What’s the word, Science? Speak slowly when you tell me, I don’t listen that well: “A thick non-English accent can hurt your credibility, a new University of Chicago study finds. Speakers with a noticeable accent were seen as less credible than those with no accent, largely because Americans who are native English speakers find them harder to understand, the study found. The thicker the accent, the less credible they came across as.”

Friend or Follow tells you which people that you follow on Twitter don’t follow you back. It is incredibly destructive. Now I know which 58 of you people aren’t following me back and I am WOUNDED. Wounded I say! Because my social networking vanity is harmed. How will my digi-narcissism ever recover? Anyway, bonus points for any website that sounds like an Adam Ant song.

We’re just going to let the pros at the Post-like Star Wars, a News Corp property-handle this one:

Luuuuuke, I am your robber!

Times sure must be tough on the Death Star these days, as Darth Vader yesterday stooped to holding up a Long Island bank, cops said.

A robber dressed up as the “Star Wars” villain for a heist that likely netted enough cash to fill up a TIE fighter with gas for a couple of days.

As he robbed the Setauket Chase branch, the Sith Lord brandished a weapon for a more civilized age — a semiautomatic handgun.

There was no telling whether he needed to use the force to make bank employees comply, cops said, but at one point, the Vader invader kneeled as if speaking to the Emperor and aimed his gun.

I mean… I just.. Do you think cops really said “there was no telling whether he needed to use the force”? EVERYONE IS GETTING STUPIDER.

This photo tour of the offices of Etsy is a dream-nightmare! It’s wonderful! It’s slightly heinous! I’m incredibly jealous! I want to go craft now.

by Abe Sauer

As we reported this week in our profile of Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, a PAC called MN Forward raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a few weeks. MN Forward is using that money to run ads in support of Emmer, a Republican.

Target, long headquartered in Minneapolis, was one of the four corporate patrons of MN Forward. They forked over $100,000 cash and another $50,000 of in-kind goods and services. It’s an odd move for a corporation that expresses support for gay rights. And it’s your chance to stop whining and do something.

Progressive compared to its peers, Target extends domestic-partner benefits to gay and lesbian employees. It has also openly sponsored Twin Cities Pride and other gay and lesbian events in the state. Target puts its name on Minnesota AIDS Walk, a move that many corporations, worried about religious consumer terrorism, are far too cowardly to even consider.

Target’s been deservedly rewarded, receiving a top rating of 100 percent on the 2009 and 2010 Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index and Best Places to Work for LGBT Equality, the 2009 Rainbow Families Award and the 2009 Lavender Pride Award-and a reputation amongst the LGBT community as a “good” big box retailer.

Target’s support for MN Forward and Emmer is surprising. Emmer’s a candidate who isn’t just indifferent about gay rights; he’s outright hostile. Despite claiming to be for freedom and personal liberty, Emmer’s name appears on the author line of constitutional legislature “protecting” traditional marriage.

Target says its support is for candidates who will “directly effect the company’s retail agenda.” And that’s likely true. But Target’s backing of a pro-corporation candidate (who might not even win) for short term tax-break profit in exchange for permanently undoing a reputation its worked hard to nurture-well, that’s not a good idea. Activists are already upset.

I reached out to Target and gave it the opportunity to explain its actions, speak to the confused gay community and officially denounce Emmer’s positions. Target stalled all afternoon, drafting a comment, and finally offered the following (unedited) statement:

“Target is proud to call Minnesota and communities across the country home. To ensure economic growth in those communities it is critically important to be able to provide jobs, serve guests, support communities and deliver on our commitment to shareholders.

Target supports causes and candidates based strictly on issues that affect our retail and business interests. In fact, Target’s Federal PAC contributions year-to-date are very balanced between Republicans and Democrats, and we work collaboratively with legislators and officials at all points on the political spectrum.

Target fosters civic engagement through a wide variety of nonpartisan efforts aimed at enhancing team member and citizen participation in the political process. We encourage team members and citizens to engage in civic activities in the ways that are most meaningful to them, as we believe that engaged communities are healthier and stronger communities.

Target is proud of the diversity of its team, and we greatly value the wide range of perspectives offered by all of our team members. It is this diversity that creates our unique and inclusive corporate culture while helping our company remain relevant and competitive.”

For the record, Target’s statement does not even mention Emmer’s name.

By approving direct influence on elections in Citizens United, the Supreme Court handed power to corporations. But at the same time, when they do so, corporations abandon their old black-ops approach and make themselves unusually transparent. This actually puts the true power in the hand of the consumer.

So: “Target supports causes and candidates based strictly on issues that affect our retail and business interests.”

Target is giving every American, nearly literally, a vote with his or her dollar. So, self-respecting progressive Americans who profess to support the gay community, it’s put up or shut-up time; here is your chance to go beyond complaining about the Citizens United ruling and actually act to define what a strict “business interest” is.

Citizens United is counting on you doing nothing.

Abe Sauer votes with his dollars and his votes. Image of official 2007 Target Pride temporary tattoo via Minnesota Public Radio.

