmic, so life-altering. People do really dramatic things like get married, or they'll get divorced. Your chances of committing suicide go way up. It's basically psychic death. You see the signs of it around 27, and you're still on the out-end of it around 31. Everyone I've talked to who's gone through that and come out the other side walks out of it like, "MY LIFE IS GREAT."

Pitchfork: Like a molting process.

BC: Absolutely, but it's really beautiful. And you see people who don't go through their Saturn Return properly-- my ex-bandmate D'Arcy is a classic example-- and they're like, trapped in hell. They're like in a suspended state; they freeze, because they won't go through the act. They'll do anything to avoid the psychic death. But you have to go through it. That's why 14 and 15 are such terrible times. Saturn Return is just the return of your planets to their original position.

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Stay tuned for class schedules and locations!!

Sunrise, Sunset (Law School Remix)

2006-05-13T16:39:00.000-05:00

Well, stick a fork in my law school career...its done! I'm actually about 350% happier overall than 3 days ago. A great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Everyone pray I didn't fail Evidence.

Here's a photo from Barristers Ball (at tavern on the green):

Here's what the graduation ceremony (5 hours long) looked like:

Awesome story in the Post Gazette...

2006-05-10T13:32:00.000-05:00

Pictured above is Andy Warhol's older brother.... how amazing is that? Score one for "nurture" in the ole debate. Did Andy record his visits home? Oh to be a fly on the wall for that Thanksgiving dinner.

The picture comes from this story in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Warhola (given name) is one of the old-timers they dug up to talk about the Babe's last three home runs, which were hit at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh.

Strange Things Happen in the Night

2006-05-02T03:23:00.000-05:00

Walking home, I saw they are installing scafolding over the sidewalk around the corner of 4th and Bowery (currently a parking lot, the placeholder of urban design). I have no idea what they will build, but its probably gonna suck. I'll get pictures tomorrow.

Something about May Day spurred construction because by the time I got to 6th St., I saw they had closed down the street at Second Ave.

It turns out they were digging a giant hole (Notice the big tube, it's sucking up excavated dirt)...

...and filling it with huge transformers....

Nice Pick Pulitzer Peeps

2006-04-17T18:33:00.000-05:00

You know something important is going on when the Pulitzer gives two awards (feature writing and photography) to the Rocky Moutain News for the same article ("Final Salute"). Check out the photos here...the one of the plane (shot #3) is pretty amazing. In our sorrow for the fallen let us not forget to offer up a hearty "fuck you" to George Bush. Fuck you George. Fuck you.

New York Times Most Popular

2006-04-12T18:30:00.000-05:00

Checking out my new homepage (goodbye Drudge, thanks for the fish), I saw this. In keeping with my general "if its good enough for Hitler" approach to line-drawing in the context of Affirmative Action all I can do is shrug. However, I'm pretty sure modern-day America version of Dante's Inferno will have some space on hold for Alen Moldawer. Call it The Ring of Rushing Everyone else Down in a Race to the Bottom. I have no problem with mr. Moldawer's point, "you can bet that any advantage we can take we will" argument. Its just the idea of ordering the kit and swabbing the cheeks that seems so unseemly.

Wife: "Oh Alan, no, this is ridiculous"

Moldawer (unpacking swabs): "What if they're Indian?"

Wife: "what if they're Indian, come on, you think that chart that you just pulled out of a mail order box is going to make them Indian?"

Moldawer (moving briskly to the door and yelling): "BOYS, get in here!"

Wife: "I asked you a question"

Moldawer: "look, honey, this isn't going to change anything...they'll always be our kids, you know that"

Wife: “God damn it Alan, of course they are our kids, why are you doing this?”

Moldawer: “They don’t mind”

Wife: “Of course they don’t mind, you told them it would help pay for college”

Moldawer: “it may”

Wife: “How?? you’re going to make them write a letter or some essay about how, even though they just found out they are Indian, they are really excited to explore their roots??”

Moldawer: “is that really so much”

Wife (hushed but angry voice): “yes! Maybe they don’t want to explore their roots, maybe they like being white…maybe they don’t want to go to some meeting to accept a check…sitting with all the other Indian kids…if they’re part black, you’re going to send them to a NAACP meeting?”

Moldawer: “Why do you always make me the bad guy?? I love them, I want them to go to whatever college they want to go to…can’t we at least find out.”

Wife: “What was it, two months ago, when you found out about all the financial aid, that’s when you suddenly cared…or maybe you always cared”

Moldawer: “that’s sick, don’t you trust me”

Wife: “we can pay for college, this is some stupid battle you’ve dreamed up because you always hated special treatment for minorities”

Moldawer: “I JUST WANT TO FIND OUT…..BOYS, GET DOWN HERE!”

Two great songs, one abuse of police discretion

2006-04-05T12:03:00.000-05:00

"London's Calling" and "Immigrant Song" are two of my fav's...remind me not to share that to anyone in the less sophisticated parts of England. Read about it here. This reminds me of the excellent kittens animation involving "Immigrant Song" which is here. Obviously the kittens are a tad dated at this point, but its a classic.

2006-04-04T13:19:00.000-05:00

Here's a pretty great picture of fellow law student Rob Silvers being attacked by an elephant during his spring break trip to South Africa.

James Gandolfini off the wagon.....not news to me.

2006-03-29T16:46:00.000-05:00

Gawker and the Daily News are excited about this report that James Gandolfini (of Tony Soprano fame) is drinking again. This is supposedly "news," but I was at 7B in February and Gandolfini was there, drinking. The best part was that I was playing the Soprano's pinball game they have when I noticed him. Even better, I was playing the best pinball of my life. People were stopping their conversations to watch my multi-ball prowess.

I was in Vegas last weekend, first time I've ever cashed a thousand dollar chip, so that was awesome. Pictures to be posted soon.

UPDATE: I rag on gawker a lot, but this was really good stuff. Shows the difference between the professional bloggers and us free-lance types.

Girls Who Like to Party and Take Photos of Themselves...

2006-03-27T19:58:00.000-05:00

....can be seen here. I've said it before, I'll say it again--the youth are out of control.

UPDATE: here is the best of the bunch, at least the best I've found so far. Feel free to leave links to your fav in the comments section. Girls, if you are out there....please email me, I have a rather clean bathtub you can share any time.

UDPATE 2: This one is pretty great too.....

George Steinbrenner is a Fucking Loser

2006-03-16T16:09:00.000-05:00

Let's face it--no one really likes George Steinbrenner. Yankees fans offer up all these half-defenses for his absurd behavior and greedy worldview, but I think 100% would swap owners in a heartbeat if they could be assured of the same level of financial commitment to the team. Everyone else who likes baseball hates the man. Some sports fans who secretly despise the sport of baseball like Steinbrenner because he embodies the inequities that are ripping the sport in two. Others find him, "funny." That's his support, and its tepid to be sure.

I don't think I've ever mentioned George on this site before. Probably because he is too easy a target. However, last night George shat the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back on to the isle of Manhattan.

I know most people don't watch the World Baseball Classic, however its their loss. Most of the games have been awesome, and there's not going to be fun, intense baseball like this for 3 months at least. Plus, the U.S. is doing horribly, which is kind of awesome. In order for the U.S. team to advance, Korea had to beat Japan last night (or Japan had to win after letting up more than 8 runs, but that's another story). Even without the U.S. team interest, the Korea/Japan game promised to be a classic...I can't think of two nations that hate eachother more or who take sports as seriously. There's an argument to be made that various Scandinavian countries hate eachother more, but that's kind of a friendly squabble among Aryan brothers....Korea/Japan is a knock-down battle ripe with historical intrigue and genocide.

So, great game, huge implications for the U.S. team....of course it will be on TV live, right? Well, in MOST parts of the country that is the case. However, in Manhattan (where Will&Grace is on channels 19 and 20 at the same time EVERY single fucking night) there was no Korea/Japan game. Why? Well, most of the games are carried live on ESPN and the other 14 are broadcast live in syndication via Disney affiliate Buena Vista Television (I guess ESPN had too much invested in yet another boring ass poker show to commit to the whole deal). ESPN Deportes also carries a lot of games, but Time Warner is too cheap/racist for that. Japan/Korea fell under syndication. Unfortunately, Yankees broadcast partner WWOR, which is the local syndication outlet for the WBC was only carrying six games. Remember, of course, that Steinbrenner did everything in his power to stop his players from competing in the WBC. Coincidence, i think not.

