World’s Largest Beaver Dam Is So Big You Can See It From Space (Just Like That Car Parked On My Block)

Have you heard about the giant beaver dam that was recently discovered in a national park in Canada? The beavers have been working on it since the 1970s. It’s 28,000 feet long (that’s more than twice the length of the Hoover Dam.) And, as everyone keeps reporting, it is visible from space. But so what? You can see everything from space now. (Or at least, the Pennsylvania state revenue service can. Yikes!) In fact, I’m using the same kind of technology that Canadian ecologist Jean Thie used to discover the dam to look at a red car parked outside my apartment as I type this. Looks like the sunroof might be open.

by Charlie

“I don’t want no baldheaded woman, it’ll make me mean, yeah Lord, it would make me mean.” The great American songwriter Shel Talmy penned these words, among many others, for the Who and the Kinks, and I’ve been thinking about them a lot recently. Well, what if she should looked like this? Then would you validate her existence by banging her?

Hair. It’s here, it’s there, it’s everywhere and sometimes in the most inconspicuous of places. It makes people very uncomfortable if you don’t have it or have too much of it and, for real pricks, it’s great fodder for racist jokes about spooks and/or cancer survivors. It is perennially on our minds because it is, although somewhat superficially, part of what defines us, like a Nantucket fleece or fresh sneakers. The way we choose to wear it, shear it, buzz it, dye it, comb it and curl it is under constant scrutiny, but for good reason?

I’ve been wearing my hair straight for as long as I can remember. So long, in fact, that I hardly recognize myself in the mirror when my hair is in its natural, nappy state. Is nappy all that bad? Not really. Not unless you’re completely unfamiliar with the texture of naps, which according to my best friend from high school, the beaner I love dearly, resembles pubic hair. This does not mean giving yourself a good hand job is tantamount to touching your token black colleague’s hair. Even if you’ve given yourself a good hand job recently, reading this will probably make you more frightened by the foreign, eroticized texture of a black bush. God did not create all hair equally. There are many different textures, colors and lengths of hair — and that goes for everyone, and their pubes to boot.

During those nascent years when I too believed I’d have a chance to pole dance on the Teen Choice Awards, I longed for my hair to grow like Rapunzel’s. I even prayed to Jesus of Nazareth asking Him for long hair and promising to shave it off once it reached the small of my back. The holy tonsure as it were. Of course, I would never shave it off, but I lie to Jesus all of the time because I know I’m going to hell once this topsy-turvy thing we call life is over anyway. The whole praying thing is just a formality, you know, to see if old Jesu will give me what I want even though I’m batting for Satan. Besides, what does Jesus Christ know about being a nappy headed ho? His hair was long and silky smooth. It wasn’t even curly! Christ had good hair. (And a swimmer’s body.)

So as a little black girl in America I spent a good deal of time lamenting my nappy headedness. I would curse my mother and the florescent plastic beads she would put in my hair after a torturous braiding session during which I felt as though a Comanche were scalping me. Chris Rock’s daughter also begrudges her naps; she is the inspiration behind her father’s documentary Good Hair. This film will not teach a black person anything they don’t already know: black women are crazy, lots of black women wear weaves, if you put a gay white man in a room full of shiny black women, hilarity will ensue. On the other hand, a white audience may consider Good Hair a groundbreaking authority in the field. Who knew black women had the money to buy thousand-dollar weaves and that the “creamy crack” (equally addicting and potentially as deadly as the real thing) is the sodium hydroxide blacks put in their hair to make it look straight?

Black people take the hair debate (natural and nappy vs. straight and/or fake) very seriously. The subject recently inspired a brouhaha on NPR when guest-host Allison Keyes went ape shit after some unassuming white person touched the fro without asking. The irate “oh no she didn’ts” from angry black listeners everywhere quickly followed. Interestingly, the comments echoed those that surfaced after a black woman criticized Michelle Obama for not wearing her hair au naturel. In the latter case it was the whites up in arms, decrying all angry, bitter, likely single and/or unmarried black women for attempting to appropriate the first lady’s hair.

