So it has come to this.

A cultural trend in my country follows a particular course, with few variations. A marginalized minority or subculture produces it. It propagates via pop culture, especially music and film. Teenagers adopt and adapt it. A major motion picture blesses the trend. Older people who idolize teenagers take it up. The rougher edges of the trend have been removed at this point and it is a marketable commodity. It is now an ordinary and acceptable part of daily social life.

At this point, if the activity has any physical expression at all, it finally and permanently becomes a method of exercise.

The New Porn Culture of suburban middle-class America is no exception.

Cardio Pole Dancing

Anna-Lise de Texte

  1. Those Starbucks Doubleshot iced coffee things taste like the milk at the bottom of a bowl of Cheerios.
  2. Here is a gallery of vintage children’s books. miss_education and others with coulrophobia urged to skip it.
  3. Three word phrases that go together: Grim Meathook Future and One-Rupee Suicide.
  4. To lighten the mood a bit from that, here: WFMU presents way too many variations on “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Ha”.
  5. The Army finds that anthrax is a lot cheaper if you buy it in bulk.
  6. The user Agnieskza on Flickr posts a lot of good photos. Quite a few of them are of her looking cute, but the others are pretty sweet too. Example below:

So I went to JAG and … he says, “Well the Geneva Conventions are a gray area.”

Via srl: An officer of the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army describes violations of the Geneva convention.

o I guess what I’m getting at is the Army officers have overarching responsibility for this. Not privates, not the Sergeant Jones, not Sergeant Smith. The Army officer corps has responsibility for this. And it boggles my mind that there aren’t officers standing up saying, “That’s my fault and here’s why.” That’s basic army leadership. […] [I]f America holds something as the moral standard, it should be unacceptable for us as a people to change that moral standard based on fear. The measure of a person or a people’s character is not what they do when everything is comfortable. It’s what they do in an extremely trying and difficult situation, and if we want to claim that these are our ideals and our values then we need to hold to them no matter how dark the situation.

Today’s craigslist.

Missed connections, of course. Missed a few other things too.

The hottie in the black skirt at the STD clinic – m4w – 25
Reply to: anon-99633728@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-09-24, 2:15AM PDT

I couldnt help from noticing you in the clinic.You were so hott!That black skirt,long brown hair,and smile.It reminded me of BASIC INSTINCT.Was that wrong of me?I dont know what i was thinking about more getting my test done,or getting your number,or how dirty u are,or if i could give u a test at home.We had some great conversation!What else can u really talk about before a test?I was wondering how it turned out and i wanna take u out.Dirty or not.Well just e-mail me back with what i first said to u.Id love to hear from u.I cant stop thinkin of ya.rarrrrrr tiger

* this is in or around Huntington beach

Yomama mano a mano: the Fiercer People

  1. Defense Tech Blog reports on fascinating, frightening, and probably illegal military planning for operations on U.S. soil without civilian control. Remember that name: Operation Granite Shadow. Original story from William Arkin’s Early Warning blog at the WashPo.
  2. Freakin’ idiot soldiers thing they see ghosts. Even lamer newscasters do a story on it. Come play with us, Sergeant. FOREVER.
  3. “If your definition of propaganda is framing communications to do something that’s going to save lives, that’s fine,” says Mark Broughton, SCL’s public affairs director. “That’s not a word I would use for that.” Slate has a story about psy war gone commercial, brought to you by the fine folks at Strategic Communication Laboratories.
  4. Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you the so-far-unmauled FERCOS BROTHERS! Not those other guys at all!
  5. Cat and Girl is especially good today, making fun of people like me.

And your kid has a face like a walnut from the ice cream.

I saw Leo Kottke perform this song in 1986 or so? Dunno. It was at McCabe’s. He introduced the song by saying that he’d stayed up really late one night and smoked a whole lot of cigars while playing guitar in an effort to become Joe Pass. He did not become Joe Pass. However, he woke up in the state of mind the next day that caused him to write this song.

This is how I, and many of us, feel in the morning.

Jack Gets Up (.mp3, 6.5 meg)