More from the dream factory.

SNOW ON MARS

I don't know why this story made me tear up a little. Probably because I'm tired. But still, snow on Mars, that never touches the ground...

A laser instrument designed to gather knowledge of how the atmosphere and surface interact on Mars has detected snow from clouds about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) above the spacecraft's landing site. Data show the snow vaporizing before reaching the ground.

Making a movie is like fighting a land war in Asia.

Today I am wrangling ants

Today I am wrangling ants for a major motion picture.

For a music nerd, I discovered the 1968 Rolling Stones masterpiece Beggar's Banquet far too late -- like a few months ago. This song, No Expectations, is a beautiful wail of exhaustion and resignation.

RICHARD WRIGHT 1943-2008

And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do; I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it—you've gotta go sometime.

LET US NEVER FORGET LET US ALWAYS REMEMBER

I almost let the anniversary of the Iraqis bombing Pearl Harbor go by without some commemoration. Let's link to this classic post of two men too in love with Al Quaeda's power.

My favorite quote unsurprisingly comes from me at my most articulate:

Fuck, this shit is crazy.

Hard to believe this is the same iconoclast who once wrote so eloquently about french-kissing George Bush.

I FOUND MY FIRST GREY HAIR THIS MORNING

Fuck.

Is there any reason to

Is there any reason to hold off on the nuclear option?

SO I WAS RIGHT AGAIN

Biden it is.

I hope McCain picks Mitt Romney for his VP, so they can continue the house debate, with two homes versus 17 or whatever.

MY VP PREDICTION

Okay, I've a new one. I've become really excited by the possibly of... Hilary Clinton! It would be exciting. It seems like all of Obama's options are unexciting, and Clinton sure would keep things exciting. And this race needs more excitement!

MY VP PREDICTION

Guiliani. Our country needs unity, and a transvestite ex-mayor. Do it, Obama.

THIS HAS BLOWN MY FRAGILE LITTLE MIND

Imagine a form of life so unusual that we cannot figure out how it dies. That’s exactly what researchers are finding beneath the floor of the sea off Peru. The microbes being studied there — single-celled organisms called Archaea — live in time frames that can perhaps best be described as geological. Consider: A bacterium like Escherichia Coli divides and reproduces every twenty minutes or so. But the microbes in the so-called Peruvian Margin take hundreds or thousands of years to divide.

I don't appreciate it when bloggers I like make fun of John McCain for being a fan of ABBA. I like ABBA. They're great. I think the world would be a better place if McCain used "Take a Chance on Me" as his campaign song.




Check out the hilarious showmanship in that video. They really don't look like they know how to perform live, in their awkward attempts to work the crowd. I love the silver -- is it mesh -- that Benny and Bjorn are wearing, and it's pretty cool just how sweaty Frieda -- and yes, I had to google which one was Frieda, but my hunch was right.

I liked this comment from something called "Movie Guy" at Matt Yglesias' blog (this part of it, at least): "It was [in Florida] that he met his next wife, Cindy, while still married to Carol. Of course, he remembers this song well as it happened in 1976, the year that Abba released Dancing Queen." The rest of his comment is dickery, but he understands why people like music.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

This is amusing. If Paris Helton started making massive ad buys, I'd start tp respect her.

HEH

BARACK HITLER OBAMA

I laughed out loud at this line from Ross Douthet:

Here's a tip for liberals: If your candidate is going to stage enormous rallies in front of tens of thousands of chanting Germans (with monuments to Prussian military might in the background) in the middle of his Presidential campaign, it isn't the GOP's fault if the footage comes out looking a little like Hitler at Nuremberg.

A CYNICAL CRACK ABOUT THE LAST LECTURE

I haven't watched the video, because it is so very long, but today my boss gushed about this line: "'We have these ideas, we have a couple of ideas. This idea here is very safe. This idea here is risky.' He said, 'Go for the risk. It's better to fail spectacularly then to pass along and do something which is mediocre.'"

I replied, "that's a pretty ironic statement from a man who made his living as a college professor."

Not that you can tell from thiss picture, but seeing an elephant in the morning is considered good luck in some cultures.

