Who is there with me?

Rachel, Dan Stein, and the New Racism

You just have to watch.

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When I got around to watching it at about 4 am, I was surprised because this was as close to a prize fight as Ms. Maddow has gotten.

Via Maddow Blog

And when someone says that the SPLC has no credibility at all, you do have to characterize him as a wingnut, no?

Probably the reason...

That Big Star's Thirteen has been stuck in my head...

happythankyoumoreplease

I really think that I want to see this movie.

Thirteen

A couple of weeks ago, I posted the link to the Winterpills cover of this song (which was recorded in honor of Alex Chilton's passing) and last night, for some reason, I had it stuck in my head.

This song has been covered a lot (most famously by Elliot Smith about whose cover Josh Radnor called devastatingly sad...and even in the linked clip, Elliot asks the crowd, "Do you want me to do a happy song?" before he goes into Thirteen.) and a lot of people see it as a touch stone for pop music (and I will contend that this is the Ur song for fans of the Violent Femmes and without Big Star...they just don't happen.

Anyway...

There is no good reason why this song should be playing back and forth as if on a loop in my head, but it has and that is good enough for me to call it my earworm.

Oh, Alabama

I have a friend who until recently was considering a move to Alabama to continue her education. I am so happy for her that she is going to Mississippi instead.

We think that the politicians in New York are irredeemably stupid and bigoted (and a good number of them are) but this out and out racism would be inconceivable. Go 'Bama!



via Gawker

So...tasty and odd

Experimental Gummy Bear Surgeries

Via The Punniest Woman I know.

My Aim is True

For the better part of the past two weeks, a friend has been going through some weirdness with her partner, and the partner is acting like a complete douchenozzle, based on nothing; a nothing so comical that if it were used as the plot of a 90s sitcom, it would strain credulity.

Anyway, as the partner has moved closer and closer to the deep end and the villain role in a movie that Lifetime will show at three on a Saturday afternoon (it was serious and I was concerned but the route that it got to this point should have had either Danny Tanner or Phoebe sitting down to provide exposition at a critical moment) this song became the earworm of choice.

The irony...this friend doesn't respect Elvis Costello in the least.

First NPR Now This

Lingua Franca | Is Bad Writing Necessary?:

"On one side stand academic luminaries like University of California at Berkeley rhetorician Judith Butler and University of Pittsburgh English professor Jonathan Arac, who take their inspiration from critical theorists like Michel Foucault and Theodor Adorno. Arguing that their work has been misunderstood by journalists on the left, these radical professors distrust the demand for 'linguistic transparency,' charging that it cripples one's ability 'to think the world more radically.'

On the other side are ranged a variety of public intellectuals and journalists like UCLA historian Russell Jacoby, feminist writer Katha Pollitt, and NYU physicist Alan Sokal. Intolerant of bewildering jargon, they cannot see how deliberately difficult prose can possibly help change the world. As their patron saint, they often nominate George Orwell, the very image of a man who spoke truth to power and spoke it plainly."

I Eat Very Little Chocolate

Chocolate-Eaters More Likely to Be Depressed - Chocolate - Gawker:

"Participants in a recent study of dietary intake and chocolate consumption were given a mood test to screen for possible depression. Those who scored highest ('possible major depression') consumed the most chocolate—almost 12 servings a month. Those who scored 'not depressed' only ate 5.4 servings a month."

It's a Saab Thing

"If the 99 established Saab as a thoroughly modern car manufacturer, with its four-stroke engine and aerodynamic shape, it was the 1978 99 Turbo that cemented the brand's image as a builder of performance cars. Sure, a small contingent of Scandinavian rally kings could drive those smoky early Saabs to motorsports fame, but to the common public Saabs were just perceived as awkward little novelties. The 99 Turbo put the small Swedish builder on the radar for good."


FAU and I were talking about cars, and repairs, and a number of other things, and he pointed out that Saab owners are crazy...about their cars.

This is a very good article about the first American Saabs.

Saab 99 Turbo: The Car That Made Trollh�ttan Great - Saab 99 - Jalopnik

A Joke

So, Tiger Woods and Ben Roethlisberger walk into a bar...

What do you do?

Call the police.

This is...odd, right?

If it isn't odd, what does it say about me?

Via The Awl