My Corner Pot Shop's Charm Offensive @4:20 PM
I live next to a place where people buy marijuana with great frequency. And not in the way that your neighbor upstairs pushes a few dime bags here and there—this is a full-blown storefront, with free coffee and a TV and couches for people to lounge on. Carefully stapled bags, "prescription" printed on one side, are pushed out of a little window similar to the kind manned by bank tellers or postal clerks. The child-proof amber prescription bottles are the same kind that Cephalexin or Xanax comes in, but with ink-jet-printed labels reading ISH slapped on them, citing CA Health and Safety Code 11362.5-7. And that's because this is all, still, legal in the failing great state of California. READ MORE 14
Australia Horrified By Comic Remarks About Its Princess @4:00 PM
Scandal on Prison Island after comedian Fiona O'Loughlin brought that country to a standstill with a suggestion that National Treasure Bindi Irwin "needs a slap in the face." Irwin is the daughter of revered Prison Islander Steve Irwin, who earned the love of fellow Australians by molesting reptiles on TV and then died. Outraged viewers "called O'Loughlin spiteful and hateful after her performance on ABC music quiz Spicks and Specks on Wednesday." And now they're going to beat her with a spoon. 8
Get Beaten By Border Guards? Get Convicted of a Felony @3:30 PM
Peter Watts, the super-dark scifi writer, is now a felon, because he didn't lay down on the ground after border guards (Canada-America, not Mexico-America!) punched him in the face repeatedly. (Also because he didn't lay down on the ground, and asked what the hell was going on, he got pepper-sprayed in the face.) This is a felony because "assault" seems to be classified much the same way as "resist" or "impede." So if you impede someone's fist with your face, boom, felony. Sentencing is forthcoming; he faces two years. This is pretty much in every which way a travesty, particularly as it involves a guy who rescues stray cats in his spare time. 27
I admittedly know very little about Canadian politics, but I thought that Prime Minister Stephen Harper was supposed to be the more palatable choice for voters who were scared by the creepy evangelicalism of Stockwell Day and Preston Manning. But apparently he is going as far right as he can? What is up, Canada? You guys are supposed to be the sane ones! Can't you reanimate the corpse of Lester Pearson or something? @3:20 PM 20
Rap Songs In Which Complete Sets of Things are Listed @3:00 PM
Joe Coscarelli is working up a list of complete sets listed. There is: Usher's "Little Freak." ("Like Santa I keep a vixen/ Got that Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Dixon, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen!" Um, ha. And then there's Jay-Z, who (sorry) I have never felt, particularly for a stunt like this. READ MORE 10
No two farts smell the same, says the man with the worst job in the world. [Via] @2:50 PM 8
Breaking Matt Bai Housing Update Just In! @2:30 PM
When Matt Bai, a Times reporter and Yankees fan in his early 40s with two children, wanted to buy a new house, the mortgage brokers laughed at him! But he had perfect credit, and had only bought his last home six years ago! (It was a "center-hall colonial on a corner lot three blocks from the subway and American University.") Then he found out that his nanny had a very bad mortgage on her house, the payments of which were 75% of her income. And so he bought a new house, a "spacious, if deteriorated split-level," even though the counter tops were ugly, with a nice, 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. And then he wrote about all of this at work. 11
I Am Prepared To Sacrifice Any Number Of Babies So Long As I Can Keep Smoking @2:10 PM
This Russian anti-smoking billboard (which apparently reads "Smoking in child’s presence is a much bigger torture for him. You don't care?") is kind of graphic, I guess, but it's still better than our own PSAs. I mean, it sucks for the baby and all, but I'd much rather deal with that than think about losing my fingers or having a giant hole in my throat. Also, shouldn't that baby be on its back? You don't want it to get SIDS. 10
And That's When I Clicked "Close Tab": Words No Longer Mean Anything Edition @1:50 PM
"In addition to these legal issues, one group will be hit especially hard – our senior citizens. Always the wisest folks, seniors have been against this bill from the beginning. And for good reason. Obamacare cuts a half-trillion dollars in health care for seniors to lay the foundation for socialized medicine."
