Reigning Miss Louisiana Teen USA Lindsey Evans has been stripped of her crown after being arrested for marijuana possession and skipping out on a restaurant tab….

Evans, 18, and three of her friends walked out on a $46.07 bill at the Posados Café in Bossier City, La., on Saturday night. But Evans made a crucial misstep — she left her purse behind.

Police were called, and according to them, they found not only her driver’s license, but also a bag of marijuana in her purse.

Evans and her friends — Jordan James, 18, Jennifer Martin, 22, and Morgan Goleman, 18 — returned to the restaurant to retrieve the purse, just as officers were about to leave the scene….

[T]he women admitted that they purposely left without paying their bill, though at least one of the women blamed the restaurant.

“The service was so slow, we just said, ‘Screw it,’ and left,” Martin told the New York Post….

— full story at MSN.com, via BlogOfNewOrleans.com [emphasis totally mine]

Helen Lovejoy Is Alive and Well and Living in Montana

The Lewis and Clark Public Library in Helena, Mont., has voted to keep on the shelves a book about gay sex.

The book is titled “The Joy of Gay Sex.” Board chairwoman Carole Byrnes acknowledges the book includes graphic pictures and descriptions but said she views it as an instructional, education manual that shouldn’t be censored.

Helena resident Paul Cohen requested that the book be removed. He described it as “pornographic” and said the library was negligent in providing a “safe place” for children and adolescents….

FoxNews.com, via Queerty

Unless it were wrapped in razor blades and poisoned scarves, I fail to understand how The Joy of Gay Sex could make a library “dangerous”. If anything, I think it’d make the place safer–especially for GLBT youth. It might also make things duller. (I mean, have you seen the book? It’s written by Snoozy Kurtz.)

And more importantly: since when do libraries have to be “safe places”? They’re not halfway houses (despite homeless folks’ fondness for free computers and restrooms). You want safe places? Funnel more government dollars into schools and the social service sector, bitch.

FYI, a fuller version of the story was posted at The Missoulian, but has since been taken down, leaving us with the mere slip-of-a-girl piece at Fox “News”. What gives?

GAH! ARGH!

I am having a Francine Fishpaw kind of week: I’d drink gasoline if it were in a bottle. Stay tuned for details.

P.S. Today is Jonno’s birthday. I’d suggest you stop by and wish him many happy returns. Remember: he knows where you live.

BREAKING NEWS:
MCCAIN INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE!

I mean, sure, Sarah Palin already knew that she was “a cold political calculation”, but does McCain really think that undecided ladyvoters will enjoy hearing her described as “a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda”?

I think something in that square, square head done snapped, y’all.

Color me 100% jealous: tonight, Jonno begins his annual spate of pre-birthday celebrations by attending the Girl Talk show at House of Blues–a show which is 100% sold-out.

No, that’s okay, I’ll be fine. I’ll just sit here watching Stacy and Clinton do their predictable empire-waisted thing while you go off and watch some genius hotass nutjob perform his brilliant album, which has been the only thing I’ve listened to for, like, the past squillion months. No, I’ll be fine.

Mah.

Another developer for Tempest in Crescent City has written me. He did so in confidence, so I don’t feel comfortable posting his email, but here’s my response–slightly redacted–which pretty well sums up my feelings at this point:

Thanks for the note. I’m happy to hear that you spoke to a New Orleanian about the project…. And rest assured, I didn’t dismiss your project simply because it’s a game. Obviously, I’m a pretty avid gamer myself–otherwise, I never would’ve stumbled across the link at PlayThisThing.com.

Here’s my problem: I don’t believe you’ve fully and honestly addressed the “shock” factor of Tempest. You could’ve focused the plot on any number of disaster scenarios, real or imagined: fires in the Southwest, tornadoes in the Midwest, an earthquake in San Francisco, etc. I’m guessing you chose Hurricane Katrina because it’s known to students and because it’s emotionally and politically charged.

Which is fine, but many New Orleanians–myself included–are tired of Katrina being used to foment race/class conflict and for other political ends. We just want our city, homes, lives back. You’ve appropriated the disaster for your own purposes, with little obvious benefit to the people who’ve actually suffered from the disaster. (FYI, if you were intending to use it to ease the stress of school children in New Orleans, you’re probably a couple of years too late.)

I hate to sound essentialist or parochial, but here’s the fact of the matter: for the past three years or so, we’ve had non-locals giving us advice–mostly unsolicited. What we’re doing wrong. What we ought to be doing. How we ought to feel. They don’t speak with us so much as at us. Their hearts may be in the right place, but their words are often patronizing and very, very offensive. Whether you like it or not, your team and this game have fallen into exactly the same trap.

So my suggestion to you–and can take it for what it’s worth, but bear in mind, I have the pleasure of negotiating these issues every day–is don’t worry about the New Orleans market, because you’re probably pretty doomed on that front. If nothing else, your identity as a non-New Orleanian–to say nothing of your race/class identity, about which I know nothing (beyond a pretty accurate Google Image search)–will prevent you from being taken seriously by many here. Although a lot of people have moved on from the disaster, Katrina is still a HIGHLY volatile issue, and the mere fact that you’ve made it a game will render it offensive to most. Add to that the fact that you’ve done little on-the-ground outreach here in New Orleans, and you sink another few inches.

I don’t speak for all New Orleanians. I can only guess at what they’d say. But based on my experience of the city and its communities and outreach efforts and everything else, I can pretty much guarantee that the cards are stacked against you.

