Attention Boston-area geniuses: Hurry up! Your applications for this month’s Awesome Foundation grant are due by end of day.

Tom Scocca: Did we learn nothing from Katrina?
Tom Scocca: “The national police had all but vanished, and officials reported looting at a collapsed grocery store.”
Tom Scocca: “Looting”?
Choire Sicha: UGH.
Choire Sicha: WHO DID THAT?
Tom Scocca: The New York Times.
Choire Sicha: UGH. And. EVERYONE DID. Good job, Meredith Vieira!
Tom Scocca: “Thieves also descended on a half-collapsed supermarket in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince, carrying out electronics and bags of rice. Others siphoned gasoline from a wrecked tanker.”
Choire Sicha: I’M GOING TO HAVE A STROKE.
Tom Scocca: Electronics, sure. And, you know, nice priorities, guys, without there even being any electricity anymore.
Choire Sicha: MAYBE THEY ARE RADIOS?
Tom Scocca: But I’m sorry, if an earthquake hits Silver Spring, I am more than ready to go scavenge a bag of rice from the half-collapsed Giant.
Tom Scocca: Assuming I’m not a smear of blood-butter inside this pancaked concrete apartment tower.
Tom Scocca: Matt Marek, Haiti country representative of the American Red Cross, said: “There has been widespread looting of collapsed buildings since the earthquake hit. There is no other way to get provisions. Even if you have money, those resources are going to be exhausted in a few days.”
Choire Sicha: I’M GOING TO LOSE MY MIND
Tom Scocca: If there’s no other way to get provisions, it’s not looting.
Tom Scocca: This was also how it went with Katrina, right? Reports of rampant, scary violence. To go with the “looting.”
Choire Sicha: Black people running in the night!
Choire Sicha: WITH THEIR BAGS OF RICE.
Choire Sicha: THAT THEY CAN COOK IN WATER POLLUTED WITH DEAD BODIES.
Tom Scocca: I certainly hope they get law and order established there soon, so store owners can reopen their half-collapsed supermarkets without fear of thieves.

Sweet baby Jesus, please make me hotter than that guy: “Men and women shown dating profiles of attractive members of the same sex will describe themselves as more religious than people who don’t feel as if they have to compete in the attractiveness stakes.”

I got my issue of the resurrected Baffler last night, and I’m just going to give it a very brief rave and suggest you subscribe. The current number (featuring contributions by Awl columnist Chris Lehmann and Awl pal Moe Tkacik, among many others) did something amazing: It pulled me out of my current mode of bailout fatigue and actually made me angry again. Beyond that, the writing is so good, the thoughts so well organized, that I read it all the way through in one sitting, which is no mean feat considering my attention span is so abbreviated these days that I cannot even bother to finish

Did you just have lunch? Would you like to throw it up? Here! (via)

OMG this adorable polar bear is WAVING AT THE CAMERA! I mean, I don’t want to anthropomorphize, maybe he’s not, but HOW CUTE! Okay, I will go put my penis back on now.

We’re probably a little late to this, but it’s too good not to share: Fran Lebowitz discusses Jane Austen. [Via]

It’s that time of year, when New York mag’s Vulture publishes the results of their survey of 43 film critics, so as to decide the worst movies of the year. Because I do something crazy with my life-refuse to see most movies that are obviously going to be terrible-only two of my picks for worst movie of the year made their most-worst list.

Naturally, more interesting than the final lineup are the individual critic’s responses. So worth a read. God bless you, Ann Hornaday, for putting down Public Enemies! Bless you, Michelle Orange, for putting down both Amelia and Invictus.

Since we’re here, and the Internet is infinitely large, here’s my own least favorite ten movies of 2009, in order, as sent to the nice kids at Vulture.

10 Food, Inc.: GARBAGE. Complete and total regurgitated garbage,
barely offset by the rare piece of good reporting.

9 G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra: I mean obvs, Jesus Christ, WHAT.

8 The Great Buck Howard: WTF WAS THIS? [NB: SORRY. It was charming in many respects but the strange biography-fiction aspect was a terrible idea. SORRY. ❤ U SO MUCH, COLIN.] 7 Inkheart: SNORES.

6 Jennifer’s Body: Sad. So close to being of interest.

5 Julie & Julia: I hated this movie so much. The worst part was that half of the movie (YOU KNOW WHICH HALF) was good. Ruined by the OTHER HALF.

4 Nine: SNORE. RIDICULOUS.

3 The Taking of Pelham 123: LESS THAN NOTHING HAPPENED.

2 Echelon Conspiracy: I cannot believe that I was so sick that I put
this on the pay-per-view. HORRID.

1 Spinning Into Butter: YOU CANNOT BELIEVE HOW BAD THIS IS.

The only good news is this means that Knowing, which was awesome, does not go down in the books as one of the worst movies of 2009! Yay! That movie was AWESOME.

How much of Alec Baldwin’s character on “30 Rock” is based on former GE head Jack Welch? Here is some evidence that says “quite a bit.”

Scott Brown, the Republican candidate in the allegedly tight-but possibly worrying!-Massachusetts Senate race, is warning the President of the United States to “stay away” from the Commonwealth. At the very least, he’s following in some distinguished Republican senatorial footsteps there.