Black hair has often had a place in politics, the most obvious example being the Afro. In the 1960s, the Afro was transformed into an iconic symbol of power and authority, a visible embrace of negritude. Somehow, the fro evolved into the hi-top fade and black hair once again lost all of its credibility and political cachet.

Has Chris Rock done his fellow colored friends a good service by reintroducing the subject of black hair to the general public? Is it true that if black hair is relaxed white people are relaxed and if it’s nappy they’re unhappy? I think the documentary’s emphasis on nappy and/or baldheaded black women was a mistake. It could have been that much more interesting had it also discussed Hasidic women and their fancy wigs, all the very unfortunately looking white women of the world who could benefit from a good weave, the fetching charm of the powdered wig and how women like Amber Rose, Grace Jones and others are both bald and sexy.

The subject of hair rests somewhere uncomfortably between identity politics and the Jheri curl-constantly on our minds, and yet, we should desperately try to forget about it and move on. Hair may seem trivial, but the topic keeps popping out like Elizabeth Berkley in what could have been a perfectly decent Paul Verhoeven film. I’m sure card-carrying members of the angry black woman brigade will have me drawn and quartered for saying this but, please, don’t we have enough to bitch about without rehashing the nappy-headed hoes epithet or trying to explain-away our addiction to weaves, the creamy crack or simply how we want to wear our hair? Wendy Williams’ hair is as real as Michael Jackson’s complexion. Do you care? Me neither. More to the point, black women are not the only women with “bad hair.”

I’m not mad at the Jesus for my unanswered prayers. I’d still be going to hell even if my hair weren’t so goddamn nappy. I still do a double-take when I see my hair naturally nappy, but I also do that when I see my face without makeup. We all create an image that we think others will want to see, only a few of us are immune to this desire. I say, wear your hair and everything else the way you want to, and may the Lord bless Richard Simmons, Rob Tyner and Phil Spector for being white dudes and unafraid to rock the Afro.

“Charlie” is the pen name of a seriously profesh young lady in the City of New York.

Yow sell-off DOW plunge! Mmm, and a slight rebound-volume pretty huge. HUH. That was weird! Not exactly the six exclamation point end of the world (sheesh! bloggers!) but a little freaky.

Sure, using the verb “to evolve” and the phrase “elite-level hydration” in the new ad campaign for Gatorade implies at least a little sophistication as far as beverage ads aired during televised sporting events go. But really, using the old Idiocracy-parodied saw about “electrolytes” and going all pickup-artist with the slogan “Water has no game” in other ads? Why not just say “Water is for total pussies (and plants)”? At the very least, that ad campaign would get tons of extra press coverage! [Via]

Looking to shed those extra pounds? Science thinks it might be better to take as much off as quickly as you can! A new study out of Florida followed 262 middle-aged obese women and the results were… I dunno, surprising? Sure, let’s go with surprising!

Women in the fast weight-loss group lost over 1.5 pounds (0.68 kg) per week; those in the moderate group lost between 0.5 and 1.5 pounds (0.23 and 0.68 kg) per week; women in the slow group lost less than 0.5 pounds (0.23 kg) per week. They then looked at the women’s weight loss at six and 18 months, as well as any weight regain at the end of the follow-up year.

Those in the fast weight-loss group shed more weight overall, maintained their weight loss for longer and were not more likely to put weight back on than the more gradual weight losers.

And there you have it. You are going to want to starve yourself and exercise as much as possible as soon as possible. Sure, there are health risks associated with losing a lot of weight in a short amount of time, but let’s be honest: You are not trying to drop those pounds because you are concerned about your physical fitness. You want to look more attractive so that people will want to do sex to you. You can worrying about the dying later. Right now, go jog, and do not stop for a donut on the way.