WHERE CAN I GET ONE OF THESE $500,000,000 BILLS?

Not one of these, obviously. One of the new ones. It'd sure be nice to be a billionaire.

I'm at The Dark Knight

I'm at The Dark Knight waiting for the 8:15 screening to start. Sixty years of superhero movies reach their culmination tonight!

What does this mean?

MAN DOES THIS MOVIE LOOK GOOD

My Big Fat Sisters Wedding
Uploaded by waldo05

MY NEXT FILM WILL LAST 200 YEARS

More than 1,000 music-lovers showed up on Saturday, July 5, in a German town to hear a change of note in the longest-running and slowest piece of music ever composed. Eccentric US composer John Cage (1912-1992) planned his composition to last 639 years, meaning more than a dozen generations of musicians will be needed to play it on an automatic, as-yet unfinished organ at Halberstadt, Germany.

Entitled ORGAN2/ASLSP, it began in 2001 and has so far reached its sixth note. The second part of the name means "as slow as possible."

Neighbors have got used to the monotonous tone coming out of the former Church of St. Burchard, which was used as a pig-sty in the communist years of East Germany. At first the all-day-and-night tone sounded something like an air-raid siren.

The audience hushed on Saturday as two more organ pipes were added alongside the four installed so far and the tone became more complex at 3:33 p.m. local time. The second of the new pipes is set to kick in this November. A machine keeps the sound coming out.

Since some notes will not be needed for decades, pipes need only be added when donations suffice.

Organizers in Halberstadt rejected questions about what it all means.
"It doesn’t mean anything," one of them said. "It’s just there."
Other works by avant-garde composer Cage include one piece that consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence.

MY NEW JOURNALISTIC CRUSH

Marie Colvin. She looks like Cate Blanchett and lost an eye to grendade shrapnel. Bad ass.

The joy I felt upon reading the news of Jess Helms' death -- I actually cheered -- was quickly lessened by this sickening observation from the article:

He joins the second and third presidents of the United States – Thomas Jefferson and John Adams Jr. – who both also died on Independence Day.

I actually uttered, "Ugh."

Kudos to Matthew Yglesias for accompanying what I'm sure is a fascinating blog post about the economy or something with the above photo of U.S. Air Force Capt. Sheila Carlson, who is attractive enough to fight in the Israeli Defense Force.

UPDATE: Dammit, the link in that old post to the "Hot Women of the IDF" thread at Israel Military Forum is gone. How could those monsters have nuked that thread?

UPDATE 2: The thread is gone, but the pictures are there, is a less user-friendly format. Probably the best way to find them is to search for "women," but that is pretty creepy.

OTHER THAN THAT, HOW WAS THE PLAY?

"With the exception of the cross-burning episode ... I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district," says Freshwater's friend Dave Daubenmire, presumably in Freshwater's defense. Actually, the cross-burning episode, in context, is not what you'd expect, but it still doesn't make him look any better.

MY HOPES ARE RAISED AND THEN DASHED

I was briefly super-excited when I heard the Mars Phoenix rover was sending Twitters from the red planet. Could this be a spunky artificial intelligence? The future is now, right?

Wrong. A plucky NASA flack named Veronica McGregor is behind the messages, which bare sent from somewhere on Earth. Drat.

This is some pathetic graffitti right here.

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OVERHEARD AT THE HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION

As I was buying coffee this morning, I attended a few minutes of Center School's 2008 commencement ceremony. It's an alternative school. Which apparently means everybody gets an award. Including the teachers, weirdly enough. A couple teachers were given an award for "making sure there were enough condoms for everybody." Yes, I am certain I heard that right.

HOW PC ARE WE?

In this Politico article about the Right's pounding on Michell Obama, there's a curious evasion:

... [Obama] was forced to respond to rumors of a video showing his wife using a derogatory term for white people.

I'm sorry, is "whitey" such a loaded word that it can only be alluded to in polite journalism? I mean, come on. There's nothing offensive about calling a honky "whitey." Wake me when Michelle starts railing against "ice mutants."

