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
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
Odd Man Rush: You Got Five For Fighting? @2:05 PM
What if the NHL banned fighting? Would you consider watching hockey games? Of course not, you’re an American. You wouldn’t even start watching if, during fights, the players all stripped down to their jockstraps like Michael Ontkean did at the end of Slap Shot (video below!). But should the league ban fisticuffs for the betterment of the image of the game? Eh. Probably not. READ MORE 15
Tiger Woods: Too Soon! @2:20 PM
Dear Washington Post,
In your "interactive poll" on whether it is too soon for Tiger Woods to return to playing golf, you instructed those who selected the “not sure” response to “please explain in the comments.” So here is my explanation for responding that way. READ MORE 40
Andrew Breitbart Will Piss You Off For Fun And Profit @12:30 PM
Andrew Breitbart is in the news! The Atlantic offered him space to discuss his media diet, the Village Voice called him a "pussy," and Slate ran an enormous profile of the man, which will be of interest to you if your taste runs toward lengthy features about self-regarding comic monsters. What's most fascinating to me about Breitbart is how he exemplifies the most powerful trend of conservative argument. Let's call it the "look at this fucking retard liberal" school of thought. READ MORE 22
The Shadow Editors: Tiger Woods at the Masters Bigger Than Iraq Invasion and American Christmas @11:50 AM
Tom Scocca: What is a "media event"?
Tom: "CBS News boss: Tiger's return will be second-biggest media event of last 10 or 15 years."
Tom: "'I think the first tournament Tiger Woods plays again, wherever it is, will be the biggest media event other than the Obama inauguration in the past 10 or 15 years,' says CBS News president Sean McManus. Will his on-air announcers mention the scandal? 'I don't think there is a lot of reason to dwell on what has happened in the past because it is one of the most exploited and overexposed stories in recent memory.'"
Choire Sicha: Whoa. Sean McManus. The good news is that this "media event" will take place at the Masters, in three short weeks!
Tom: I can't really evaluate the truth or falsehood of this fairly false-sounding claim without knowing what a "media event" is. READ MORE 12
Tina Brown on Building a Subculture of Impoverished Writers @11:30 AM
Here's Tina Brown, from January, 2009: "For a while last year, the downsized people I know went around pretending they enjoyed the 'freedom' and 'variety' of doing 'a whole lot of interesting things.' Twelve months later, nobody bothers with that cover story anymore. Everyone knows what it actually feels like, this penny-ante slog of working three times as hard for the same amount of money (if you’re lucky) or a lot less (if you’re not). Minus benefits, of course…. The managers of all these disintegrating companies tend to be mesmerized by the notion that everyone can now be hired cheap—that everyone is slave labor." And then there's Tina Brown late last week, on Charlie Rose—in which Tina has cast herself in a different role in this fractured, problematic transactional relationship. READ MORE 43
Time Magazine: 10,000 Ideas for the Next 10 Minutes @9:55 AM
For some reason, I'm getting the Time magazines at my door? I had no idea! I can't stop playing mash-up with their 10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years "cover" "package." (It is a "thinker's guide" to ideas?) It is the least-specific package ever. Bandwidth Will Save the World! Our Boring White Anxiety Crisis! Remapping the Next American Century! In Defense of the Dropout Economy! The Twilight of the New Black Gold! Bandwidth is the New TV! Hey, some of these sound wayyyy more plausible than what is actually on the magazine. 8
To Whom Are all These People Talking on Their Phones? @9:00 AM
Hey now, really, to whom are all these people talking on their phones, all the time, behind the wheel, and in these stores and behind me and even in more improbable places, such as at the pedicurist's? Are you on the phone that much? Do you people not have text messages or something? I personally have answered my phone to only two people in the last sixteen days, and then I don't know who the rest of these people are (sorry, I don't know what the numbers are, and their attending people), and so I let it go to voicemail, except I keep my voicemail full, because I don't want any more voicemails. The voicemails I already have aren't doing much for me really. And is there some kind of phone that is just like, text and web and email and stupid apps but no actual telephone system? (Maybe just an emergency dial out thing? You know, for when I'm… hiking. And there are bears. (??)) But that wasn't what I was writing to say. My actual question was: is it appropriate for a man in his mid-late 30s to put "Telephone" on said outgoing voicemail, which then is followed by the phone company voice saying "Sorry, this voicemail box is full?" Today I might need a few cheap laughs like that. I might actually sit and stare at my phone and dare it to ring all day long. 47
Rich People Things: Flowers of Evil @11:30 AM
It’s a funny thing, fidelity. Last week’s enormous bankruptcy-report filing on shady financial practices at the late Lehman Brothers investment house depicts an internal braintrust desperate to conceal reckless debt transactions and deceptive accounting practices from public view. The court-appointed examiner in the firm’s bankruptcy proceedings, Anton Valukas, found that senior Lehman officials tried to alert their bosses of blatant efforts to reclassify debt as “sales” under a recondite accounting trick known in house as “Repo 105”—so named because it permitted the company to assess buy-back transactions of assets sold for cash at a value representing 105% or more of the cash the company actually pulled in. And presto, Valukas observes: “Unbeknownst to the investing public, rating agencies, Government regulators, and Lehman's Board of Directors, Lehman reverse engineered the firm's net leverage ratio for public consumption.” READ MORE 12
Worrying About 1984 Is So 1995 @11:10 AM
Fifteen years ago, when we were all more vigilant citizens, raging against the machine with Goodie Mob and Rage Against the Machine, ranting about the fact that there are so many surveillance cameras in New York City that anytime you can see the Empire State Building, you can also be sure that you are being filmed, an op-ed in the Times arguing for the governmental institution of a universal DNA databank would have seemed terrifyingly Orwellian. READ MORE 24