—Actually, I should have clicked "close tab" when I read the words "an Ideas piece by by Rep. Michele Bachmann, Rep. Steve King," but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. This was far enough, though. 5
It Used To Be That 1/3rd of "Best" New Magazines Failed in the First Five Years… @1:30 PM
A study of 224 publications that were launched between 1986 and 2006 and honored as a best new publication by the Library Journal found that: "34 percent of these newly launched 'best' magazines failed within the first five years, with 13 failing within their first year alone. And while another 37 percent of these magazines are still being published, Black notes that this number is skewed because it includes some launched as recently as 2006." (Other studies show a "90 percent overall failure rate of magazines launched between 1985 and 2002.") But now? Or at least, between 1994 to 2003? 54 percent failed in the first five years. The good news is that they don't really make new magazines anymore, I think. 2
Sarah Palin's Giant Hairdo Will Blot Out The Sun @1:10 PM
As part of their continuing campaign to prove to the world that Sarah Palin is going bald, the folks at Wonkette point to this photo. In the interest of fairness, we should note that it might not be a wig at all. It could just be a huge mushroom cloud rising above the mountains behind her. 17
"Bands such as the Cockney Rejects, the Angelic Upstarts – Marxists from South Shields managed by a man [journalist/manager Garry] Bushell colourfully describes as 'a psychopath – his house had bars over all the windows because people had thrown firebombs through it' – Red Alert, Peter and the Test Tube Babies. It briefly stormed the charts. The Angelic Upstarts followed the Cockney Rejects onto Top of the Pops, while Splodgenessabounds made the Top 10 with the deathless Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please. But today, if the general public have heard of it at all, they tend to agree with the assessment once offered by journalist and broadcaster Stuart Maconie: 'Punk's stunted idiot half-brother, musically primitive and politically unsavoury, with its close links to far-right groups.' It is, asserts [English nationalist/television critic who once tried to get a comedian banned from live broadcasts because he made a joke about fisting the Chancellor of the Exchequer Garry] Bushell, 'without a doubt, the most misunderstood genre in history'."
—There's a delightful history of the Oi! genre in today's Guardian which I think you'll rather enjoy. @1:00 PM 15
Murderous Mexico Mortifies Migrants! @12:40 PM
"There was a donkey painted like a zebra, hitched to a cart full of sombreros, a Tijuana photo opportunity. But no smiling tourists stepped into the picture frame." Ha ha. Wait, really? 18,000 murders in three years and now Tijuana is empty? But… but… but the U.S. had 17,000 murders in 2006 alone! The murder rate per population in Mexico isn't even double ours. But. WHY was the donkey painted like a zebra though??? I don't get it. 16
And, On the Far Side of the Newspaper Recession, the WSJ Hedcutters @12:21 PM
"A busy day consists of two 'live' hedcuts, drawings that are due to run in the next day's paper….. Each intricate portrait can take up to five hours to complete, with countless little dots. But in an emergency, artists can produce one in as little as two hours, with more lines and fewer specks….
'Because we are essentially tracing the photograph, a lot of people think it's not a big deal,' says [Hai] Knafo. 'But it is.'
'We have our little tricks,' says Noli Novak, who has been with the Journal since 1987. 'A portrait with less dots will take less time.'
'People at the Journal don't even know there's a whole department doing this,' says Novak."