Are there witches in Wallingford?

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Is this a penguin or a member of the Klan?

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ALLEGED VICTIM WATCH

This time Slate comes through, in this wrap-up of the R.Kelly "peeing on a pre-teen" trial:

The defense, I'm guessing, will also send Lisa Van Allen a thank-you note. Van Allen, who testified that she had multiple threesomes with Kelly and the alleged victim, was supposed to be the state's star witness. Whatever the prosecution gained by calling a woman who says she saw Kelly and his goddaughter have sex, they lost a whole lot more as the defense chipped away at Van Allen's credibility. Rather than keeping the jury focused on the tape, state's attorneys Shauna Boliker and Robert Heilingoetter found themselves having to explain away their witness' ample character flaws: relationships with two men convicted of federal bank fraud, her admission that she stole Kelly's Rolex, an alleged attempt to solicit a bribe from the defense's private investigator. The legal lesson here: If your star witness is the kind of character who would have a threesome with R. Kelly, you probably need to find yourself a better star witness.

"HULK" IS INCREDIBLE SMASH!

I review The Incredible Hulk. Spoilers follow:

I was prepared for the worst when the movie began with the upteenth encore of Marvel's standard twisting chemical reaction opening credits. Not only was the Stark scene shit, it's placement in the movie was lousy -- what a deflating way to end the film. And I think I'm just going to have to accept that CGI will never produce a convincing giant green man. I kept thinking about how much better it could have looked with competently executed in-camera effects, like Peter Jackson sometimes acheived in Lord of the Rings.

But I ended up liking it all the same. I thought the cinematography was surprisingly interesting and beautiful -- almost painterly in some shots. I certainly wasn't expecting THAT from a Marvel movie. And most importantly, I thought the chase scenes were enjoyably tense, and they were the bulk of the film, so I give it a passing grade. Not gonna see it again, though.

THE BOYWATCH CONTINUES

I guess the Fox News "Baby Daddy" controversy qualifies for the Obama Boy Watch.

I wasn't going to bother blogging about it, but I found this quote amusing:

Here’s a quick test on whether Obama should be considered fully black: Poof! Barack Obama has been magically transported to a KKK meeting in deepest, whitest Klanistan without his Secret Service detail. There’s a rope and a tree nearby. What happens to Obama? If you say, “why, Barack Obama walks out of there alive, of course” then sure, he’s biracial. Also, you’re a fucking idiot.

I'm getting fucked over by the IMDB.

This article from Forbes is really old, but contains new ideas.

...the big problem today for large insurance companies is Russian businessmen who buy $5 million to $10 million insurance policies, go to Russia on business and fake their own deaths by a Russian mob hit. Perpetrators of these big-ticket frauds go to the trouble of finding real corpses to use in the scam.

I once bought a book about how to fake one's death, and they never suggested procuring an actual corpse. I think that touch would make the plan flawless.

1) I've been awarded a grant of $2,500 from 4Culture for my short film Love in the year 2000. I've raised more than $5 million in my time, all for other people, so it's a good feeling to have some come my way for a chance. So far, I've raised $10,000 for L2K -- about a third of the way there! Which means...

2) I'm throwing another party! Matt Wilkins, director of Yonder, the other project I'm producing, and I decided to co-opt the Seattle International Film Festival to promote our movies, so we'll be throwing a kegger at Theater Schmeater next Wednesday, June 11th from 6:30 to 9:30. By all means, come join us, and tell your friends. Click here for details.

3) A Little Crab with a Package, the dvd extra I shot with Pat Moriarity and Hans Hollstein for Crustacean Records' 15th Anniversary DVD, is now up on Youtube. See it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7k5Bg4vq8M

4) This coming Thursday (First Thursday, don'cha'know), I'll be making a six minute presentation about Love in the year 2000 at an Artist Trust fundraiser called Pecha Kucha ($10 suggested donation at the door). It'll be at Ouch My Eye Gallery at 1022 First Ave S in Pioneer Square. Doors open at 7, and the presentations begin at 8:00. There'll be 8 other artists presenting as well. I go on at 8:30. Details here.