Point being, Steinbrenner is a manipulative, conniving, bastard who throws money around to get his way like a petulant 16 year old rich girl. Grow up George.

Korea won 2-1 in the ninth inning after a nail biter of a great game. The U.S. has to win tonight to advance. Funny how people get apoplectic about poor Bode Miller, but when our roided up superstars can't even win at our own game everybody just shrugs.

Allen Ray eye injury video

2006-03-14T15:29:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it on live TV...you can find it here.

If you find the relations between NYU and Columbia law schools interesting.....

2006-03-14T13:56:00.000-05:00

....you can read this article. How this is interesting to anyone outside of legal academia is beyond me. But, it does clearly establish the New York Observer as cheerleader-in-chief of the Ricky Revesz era.

BREAKING NEWS FLASH: someone actually read my undergrad thesis!!

2006-03-13T21:24:00.000-05:00

For all you poor souls who, like me, are missing out on Spring Break to write your stinking god-damned mother-f'ing "A Papers" (or whatever your law school equivalant is)--here's some happy news.

Yours Truly wrote this paper for an upper-level political science class way back in 2000 (that's pre-911, in case you forgot). It was published by the once-estemed-but-now-possibly-defuct journal Hemispheres. Anyway, I assumed that this paper would languish online, relegated to a place somewhere below a footnote on a wart on the Internet's retarded brother's pinky. You can get to it easily enough by googling my name. But, anyone who knows me well enough to do that wouldn't bother to read a paper I wrote.

However, I decided to "google" my name using Yahoo...and discovered this lovely usenet posting circa 2003 (post-911). Whomever you are dear Don Quijote, I'll forgive the bad edit job, you missing my point, and the lack of direct credit to me. I forgive because you apparently found my paper worthy of extended citation re: "why are some countries Rich and others Poor?" I'm glad you didn't find my college-era paternalism and general holier-than-thouness offputting. Thanks for taking the time to read what I wrote. Keep on fighting the good fight.

Sports Guy Mailbag Highlight

2006-03-08T15:09:00.000-05:00

How did I not think of this?--

Q: Can't you picture Ricky Williams turning away in disgust from his bag of weed yelling "I wish I knew how to quit you!" with the bag of weed yelling back "Then why don't ya!" even though both know that their bond, while forbidden, will be a love that will last forever? I think we have a sequel to "Brokeback Mountain" right here folks.-- Andy Manley, Madison, Wisc.

SG: But what would it be called? Brokebag Mountain? Brokebong Mountain? Brokebud Mountain? Brokelung Mountain? Or would they call it, "Brokeback Mountain 2: Forbidden High?" You can't come up with an e-mail like that and not give me the title. Plus, who would play the bag of weed? Snoop Dogg? Philip Seymour Hoffman? Jim Breuer? Harrison Ford? Ice Cube?

Yours Truly Scoops Gawker Again

2006-03-02T15:30:00.000-05:00

We here at The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party have been hating on lame-ass hipster Nick Sylvester since last April. We are heartened to see that everyone else is getting on board.

Damn you Real World!

2006-03-01T01:31:00.000-05:00

See, now I HAVE to watch the new season, because of my #1 rule about reality tv--any show with a panic attack on the first episode is a keeper.

Also, its pretty awesome that Tufts alum Tyler has the best quote in a long time, "you don't talk about an anorexic girl's breasts, just don't do it."

Finally, Paula is a total trainwreck, that's pretty awesome.

2006-03-01T00:57:00.000-05:00

Here's something you don't see every day...a DUI Checkpoint in New York City. This is on St. Marks, they didn't check any cabs, which I find reprehensible since most cabbies are drunk on the smell of their own farts. If they don't like what they see, they pull the car over and administer tests a little further down the road.

I'm Going Curling....and I Know You're Jealous

2006-03-01T00:26:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted much on the Olympics, mostly cause I love the winter games so much that I spent the last two week obsessively watching as much as possible on tivo. For the record: I'm hooked on curling (pun intended); Bode Miller got a raw deal (only NBC could be irresponsible enough to hype a downhill skier winning 5 races, the sport just doesn't work that way); Shani Davis is right and Chad Hendrick is wrong; Benjamin Raich is pretty awesome (Tirol rocks); Bob Costas has a crush on Shaun White; and we need to pass a law mandating that events be shown live.

Anyway, some well informed law student friends have alerted me to this curling club in Westchester. We're heading to the open house this Sunday. I'll post plenty of pictures. I haven't noted here, but I've had my car in the city since Thanksgiving. Someday I'll post on the madness of alternate side parking. The hassle is worth it cause having a car allows me to explore outer boroughs and stuff like this. Plus, I previously found my carbon footprint woefully inadequate.

If you want to see a news clip about the club....click here, its a big avi file and downloads straight to computer.

Neil's Still got It.....

2006-02-25T03:41:00.000-05:00

I just finished Greendale. Its not the greatest rock opera ever, but Young has more talent in his little pinky than most other "topical" singers out there today. The guitar solos are pretty awesome, as is the music generally. As much as the actors-mouthing-neil's-words device can be a bit disconcerting, it does make for some poignant moments.

You can get the full lyrics here.

Here's a little sample:

---------

TV crews and cameras
they wanted to interview Grandpa on the porch
they came through the gate and up on the lawn
knockin' down Edith's tiki torch
Grandpa saw them there
looking through the venetian blind

"those people don't have any respect
so they won't get any of mine
I ain't gonna talk about Jed...
I don't watch channel 2 or 6 or 9
I don't have time to talk that fast
and it ain't my crime
It ain't an honour to be on tv
and it ain't a duty either
the only good thing about tv
is shows like 'leave it to beaver'
Shows with love and affection
like mama used to say
a little mayberry livin'
can go a long way"

----------------------

Grandpa's provincial perspective is contrasted with granddaughter Sun's innate radical rage at the destruction and death around her:

-----------------------

we got to get there
Alaska
we got to be there
before the big machines
we got a job to do
we got to
save Mother Earth

Dream the hunter on the western plain
"the birds are all gone, where did they go?"
dream the fisherman in his boat
"he's comin' home empty, he's barely afloat"
dream the logger in the great northwest
"they're runnin' out of trees, they got to give it a rest"
(there's no other way to cut it)
dream the farmer in the old heartland
"corporate greed and chemicals are killin' the land"

----------------------

We are a long way from Mayberry.

2006-02-25T03:22:00.000-05:00

Even closer, digital photos are fun.

2006-02-25T02:42:00.000-05:00

Here's a closer look. The car on the bottom is definitely in trouble.

2006-02-25T02:28:00.000-05:00

There was a little mishap at the parking lot on Great Jones and Lafayette tonight. When I first passed by there was another car on top of the white one. I guess they got that one out. I think this is the second time I've seen one of these car lifters fall apart.

Piss Diving, so hot right now

2006-02-22T14:55:00.000-05:00

This is like the grossest thing I've seen in a while....well, not really, the Japanese video that shall never be mentioned again is always tops (shudder).

2006-02-22T03:13:00.000-05:00

I just got a new camera. Here's the first shot. The camera is a fab Panasonic DMC-LX1...the ultra cool 16:9 aspect ratio option is screwing with my blog layout. I kind of anticipated this problem. Anyway, I had a hard time choosing between the Cannon S80 and the Lx1...ultimately I was sold on the Panasonic's leica lens and image stabilization feature. Also, this 16:9 size format jives with my preference for landscape shots. Professional reviews, like the one linked to above, complain about the level of "noise" on the lx1. This only seems to be a problem when blowing up images, and I'm ok using some computer software to fix those images I plan on making wall size. Anyway, this is a TINY camera with full manual controls and a lot of megapixels. Its going to be hard adjusting away from 35mm, but I've decided to join the 21st century. Actually, its not going to be hard at all, instant gratification is easy.