—Never before have I read a piece about working commercial artists that, instead of making me either envious or awed, makes me instead suspect of their entire line of work! And yet here we are. 6
Our Boy in D.C.: Lt. Dan Choi Hijacks HRC and Bravo @11:24 AM
The Human Rights Campaign stands as the the most well-connected and "influential" gay lobbying group in the United States. The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is tops among their legislative goal this year. But winter is melting to spring and there is nothing to show other than Congressman Barney Frank's rumblings that repeal may not happen until 2011—when the 2012 elections, in which Democrats have 23 Senate seats up for reelection, are well gearing up. So HRC was forced to break out the big guns down in D.C. Who else to force the arc of history other than a reality show star? READ MORE 8
The Ritz-Carlton South Beach is looking for a new tanning butler! Could it be you? (Dudes only, but since this recession has hit men much harder that seems fair.) [Via] @11:10 AM 7
'Repo Men': And I Was Looking Forward To This! @10:44 AM
"Repo Men, which to everyone's great disappointment (or perhaps relief) has nothing to do with Alex Cox's 1984 drug-punk classic, Repo Man, is a shallow, stupid critique of organ markets in specific and for-profit health care in general that doesn't even have the decency to be amusing…. It's probably too much to expect sci-fi screenwriters to understand economics, but even a little bit of basic common sense and logic would've sufficed. Even if regulators (nowhere to be found in the film) or social pressure (also absent) hadn't put a stop to the practice of repossession-via-murder, competition probably would have, as organ companies would've quickly sought to attract customers by dropping the harshest contractual terms." 13
Museum Of Living Short People: Is It Good For Short People? @10:20 AM
"Shocked Westerners call it a human zoo, but the residents of China’s 'Empire of the Little People' have a different name for the place where people pay to watch performing dwarves. They call it home." Uh, okay. I'm gonna leave this one alone. 3
The Official Awl March Madness Bracket Tournament Challenge Update: There Will Be Blog @10:00 AM
Wow, what a way to kick off March Madness, am I right? Of the first 16 games, 8 (that's half) were decided in either OT (overtime) or by 3 points or less. That means things were exceptionally close! For comparison, only nine games TOTAL last year were decided by the same criteria. You know what else is close? The rankings in the ongoing Official Awl March Madness Bracket Tournament Challenge! READ MORE 39
The Best Blog on the Internet? @9:40 AM
It's the best magazine-related blogging on the whole Internet, according to the American Society of Magazine Editors! It's The Best Defense: Tom Ricks' Daily Take on National Security, at the website of Foreign Policy magazine. Unfortunately, Tom Ricks himself, who was twice on Pulitzer-winning teams in the 00s, was unable to get online yesterday to blog about it ("rare technical difficulties"). For me the most fascinating thing though about Best Defense is the commenters, who are apparently all current or former military? Also I'd love to see the financials on running such a site (Foreign Policy overall seems to have the same advertiser crowd as the D.C. Metro: Boeing, et al.) In any event, it's worth adding to your RSS and it's also worth noting as a data point that the award didn't exactly go to Cosmo or whatever. 6
Der Speigel Overlooks Bimbo Fellating Berlusconi In Giant Spanish Sculpture @9:23 AM
At midnight tonight, in the city of Valencia on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, the annual Las Fallas festival comes to an end with the burning of the giant sculptures that have been on display in various city squares for the past five days. Made of wood, cardboard and paper mache, and often made to satirize current events, the sculptures (called "ninots," Spanish for "dolls") are up to 72-feet tall and cost as much as $850,000 to build. "Las Fallas" means "the fires," and the festival is believed to have pagan origins, celebrating the end of winter, but the million people it draws come in homage to Joseph, the patron saint of carpenters. Germany's Der Speigel has a great photo gallery of some of the sculptures. But in the picture above, they've misidentified the number of women depicted frolicking in a hot tub with Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. "This sculpture shows him in a hot tub with two lady friends," says the caption. Nope, there are three. 6
Sweet mother of Christ, it was nice out yesterday! It'll be pretty today, and it's going to be absolutely stunning on Saturday. Come Sunday we will be reminded that all beauty is fleeting, but such is life. Such is spring. Such are the tides that carry us along through this world, with its torrential downpours and sun-strewn interludes. On days like this, enjoy what you have and worry not about tomorrow. (Seriously, don't worry about tomorrow, it's going to be crotch-hardeningly—or moisteningly, depending on your equipment—gorgeous.) It is so frigging great out there! @9:00 AM 20
Inconsistent Pleadings: Town of Sexting Teens Not Also Hotbed of Kiddie Porn @4:20 PM
In 2008, George Skumanick, then-District Attorney for Wyoming County, Pennsylvania, noticed an alarming problem, one that called for the immediate intervention of the local law enforcement apparatus: “rampant sexting.” This grave threat to rural Pennsylvania’s social order was brought to his attention by various Tunkhannock School District officials, who, after confiscating the phones of males and females in the Justin Bieber age cohort, discovered pictures of ladies in various stages of undress. Most of those stages involved bathing suits or bras, but apparently, if you looked at some of the pictures carefully (and the Tunkhannock school district officials definitely did), there was nipplage to be seen. For reasons that are not entirely clear (read: insanity), the school officials concluded that the pictures were a criminal justice issue and so they handed the phones over to District Attorney Skumanick. READ MORE 27
I'll Be In The Garage Or The Basement Workshop If You Need Me @4:00 PM
"The Black & Decker Workmate 425 ($150) has been a staple in garages and basement workshops for years. As one of the flagship tools of the DIY revolution, it has become the standard of clamping workbenches. But recently the tool world has seen a new style of three-legged workstation hit the market. The Rockwell Jawhorse ($177) is not the first of its kind (it's modeled after the Triton SuperJaws out of Australia). But it is the first of this type to gain widespread recognition in the U.S. While the Workmate clamps stock between the movable slats of a small table, the Jawhorse boils down to a single massive clamping jaw operated with a foot pedal."