That's it.

I'm sitting in the doctor's

I'm sitting in the doctor's office looking at a guy who literally has a Wolverine-style haircut. Seriously, what is this world coming to?

LIVEBLOGGING THE HILLARY SPEECH

6:28 Hilary is almost moving as she builds toward what I hope is a concession.

6:30 Jesus, is she going to concede or not? She's like Alfred Hitchcock up there. The suspense is killing me.

6:40 Um, guess not...?

6:41. Christ, I feel naive. I was almost ready to forgive her for everything.

6:43 Now I'm just bored.

6:48 DENVER! DENVER! Oh, goddman it.

6:49 I'm going to bet that Obama can't recite every state HE has won. That's to his credit, by the way.

6:50 NO DECISIONS!!? Come on!

6:51 ... I WANT TO CONCLUDE TONIGHT TOO!

THE BUSH PRESIDENCY IN ONE PAGE

I just saw INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, and was disappointed.

Lotsa spoilers follow:

The film lost points with me from the start by having the opening be part of the main plot. I preferred the openings of the first three films, which other than introducing new characters, were unconnected to the rest of the plot. It felt like there were two Indiana Jones adventures that way. By jumping right into the main plot right from the beginning, I felt like I'd been shorted.

It bothered me that Indy was knocking out the Russians with single punches, when one considers how much trouble he had when he was twenty years younger. And it was weird seeing a CGI Harrison Ford in fights.

I really felt like Lucas and Speilberg didn't bother filling in the details. In TEMPLE, Indy often survived through unbelievable luck; in SKULL, he just survived.

Taking an amphibious vehicle over three progressively massive waterfalls seems like it would be an ideal Indiana Jones action set piece, and yet Spielberg and Lucas didn't add any texture or suspense. Boat tumbles over, characters survive to go over the next waterfall. Repeat.

It wasn't suspension of disbelief that was at issue -- I wanted to see Indiana Jones and company improbably survive a hundred foot drop onto the rocks below. But I wanted the way they survived to be fun and surprising, and instead, the scene showed them fall hundreds of feet, and then get up and walk away. Lazy.

Compare to the opening of TEMPLE OF DOOM, where Indy and friends (and the audience) were treated to a rollercoaster ride on the way down, with all sorts of improbable terrain, improbably saving their lives. If TEMPLE had used the approach SKULL did, they would have rolled all the way down the mountain, then brushed themselves off and walked away unmarked.

How many movies now have used the improbably structure-shifting Mayan pyramid now? Is that a real thing, or have we reached the point where George Lucas is cribbing ideas from ALIEN VS. PPREDATOR?

And I can't believe Shia Lebouf had an entire action sequence to himself. That was insubordinate. A sidekick should know his place.

I did like some of it -- some great stuff resided side by side with the lame, even within scenes. Speilberg and Lucas can craft some great excitement. It was fun to see Indian Jones in a scifi adventure; it's a natural genre for the character. Was I imagining a reference to ANIMAL HOUSE? I thought the final destruction off the city was nicely understated and elegiac. I want to applaud the Wilhelm Scream in this movie, though. Very inventive. I also liked who the Russians weren't out for world domination -- Cate Blanchett's character was genuinely interested in the skull. And the film conclusively demonstrated that if there's a nuclear war, the only survivors will be cockroaches, Keith Richards, and Indiana Jones.

I wonder how successful it'll be? I saw a 9:30 am matinée, at the Cinerama here in Seattle, which is a destination theatre for a movie like this, and it was less than half-full. I remember seeing THE PHANTOM MENACE there in 1999, and the crowd was like Woodstock. Lucas has really damaged his brand.

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Hold on a minute. Is

Hold on a minute. Is this really Memorial Day weekend? Wow.

This looks like a skull, right? Or am I just seeing thins?

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John McCain would be wise to never make this face again.

CHILLING

This patch of concrete bears the likeness of the Virgin Mary

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One wonders why Chris Matthews would have such a buffoon on his show, but it's pretty amusing to watch a right-ringer rant for five minutes while not actually knowing anything.

