I can’t believe that the full text of D.V.
Seriously: in the first 100 words, girlfriend busts out with, “Nostalgia–imagine! I don’t believe in anything before penicillin.” That is the kind of book our young people should be reading. Toss all their Twilights and their Lords of Rings and their Hairy Potholes right in the coal fire! (Pass me a bromide, would you dear?)
I bet I could tweet the whole damn thing: D.V.
TIDBITS
(NB: I’m publishing more frequently than my timestamps indicate, but thanks to some quirks in Blogger’s FTP system, my posts aren’t going up for hours–sometimes days. They are making me out to be more of a slacker than I already am.)
I’m still recovering from a very short, travel-heavy trip to NYC for xmas. (If you follow my Twitter feed, you already know what I’m talking about.) In the meantime, here are some news items that have piqued my interest:
1. Louisiana has two daddies (on one birth certificate): It ain’t the same as GLBT couples having the right to adopt, but it’s a step in the right direction:
The state of Louisiana must issue a birth certificate for a Shreveport-born toddler that includes both names of his adoptive parents — an unmarried same-sex couple — to honor the New York court decision that granted them custody of the boy in 2006, a federal judge has ruled. [more at NOLA.com]
2. Grey Gardens trailer leaked: The HBO-backed feature starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange won’t hit the air for another four months, but a bootleg copy of the trailer leaked out today. Maybe it’s viral, maybe it’s planned, but it looks surprisingly good:
[via Towleroad]
3. Daniel Craig human, also object of lust: Not only did the folks at INF capture Daniel Craig with a bag of Lay’s BBQ potato chips in his hand (my fave!), but they also got this unintentionally hilarious shot of Craig with Bravo’s bunburying bigwig, Andy Cohen:
For goddess’ sake, how do I caption that?
Valid Response or Fighting Words?
The unnecessarily long and painful path toward the approval of government bridging loans for General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC has exposed a new threat to Detroit. It’s one that Michigan consumers may want to keep in mind as they consider their expenditures, vacation options and even retirement plans.
The problem here centers on certain southern states — Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia and, in particular, Alabama — where certain bone-headed senators seem to have forgotten that the Civil War ended, with the appropriate outcome, almost 150 years ago.
During recent Congressional hearings, these ‘good old’ southern boys made it clear they could care less about Detroit’s survival and blocked passage of emergency loans in the Senate, leaving it to a decidedly reluctant President George W. Bush to approve the financial relief package….
So what should be done about this attempt to put Michigan out of business? The suggestions from readers came in thick and fast.
Apparently Alabama is quite a tourist destination for Michigan residents, so perhaps they will want to find other places to spend their hard-earned dollars. The southern state is also heavily favored by retirees from Michigan, but maybe that could change, too.
One other thought raised by readers concerns disasters; not the financial kind we are all experiencing, but the natural variety — droughts, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods — the sort of calamities that afflict southern states on a regular basis.
As you point out, federal taxpayer money flows freely in these circumstances, and so does free assistance from northern states, including Michigan. Detroit automakers, for example, gladly helped with vehicles and personnel when Hurricane Katrina slammed the Gulf Coast.
Is it time the South is reminded that a mean-spirited attitude is not a smart play when the whole country is on the ropes?
–full article at The Detroit News
[via Jesus’ General]
…The pope said humanity needed to “listen to the language of creation” to understand the intended roles of man and woman. He compared behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations as “a destruction of God’s work”….
Judgment on the non-heterosexual lifestyles of (allegedly) celibate priests and nuns is still pending.
Dear John Hodgman:
I just read your post about Rick Warren, and I would like to take this opportunity to profess my undying love. (For you, not Mr. Warren.) You are so eloquent and thoughtful on the matter of all things gay that I plan to write the HRC and request special funding for you and your occasional dark master, the equally eloquent Jon Stewart. HRC’s lobbying efforts on capitol hills across the nation would be far more effective with you and Mr. Stewart waging a battle royale for the hearts and minds of America’s hockey moms. Maybe your pal, Ms. Vowell, could tag along, too. She’s neat.