—The Jawhorse is better for "clamping a glue-up," while the Workmate wins the "ripping plywood" category. They tie at "soldering a pipe." I would hurt myself quickly if I ever tried to do any of these things. But Popular Mechanics' "Portable Workbench Showdown: Jawhorse vs. Workmate" makes for an exciting read. 15
Silvio Berlusconi Under Investigation (Yes, This Is A New Post) @3:45 PM
Silvio Belusconi has been placed under investigation after wiretaps revealed an apparent attempt to influence Italy's main broadcast network against airing programs unfavorable to the prime minister. READ MORE 3
Silly Little Man Explains "Why Men Cheat" @3:25 PM
April's Esquire (when the mail arrives, it arrives all at once!) has an anonymous essay called "Why Men Cheat." Like all these sorts of things, it's fundamentally "naughty" and "incoherent" and contradictory and sad. "Men don't cheat because they can. Men cheat because they must, because they need to. This is the male struggle…. It's what they are built for. It is a function of the mathematics of their reproductive function. It is the by-product of longer life spans, more-deadening careers, too much work. And it is the consequence of an instinctive refusal to give up one's own need entirely for the flawed and antiquated apparatus of marriage." HI, WOW, you don't make any sense. Actually the whole rest of it is even worse than this. I'll never understand why absolutely every woman is so desperate to "snare a man." 46
Full-Denim Wardrobe Now Acceptable, Claims Magazine @3:05 PM
You guys, there are "new rules of denim"! Now (March 18, 2010) "denim-on-denim is acceptable, provided you know what you're doing. (Yes, my April Details just arrived!) Yes, you me and Chris Pine and David Beckham and Bradley Cooper can wear the Canadian tuxedo. It's safe now. It's good. No, go on, you first. Also: "The easiest way to approach head-to-toe denim is to go for the chiaroscuro effect. Pair a chambray shirt with clean, inky jeans." 38
Filming Nature Footage Arduous, Amazing, Disgusting, Beautiful @2:45 PM
Nice piece in the Times today about the process that went into filming the state-of-the-art nature footage featured in the Discovery Channel's new series "Life," which debuts Sunday. "In that first episode viewers see a strawberry dart frog’s tadpoles come to life, then watch the mother carry each baby up a rainforest tree to a safe perch inside a bromeliad plant. Then they see the mother lay eggs to feed the newborns until they can move on their own, weeks later. Without any dialogue the shots tell a gripping story about a mother’s commitment to her offspring." READ MORE 12
California Wants To Make World's Grossest Place Vaguely Less Gross @2:25 PM
They are going to maybe outlaw the smoking in state parks and beaches in California, which, shocked that they haven't already? But I guess not all of California is Marin. (Am I right? High fives, anyone?) Anyway now California is all, "Smoking is bad for beaches." Like, people leave cigarette butts out there and stuff. Dudes, do you know what the ocean is basically made of? Dead bodies. Do you ever stop to think about how many millions of corpses have been dumped into the ocean over the literally thousands of years humans have existed? It's basically one giant open pit of ground-up human flesh. This is pretty much all I can think about at the beach, so it's only fair that you do too. I'm not trying to be gross! It's just super carcassey out there! 27