Will Elder has passed away. He was one of the first artists of MAD.

It amazes me that a bunch of people who went to high school together -- Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Al Jaffee, John Severin -- were able to come back fifteen years later and create a culturally-transforming magazine like MAD. I'm not even in touch with as many people from my high school, let alone anyone with such talent.

My only contact with Elder came about a decade ago, when I wrote him asking for his thoughts if I were to create a bootleg reprint of his supressed story "Goodman Beaver Goes Playboy." I received a stern letter that advised me that intellectual theft was no way to start a career. God bless Will Elder and all his works.

What kind of world are we living in where Karl Rove admits racism exists? Crazy world. that's where.

This is where I work. God help me.

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PRESIDENT DICHKEAD PART 108 OR SO

IRAQ WAR TAKES TOLL ON PRESIDENT BUSH

For the first time, Bush revealed a personal way in which he has tried to acknowledge the sacrifice of soldiers and their families.

“I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” he said. “I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them. And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Bush said he made that decision after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, which killed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top U.N. official in Iraq and the organization’s high commissioner for human rights.

“I remember when de Mello, who was at the U.N., got killed in Baghdad as a result of these murderers taking this good man's life,” he said. “I was playing golf — I think I was in central Texas — and they pulled me off the golf course and I said, ‘It's just not worth it anymore to do.’"

HILLARY CLINTON CAN GO FUCK HERSELF

One of the mistakes the touchy-feely Obama supporters have made is their reassurances, even insistence, that no matter what happens in the primaries, that the important thing was defeating the Republican candidate in November, and of course we would vote for Hillary Clinton should it come down to it. Now that I look back, I realize it was Clinton supporters making that argument, and the Obamites nodding in agreement. Now Clinton is invoking that politeness as another reason to deny Obama the nomination: 40% of her supporters have said they will not vote for Obama under any circumstances. (Bear in mind that 24% of her supporters are cross-over votes from epublicans who will vote McCain in the fall)

Well, fuck that. In a Clinton versus McCain contest, I'm voting for McCain.

A Republican president is going to have to work with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress no matter what. With McCain's reputation for compromise, and to be fair, his recordas well, the fact is that any Republican legislation that passes is going to be gutted by the proverbial liberal boning knife. We won't be enjoying eight years of the socialist worker's utopia that Obama is promising, but the result will still be less conservative than the continental concentration camp that the Right has been assembling in its collective mind, one that Clinton will do her best to implement.

Clinton will do what her husband did in 1996, and what she's done as a Senator. Triangulation: President Clinton will an end-run around the Republicans by co-opting their positions. And a Dem president will not face opposition, so her bills will go through largely only amended by the Republican minority. Result: kinda like a how "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ended up with more discharges from the military than before.

So there it is. I think it's a bad idea to return the Republicans to the White House. I think the party deserves to be punished for its willful incompetence, and another term will send the wrong message. But a Clinton presidency will take the country further right, and that is something we need even less than a dynastic restoration.

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BOY WATCH 2008

HOT TIP

From Slate:

After months of study, it now seems fairly certain that breathing aerosolized hog brain tissue triggers an immune response in the human body that is responsible for these workers' ailments.

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WHAT TO EXPECT IN IRAQ

Matthew Yglesias makes a good point about the Iraq debate. Every doomsday scenario given to argue for keeping US troops in Iraq ends up happening anyway.

This, though, has been the time-honored debating ploy of the Iraq forever crowd for years. I recall in 2005 when the troops needed to stay or else there would be ethnic cleansing. So the troops stayed and guess what happened in 2006? Ethnic cleansing. Then when the ethnic cleansing ended, that proved our deployment was working and had to be continued.

I think we can take this farther. Right now we need to maintain troop levels to keep the progress made by the surge and support the Maliki government. Therefore, by the end of 2008, we'll have lost all gains made by the surge, and the Maliki government will have collapsed.

David has spoken.