A Harris survey of some 2,320 adult Americans has deduced that the sorta-goofy Québecois singer Céline Dion is the most beloved warbler among the residents of this country. Sure, her last album barely scraped the one-million-sold mark, but her defiantly dorky charm and tendencies toward smacking herself in the chest — not to mention that song from Titanic — apparently continue to resonate with people who aren’t afraid to get out the vote… online. She has another three-year residency in Vegas coming up in 2011, and the people at Harris have helpfully broken out the demographic groups that its Facebook ads should target tout de suite:

• Women
• Married Women
• Democrats
• Moderates
• “Matures” (people over 65)
• East Coasters
• Southerners
• People with a household income between $35K and $49.9K
• People with a household income between $50K and $74.9K

So, pretty much “a lot of people”! Possibly worth noting: The only demographic groups whose favorite artists were Real Americans were: Single women (Rascal Flatts, ugh); Echo Boomers (a.k.a. “millennials”; they also prefer the aggressively bland country act); and Midwesterners (Tim McGraw). Apparently the self-proclaimed conservatives and Republicans who were surveyed love them some U2!

[Video via]

Oh no no no. NO NO NO. Do not MESS WITH MY BEARS, you poison-pushing obesifiers. This is just so very wrong. BACK AWAY FROM THE BEARS, McDonald’s. Also, stay away from human children while you’re at it.

I’m of the school that believes that early movie reviews should be spoiler-free and not reveal anything about the plot. So feel free to read this and not be concerned that you’re going to find out anything more about the story other than the fact that there’s a cast of characters and it’s a continuation of the first movie.

The recent trend with comic book movie series is to always be bigger than the movie that came before it. A lot of times this has to do with the fact that technology gets better each year, and as a result the imaginations of the movie creators are freed to execute more wackadoo visuals. That being said, bigger is not always better and the results can be a mixed bag.

Successful examples of this exercise are movies like: X-Men and its sequel X2; Spiderman and Spiderman 2, and, obviously, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Conversely, less than stellar examples of pushing it too far are: X2 to X3: The Last Stand and Spiderman 2 and Spiderman 3. People will say that either Brett Ratner or Sony ruined X3 and Spiderman 3, respectively, but the fact is that ultimately it was the desires to pack more into the movies, whether it was by way of mutants or villains, that hurt both films.

Where does Iron Man 2 fall on this scale? Is it more of a Spiderman 2 or an X3? IMHO, it’s probably somewhere between, maybe leaning a smidgen towards Spiderman 2. While the movie is definitely fun to watch and the actors are all pretty great, especially Robert Downey Jr. and Sam Rockwell, there’s still a little of that “We’re going to try to fit everything we can into this, because it has to be HUUUUUUGE!!!” feeling to the whole thing. There’s a number of rushed scenes, and a fair amount of times when the movie asks you to ignore some pretty decently sized plot holes.

My biggest fear going into this movie was the integration of Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, and I was really pleasantly surprised by the results! This stems mostly from the fact that her normal go-to role is “free spirited”/slutty girl who poaches a guy just by way of her curvy-ness and independent-ness, and that wasn’t something I really wanted for either my superhero movie or Pepper Potts.

So if you weren’t really going to see Iron Man 2 because you didn’t like the original Iron Man and didn’t understand why they made a sequel for it (answer: because the first one made like $500 million), then you probably shouldn’t go see this movie. But if you’re a normal person who likes things and also enjoys a good superhero romp at the movies, go check this one out!

Also, Christiane Amanpour kills it in her cameo. If the talks of spinning her off in her own movie haven’t happened yet, my guess is that they’ll engage in those conversations soon.

The saga of George A. Rekers’ Allegedly Platonic European Vacation With A Rentboy continues today, as the escort from Rentboy.com who was hired to “carry Rekers’ luggage” says that he didn’t invoice for any baggage handling. He also gives us a maybe-too-close look at the Baptist minister, Family Research Council founder, and strenuous objector to homosexuality’s favorite move in the sack. Sorta-spoiler: It’s called “The Long Stroke”!

by Michael Brendan Dougherty

Against the wishes of a judge in Wisconsin, President Obama issued a proclamation marking May 6, 2010 as a National Day of Prayer.

