Category: Uncategorized

We’ll always have Perris (slight return)

  1. Always at the frontier of Green Eggs and Ham research, the Taiwanese have made important steps toward the production of Green Ham. Thanks, mrhinelander!
  2. No, your fetus doesn’t mean you can drive in the carpool lane, twit!
  3. Dear LJ: this is a bad idea. Hugs, me.
  4. URSI found the secret Vatican archives! Neat stuff.
  5. Hey look, here’s a blog consultant. DYAAAAH
  6. Also from AdJab, can any of you explain any of this? Something about a lifestyle website, and a blogger who was hired to make it more bloggy and cool, and he’s leaving, and doesn’t want his bloggy cool tainted for “selling out”, and. I need an aspirin.
  7. No matter how much you love her, DO NOT KISS YOUR CHICKEN.
  8. Okay everyone, it’s time for TONIGHT WITH THE BRADMAN! (Google video)
  9. This wonderful Australian online exhibit of artists’ books reminded me of RenĂ©e and Judd Hubert’s work at the UCI Library. godforesaken, if you have an email for Judd you should send it to him! Via Bibliodyssey page that has some greatest hits.
  10. Someday I’ll meet her, someday I’ll court her, someday she’ll wear my ring.
  11. Augh, again with the Indigo Kids (ny times).

Nonfiction Nation

The real reason James Frey and J.T. Leroy are depressing is that they show us once again that we’re unimaginative people who won’t buy a made-up story. It has to be real, just as it happened, and authentic because it was written by the person who was there! And even if the writing itself is fiction, it has to be written by someone who is real! Not one of those writers who sits in a room writing, but a soldier or a movie star or someone who was brutally abused as a child, and will talk about it on TV.

If Frey had written a novel about an alcoholic criminal fuckup and his journey through life, or if that couple in SF had presented J.T. Leroy as a fictional protagonist, they might have got a $20,000 advance and no royalties if they were very, very lucky.

Imagination is left to the kids, who get to enjoy Harry Potter having made-up adventures in a much more interesting world. Long live J.K. Rowling!

ITEMS.

  1. Double double drama as In-N-Out Burger Family Sues Each Other. For a Christian company they can’t get any luck. First all their execs pancake into the Santa Ana Auto Mall in a business jet crash, now there’s a burger schism.
  2. Before we really figured out anatomy as a science, we made some pretty amazing anatomical art about it.
  3. QOTD: You end up with an alcoholic energy drink that belches out smoke.
  4. As much as I dislike Vice, this is a good collection of found video stuff, including of course Jack Rebney but also some things I didn’t know about.
  5. What happens when you mix Diet Coke and Mentos? (Google Video)
  6. Jeff points out that the del.icio.us tag “trainwreck” produces some pure freakin comedy gold.
  7. Clearly I need better sweaters.
  8. Didja know about THOMAS JEFFERSON’S HUGE CHEESE?
  9. The Knife Show Guys meet Jesus, as Pastor Rod pimps out his sword for sale.
  10. Thank you Aardvark:
  11. The latest thing for thieves to take from your car is the entire freakin door.
  12. There may be coyotes all over your town. I knew there were lots here, but I live less than a mile from their preserved habitat.

I departed from you; I never knew you.

If you want to know why I turned my back on “the Church” forever, look no further than this video.

Dawkins is usually annoying, although he’s quiet in this clip. Haggard is the sneering, hateful, ignorant, hypocritical face of American Evangelical Christianity unveiled.

Eleven years of trying to break bread with people like that was enough. How many times did I literally sit at a table with people and listen to them express their hate for everyone like me? Churches were behind enemy lines. If discovered, I would be shot.

Of course I never believed that Christianity itself demanded that I love money, hate gay people, and support bombing babies while I opposed abortions, or any of it. The trouble is, that’s where it led. The strain of belief that moved my heart moved the people around me to nauseating moral, political, and scientific conclusions about the world. And if they wavered an inch, it seemed, they’d lose eternal life. I looked around me at my fellow American evangelicals and saw the Inquisition and the Crusades, not Christ.

Since then, believers and others have often said “Those people and their views should not have killed your faith; they’re not what it’s about. Why can’t you still believe?”

I’ll leave my answer to the man in red type:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. — Matthew 7:15-17

The fruits of Christianity — and other religions that promise salvation from death — are bitter. I couldn’t practice a faith that was attracting, encouraging, creating murderous chauvinism and warmongering and a hatred of knowledge. Evangelicals supported wars and executions, preferred disease and death to sexual immorality, rejected science, and expressed open hatred for people like me and my family and friends. I could smell brimstone at church. If the New Testament is at all accurate, Jesus was a great guy. But he’s been a terrible influence despite his best efforts.

To the tiny number of people who share my concerns and stay, and try to “light their corner”, I offer this: I respect your courage tremendously. You’re far stronger than I ever was. Every time I was among the faithful I had at least one moment where I had to think: Speak up? Leave? Or just do nothing? I did all three att different times, without changing anyone else’s opinion or doing much for my own conscience.

The rest of you, goodbye and good riddance. I don’t break bread with people like Pastor Haggard.

Charon sneers at your beads

New Orleans is attempting to go ahead with Mardi Gras starting February 28th. That should be awesome, because nothing goes together like half-naked women, vomiting frat boys, and cholera.

What’s even MORE awesome is that they’re seeking corporate sponsorship for the first time ever:

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — New Orleans has hired Los Angeles-based Media Buys to secure corporate sponsorship for Mardi Gras next month, the first time the city has sought to offset the expenses of the carnival with marketing.

That tidbit via Adjab.

Remember folks, corporate sponsorship means corporate liability!.