OH I GET IT, BUSH WAS LYING

Bloggers are finding a nice underreported story about our most Christian President Ever. From Kevin Drum:

Martha Raddatz asked Bush why, during the spiraling violence in Iraq in the summer of 2006, he kept insisting publicly that things were going well:

BUSH: Well, yes. I think we — and I wanted — that's as much trying to bolster the spirits of the people in the field as well as — look, you can't have the commander in chief say to a bunch of kids who are sacrificing either, "It's not worth it," or, "You're losing." I mean, what does that do for morale?

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, blah blah blah."

THINGS OF NOTE

The wikipedia page for scrapple. I had no idea it is arguably America's first invented pork food. My mom used to prepare it all the time when I was growing up in Maryland.

BOY WATCH 2008

I've decided to start recording various incidents of politicians referring to Barack Obama as a "boy." I almost started this when Bill Clonton called him a "kid," but nobody else seemed to think is was meant in "that way," aside from the people defending Clinton. If the country surprises me by abstaining from the gutter, I'll devote the space to coverage of the modern-day exploits of New Kids on the Block.

Republicans talk about Iraq, Obama at N. Ky. dinner

U.S. Rep. Geoff Davis, a Hebron Republican, compared Obama and his message for change similar to a "snake oil salesman."

He said in his remarks at the GOP dinner that he also recently participated in a "highly classified, national security simulation" with Obama.

"I'm going to tell you something: That boy's finger does not need to be on the button," Davis said. "He could not make a decision in that simulation that related to a nuclear threat to this country."

WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT IT II

Economics blogger Megan McArdle on how to make out with tall chicks:

... kissing her standing up will feel desperately weird if you are not at least 6'4, and if you are taller than her, it will feel weird to her (don't be surprised if she stands on her tiptoes in an unconscious attempt to get back to "normal"). Also, all of your normal instincts for that special moment will result in awkward crane-like movements of your head as you discover that nothing is where you expect it to be. Unless you think that you can finesse this smoothly, best to make your initial move while sitting down.

I read McArdle's blog every day or so. I find it entertaining and breezily written. And occasionally, dirty.

ANOTHER ABSTINENCE-ONLY EDUCATION SUCCESS STORY

Fla. Teens Believe Drinking Bleach Will Prevent HIV

Some Teens Also Believe Mountain Dew Will Stop Pregnancy

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Florida teens who believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy have prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.

Another myth is that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant, Local 6 reported.

State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.

They are proposing a bill that would require a more comprehensive approach, the report said.

It would still require teaching abstinence but students would also learn about condoms and other methods of birth control and disease prevention.

The bill just passed its first vote in a committee, Local 6 reported.

Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.

Copyright 2008 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

STALKERBOWIE

I heard "Love You 'Til Tuesday" for the first time this morning. What a scary song. When I got to the part about him lurking in tree branches, I turned the song off, because I was sure it wouldn't have a happy ending. "Don't be afraid it's only me, hoping for a little romance" is something a serial killer would say.

HE WAS A RIGHT-WING WACKO AND HE WILL BE MISSED

WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT IT

In this week's Savage Love, Dan Savage devotes his sex advice column to memorialize his mother, who passed away on Monday.

Forgive the cliché: My mom gave me so much. She gave me life, of course, and some other stuff besides: her sense of humor, her bionic bullshit detectors, her colossal sweet tooth. She also gave me—she gave all four of her children (Bill, Ed, Dan, Laura)—her unconditional love. Long after I came out, she told me she always suspected that I might be gay; I was the quiet one, the boy who liked Broadway musicals and baking cakes and shared her passion for Strauss waltzes. When I asked my parents to take me to the national tour of A Chorus Line for my 13th birthday, that should have settled the matter. Your third son? Total fag, lady. But my parents were Catholic and religious and it somehow still came as a shock when I told them. My mother came around fast and she came out swinging—rainbow stickers on her car, a PFLAG membership card in her wallet, and an ultimatum delivered to the whole family: Anyone who had a problem with me had a problem with her.

It's a beautiful piece. She sounds like a remarkable woman, and Dan was lucky to have her for his mother. My condolences and respect.

NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THESE COTTON-PIC-- UH...

THE SADDEST STORY OF THE DAY

Megan McArdle links to the story of one of those poor souls unfortunate enough to have been covered under the Walmart health plan.