The above picture makes me wonder who exactly Penelope is...I'm hoping its a squarer-than-she-used-to-be bachelorette having a crazy night rather than a homeless woman marking her clothes depository. This give me a chance to introduce a new heuristic device...Sanjana's Razor...its like Ockham's Razor BUT instead of the simpler choice being correct using Sanjana's Razor the most cynical answer is always correct. Ergo, Penelope is an aging homeless drag queen sent out to pasture from Lucky Chang's and eating food out of dumpsters.

2006-02-14T16:39:00.000-05:00

I guess other Steelers fans enjoy doctoring photos as much as I do. This is oddly prescient considering my comments here on Damon's blog. I really want to stop writing about the Steelers, but its so damn good to be a WOLRD CHAMPION. I love Seattle, and I'm sorry to keep rubbing salt in deep wounds...but I can't stop.

I'm trying to figure out if Cheney's hunting w/o a proper license is a serious enough crime in Texas to bump him up to a felony murder charge if, g-d forbid, the poor victim dies. Anyone with a good working knowledge of Texas fishing and game laws, please help me out.

2006-02-07T19:50:00.000-05:00

I checked the old stat counter....800 people came to this site on Sunday looking to find out if Ben Roethlisberger is Jewish. Such overwhelming demand deserves answers, so we've done some research and an anonymous tipster sent us this photograph of Ben at his Bar Mitzvah. I guess he really is Jewish.

2006-02-07T15:14:00.000-05:00

Police estimate that 250,000 people attended today's Steelers victory parade.

2006-02-07T12:11:00.000-05:00

This is my first and last attempt at live blogging. None of the names below will be spelled correctly, so now I can get fun google search hits from other spelling-challenged folks.

11:05 ESPN News is broadcasting the WTAE (Pittsburgh’s ABC affiliate) broadcast of the victory parade…this is so awesome.

11:10 The new mayor (Bob O’Connor??…I think that’s it) is leading the parade. He was only sworn in at the beginning of January. Closely following on his heels is Allegheny County Executive Dan Onoroto. These two guys hate each other. Pittsburgh is one of those cities with huge urban-suburban dilemmas. The city has 400,000 people and is the heart of life in Southwestern PA. However, more than 2 million people live in the area. This means most people live and pay property taxes outside the city limits, but use the city for work and play. The County government was re-organized to better deal with regional issues. But, the city still wants some sort of commuter tax to get a piece of the pie.

11:15 Dan and Art III Rooney are up front too. These guys are the real heros of this franchise. Unlike every other team ownership, the Steelers are the only business that the Rooney’s do. They do it REALLY well. There’s a reason why we always have great coaches and wonderful drafts. While other teams (Cowboys? Giants?) try to make news back home by doing outlandish antics at the Draft, the Steelers pick quality athletes who play the game right. They’ve been doing this for 10 years…and we’re finally WORLD CHAMPIONS. Makes you wonder what happened in the 80’s. The Steelers had some of the greatest drafts in history during the 70s, and I think the string of picks they’ve made over the last 4-5 years will be equally historic.

Anyway, all of these muckity-mucks have been commenting on how many young people are in the audience. I’ll also observe that this is the first time I’ve seen black and white strangers hugging each other in Pittsburgh. What a great thing for the city. There really is a crisis of youth in the Pittsburgh region. People like yours truly have created a massive “brain drain” that rivals the third world experience. Unfortunately, the brain drain is one of necessity because the region cannot provide opportunities for all the talented salt-of-the-earth types (like me) it produces….this reminds me of my favorite Madden moment from Super Bowl XL….he said, “this team [Pittsburgh] plays gritty, like the gritty city of Pittsburgh.” Hahahaha. We are so gritty and tough.

11:20 The WTAE street reporter guy called Anton Randel El, “Willie,” presumably thinking he was Willie Parker. Randel El was PISSED…said something along this lines of, “this interview is over.” The broadcaster back at the studio was like, “tell Anton its cool, we go to the same church and our kids go to the same school.”

11:29 Enter the Mt. Lebanon High School (my alma matter) Marching Band. This is hysterical. We have a really good band, they regularly do the Rose Bowl. However, the previous bands were from city schools and were really enjoying themselves (think Drumline). The Lebo band looks like a bunch of fascist in comparison.

11:30 “I have never seen so many people squashed into one place”…it seems the cars are getting mobbed. The “fans are slowing things down.” The crowds at the beginning of the parade seems to be the most narrow…at points the fans are close enough to touch the car. The parade goes from the Mellon Arena through the relatively small “downtown” skyscraper district to the Point, which is the confluence of the three rivers. Say it with me, confluence.

11:33 Apparently Bettis’ mom made dinner for the team before the game.

11:34 Heinz Ward is, predictably, all smiles.

11:35 Bettis is bringing up the rear with the Lombardi trophy

11:47 Lynn Swan is warming up the crowd at the Point (the confluence of the three rivers). I love saying confluence, it’s a Pittsburgh-only word. Lynn Swan is running for Governor of PA as a Republican. I like Ed Rendell, our current Democrat governor.

11:50 WTAE is giving excessive coverage to the North Allegheny Marching Band. BOOOOO! I take back my previous fascist comment about the Lebo band, these guys take the cake. They are trying to march 10 wide through a really narrow passage.

11:55 Dan Onoroto (County Exec) just called this the biggest Super Bowl celebration of any team ever. He also made some reference to the “whole 10 county region.” I don’t know what that is, but it sounds like Dan has big plans.

12:00 Apparently Mike Logan said, “I’m not going to Disneyworld, I’m going to Kennywood.” That is just awesome. Kennywood is Pittsburgh, old-timey amusement park that is home to several of the most thrilling and historic roller coasters in America. Its really an amazing place, really perfect for families (Ceder Point has cooler coasters, but that’s the last good word you’ll hear about Ohio from this reporter). There is also a sister water-park called Sandcastle, but that’s more of place for yinsers to drink beer and compare their jean shorts.

12:01 The fans are chanting “Cowher, Cowher!”

12:02 This broadcast is devolving into various shout outs for various high school bands.

12:05 Randel El notes, “no one is in school, this is amazing.” It really is great how many people are in the city today. Wow…I have goosebumps…embarrassing.

12:06 Dick Lebeau (defensive coordinator) is making the crowd chant ‘stay here, stay here’ to Kent Wisenhunt (offensive coordinator) who skipped his interview in Oakland for this parade.

12:08 Troy Palamalu is playing with his hair and “kissing the crowd.” Ummmmmmm….Troy, please remember what happened to Kordell…don’t go spending too much time in Schenley Park late at night.

12:15 Sally Wiggin (long time Pittsburgh news celeb) just said, “when you are a big man, you’re going to have a big fur coat.” Odd

12:16 Dan Onorato and Bob O’Connor are sharing the stage before the players arrive. Richard Caliguiri and Sophie Masloff (former Pitt mayors…Masloff was our Anne Richards) never would have stood for such “sharing” shenanigans. Get these losers off the stage. Vote Big Ben for Mayor.

12:19 Cowher is waiting behind the “civic leaders”…he’s got jeans, a hooded sweatshirt, work gloves, and a trucker hat….he looks like he just got back from a hunting trip. He’s a man’s man…yeah.

12:20 Big shout out for Myron Cope from the current broadcasters….awesome.

12:23 Bob O’Connor just accidentally said, “thank you for making me the greatest mayor in the country.” It was a reasonable slip considering he just said Pittsburgh is the greatest city in the world…but still, funny.

12:28 Art Rooney III just gave a blissfully short thank-you to the fans around the world. (My aunt lives in Beijing now, she was at a sports bar with lots of other Steelers fans…apparently the biggest contigent there were miners from West Virginia…its not just Steelers Nation, its Steelers World). Thank YOU, Art.

12:30 Cowher is happy, this is great….he just led the fans in a “I say ‘who day’ you say ‘we day’” chant. Awesome.