The Black Athletes Who Don't Play Basketball @4:20 PM
Sometimes athletes are black. Depending on your sport of choice, this might be a big deal. And when a black athlete is on the rise—or even just in the mix—in an affluent, white-dominated sport, it becomes a very big deal. That's because writers like to write about these unexpectedly or surprisingly black athletes. In the past decade, the term "the Tiger Woods of [sport]" became common shorthand for a certain kind of athlete: the kind who is "changing the face of the game." READ MORE 45
The Hamster Wheel Recession @10:20 AM
John Lanchester, writing in the LRB, takes a look at the state of the British economy. Here's his prediction for the near future:
At the moment, thanks to the subjective mildness of the recession, we are still in denial. Next, as the full extent of the bill becomes clearer, there will be anger, especially since the hard times will have next to no effect on the bankers and politicians who, in the public mind, caused the crisis. Then there will be a helpful-for-the-government period of inflation. Then interest rates will shoot up in an attempt to control inflation, and at the same time we will see tax rises, services closing and job losses. It’s at this point, as the recovery begins to seem like a tractionless slog, that we’ll go through the depression stage of the cycle.
We're probably a little further along over here, but either way, it's not a lot to look forward to. 4
The Andrew Cuomo Inevitability Effect @1:05 PM
Andrew Cuomo's approval rating has dropped 13 points in the last week, according to the latest Marist poll. Azi Paybarah suggests this has something to do with the attorney general's investigation of Governor David Paterson, but my own theory is that people are starting to realize that, Fuck, we're going to be stuck with Andrew Cuomo as governor for the next four years. 7
So What's the Deal? Does Everyone Just Pee Outside or What? @2:10 PM
I was wondering something about the people who live in the real America, the real America with yards and kiddie pools and stuff, as opposed to apartment America. So when you're outside in Real America, in the back yard with your Grillmaster 9000 or whatever… do you actually go inside to pee, in a real bathroom? Or do you just pee wherever and figure it's good for the trees or the bushes or whatever? This has been keeping me up at night. This question is mainly for dudes but not necessarily. 61
Rich People Things: The New Robber Barons Also Robbers @11:30 AM
It was only a matter of time. First, the histrionic cry of “socialism” at the merest suggestion of a more equitable distribution of the social good known as health care. Then, the robust trade in New Deal denialism on the right–the economic version of intelligent design theory, only without the intelligence. And now, unsatisfied with turning the clock back to 1929, Wall Street Journal editorial hand Daniel Henninger has called for the resuscitation of the Robber Barons. Henninger derides the incremental efforts of the Obama administration to boost job creation with tax credits and stimulus funds. That’s all just bootless government meddling in the masterful free market, he announces; in lieu of that we need “industries no one thought of before”—and that means, in turn, that “we need vision, vitality, and commercial moxie. The government is draining it [sic] away.” READ MORE 11
Two Black Men in White House Twice as Threatening to Internet @3:11 PM
"He visited the brother in the WH. No telling what our house looks like now. He'll let any body in it seems. I hope there's something from our past left by the time he parades all these thugs through there."
—Say what you will about anonymity, blog comments and the Internet: when Jay-Z visits Obama at the White House, it's only in the comments sections where you really learn how things truly are. (MEANWHILE, nobody's saying nothing about Beyonce or heads will roll…. even though she spent the day with Mike Bloomberg?) 32
The Five Kinds of Appeal to Authority You Meet on the Internet @2:50 PM
We know that humans—especially popes—are fallible. Any logician worth her adorable sweater vest will tell you that random philosopher p endorsing premise x affects a deductive conclusion in the amount of not one whit. Still, debaters are happy to hang their hats on dusty quotes and arguments from authority, the nastiest result being a communal tolerance of sickly ideas propped up by rhetorical parlor tricks. If only there were some credible source (preferably dead and/or otherwise unable to clarify himself) to which you might ascribe your toxic viewpoint… what? No, sorry, God is taken. But here are a few other ways to make the fallacy take wing; all remain facepalmingly common and resonant in the right echo chamber. READ MORE 27
Inconsistent Pleadings: Liberals, Don't Flip Out Over 'McDonald v. Chicago' @2:10 PM
A well-chewed bit of conventional wisdom holds that cultural conflagrations find no better accelerant than a Supreme Court opinion. Under this theory, smoldering social divisions explode into Samuel Pepys territory when the Court short circuits the democratic process and moves definitively to settle a social issue. Exhibit A is typically Roe v. Wade, which, in attempting to remove abortion from the realm of political controversy, instead visited upon us several decades of incessant yelling and pictorial craziness (think sonograms, bloody fetuses and snowflake babies). READ MORE 71
A Field Guide to the Acronymical Kingdom, Part Three @4:40 PM
The Lol thrives in damp, dark places. Indigenous to the rain forests of Washington state, it has proved remarkably adaptable and now thrives in sewers, drain pipes, irrigation canals, port-a-potties and indoor plumbing across the North American continent. (Small populations of Lol’s have even been spotted in camping grounds in the Mojave desert.) READ MORE 5
The Battle Between The Sexes @3:00 PM
"In evolutionary terms, and sometimes in real terms, males and females fight to get the maximum reproductive output for the minimum input. Identifying which sex wins has a long history and remains a highly controversial area of biology that is still full of surprises. Yet the question of who prevails in this particular battle of the sexes is too tempting to dismiss."