Your target demo, as I’ve said, may be more comfortable with the game, but if I were you, I’d use this for the kids in your own neighborhood who aren’t weighed down by the baggage of homes, lives, and family members lost to a sudden, violent, unstoppable meteorological event–one that, given climate trends, is likely to re-occur any summer now.

Dear America:

You know that thing you do–where you hear the word “racism” and you think “the South”? Well, please stop. These crackers could totally out-bigot anyone below the Mason-Dixon:

And don’t be all like, “Al Jazeera? That’s one of them A-rab papers! How you gonna trust what they report?” ‘Cause as an occasional thespian, I can tell you, those people ain’t acting. Also: CNN pops up in other countries all the time, and you trust their reporting, don’t you?

Spread the blame, that’s all I’m sayin’.

“How could she not realize that being a jerk to Tim Gunn is a bad idea no matter what? Like … it’s Tim Gunn. America LOVES HIM. WE CAN SEE YOU.”

Have I mentioned lately how much I freakin’ love the Fugs?

I AM AWAKE AT 5:30AM
AND CUTE GAYBOYS SINGING UKELELE COVERS
OF MADONNA SONGS MAKE UP FOR THE FACT
THAT I HAVE NO COFFEE IN THE HOUSE

via andy

RELEASED TODAY:
Tempest in Crescent City

Okay, what does that look like to you? A predictably ironic postmodern painting? A wacky dream inspired by a late-night meal at Deanie’s? A panel from Mary Worth? Alas, it’s none of those things. (Though I wouldn’t blame you for guessing Mary Worth.) It is, in fact, a screenshot from a video game–a videogame about Hurricane Katrina.

Called Tempest in Crescent City, it was developed by Global Kids, a nonprofit with a mission of “educating and inspiring urban youth to become successful students as well as global and community leaders.” This marks its second videogame–the first being Ayiti, in which you help a family in Haiti make their way from poverty to prosperity. (I know, right?)

Anyway, in Tempest in Crescent City, you play a teenager trying to find and save your mother before, during, and after the storm. You interact with neighbors, pick up supplies, spread them around, and save people from attics. On its website, Global Kids says it had three goals in developing the game:

• “Teach players about how everyday residents of New Orleans acted heroically to help each other….”
• “Emphasize what are perhaps the two most important priorities in any disaster: communication and use of local resources, needs, and knowledge….”
• “Draw attention to the continuing struggle in New Orleans as residents fight for housing in 2008….”

All of which sounds laudable (maybe), but something still gives me a case of the icks. Being the objective kind of guy I am, though, I tried to put that aside for a second and play the damn thing. Here’s how I graded it, based on four different criteria:

TECHNICAL: A
The game didn’t didn’t make me install any crazy extensions, didn’t resize my browser, and downloaded in about 10 seconds. In that respect, it’s exactly what a Flash game should be.

CONTROLS: A-
Apart from the directional buttons and the space bar, you don’t use much in this game, and it’s all very intuitive. It felt like there ought to be a few “special” options available, but maybe that’s just me and my six-button, two-bumper, two-trigger, 360-loving ways.

GAMEPLAY: B
It’s a side-scroller, so if you’ve ever played Pitfall, you know what you’re getting into. It’s not especially challenging, but it is timed, and there’s some richness in your character’s interaction with the environment that make this game different from others. However, there are definitely some glitches in the game (e.g. I had trouble finding the right spot to jump onto roofs) that make it frustrating at times.

SCENARIO: ?
I have no idea where I stand on this point. On the one hand, I hate parochialism and essentialism; I know we do things a little differently here, but I don’t want to be labeled one of those GET OFFA MY PROPITTY! kind of people who take pride in thinking that “outsiders” can’t possibly understand New Orleans. People move here all the time, same as any other city; some of ’em get it and stick around, others don’t and move on. BFD. So although I believe that New Orleans is far too rich and diverse to be explained in a simple videogame, I don’t have a problem with anyone trying to do that. Hell, they do it to New York all the time.

On the other hand, creating a videogame involving life-and-death consequences–a videogame based on recent, widely known, real-life, tragically life-and-death events–well, that seems a little dodgy. Would Global Kids have created a game based on the September 11 hijackings? Or the Indonesian tsunami of 2004? It all seems a little gray to me. Yes, it raises some valid questions, gets people thinking, but I’m pretty sure that all that talk about videogames being educational is 95% crapola.

* * * * *

UPDATE: Global Kids’ Barry Joseph contacted me yesterday to thank me for writing about Tempest in Crescent City, but also pointed me to this Pew study (PDF), which seems to indicate that in certain circumstances, videogames can, in fact, educate–insofar as they positively influence civic impulses in players. I think that’s pretty cool, although I’m not sure all of those circumstances apply here.

The topic Mr. Joseph didn’t address was his team’s sensitivity to recent, fatal events. That, I think, is what icks me out the most–especially given the game’s earnest tone. Strangely, I might be able to stomach Tempest in Crescent City if it were intentionally crass and rude–you know, Cartman-style. Seeing it done without a trace of irony…well, it’d be laughable, if it weren’t so weird.

Nor did he address another important issue: was anyone in New Orleans consulted about all this? And if so, whom?

I doubt much of this matters to his target demo (i.e. probably kids under 14), but it may, in fact, matter to those kids’ older sibs and parents. I posted a link to the game on my Facebook page yesterday, and the comments were 100% negative. So, you know, take that for what it’s worth.