12:35 Roethlisberger has flowers and Mardi Gras beads, funny.

12:39 Whoa, the broadcasters just dropped the ‘theory’ that Jeremy Stevens was psyched out by Joey Porter and so afraid of being hit that he dropped those passes. Not cool.

12:43 Randel El is out of his car and fired up, leading the fans in chants. Cowher is like a kid in a candy store.

Man, I already bought my authentic locker room t-shirt…now I’m gonna have to get one of these parade day hooded sweatshirts.

12:46 Gladdis Bettis needs to start doing soup commercials. I’m pulling for Progresso, maker of the finest canned soup on the market…their Chikarenia soup.

12:50 This is exhausting….what exactly is the point of ‘live blogging?’

12:50-1pm Bettis and Ward gave great speeches. Everyone is happy. I’m leaving the rest for DVR. I can't wait for the attendence numbers to come out.

2006-02-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

Mike Holmgren is a bad coach. HE was the reason why Seattle lost yesterday. Better clock management and more organized and focused special teams play would have made this Super Bowl a VERY close game. Both these elements of the game fall squarely in the responsibilities of a head coach.

Instead of taking responsibilities for his shortcomings as a coach*, Holmgren has decided to lash out at officials. Yesterday, at the Seattle welcome-back parade, he said, "We knew it was going to be tough going up against the Pittsburgh Steelers. I didn't know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well."

I have absolutely no problem with Seattle fans being upset with the officiating. There were several big calls, and all broke towards the Steelers. I think the fracas over the endzone TD run by Roethlisberger is overblown considering that the Steelers would have gotten the score on 4th down. The offensive pass interference was tough, but within the letter of the rules (and INCREDIBLY stupid play by Seattle WR Darrell Jackson...he was open and should have known better). The holding call and the penalty on Hasselbeck's tackle are certainly more questionable. Fans have a right to be upset. However, the simple fact is that Seattle couldn't score when they were in the read zone and they kept giving up 15-20 yards per possession on bad punting. NO team will win the Super Bowl playing that way. Also, the Seahawks had no answer to the "big trick play" which is the Steelers' hallmark...trick plays are easy to stop if you know they are coming and the Seahawks ought to have had a better answer than they did (again a coaching issue). My point is, there were bad calls, but they didn't decide the game. But, I understand why Seahawks fans think it did.

HOWEVER, Mike Holmgren is not a fan, he is a coach. He should be embarrassed by HIS performance and not looking to cover his ass by blaming the refs. Coaches are supposed to be leaders and the right message at this point is, "we have a great team, by far the best team in the NFC, and we're going to be better next year." Instead, he sold the fan's feelings up the river. His whining and bitching exploits the raw emotions of the Seattle fans for his own ends (covering his ass). Moreover, it undermines the league. Like it or not, head coaches have a responsibility to the integrity of the game. Teams are robbed all the time by bad officiating. If every coach behaved the way Holmgren has, the sport would be an ugly mess. The Seahawks organization, if it really cares about the quality of officiating, has a legitimate case to make to the NFL regarding reform (full-time refs, more cameras, microchips in the footballs?). The Seahawks should have pursued this in private, where it could have had an impact. Instead, Holmgren runs his mouth like a sore loser. He should be ashamed of the way he coached the game and ashamed of the way he has behaved since he started mouthing off at the refs during halftime.

*I was just watching ESPN News and they showed stats from Holmgrens two Super Bowls (other was with Green Bay). Both games featured scoreboards that didn't reflect how close the two sides were statistically (the Seahawks "outperformed" Pittsburgh in the stats sense). Why do teams lose when they are running and passing better than the other team? The answer is almost always bad coaching.

2006-02-02T16:02:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: Roethlisberger STILL not Jewish!

2006-02-02T15:51:00.000-05:00

We're keeping on top of this story. Apparently the googling regarding possible tribe membership for Big Ben has not stopped. Other blogs are feeling the heat too.

Another Great Steelers Story

2006-02-01T11:59:00.000-05:00

The Steelers are blessed to have a roster full of stand-up selfless individuals focused on succeeding as a team. Take, for example, Larry Foote.

ESPN has been running a series of articles about how "boring" this super bowl is for most of America. The argument seems to be that sans the Patriots or at least an ass-clown on the order of Vick or TO, no one really cares about the game. My only reply- FUCK YOU ESPN. There is so much fucking hypocrisy running around Bristol, CT these days. They rag on players who aren't good role models, and then show 10 minute long montages of the best "sack dances" and "endzone celebrations" of the year. They pretend that everyone likes underdogs, but when two underdogs make it to the Super Bowl, they act as if something has "gone wrong." Its just so fucking typical that when the national sports media is presented with two teams full of genuinely good-hearted players who care about team success more than individual glory, the reaction is, "how boring." FUCK YOU ESPN, FUCK YOU.

Nerds Gone Wild...AT SCHOOL!

2006-02-01T10:38:00.000-05:00

Have you been experienced?... enter the cuddle puddle.

"Since the school day is winding down, things in the hallway are starting to get rowdy. Jane disappears for a while and comes back carrying a pint-size girl over her shoulder. “Now I take her off and we have gay sex!” she says gleefully, as she parades back and forth in front of the cuddle puddle. “And it’s awesome!” The hijacked girl hangs limply, a smile creeping to her lips. Ilia has stuffed papers up the front of his shirt and prances around on tiptoe, batting his eyes and sticking out his chest. Elle is watching, enthralled, as two boys lock lips across the hall. “Oh, my,” she murmurs. “Homoerotica. There’s nothing more exciting than watching two men make out.” And everyone is talking to another girl in the puddle who just “came out,” meaning she announced that she’s now open to sexual overtures from both boys and girls, which makes her a minor celebrity, for a little while."

Baby Jessica is All Grown Up

2006-02-01T01:49:00.000-05:00

For the past three years, my fantasy baseball keeper-league team was named Baby Jessica's Angels. Remember, of course, that in 1987 baby Jessica McClure was trapped in an eight-inch pipe for 2 and a half days. The nation watched with bated breath, and Baby Jessica was eventually rescued.

Well, Jessica is no longer a baby. She's a 19 year old college student, and she got married this month. You can check out what's left on her Wall Mart wedding registry here. I was going to buy her an oven mit, but it turns out she stands to inherit a million dollar trust when she turns 25. The trust was formed from donations sent to her family during the well crisis.

My Super Bowl Nightmare

2006-02-01T00:52:00.000-05:00

Today, during a mid-day nap, I had a rather troubling dream. Seattle was leading 16-13 in the 4th quarter and had the Steelers pinned on their own 1 yard line. The Steelers tried a direct snap trick play, which went wrong. Roethlisberger got the ball and ran up the middle, only to fumble the ball for an easy Seattle touchdown. I woke up in a cold sweat with the score 23-13 with 8:14 left in the 4th quarter.

This isn't going to happen, the Steelers are going to win. If watching the actual Super Bowl is anywhere near as stressful as it was during this dream, I am going to have a rough night on Sunday.

2006-01-31T02:56:00.000-05:00

The Devil's Playground is certainly the best documentary I have seen in quite a while (The War Room and Capturing the Friedmans come to mind). Its not perfect, but the movie's subject matter is fascinating and its level of access to the darker underbellies of the Amish community is (I think) completely unprecedented.

The film jumps around between mostly unrelated character profiles of young Amish teens reflecting on the Rumspriga--a period of time after the 16th birthday during which children who have grown up in the Amish community are freed from the rules of the church and allowed a taste of the "real" world. We learn in the end that 90% of the rumspringen return to the church...the highest rate since the founding of the church in the 17th century. In following a select few "subjects" the film also captures some really amazing scenes inside the Amish world. What's most shocking is how intermeshed the free-wheeling Rumspringa lifestyle is with the larger Amish world. The result is amazing footage of kids smoking cigarettes in their family buggy.