A collision with a semi-trailer truck seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved.

Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Mrs. Shank's former employer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Two years ago, the retail giant's health plan sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care. A federal judge ruled last year in Wal-Mart's favor, backed by an appeals-court decision in August. Now, her family has to rely on Medicaid and Mrs. Shank's social-security payments to keep up her round-the-clock care.

This is the part that really got to me:

The ruling came six days before the Shanks' 18-year-old son, Jeremy, was killed in September last year in Iraq shortly after he arrived in the U.S. Army's 25th Infantry Division... Mrs. Shank went to Jeremy's funeral. But because of memory problems due to her injuries, she gets confused about what happened. On a recent morning, she cried several times and asked what had happened to her middle son. Mr. Shank says that he obtained a divorce from Mrs. Shank this year, partly because of advice from a health-care administrator that she might be more eligible for public aid as a single woman. Mrs. Shank, who has been declared incompetent by a court, hasn't been informed of the divorce by her family.

Byron York blows the lid off another scandal by the liberal New York Times:

...I think it's important to point out that the news pages of the New York Times have yet to report that Rev. Wright said "God damn America." According to a search of the Nexis database, Wright's words have appeared in the paper twice, first in Bill Kristol's column on March 17, and then in Maureen Dowd's column last Sunday, but never in the news pages. If the Times's news sections were your only source of news, you would never know that Rev. Wright had ever said those words.

I like the reasoning here. The New York Times hasn't reported a story, aside from where it has. And what about the high percentage of readers who only read the sports section? They're totally being left out of the loop.

NO DARK SARCASM IN THE CLASSROOM

I'm visiting my parents this week. Whilst in my father's study, I noticed a large accordion file marked with my name. Naturally, I indulged my curiosity and discovered an archive of report cards and brushes with the law covering my school years through about 1992.

Surprisingly to me, I was a strong academic until seventh grade. During sixth grade, I was under the impression that I was doing quite poorly (the public school teachers were relentlessly negative psychos), when in fact, my report card was nearly straight A's.

And then I went to Gilman School in 1985, and despite having grades that would put me in the top third of a college class, the comments are a round denunciation of my efforts, attitude and results.

What happened? Well, when I was 12 I took the SAT, and I scored in the 96th percentile of 12th graders, and that made me special. So, I had to be challenged. And to challenge me, I was enrolled in Gilman School, a prestigious prep in Baltimore. I didn't want to go.

One fucker by the name of R. Smith snidely commented that the majority of my science grade derived from lab work conducted in class "and supposedly at home." Seriously, where does that asshole get off making snide insinuations instead of coming out and telling my parents I wasn't doing homework? And some asshole shop teacher railed -- railed! -- about my poor drafting ability. He implied was retarded. Well, let me imply that Mister Braun was a child molester. And also, I've never used drafting since. My entire life has been a battle against fuckers like them.

A noticeable omission from the teacher comments was any sense that my social dislocation was in any way responsible for my poor grades. You'd think that teachers who gave half a shit might -- might -- suspect that a transfer student was having trouble related to the transfer -- especially the pressure-cooker environment surrounded by contemptuous rich assholes who dressed ridiculously like cops in Miami Vice. But nope, no empathy at all. I was just a wise-ass with bad handwriting who never did homework.

Naturally this record doesn't include my high school and collegiate glory years, during which I achieved near-perfect grades. I had learned by high chool to intercept report cards, and I guess my parents had given up by th time I made honor roll at 19. It'd be nice if my permanent record wasn't simply a document of failure and disappointment. I feel like shit for having read it.

Easter madness

CORERECTION CITY

A few errors crept into yesterday's item about Paul Scofield. The part of King George III was played by Nigel Hawthorne, who is still alive. Paul Scofield was not gay. And the photo accompanying the post was of Laurence Olivier. Use Once and Destroy regrets the errors.

19 AFRICAN AMERICANS, 46 HANDGUNS AND A WHOLE LOT OF HORSES

Thus was my experience at the Aiken Steeplechase.

