Sunday, May 31. 7 p.m.
Luis Alberto Urrea, a former teacher and thesis adviser, and a friend of mine, will be reading from his latest novel, Into the Beautiful North, at KGB Bar* in Manhattan.
85 East 4th Street,
New York, NY
(between Second Ave and Bowery)
I’m going. You should too!
*It’s a testimony to how much I like his writing that I’m going to set foot in a bar named after the KGB.
File this under quote of the week:
Gays represent a small percentage of the population, but they are powerful church leaders, politicians, judges, and movie executives. For the most part they are white males who have sexed themselves out on perverted sex and they are never satisfied.
That’s a writing sample from the crazy lady what got dragged off kicking and screaming after trying to attack Barack Obama with a letter telling him not to give in to the Satanic forces of Gay America. Seriously. Read the whole thing.
That’s deranged with a capital D. The only good thing about this is that, for once, it’s not some crazy cracker foaming at the mouth about the gays. Let some other group claim the lunatic.
I do think Reverend Brenda Lee buried the lead though. According to Rev. Lee, “Several months ago, the practice of priests sleeping with Protestant virgins before their marriage to Catholic males surfaced.”
(Via Gawker)
Categories: WTF?
Uh-oh. It turns out that Sonia Sotomayor has ruined her chances with the Web 2.0 crowd, choosing the wrong side in a free-speech blogging issue. Now she’ll never get nominated!
Avery Doninger was disqualified from running for school government at Lewis S. Mills High School in Burlington after she posted something on her blog, referring to the superintendent and other officials as “douche bags” because they canceled a battle of the bands she had helped to organize.
And Sotomayor, using her superpowers — “Empathy” and “Latina Wisdom” — ruled against little Avery! Actually, she and the other judges said they felt Avery’s pain and didn’t think the punishment fit the crime, but figured it was none of their damn business what the school did to her. In other words: “Sorry, kid. Now scram.” (Which is actually a very valuable lesson for children these days.)
I have no doubt Sotomayor will be able to best what’s left of the Republican party. But how she expects to be appointed without the support of Twitterers, Bloggers and BoingBoing nation is beyond me.
Categories: politics
Wow. Cardiff, Wales, apparently wants to give both New Jersey and New Orleans an inferiority complex when it comes to binge drinking. You have to check out these photos.
Categories: Drinking
A swine flu protest? Brilliant idea. In the midst of media-induced hysteria, we’ve come to believe we live in a community just crawling with swine flu. So let’s get a bunch of people together in one spot and scream, shout and breathe all over one another! (For the record, it seems hardly anyone turned out for the protest. I’m sure swine flu is relieved.)
And when they do close the schools, let the kids go to the mall!
Actually, it’s unfair to call these people assholes and blame it on swine flu. It’s unfair to swine flu. Only one of the 12 or so schools closed has any confirmed cases of actual swine flu.
Categories: Health
This will make sense only to those of you who read Gawker, but after repeated queries I figured I’d just make it clear here. I am not the Gawker blogger known as Cajun Boy (aka the former commenter known as Cajun Boy in the City).
I read Gawker every day. They’re kind enough to link to my work stuff from time to time and they’ve gently mocked me in the past. But I don’t write for them. Even if I wouldn’t be fired for doing so, I don’t have the energy to contribute and, compared to their regular writers, I’m practically Newt Gingrich when it comes to politics. I’m also entirely too egotistical to write for any site and NOT use my real name. After all, I have a novel coming out in December. (The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival’s official release date is Dec. 29.)
I know nothing about Cajun Boy other than he nabbed a great name. He seems like a nice enough guy and has his own blog, too.
Anyway, just figured I’d let you all know.
Categories: Cajun · First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival
A great piece over on Gizmodo talking about Asimov’s laws regarding robots and ethics. You know, “Yadda, yadda, yadda. Do no harm to humans. Blah-de-blah-blah-blah.”
The point here is that much of the funding for robotic research comes from the military, which is paying for robots that follow the very opposite of Asimov’s laws. It explicitly wants robots that can kill, won’t take orders from just any human, and don’t care about their own existences.
Suck it, robots!
Categories: Science
So I’m sitting there enjoying the new Star Trek movie the other night when I notice something is just, I don’t know, wrong. As a guy, there’s a quick fix for this feeling: I just need to readjust my package, so to speak. So I deploy the left hand to shift my junk over just a fraction of an inch and my index finger finds not the roughness of denim, but the touch, the feel of cotton.
(more…)
Categories: Fail Files · Rants · WTF?
Video for the baseball fans.
Categories: Uncategorized