Here's a great summary of the folks who are filmed. Filmmaker Lucy Walker's "Notes on Completing Devil's Playground" is really fascinating. Here's some excerpts:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

"The Amish generally condemn photography for fostering pride and generating "graven images" which the first commandment prohibits. But many people enjoyed being filmed so long as they weren't "posing" for the camera. And "posing" for interviews was tolerated among the Beachy Amish congregations and in some more liberal Old Order church districts. But the goal was real access to teenagers, and that turned out to be a challenge.
During rumspringa Amish young people aren't subject to Amish rules, but Amish parenting "breaks the will" of the child and they've been trained to keep their heads down, humble and invisible, in the middle of the crowd. Amish teenagers are also drastically less articulate than their "english" counterparts. English is their second language, there's no time for introspection, personal opinions are avoided, and analytical reasoning is suppressed. Of the few kids who would talk to us, very few wanted to be filmed, and fewer still could discuss themselves or their religion. "

"Each one of those introductions took days of visits and discussions. We had to earn trust every step of the way. Even with the teenagers it was crucial that I knew and respected Christian principles. It helped to refer to parables to explain our work. I spent a lot of time reading the Bible. It wasn't filmmaking, but it was what it took to make this film. "

"We weren't allowed to film any of the best scenes that we witnessed. " [almost tragic considering the amazing footage they do get]

"One night at a hoe-down I spotted Faron. He stood out from the crowd with his Tupac swagger and twang. The next day we met up again, and he was mesmerizing. I didn't immediately catch on that he was high. Other kids were hesitant to describe what they ate for breakfast, whereas Faron not only divvied up drugs on camera but shamelessly skimmed his dealer's cut too. He had an "english" girlfriend and an escalating habit. But his ambition was to follow in his father's footsteps and be a minister. He could explain aspects of the religion that completely stumped everyone else. And he told everyone that he was "joining church" in the fall."

"What has sustained me is that the experience keeps generating more questions. I still can't make up my mind. Sometimes it occurs to me that being Amish should be illegal. Learning that an emaciated 42-year-old woman I knew was anorexic because it was her only means of birth control and after 8 children she couldn't face any more. Listening to yet another boy describe how desperately he begged his parents to let him go on through high school and how much he loathed his factory job. Meeting a gay man whose Amish teen years had been a living hell of chastising himself and praying to be released from his "affliction", which the Amish consider so sinful that they won't even acknowledge it....But other times I still fantasize about giving it all up to be an Amish farmwife with sixteen kids. If you ask an Amish person you'll find out that heaven and hell are as real as New York and Los Angeles. One magic hour, sitting on the porch drinking lemonade with an old Amish couple, I was moved to tears by the love and peace and grace of their lives - free from clutter, no question as to how to live, eternity sewn up, surrounded by children and a community guaranteed to lavish love and care until the end of their days. The "english" world was ugly when I returned."

" I'm ambivalent about having documented a community that didn't want to be documented. One of the Bible passages often quoted by the Amish is 2 Corinthians 6:14: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousnessÂ" Filming the Amish is a painfully unequal yoke and I'm relieved to stop. And I wanted to promote understanding but I didn't want to ensnare people in worldly media when their life's work is to remove themselves from it."

------------------------------------------------------------------

You'll have to read yourself to see the sad update on main character Faron.

Aaron Brown: gone from CNN but not forgotten

2006-01-27T12:28:00.000-05:00

Drudge is running this story on former CNN anchor Aaron Brown. As much as I don't like to admit it, I watch a fair amount of CNN. Along with most thinking viewers, I was disappointed when they dropped Brown from their line-up. One could tell he really knew and cared about what he was talking about....for those of you who don't watch 24 hour news, this quality is quite rare these days (most anchors are pathetic ass-kissers).

Anyway, in the above article, Brown adds his voice to the chorus of responsible journalists who are disgusted with the state of public news today. The article notes, "Many Americans on the left and the right aren't interested in the truth, but simply want news that confirms their viewpoints." Cass Sunstein would add that such collective group-speak leads people to more extreme points of view.

Its interesting to think about why the media has come to such a state. Brown rightly notes that TV is an ultra-democratic forum...people vote instantly and constantly with their remotes. However, this doesn't really explain why people want their news in the format of a chorus of yes men confirming their pre-existing views. We just don't care about community writ-large anymore, all the political battles I can think of are essentially people fighting for their right to do what they want. There was once a time when some political movements actually centered on making the world a better place. Politics today is about "getting our way" not "doing what's right."

P.S. While writing this post, CNN interrupted their regular coverage to show pictures of a giant fire in Atlanta. If it bleeds, it leads.

Dear America, Ben Roethlisberger is NOT JEWISH

2006-01-23T18:40:00.000-05:00

So I've been REALLY bad about the blog. So sorry. I have some fun ideas. I was going to post a list of my top 10 movies of 05 . I was going to write about my field trip to Rego Park, Queens in search of delicious Bukharian food. I was going to do a long gloating post about the Steelers amazing post-season dance with destiny.

However, I was shocked to see a giant spike in hits to the blog since yesterday...Approximately 150 people are coming here each day. This is way more than usual, especially when I'm in one of my lulls and I know the 7 people who actually check to see if I've started again (thanks guys!). So, I did a little check on my stattracker and it turns out that the hits are coming from the following searches...keep in mind that my stattracker only remembers the last 100 visitors...so this is just a sample:

Num
Perc.
Search Term

28
37.84%
roethlisberger jewish

6
8.11%
ben rothlisberger jewish

4
5.41%
is ben rothlisberger jewish

3
4.05%
rothlisberger jewish

3
4.05%
roethlisberger, jewish

2
2.70%
licoln martial law

2
2.70%
rothlisberger ben jewish

2
2.70%
roethlisberger jewish steelers

2
2.70%
ben rothlisberger jewish?

2
2.70%
roethlisberger jewish

2
2.70%
vicent sperm

1
1.35%
is rothlisberger jewish?

1
1.35%
dave coulier jeff daniels

1
1.35%
ben rothlisberger is jewish

1
1.35%
jewish

1
1.35%
jeff daniels and dave coulier

1
1.35%
ben rothlisberger religious jewish

1
1.35%
rothlisberger jewish steelers

1
1.35%
is rothlisberger jewish

1
1.35%
rothlisberger quarterback jewish

1
1.35%
is ben rothlisberger jewish?

1
1.35%
jewish roethlisberger

1
1.35%
roethlisberger nazi

1
1.35%
rothlisberger jewish?

1
1.35%
football player, rothlisberger, jewish

1
1.35%
ben roethlisberger is not jewish

1
1.35%
is roethlisberger jewish

1
1.35%
is be roethlisberger jewish?

1
1.35%
roethlisberger jewish ben

What does this mean? I guess it means that some small minority of closet anti-semites (and maybe not a few proud members of "the tribe" looking for a new Sandy Koufax) have been pouring over Google to find out the real reason why Ben's name sounds like "Roth" and he looks vaguely non-Aryan. Don't hate folks. Why can't we all just get along.

This is how we roll in the NYC...

2005-12-21T23:45:00.000-05:00

....here. By the way, Magnolia cupcakes are disgusting. I am convinced that their "popularity" is part of some giant joke between elite viral marketers trying to test the outer limits of the most ridiculous craze they could create.

Steelers Nation Rocks...

2005-12-20T16:26:00.000-05:00

Minnesota's coach is upset about how many Steelers fans were at the game on Sunday.

2005-12-20T00:39:00.000-05:00

My dad told me all Republicans are the same....he is correct.

ONLY in 21st Century America...

2005-12-19T10:37:00.000-05:00

...can you see a President at a press conference try to argue his actions are authorized by the Constitution, then look down at his notecard, pause, and first read with his lips to make sure he's right and then say "Article II of the Constitution gives me this power."

Now he's ordering the Senate to stop filibustering. Actually ordering the Senate, I think he used the word "must." This is just nuts. He just called the social safety net, "entitlement payments."

Now he said that the fact "we're talking about this program [NSA domestic spying] is helping the enemy."

Hahahaa, GREATEST F'ing Freudian slip of all time...Bush miss-speaks and finishes a sentence about Osama with "Saddam."