Love letters to punctuation: Is this the best contest ever? Yes. Join in! So far Gene Weingarten is succeeding admirably with his letter addressed to “Dear at-the-price-of.”

“These are political hacks, and I think they should stop calling themselves journalists. It discredits the rest of us.”
-The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson explains the rationale behind his organization’s “reporting” on the Journolist “scandal.”

by Henry Berger

For last summer’s college break, I was looking for work that would lead to lots of “networking” and “opportunity.” I ended up at a retirement home, washing dishes at minimum wage for sixty hours a week. I trained and was then replaced by a deaf, mentally challenged gentleman.

This summer, I’m an intern at an international, multi-billion dollar company. I’m not sure exactly how this happened. I do know it started on the Internet. I blogged about a product I liked-right as the product’s creators simultaneously started their initial online advertising campaign.

They latched on to me as a poster boy for their first success story, proclaiming ‘YOUNG PEOPLE LOVE US’ and ‘LOOK HOW MUCH THE COOL WE ARE!!! DOT COM!!!’

Some time later I drove to one of their offices and was quickly hustled from meeting to meeting, speaking to executives about “effective marketing strategies for engaging millennials,” regurgitating info I’d crammed into my brain the previous night and dropping the few buzzwords I remembered from my Intro to Marketing class.

After each speech at least one wise guy would say “You know you’re younger than us, right? LOL.”

“Are you interested in working for us?” asked an executive. She clarified that she wanted me to drop out of college for them. I looked at her like a big dumb cow, blinking and chewing my cud. She and another executive went on about how I’d exceeded their expectations and they’d found an opening for me.

“How about an internship?” they asked, after I said I was really stuck on the idea of obtaining a college degree. I said I’d be interested. A few hours later I was headed back to school, a little too buzzed off free alcohol at the ‘day-end’ party. During the drive their marketing director told me that I was “so much bigger than [my hometown]” and that “our company needs someone like you.” I focused on not throwing up on the Jaguar’s dashboard.

In the early spring HR emailed me, asking me what dates I’d like my internship to last. I quickly replied-and didn’t hear back for weeks. My only other summer job option was being a day laborer at a business park. The day before l resigned myself to trimming shrubs for the summer, HR sent me forms to fill out-forms that would officially make me a salaried employee.

They explained that giving me a salary was easier than making me an intern.

I never sent a resume. I never interviewed. I never wept on my hands and knees in front of an HR director. I never sexually serviced someone at a cocktail party. I was hired.

When I flew to the office in the early summer, Matt the Driver met me at the airport. He has slicked-back hair, a full Jersey Shore accent, claims to have gone to high school with Soulja Boy and has a thing for Van Heusen’s Donald Trump Collection. He is my favorite.

He took me to my home-to-be for the next couple months, a massive suite apparently intended for short term visits from Batman. The rent was being paid for by my employer. During the drive he asked me what I’m into, and said he could provide me with “anything.” He pointed out where all the “beautiful girls” and “total sluts” hang out, and told me which strip club has the longest runway-”if you’re into that,” he added. I looked down at my Express vest and tie ensemble, complimented by a “found” pair of 80s blue and white checkered pants, and back at him. I decided to nod. “Okay man well you just call me, alright?” he said.

“Oh yeah, if I’m looking for some fun you’ll be the first to know,” I said. He grinned and turned up the 50 Cent.

I wondered how soon one of us was going to get iced.

That evening, I decided to stock up the kitchen. I call Matt the Driver and he took me to Whole Foods. “Man what you gonna get here?!” he asked, excited.

“Just some groceries,” I said. “Y’know, hangin’ with the bros stuff.” I added the second part because I could feel him judging me.

“Oh sweet! Beer, steaks, condoms,” he said. “Sounds good man!”

I purchased whole grain bagels, spinach, tuna fish, almonds and Starbucks ice cream. This would become my diet for the rest of the summer.

On the drive back, Matt said there’d be a wet t-shirt contest happening in an hour at a nearby club and that he thinks I’d like it. I replied that I wasn’t in the mood, but definitely another time. “Well if you change your mind,” he said, “that’s where I’ll be yo!”

My first day! Tim, who would be giving me a tour, met me at the office. During the tour I was left next to a cubicle for a moment. The encubed employee looked at me and smirked.

“Is Tim your boss?” she asked.

“Uh…no?” I said.

I had no idea what the implication was, since I’d known this man for all of five minutes.

“I bet he wants to be your boss,” she said.

She was very careful to ensure that I caught her drift. I didn’t. Throughout the rest of the orientation I watched Tim warily, trying to catch any indication of a desire to be my boss.

Between phone calls to set up my schedule, I was left sitting in a huge empty office with a door and floor to ceiling windows. I decided that it would be my office and unpack my briefcase. No one objected.

Now I sit here. SimCity 2000 is reporting small riots in the industrial sector. I place a couple police stations.

Any time I am not on the phone, I guiltily watch the door, waiting for someone to burst in and scream “We KNEW you were in here doing NOTHING! You’re FIRED!”

But it never happens.

