Maintenance Notes

Thanks to Evan Derkacz for blogrolling me on Peek, AlterNet's blog about blogs - I've long enjoyed reading (or, lately with my lack of leisure time, skimming) AlterNet, and it's a real privilege. Also, just a reminder that tomorrow begins Estrogen Month/Women Bloggers Month here at Pen-Elayne, where you get a chance to look through the "Gals in Waiting" section atop my Bloglines subscriptions and voice your opinions as to which gals should move onto my regular reading list. There are at least 100 names in my GIW section so obviously I can't add them all, but I've asterisked about half of them as likelier to "move up" sooner rather than later. And at the same time let this be an estrogen-issued challenge to those testosterone-laden bloggers out there to consider these women for their blogrolls as well. See you tomorrow, the on-again spottiness of Blogger permitting!

Silly Site o' the Day

Harry Shearer's website, because if I don't plug it today I'll forget to listen to Le Show tonight, now that I found out it actually plays in my area. Unfortunately the Le Show links on Harry's site are currently busted so nobody else can look to see if they get Le Show in other parts of the country, but NYC folks can tune in to 91.5 FM, WNYE at 9:00 PM every Monday to hear it.

Getting Ready for Oscar

Honey barbecue wings and veggie sticks at the ready - check. Laptop computer [that shouldn't even be able to be wi-fi'ed but somehow is thanks to Robin, although it's slow as a snail] poised to get Gary's lowdown - check. Another post by Simbaud featuring more nominated-movie song stylings of "master parodists Sam Maser and Jack Lechner" - check. Mediagirl's great post on why she loves the Academy Awards - double check, that's me too right on down the line. [My favorite quote: "When it comes down to it, this is a day to honor our storytellers." Brava.] Giggling at Halle Berry's sense of humor about herself at yesterday's Razzies - check, although a repeat of that is unlikely tonight. Reading about the Oscar swag at GirlHacker's Random Log - check, and a lot less grating than listening to those pre-awards shows... Blog reading done for the day - check. See y'all tomorrow!

==ANNOUNCEMENT==
NYC Blogger Gathering to Welcome NTodd

This is the first official announcement that there will be a NYC-area blogger dinner starting at 6:00 PM next Saturday, March 5 to mark the arrival of Perranoski Prize winner NTodd Pritsky, who will be coming into New York City that afternoon and staying for a few days. Liberal Coalition locals are particularly encouraged to come say hi to the group's founder, but I'm not sure who's in this area besides me, Steve Gilliard and Maru in NJ (whose e-address doesn't seem to be working). A suggestion has been put forth to meet at Miss Elle's Homesick Bar & Grill Dorian's at 226 West 79th Street, which sounds nice (NTodd, take the "1" subway uptown, 79th Street is 4 stops up from Times Square) but as this site suggests "reservations are necessary for groups" so I'd like to pin down as exact a number as I can by Friday. Please RSVP by e-mail as soon as possible so I can start the count for the dinner.

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm in a cinematic state of mind today, so how about this very good spoof of the third Star Wars movie? Via Pam at beancounters.

Oscar Watch

As many know and many don't seem to care, the 77th annual Academy Awards will air tomorrow, which means the 20th annual Independent Spirit Awards show was on this afternoon. Which I forgot to watch live except for maybe the last half hour or so (congrats to Sideways), and then only spottily so I missed much of Robin Williams' schtick and, mercifully, most of Tom Arnold singing. But it did put me in mind of the cute bits Billy Crystal would do to "introduce" the nominated movies, and thankfully we don't really have to do without those this year, because Simbaud, King of Zembla, has provided us some. I think they're better than the Sideways one Arnold sang tonight. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Gary Sassaman's live Oscar blogging will probably be well worth catching. [Addendum: The 25th Annual RAZZIE® Awards were also announced.]

Happy Smiley People

Via Neil Gaiman, apparently Brits and Americans smile differently. As Robin observed, it's hard to read this article and not "practice" smiling to try to get an idea of what they're talking about. Which I'm afraid I still didn't. When the researcher said "we British smile by pulling our lips back and upwards and exposing our lower teeth," I kept thinking of Nick Park's characters. I don't know too many folks on either side of the pond who expose their lower teeth whilst smiling. Nor, oddly, do I find Angelina Jolie "irresistable," but perhaps that's just me.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Terri at frogblog, it's Disco Elevator! I think I'll take the stairs, thank you.