Now he's calling "FISA" search warrants, "Fisers"

"An open debate about law is like saying to the enemy, 'here's what we're gonna do'"

Alberto Gonzales on CNN this morning.

2005-12-19T07:35:00.000-05:00

A-Gonz laid out the administration case. The main argument is going that the post-911 Congressional authorization of force trumps FISA. FISA applies to taps "unless otherwise authorized by Congress." They are relying on Article II as a fallback.

The Congressional authorization argument is retarded at best. Setting aside the whole distinction between "use of force" and "use of electronic surveillance," this has to be limited on its face to the immediate investigation of 911. If you need the statutory basis, its that "such persons" are the ones who "planned, authorized, committed, or aided." I'll bet a ham sandwich that the foreign surveillance continued against citizen islamists who the administration knew were not involved in 911. YOU CAN'T CRIMINALIZE A WORLDVIEW, bastards.

As to why "use of force" is different than "use of electronic surveillance," the fact is that Congress passed two different framework statutes for these two different aspects of foreign policy. The post-911 authorization explicitly references the force framework statute, it is silent on the surveillance statute.

If this all means that we finally have meaningful Congressional oversight again...I'll call it a wash. Otherwise, this is a fucking constitutional crisis of the highest order.

SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) In General.--That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any further acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements.--
(1) Specific statutory authorization.--Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) Applicability of other requirements.--Nothing in this resolution supersedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.

2005-12-17T21:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I guessed that the President would use the Commander-In-Chief Clause as the excuse for his cowardly and illegal unauthorized domestic spying on U.S. citizens. Today, Bush invoked that power in his radio address. Let me just elaborate on how this is not a legally coherent argument.

First, there's no textual reason to think that the framers intended the Commander-In-Chief Clause to be "elastic" in the sense that Congress's power to make "all laws necessary and proper" has been interpreted to be expansive and wide reaching. "All law necessary and proper" is, textually, an expansive grant...and the debate has always been about how expansive it really is. Compare this with the Commander-In-Chief clause: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States." This is a limited grant. Those who are oriented to original intent interpretations would probably go so far as to say the grant is limited to the framers' concept of what a Commander In Chief does and the nature of the Army and Navy at the time of ratification.

Furthermore, even the Elastic Clause does not give Congress the power to make laws in direct violation with express provisions of the Constitution. The Fourth Amendment would stop Congress from passing a law authorizing warrantless phone taps. (Remember that the uproar about the Partiot Act was really about the degree to which traditional search and seizure law can be altered in terrorism cases) How can the Commander-In-Chief clause be read to give the President more elastic power than the elastic clause?

Last, I said earlier that a true originalist would see the Commander-In-Chief clause as limited to framer's concepts of what a Commander In Chief does or what the Army was at the time of ratification. This is obviously untenable in our modern world. Congress' power to declare war has been sidestepped out of geopolitical necessity (by presidents using the Commander-In-Chief clause). HOWEVER, there are huge and absolutely essential differences between that use of the Commander-in-Chief power and what Bush is trying to do now. The distinction between homefront and foreign shores is absolutely central to the constitutional order under which our military has operated for centuries. The Presidents powers as Commander In Chief should have no domestic effects outside of the power to physically maintain the military and its bases. If indeed the President chooses to ground his wiretaps of citizens without warrants under the Commander-In-Chief clause, this is means he has incorporated the NSA into our Military and authorized it to act domestically. That is tantamount to a declaration of martial law. The military DOES NOT have any extraordinary powers domestically. If there is any elasticity in the Commander-in-Chief Clause, it is purely in the conduct of foreign wars.

Does all this mean that I think that using the NSA to spy on domestic actors accused of terrorist sympathies is categorically impossible? No, of course not. But, it has to be done legally. Our constitution is not a "tool of the weak" as Cheney likes to say. It is a powerful document that has always adapted to the times. These wiretaps could have been done legally. Expedited authorizations, obviously ex-parte and maybe even decided entirely within the executive branch, seem reasonable enough. But, there has to be a legal process under which these taps are authorized. And, even more centrally, this process would have had to have been authorized by Congress. What we have now is a completely extra-legal usurpation of Congressional power in direct violation to long-established and central individual rights. No amount of after the fact justifications by Bush or anyone else is going to change the damage they have done to the freedoms they so flippantly invoke when its in their interest to do so.

The damage this administration has done to freedom as we knew it is a flagrant insult all those heroes and patriots who sanctified our way of life with their own blood.

There's a War on the Shore...so don't get so upity about rights.

2005-12-16T23:47:00.000-05:00

President Bush likes jurists who faithfully read the Constitution....as long as that reading doesn't interfere with the New Imperial Presidency. The truth is, friends, that the framers said a lot about foreign affairs in the Federalist Papers but almost nothing about it in the Constitution. However, what they did include in the Constitution spread oversight of foreign affairs across all three branches of government. Our president would like to read the Commander in Chief Clause as a trump to all other powers and rights in the Constitution. Not only is this a very obviously wrong reading of the Constitution, but its not good policy.

Here's Israeli Supreme Court President Aharan Barak (from his commencement speech at Bradeis in '03):

"The rule of law and democracy must prevail in times of peace. They must also prevail in times of war and terror. The Roman saying that in battle the laws are silent - or the well-known saying that when the cannons speak, the Muses are silent - is wrong. Every battle a country wages - against terrorism or any other enemy - is done according to rules and laws. There is always law according to which the state must act. There are no black holes. And the law needs Muses, ever more urgently than when the cannons speak. We need laws most in times of war. And we need human rights most in times of war and in the fight against terror. Yes, when a democracy fights terror, not all means are acceptable to it, and not all methods employed by its enemies are open to it. Sometimes, a democracy must fight with one hand tied behind its back. Nonetheless, it has the upper hand. Preserving the rule of law and recognition of individual liberties constitute an important component of its understanding of security. At the end of the day, to strengthen its spirit and to allow it to overcome its difficulties. So in the United States after September 11th, and so in my country, Israel, where we are suffering from terrorism for a long time. "

Barak's famous "one hand tied behind its back" quote comes from a case where the Israeli SC outlawed torture. The fact that Palestinians arguably have more civil liberties in Israel than U.S. citizens have here gives one pause.

Ann Coulter is Ed Anger

2005-12-15T11:08:00.000-05:00

Let me preface this by noting first that I guess I'm not the first person to notice this connection. Moving on, I was reading Coulter's latest pile of doo-doo and noticed that her tone and general chip-on-the-shoulder attitude reminded me a lot of weekly world news columnist Ed Anger. The fact that (I suspect) "Ed Anger" is really a bunch of of village hipsters trying to be funny is kind of sad for Coulter.

P.S. Anyone want to go to Bhutan next summer?

This is Pretty Great

2005-12-13T03:38:00.000-05:00

I got this as an email forward:

Subject: A Tandem Story - Men vs Women

Here's a prime example of "Men Are From Mars, Women
Are From Venus" offered by an English professor:

The professor told his class one day: "Today we will
experiment with a new form called the tandem story.
The process i s simple. Each person will pair off with
the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As
homework tonight, one of you will write the first
paragraph of a short story.

You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send
another copy to me. The partner will read the first
paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story
and send it back, also sending another copy to me.

"The first person will then add a third paragraph, and
so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been
written each time in order to keep the story coherent.
There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the
e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written
in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a
conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of his
English students, Rebecca and Gary.

THE STORY:

(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she
wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite
for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much
of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he
liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all
costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was
suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her
asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out
of the question.

(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the
attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more
important things to think about than the neuroses of
an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom
he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S.
Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his
transgalactic communi cator. "Polar orbit established.
No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off
a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and
blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt
from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat
and across the cockpit.

(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but
not before he felt one last pang of regret for
psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had
feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its
pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of
Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing
War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper
one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and
bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days
had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read,
no television to distract her from her sense of
innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around
her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a
woman?" she pondered wistfully.

(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds
to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian
mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion
missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed
the Unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through
the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for
the hostile alien empires who were determined to
destroy the human race. Within two hours after the
passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on
course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to
pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them,
they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The
lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret
mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off
the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive
explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid Laurie.