As expected, sectarians of every faith engaged in an orgy of sacral violence against atheists, liberals, and gays-incidentally killing almost the entire membership and clergy of the Episcopal Church. In Manhattan this morning, the screams of sinners about to face their final Judge were accompanied by a live performance by Jars of Clay on the former Today Show set.

Assorted Jews and members of the Nation of Islam clashed in the streets of Brooklyn and lower Manhattan. And public school teachers, interpreting the president’s signal, began playing “The Passion of the Christ’ on loop in classrooms as part of a religious revision to the No Child Left Behind Act.

Some observers believe Obama has reignited the worst religious violence in America since the Catholic League protested a 1991 Martin Scorsese film by burning nearly 23,000 cinephiles on a pyre. When reached for comment today, Catholic League President Bill Donahue sighed, “It’s unbelievable that in the year 2010, Scorsese still lives. We’ll be praying to St. Anthony hoping to find him today.”

According to Shirley Dobson, chairwoman of the National Day of Prayer Taskforce, the slaughter “will cleanse the nation of the unrighteous and bring about God’s favor.” Dobson added, “We should thank President Obama for making this possible.”

Many Church groups organized special “Wall tearing” commemorations, where believers scaled freestanding “Walls of Separation” before machine gunning and dynamiting them.

The annual outpouring of religious enthusiasm and irreligious entrails continues its divisive legacy sixty-year legacy, having been instituted by Harry Truman, the most notable theocrat in the Western World since Oliver Cromwell.

* * *

SORRY! Had to get that out of my system. Anyway, the National Day of Prayer and the attendant controversy aren’t really as interesting as the above. I hardly knew we had a National Day of Prayer until the Obama White House and Fox News reminded me. After all, we already have Thanksgiving-which John Adams, in his wisdom, wanted to be a day of penance and “humiliation.”

The National Day of prayer is probably the most milquetoast expression of “religion” ever invented. It is not even billed as a day to pray for the Nation, which would make some kind of sense coming from the government of a religiously pluralistic people. Instead it is a day where Evangelical and other pressure groups ask the president to issue a proclamation-it’s one step up from the kind of thing your town gives to Little League coaches and admirable garbage men. In turn, we citizens may respond to the proclamation by praying to whatever for no reason in particular. You can really feel the hot child-molesty breath of theocracy on your crotch, can’t you?

And yet, the National Day of Prayer is becoming something like an authentic expression of American religion now that it is controversial. Like the rest of our controversies over what it “means” to be an American it places the president as a kind of God King, and the Courts as a magisterium, interpreting our sacred American texts. Winners of these cases talk about themselves and “the American way” in the way some conservative Christians speak of being “orthodox” in belief and practice.

Depending on the occupant of the Oval Office, whole sections of the country feel as if they are no longer welcome in America-demeaning the other parts as Jesusland or as coastal liberal elitists. Every cultural preference must be endorsed or mystically embodied by the President and government in some way or the people of those preferences feel anxious.

It’s why we note that the Supreme Court may no longer have Protestants on it. It is why it was important to have a first black president. It’s a common attitude in ethnically and religious diverse democracies to want literal representatives of each group. But it is also dangerous for a country that sees itself as having a historical mission to the world.

If you believe America has some kind of historical purpose other than being the home of Americans, that it must serve as an example of progress and tolerance, or as the protector and promoter of free markets and “values,” then inconsequential bullshit like the National Day of Prayer turns into a big important broil. Great atheists like Nietzsche would be aghast if you suggested it was worth a penny of their scorn. Great saints, reformers, or Rabbis would and should see it as a shabby insult, or a blasphemy. But “America” is at stake!

It’s sad. But America’s desire for a country with a purpose has made this nation as desperate for absolute authority in government as any since the fifteenth century. Goodbye nation of laws, hello nation of “values.” God help us.

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a contributing editor to The American Conservative. He writes from Mount Kisco, New York.