To be honest, I hadn’t given much thought to Mr. Warren. I was vaguely aware of him, and I knew that he had, in the past, taken flack from evangelicals for being too moderate. As someone who spent much of his childhood in a near-evangelical household, that sounded pretty good to me. Which, I suppose, is like a high school sissy saying, “Wow, that bully beats me up a little less than everyone else. He’s awesome”, but there you go.
When Obama announced that he’d tapped Warren–figuratively–I was actually somewhat “meh” (nb: potentially overused word of 2009). I’m not a fan of religion, but I’m a pragmatist, and I understand you have to have a prayer at shindigs like that, or America will call you names.
However, because of you, I am no longer ambivalent about the choice of Mr. Warren. I am not exactly Yosemite-Sam-rootin-tootin mad about it, but it is definitely a mark against Obama in my book. In ink. Thank you.
One more thing: while you’re at this business of changing the world, can you do something about Nicole Kidman? Her face is just…well, it’s just awful. And that Australia movie? I mean, the trailer tells you everything you need to know, doesn’t it? …Anyway, if you could do something about her–at least foment some public scorn–that would be just great. Thanks in advance.
With much love and admiration, I am your humble servant and remain,
Sincerely yours,
Richard
Everyone’s busy, right? Everyone’s up to his/her eyeballs in holiday crap and office parties (a variety of holiday crap) and traveling and cleaning off desks and the normal junk of everyday life, right? Good. Then I won’t complain or moan about that here. I’ll just say that I’m praying to a variety of deities that it’s all over soon.
As a result of all the year-end mishegas, I haven’t really done anything worth mentioning–unless running around like a crazy person who’s seven minutes late to everything is “worth mentioning”. (I just mentioned it, so perhaps it is.) However, I have been pretty good about keeping up with my feed reader, which is sort of an accomplishment. Here’s a handful of people/places/things that have amused/annoyed me over the past week:
1. Germans, who are weird: I mean, we had some kooky stuff going on in America in the 1970s, but check this. Wait ’till the 25-second mark for the oddness to kick in:
[via boingboing]
2. Kevin Allman, who is awesome: Not only is Kevin an excellent writer, editor, and all-around newshound, but he’s also got a great ear for “voice”. His piece on Arianna and her sometimes-shady HuffPo made me laugh while hitting a serious, pointed tone. Someone in New Orleans is developing a real destination site, y’all.
3. The Times-Picayune, which is not so awesome: I know it seems like I rag on the TP an awful lot, but jeez…. I haven’t seen their news pool in a while, but I’m guessing that by now it’s staffed by a bunch of macaques clustered around an overflowing vat of chicory coffee and one ominous obelisk. How else to explain breaking-news headlines like “Homeless taking residence in abandoned hovels”? Really? What next? Humans digest food? (NB: David Cuthbert is a notable exception to the Picayune‘s rule of mediocrity–and he’s retiring in a few months. Game over, man.)
4: Scientists, who’ve posited another theory for the dinosaurs’ extinction: Apparently, volcanoes in India might’ve been to blame. It’s an interesting theory, but I’d give it more credence if the writers knew the difference between “its” and “it’s”. Damned yahoos.
5. My inner wuss, which I have come to embrace: I used to beat myself up about not being able to watch sicko vids–you know, all the Faces of Death stuff or that “One Man, One Cup” crap. “I’m a human”, I’d think to myself, “and this is all part of the human experience. I should be able to watch this. It’s important to be able to watch this.” But as I was flipping through sites the other day, I stumbled across something really horrific–something that had been captured on camera–and I turned it off. Five seconds in, I hit the stop button, and I realized: there’s a lot of information out there, including the 352 unread items dumped into my reader over the past 24 hours. I can be a little choosy.
Speaking of Twitter, this may be my fave tweet so far:
Richard is one of the nine sister goddesses in Greek mythology, presiding over song, and poetry, and the arts, and do you believe me now, Sonny?
Only because it references a really gay movie and Olivia Neutron Bomb and because I say this all the damn time and no one ever seems to notice but it makes me laugh on the inside. And occasionally, the outside.
sturtle [dot] com 