My Sims rioters blew up the power plant and now my industrial sector is on fire. I knew I should have set the firefighter’s budget higher than 40%.

After a week passed, I began to understand that this internship was an all-too-real glimpse of my working life after college. I thought my experiences as a dishwasher fairly murdered my soul, but office work has taken it and actually replaced it with something else. Do people really work in places like this? Where the lemon juice of defeat is constantly squeezed into the open eyes of hope?

Shit, there goes my casino. The Awesomeville riots of ’41 will be remembered for generations.

Henry Berger is the pseudonym of a college student from New England with a job who is, with all apologies to Sam Biddle, not quite ready to give it up.

Photo by Mark Sebastian from Flickr.

by Bruce Banner

From time to time, we offer free editorial space to folks from all walks of life who have something to get off their chests. Today we bring you a heartfelt request from an itinerant scientist.

I’m Bruce Banner, and I’m writing to ask politely that the recent spate of Twitter feeds based on the persona of the monster that is the Hulk suspend publication. I refer specifically to the so-called Feminist Hulk and the so-called Drunk Hulk, but I include by this reference the field of so-called Hulks that seem to be growing unchecked like kudzu.

I feel that I have standing to make such a request because the monster that is the Hulk, the unstoppable menace whose power is only matched by his ineloquence, is me. And I am not the author of any of these Twitter feeds. If I had a Twitter feed, I’d prefer topics like nuclear physics, or science in general, or really great diners off the beaten path. I would not Twitter about the Hulk, and the Hulk would not Twitter himself, as social media is not something in the Hulk’s skillset, which is mostly, punching and lifting and jumping. “Smashing.” I know. 🙁

I should explain the particulars of my circumstance. Since the radiological accident that gave birth to the monster that lives inside me, I’ve become what you’d call a drifter-a long step down from being what you’d call a research physicist. I try to think of it as just another collapse of my state vector, to keep me from getting too down. But it’s not so bad. I meet many more interesting people than I did in the military industrial complex, which is filled with people who are weenies or evil or both. The reason that I am a drifter is that I must keep a low profile and remain in motion, because of the varied forces that intend to capture me and unlock the secrets of the weapon of mass destruction that is my gamma-irradiated DNA. (These forces are also weenies or evil or both.)

I do not make this request out of a personal sensitivity, per se. Mock me and I won’t protest. But the actual Hulk is not funny. His timing is poor. His timing is non-existent, unless it involves catching a Stinger missile or throwing a taxi cab at a helicopter. It doesn’t hurt my feelings, because I should not allow my feelings to get hurt. The world does not need an Emo-Hulk. (Oh sweet Christ please don’t use that.)

It might be persuasive to point out that to create a Hulk “character” is just not that hard: just replace all first person pronouns with “Hulk” or “Hulk’s” and then choose subjects and verbs that do not agree. That’s all that needs to be done. Quite simple. That is to say, the degree of difficulty is a low degree of difficulty. And while the results may be humorous-presumably because of the ironic cleft between the content and the diction -it is not brain surgery. And I know brain surgeons, because I minored in brain surgery. It is far from. It is clever, but it is also, dare I say, cheap? I know how things work (I’m a scientist): Twitter feed, Tumblog, book deal and then unimaginable fame and riches. Surely these young writers are very talented, and surely some of them would even have the same career trajectory even without reliance on the CAPS LOCK key.

I’ve gone on too long. I need to keep moving, picking up the odd job where I can, maybe make a friend or two, maybe smash-or should I say, watch as some person violating our social contract, or trying to destroy the world, is smashed. But this glorification of this Hulk, this power that could be unstoppable if he were to be angry (or drunk, dare I say) enough, should stop. This Hulk is ignorant to your non-gamma-ray political strife and philosophical arguments. And, even as a friend, he is wont to break chairs by sitting on them and knock door frames from true and sometimes, when he is careless (either playing with children or very very mad), level cities.

Or maybe these authors should consider ceasing and desisting purely on the basis of my having asked, because frankly while this matter is not hurting my feelings it is actually getting under my skin a bit, and it’s no secret that I have this social interaction problem that revolves around my anger and how it forces others to not like me very much. Obviously my primary problem remains reining in my temper so as not to trigger the transformation which makes me grow three and a half feet, gain twelve hundred pounds and turn green in the course of thirty-five seconds, which transformation is excruciating on a cellular level and perhaps before someone wonders out loud about how funny it would be if the Hulk were a Presbyterian this person should wonder first what it would be like to feel excruciating pain on a cellular level, just once, just for a second. Because that is what motivates me: being the person who turns into the Hulk is not easy, and in a lot (if not most) ways it fucking sucks a sack of fucking cocks. And I’m not getting angry-I’m no David Brooks but I have some self-control-but I was once a Nobel-tracked Best and Brightest and now I’m a sideshow freak with no permanent mailing address and people I’ve never met are using me to get the attention of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and it’s just not fucking fair.

Doc Bruce Banner, belted by gamma rays, turned into the Hulk. You know the rest.

Yay! A memorial walk for Walking Man will take place in Silver Lake on Sunday.