Paul Scofield is dead. Scofield, an unapologetic homosexual, was perhaps best known for playing the title role in The madness of King George III, replacing Peter O'Toole, who played King George in the first two films in the series.

Bush says if younger, he would work in Afghanistan




"I must say, I'm a little envious," Bush said. "If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed."

"It must be exciting for you ... in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger. You're really making history, and thanks," Bush said.

Watch as my virginity grows back

Despite threats of an onstage suicide, Allin died of a heroin overdose in New York City on June 28, 1993, in the Manhattan apartment of John Handley Hurt. He was 36 years old. His last show was at a small club called The Gas Station in New York City. Video footage of the soundcheck, concert, and aftermath is appended to the DVD release of Hated. In his last show the power went out during the second song, after which he trashed the venue and walked the streets of New York naked and covered in blood and feces, surrounded by fans whom he openly embraced. On VH1's Freakiest Concert Moments, Allin's final show ranked at number four.

After arriving at his friend's apartment, some party-goers posed for photos with Allin, not knowing that he was already dead. The next morning, some noticed that Allin still lay motionless in the same place where they had left him, and called for an ambulance. Allin was pronounced dead at the scene.

At his funeral, Allin's bloated, discolored corpse was dressed in his black leather jacket and trademark jock strap. He had a bottle of Jim Beam beside him in his casket, as per his wishes (openly stated in his self-penned acoustic country ballad, "When I Die"). As part of his brother's request, the mortician was instructed not to wash the corpse (which smelled strongly of feces), or apply any makeup. The funeral became a wild party. Friends posed with the corpse, placing drugs and whiskey into its mouth. As the funeral ended, his brother put a pair of headphones on Allin. The headphones were plugged into a portable cassette player, in which was loaded a copy of The Suicide Sessions. The video of his funeral is widely available for purchase, and is an extra feature on the Hated DVD and some bootleg VHS tapes.

BOXING KANGAROOS

I admire the tenacity of this badass kangaroo.

BOXING KANGAROOS

This boxing kangaroo is living the dream...

THOSE BOXING KANGAROOS

In the wild...

IT'S GONNA GET COLD IN THE 1970's.

I was delighted to discover this gem from Marianne Faithfull. Apparently, this is an old, old Roger Waters song, his first about Syd Barrett's lapse into madness. Faithfull's voice is both erotic and terrifying. I love this song.

Incarceration of a Flower Child

Do you remember me ? How we used to be helpless and happy and blind ?
Sunk without hope in a haze of good dope and cheap wine ?
Laying on the living-room floor on those Indian tapestry cushions you made
Thinking of calling our first born Jasmine or Jade.

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it to me,
Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about what it might be,
Don't get up to open the door, just stay with me here on the floor,
It's gonna get cold in the 1970's.

You wouldn't listen, you thought you knew better, you just to had to speak to that man.
Please believe me, I'll visit whenever I can.
Laying in your little white room with no windows and three square sedations a day,
You plead with the doctor who's running the show,
"Please don't take Jasmine away and leave me alone.;

Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it, don't do it to me,
Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about what it might be,
Don't get up to open the door, just stay with me here on the floor,
It's gonna get cold in the 1970's.

Do you remember me ? How we used to be helpless and happy and blind ?
Sunk without hope in a haze of good dope and cheap wine ?
Now in your little white room with no windows and three square sedations a day
You plead with the doctor who's running the show,
"Please don't take Jasmine away and leave me alone."

IN WHICH I TRIP

It’s 9 am on Friday, March 07, 2008. It’s the new moon, and I am on mescaline. The Beatles are playing – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. We hope you will enjoy the show.

I took the first gulp of cactus juice at 6:30 AM. Another mouthful at 6:50 and then I walked for five miles. The music on my Ipod was extraordinary – Across the Universe, some Devendra Barnhart, the Incarceration of a Flower Child, Wig Wam Bam, Let’s pretend and wrapping with the Great Gig in the Sky.

Now I’m back, stocked with food and cigarettes. I have a play to go to at 7 tonight.

Everything is so... weird...

Everything is so... weird...