(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of
literature. My writing partner is a violent,
chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.

(Gary)
Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered
tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the
literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have
chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of
F_KING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air
headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele
novels!"

(Rebecca)
Asshole.

(Gary)
Bitch

(Rebecca)
F__K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!

(Gary)
Go drink some tea - whore.

(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one.

Flash: New York Times Grows Set of Balls

2005-12-12T00:43:00.000-05:00

Here's their editorial on the travesty-in-the-making that is New Orleans

Irony runs deep these days. The two biggest problems for the Bush administration are now urban planning and state building--two things that Bush et al used to think the government had no business doing. Its nice to think that we can blame everything on Bush, but this stuff is bigger than one fucking moron from Texas. He's a symptom of a trend of greed and self-centeredness. Americans think that their shit doesn't stink and that we can do whatever we want to whomever we want without consequences. The entire cost of rebuilding New Orleans is one third of our new tax cut. That makes me throw up in my mouth.

If we ever lived in a nation-wide community, its dead. And the only thing sadder than that is the punk ass law student trying to justify this by some sort of trumped-up federalism claim that the real responsibility should be on the state and local governments. As long as we're killing Mexicans on the boarder and bombing the shit out of someone somewhere else, it doesn't matter that children starve in Appalachia or that an entire city is sinking into the sea. This is the sick sad world that the libertarians always wanted...we're freeriding on the future. Enjoy it motherfuckers.

2005-12-09T09:39:00.000-05:00

The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party turned 1 year old on Wednesday. What a long strange trip its been. Also, yesterday we hit 10,000 unique visitors and 21,000 page loads. The vast majority of those are people trolling for pirated images...but I'll take em.

2005-12-07T16:43:00.000-05:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIAN!!!!

Buy Vicent Gallo's Sperm

2005-12-07T15:07:00.000-05:00

Click here. Scroll down to the bottom. One positive is that I'm pretty sure racism can't be passed down genetically. So, one has to assume this is fake. However, I was once a buyer of Charles Manson art for the Sultan of Brunei and the one for sale on the site looks legit (in my professional opinion). The sperm is on the Onion's holiday gift guide. Its also referenced by a couple "real" news sources.

P.S. Vincent, we have seen the Brown Bunny and were not impressed....if mommy really cared about her son's endowment she'd focus on girth.

P.P.S. Gawker has done a nice little montage of Gallo cock here. Dear Gawker...this doesn't mean we've burried the hatchet. You're still ON NOTICE.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

2005-11-26T20:27:00.000-05:00

Nothing like Thanksgiving for getting trashed and playing with the little tikes in the family. A personal highlight was when my 3 year old cousin interrupted dinner yelling, “Mommy!! Mommy!! Remember when I was a baby and I ate out of your boobies??” GOOD TIMES, GOOD FREAKING TIMES.

Also entertaining was my sister (24 years old) dropping the f-bomb in front of my 6 year old cousin after I beat her at connect four.

FLASH!- LEGAL GOSSIP MILL BLOWS UP!!!!!

2005-11-14T16:06:00.000-05:00

Wow.....can you CATCH THE LEGAL FEVER...its sweeping the land.

1) Article 3 Groupie has been outed by the New Yorker. Spoiler: she's a he!

2) The New York Observer organized a circle jerk of legal hot shots (no pun intended) in their 30s reflecting on how much they all want to be on the Supreme Court. I must say that the vision of some white-bred dweed driving 55 on the highway because he wants to be on the Supreme Court is rather hysterical, in a tragi-comic way.

I sport wood every time I see Thomas Pynchon's name

2005-11-14T15:21:00.000-05:00

The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party's irregular heckler JTB often derides Thomas Pynchon's confused masterpiece Vineland. Apparently some librarian in New Mexico agrees. The above link, which will expire in 5 days, is what passes for "news" these days at the not-so-grey-anymore lady. It is about a couple from Los Alamos who recently purchased the entire Penguin Classics library to replace their home library which was burned because they decided to live in a tinderbox.

-----

So where did she start? "I ran my finger along the shelves, closed my eyes and stopped on one," Ms. Gursky said, sitting in an overstuffed chair in her new library, 31 rows of great literature looming behind her.
She picked "Herland," a feminist utopian novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, a great-niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe, combined in one Penguin volume with Gilman's short fiction and poetry. "I had never heard of her before," Ms. Gursky said. "But that is one of the joys of this collection. It takes you places where you wouldn't have otherwise gone."

Since then, by similarly traipsing along the edge of her bookshelves or by following a reference to one classic made in the introduction to another, Ms. Gursky has wound her way through "The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" and three other books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Soon to follow were "Vineland" by Thomas Pynchon ("Boy, that was weird," she said) and "The Virginian" by Owen Wister. She picked up "The Riddle of the Sands," by Erskine Childers, which she said she had listened to "hundreds of times" on tape but had never seen in print, but noticed that near Childers on the shelf were four books by Kate Chopin, who was unfamiliar, so Ms. Gursky started on Chopin's "Bayou Folk and a Night in Acadie."

-----

A couple points.... 1) Kate Chopin's name brings back memories of some fun discussions in 11th grade AP English. This is where I learned the wonderful word "ennui." 2) The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party is partial the Penguin's Great Books of the 20th Century collection, which straddles the line between paperback and hardcover in a very elegant and pomo way. 3) JTB (proud antiquarian and leader of the Graham Green revival club) should join the modern age. And, no, by "modern" I don't mean the post-911 revival of moralization and finger wagging.

Update: Jeff Daniels is not Jeff Bridges

2005-11-11T12:30:00.000-05:00

In my botched Oscar post I totally confused Jeff Daniels (who is in The Squid and the Whale) with Jeff Bridges (who is not).

Apparently, however, I am not the only one. Here is an interview with Daniels, (he's talking about an album of his comedy songs):

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Daniels: ....And there's a song called “Recreational Vehicle” which is kind of a 10-minute song about this RV trip I took with my family. We were going to Cooperstown, New York, for the Baseball Hall Of Fame from Michigan. We stopped at a truck stop and while I was getting recognized gassing up — I got recognized as Jeff Bridges. I got back into the RV and pulled back onto the highway and had forgotten my wife. So it's a song, which is a true story, and it's very entertaining and it raises a lot of money for the theatre…

Q: You were recognized as Jeff Bridges?

Daniels: "Excuse me, Mr. Bridges?” “Yeah.” “Can I get an autograph?” “Sure can.” It happens a lot. Dave Coulier is another one. Bill Hurt I get, Bill Pullman I get. “You were so great in ‘Independence Day.’” But you know on the flip side, imagine Jeff Bridges being told how great he was in “Dumb and Dumber.” So I'm sure Bridges gets some yucks out of it.

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Anyway, my bad. He does look a lot more like Coulier and Pullman, but the name similarity with Bridges is probably what throws morons like me off.

2005-11-10T22:38:00.000-05:00

Top #10 wikipedia entry right here.

2005-11-10T18:37:00.000-05:00

CONGRATULATIONS to the legal juggernaut that is the Corzine-Schulhofer. Its kind of sad that it takes two men and tens of millions of dollars to win the governorship of NJ.

why won't my blog load anymore

2005-11-10T18:16:00.000-05:00

damn you blogger!

2005-11-07T00:38:00.000-05:00

The Drudge Report thinks (read wants) that Brokeback Mountain will win Oscars this year. The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party knows that the race will come down to Bridges in The Squid and the Whale and Hoffman in Capote.

P.S. Check out these awesome Maoist movie reviews from the Maoist International Movement. A couple of gems...

on Conan-- "Conan: The Barbarian would be unambiguously progressive without the first ten minutes of the film quoting from Nietzsche and building a legend of the "superman" fit for Hitler. If the film had started where the dogs chase Conan up into an abandoned temple, Conan would have picked up his sword and made a pretty good mark from then onwards."

On Elephant-- "Postmodernism detracts from the real elephant in the room, the imperialist-patriarchy."