That's from the provocatively-titled New Scientist piece, "Dirty tricks of the egg and sperm race." It's a rather lengthy examination of how reproduction has been considered throughout history as a battle over which gender's genes will dominate in its offspring, and how those perceptions have shifted back and forth as Science has evolved. It's a fascinating article, and you should for sure read the whole thing, but I'm particularly intrigued by this part, at the end, which draws a conclusion based on some very recent studies.
This maternal control of growth and development has some fascinating implications. It means that, for many of the traits important in the mating game, such as body size and brain function, the father's genes might not be as influential as the mother's. So perhaps the fine details of what a particular male looks like are not as important to females as biologists have been apt to think. Instead, what females could really be after when they choose the sperm of one male over another is the male whose genes they can most easily manipulate behind the scenes.
Listicle Without Commentary: The 16 Greatest YouTube-Embeddable Hard Rock Songs That Are Not By Guns N' Roses Or Van Halen @12:20 PM
Odd Man Rush: Team Canada Settles For Gold @4:10 PM
It was supposed to be a Canada-Russia Olympic final—with a subplot of Sidney Crosby vs. Alexander Ovechkin—continuing an international hockey rivalry that really began in 1972 with the epic Summit Series (a series that made Paul Henderson, and his shot heard round the world, a national hero forever).
But then, the US shocked Canada 5-3 in the preliminary round. “Fluke,” every Canadian fan nervously thought, as their team outplayed and outshot the Americans 45-23. However, in Sunday’s wonderful gold medal game, coach Ron Wilson’s young underdog squad played the mighty, talented Canadians dead even. READ MORE 29
Rich People Things: The Skirt Locker @10:20 AM
As the U.S. economy tries to unshackle itself from lagging indicator after lagging indicator, this seems like just one indignity over the line: Tinsley Mortimer, the prefab Manhattan socialite whose frothy vacuity all but embodied the self-regarding elan of the new millennial money culture, has grown “edgy.”
That’s the worrisome verdict delivered by Wall Street Journal fashion hand Ray Smith, at any rate, who conducts on a sobering tour of La Mortimer’s closet in West Chelsea, supplying a chilling account of What It All Might Mean. The Virginia-bred socialite has, you see, been “going through an emotional time—spurred by her separation from her investment-banker husband Topper a year ago and the intense scrutiny” that accompanies the debut of her CW reality show later this month. Why, just the rumors of a feud with rival socialite-cum-brand-magnet Olivia Palermo, featured already on her own reality franchise, MTV’s "The City," sends fresh charges and countercharges of cynical hype pinwheeling through the confected uptown social scene. Is it any wonder then, that our ingenue has ventured into the dark and brooding netherworld beyond “her trademark pastel-and-ringlets look”? READ MORE 20
How Many Years Will It Take Us To Get John Yoo's Emails? @2:28 PM
The number one thing I am pissed off about this month, right after NBC's Olympics coverage, is the disappeared John Yoo emails, which could probably shed a lot of light on how the previous administration created policies to torture people. This is such an unbelievable scandal, both on the issue of torture but also of government accountability. Pretty much, as a nation, everything should come to a standstill until this is dealt with. This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee asked Gary Grindler, Acting Deputy Attorney General, about the emails, and got total mumbling in response. This is like, pitchforks and subpoenas and prosecution time, people. There are extremely explicit rules about this kind of thing, and in light of the Bush administration email-disappearing shtick, in which everyone had to go to court over and over again simply to get what should have been carefully-conserved White House emails, was bad enough. But these are actual lawyers, at the actual Department of Justice, who have engaged in disappearing critical emails. 28
Half Baked: Snow Day Cookies @1:30 PM
It is absolutely no fun out there, unless you’re a kid I guess, because kids, like, don’t feel weather the way that we feel weather I AM TOTALLY CONVINCED OF THIS. Right? When you were a kid all you needed was a snowsuit and a pair of Freezy Freakies and you were all set to stay outdoors for ten or so hours. Now? The two and a half Midtown blocks between my office and the subway might as well have been a day spent in Pine Barrens chasing a drunk Russian. READ MORE 36
Listicle Without Commentary: The 22 Greatest Songs Written For Commercials @2:00 PM
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