On Spider Man 2-- "MIM has said that "Spider-Man: The Motion Picture" (2002) has some redeeming value on the basis of its depiction of asexuality, but it cannot ignore the fact that "Spider-Man's" Amerikan flag-waving fans are cheering for something that in the real world would be called "capitalist police repression." This is an important point. Communists do not support pig repression, much less the pig-wanna- be, labor-aristocrat vigilantes who think themselves heroes when they are gunning down the Third World proletariat at the Mexico-united $tates border, or the self-styled "community" pigs who "police" Asian, Black and Latino youth street organizations. If the bourgeoisie want to sic their thugs on each other, MIM would not get in the middle of this fight, but it does not support pig repression in the abstract when Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) has his knee-jerk reaction every time he hears a police siren. If Spider-Man had any (spider-) "sense" at all, he would fight the police repression under which gold miners work in Azania and China to produce the gold coins stored in the vault of the bank that is robbed in the movie. In fact, exactly why is Dr. Octavius / Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) a villain?"

On the Patriot-- "The imperialists have produced a politically correct movie about the Revolution of 1776."

On Unfaithful-- "It is possibly an expression of patriarchy that even half of wimmin in the united $tates "say they've faked an orgasm"

I really would like to search through the Catholic, Maoist, and Evangelical movie review databases and find one movie they all agree on.

2005-10-31T23:49:00.000-05:00

So, someone managed to get Judge Alito’s son’s humorous profile of himself removed from an apparently defunct student magazine at Colgate. I had a link here until I deleted the post. I erased the post without knowing that it was involved in such intrigue.

Some background: I woke up late, had no idea Bush announced the nomination of the dude who wrote the dissent in Casey. I started doing stupid google searches regarding Alito. I mean, one of the bizarre and captivating things about the process of supreme court nominations these days is how it plucks people out of a fairly insular intellectual community and makes them pop culture icons. Combine this with the reality that all sorts of information exists about all of us on the Internet plus the fact that its easier to find stuff about people with distinctive names and you know that it’d be easy to find out stuff about Alito’s son. (Also, the kid thing is kind of in play now after Jack Roberts virtually playing beneath he’s father’s desk.)

What amazed me was how little there was about the Alito son. I’ve posted before about having a rare name and its effect on the info that’s out there. Anyway, I wrote up summaries of all the stuff on google about him and posted it with links. I went to class, came home, and thought about this for a couple minutes (I was reminded after watching the CNN coverage of Alito blitz indictment news off the map). Anyone who’s been to this blog knows that I make of lot of rash blog-related decisions. I’ve even pulled some stuff off before and I edit a lot. The bottom line is that I just didn’t want to be part of the sort of weird, not-so-spontaneous blogging that goes on these days with regard to Supreme Court nominees.* I felt bad about putting the stuff up, and I checked to see if anyone had actually seen it (not really, maybe 4 searches from the google blogsearch).

I guess I believe that people ought to be able to control the information about them on the internet. That’s why I erased the post. Then I started looking at if any other blogs had the info. It turns out that at some point between this afternoon and tonight the info had been removed from the Colgate site. Like I said, sometimes it sucks to have a weird name. The fake bio wasn’t even that interesting. I do feel its a bit creepy that when I copied the stuff onto my page I jokingly wrote something like, “I’m sure this is going to be erased in 10 minutes.”

Now, how does the actual info being removed go down? I have no idea. I bet someone realized it wasn’t good that the nominee’s son is recorded making fun of (“riffing” in the parlance of our times) a bunch of powerful democratic women from California. The site it was on was probably dead, and a couple of well placed calls probably scared the Colgate folks into calling their IT people to get it removed. I hope the son wanted it removed, it is his speech after all. However, the ability of the white house to strong-arm the process is remarkable.

Do I regret deleting the post? No. People whose parents are in the public eye don’t usually have much say in the matter. But, I do think that if spin machines want to use nice family photo ops to appeal to their base, then they should at least vet this kind of stuff ahead of time. None of this was hard to find, it wasn’t that interesting either.

*For the record, Patterico, Judge Alito was kind of making up the law when he used dissenting opinion precedent to redefine what the the words "undue burden" mean.

2005-10-31T20:04:00.000-05:00

Strange Smell Sweeps City

2005-10-28T10:48:00.000-05:00

Read all about it here. Although I have not smelled it, I have witnessed one confirmed smelling (of the maple syrup variety) at 6th Street and 3rd Ave.

Its a SUPER storm...or is it PERFECT

2005-10-25T01:08:00.000-05:00

ARE YOU READY FOR A SUPER STORM?? Sucks to be Williamsburg....actually looking at the map kind of makes you think twice about a lot of recently hip Brooklyn and Manhattan locations. I'm thinking of a quote, somthing about remembering history or being doomed to repeat it.

An Open Letter to Lonelyplanet.com

2005-10-17T23:45:00.000-05:00

To Whom it may Concern,

What you have done to the actual level of real content on your site is a travesty. This website USED to be helpful for those needing to find out more about where they wanted to go (BEFORE buying your guides). Now, the maps are a TOTAL DISASTER. If I wanted a small political map with random cities, I’d use one of the thousand of maps sites on the internet. People liked your maps because they USED to be focused on what travelers wanted to see. Why can't the destinations on the maps be linked to the content on the website? That's how it used to work. Aside from the maps, it seems you’ve cut the amount of information that’s available in half. Shame on you. The ONLY reason why you would have done this is because you felt like the free content on the site was cutting down on guidebook sales. I've used your books and site for years, probably spending hundreds of dollars on your products, the reason why I trusted your company was that I felt you all had something going on other than your bottom line. The changes on this site show me that I was wrong. You are wrong to think that the level of information available online has an effect on guidebook sales, they are mutually exclusive. Well, actually....they aren't...because I'm never buying a Lonely Planet guide again because of what you've done to your site.

-JS

2005-10-14T20:11:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm heading back for homecoming. It looks to be a rain soaked affair. Hopefully I won't have to see anyone crowned (or any crowning ...but that's an entirely different can of worms...I had a link to pictures of actual crowning, but I really couldn't handle it...if you must see, go here, then click on #51...its a beautiful thing, I guess).

If I do see a king and queen crowned, I hope it goes about as well as it did during Carrie.

Actually, I'm only going back to Medford for a delicious buffalo chicken calzone. Its a long drive for a calzone, but worth it.

Check out the Harriet Mier's Blog!!!

2005-10-08T15:47:00.000-05:00

Here it is. I love her pink template. Very pro-woman.

2005-10-08T15:22:00.000-05:00

Jessica Biel is so hot. Congratulations are in order, as she has just been named Esquire's "Sexiest Woman Alive." The above photo is from her awesome photo set in Gear Magazine in 2000. That was the summer before she came to Tufts, and the photos had the student body (or certain parts thereof) very excited. Not only did every shot elegantly flirt the line between showing nipple and not showing nipple, but the subtext was that Biel was trying to break her contract with the Jesus freaks at the WB's Seventh Heaven.* She was in my Hollywood Comedy class....so hot...want to touch the heiny. Anyway, congratulations again to Tuft's most excellently proportioned daughter.

In case any of you need the above spelled out in antiquated SAT logic: Jessica Biel in Gear is to b-porn photos as Blown Away is to b-porn movies. Both are the best in their class, hands down. In case you don't remember. Blown Away has both Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, plus Nicole Eggert before she had her tits surgically enhanced.

If you need some connection to the pre-teen photos below....just remember that Blown Away came out in 1992 and went pretty quickly to heavy rotation on HBO. It held a special place in my heart (and pants) for many years.

*Speaking of which, does anyone else find it very unChristian the way the writers had Mary leave the show...the Camden's basically abandoned their daughter after she proved herself not up to the families baby-making standards. Now, they have a house full of needy, non-related children (all who happen to be kissing eachother in the broom closet), but their own child is just left to rot.

2005-10-05T00:30:00.001-05:00

This picture is just f'ing awesome.

2005-10-05T00:30:00.000-05:00

I was a little man

2005-10-05T00:28:00.001-05:00

Everyone was such a good sport about posing for shots.