Estrogen Week Maintenance Note

As y'all know, I've technically forgone Women in Blogging Week on Pen-Elayne, because I've decided to commemmorate it in March, Women's History Month. Starting next week I'll be throwing this blog open to discussion about the many, many women currently on the "Gals in Waiting" section of my Bloglines blogroll, in preparation for me adding them onto my regular blog-reading list (and sidebar). I've just gone through that section, which I've been using as a bookmark-holder, and made sure all the blogs in it are current and have working RSS feeds. Be warned, between News+Views Gals, Kultcha Gals and gals in the Liberal Coalition, my daily perusal now includes 80 female bloggers, and that's not even including the women involved in Dynamic Duo and Group blogs! So I'm not hurting for more daily blog-reading, but I don't think it's fair to new(-to-me) bloggers if they get passed over, particularly if they're highly recommended from y'all. But I wanted to jump the gun a bit on Estrogen Month because Kathy from NJ (no, not this Kathy, another one) said such lovely things about me and has added me to her sidebar, so I've reciprocated and added Liberty Street, a blog well worth your time.

Update 1: Still tinkering with and adding to the Gals in Waiting bookmarked sites, including supplementing it with some African Women Blogging sites gathered by Owukori on the right-hand sidebar of Black Looks...

Update 2: And yet more additions; this Estrogen/Women Bloggers Week has been a real godsend for my bookmarks! And dang, I just found out CE Petro from Thoughts of an Average Women had me blogrolled, so she's also moved up from Gals in Waiting to News+Views Gals. Just a reminder for anyone on my GIW list (particularly those with asterisks next to their names), if you already have me on your blogroll please let me know. Since I pretty much read blogs via their syndicated feeds (it's the only way to get through all my subscriptions in my limited leisure time) I don't usually go to your actual sites so there's no way for me to know I'm on your radar unless you tell me. :)

Surprisingly On the Radar

So I'm going through my list of non-RSS feed blogs (see the asterisked blogs on the sidebar, which now also includes, thanks to the recent "women bloggers" discussions, the group endeavor Hackenblog featuring Ginger Mayerson and three other smart gals), which I try to check as often as possible - and I notice, to my delight and amazement, that I'm now on the blogroll of MSNBC's Eric Alterman. Thank you so much, Eric!! Now I'm even happier that Robin and I sat through that entire "What Liberal Media?" discussion panel a couple years ago...

Feeling a Bit of an Elephant

As the 2004 Koufax Awards have just been handed out, I've started clipping posts for my 2005 Koufax file, and so far all I have in it are candidates for Most Humorous. Here's another one - via Lynda at Available Light, the definitive post by Alex at Buck Hill (which just celebrated its first blogiversary) explaining that blogs one doesn't know about obviously don't exist. Reason enough for me to add the very amusing Alex to my blogroll! Now if I could only figure out his or her gender (I'm guessing male)...

Going to the Dogs

My parents read my blog on occasion, although my Mom says she skips over all the parts that don't interest her (by which I think she means "everything besides the pictures of your cats"), so this one's for Dad. Via Kevin at The American Street, who just announced the first annual awarding of his Perranoski Prizes, I found a blog by a woman who calls herself Soj and lives in Romania. The blog's name is Flogging the Simian, and the post that really caught my eye involves feral dogs roaming the streets of the country. The post also discusses her monthly living expenses, which I'll warrant are a good deal different than when my Dad lived there, and apparently she's quit her job to blog full-time and is living off her readers' donations. Maybe you can do that in Bucharest (I can only assume that's the city in which she lives, as she doesn't say), but I can't see it happening with too many folks here...

Silly Site o' the Day

Another superhero-themed one that's just so, so wrong - it's the Super Friends at the office! Via Susie Madrak.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

About a year ago, my friend Cat Simril Ishikawa sent me this picture of his kittens, Jazz and Blues:

Here are the li'l darlin's now:

Meanwhile, here's a nice close-up of Datsa and Amy:

Yes, every now and then they cohabitate in close proximity without chasing each other...

Joogling Jehosephat!

Have you Joogled today? Everybody's doing it! Just talk about your favorite Jew - or a Jew or two! Did you know that some of my favorite Jews are right in my own family?! It's true - and it's Jew! Both my brothers are going to be in Vegas at my parents' place this weekend - that's four out of the five Jews in my immediate family! Did you know there's a Yahoo group devoted to Jews and comics? Can you guess how many of my blogroll's Top Six are Jewish? Two! Two Jews, a-a-ah! (Update: As Robin pointed out to me, Google is aware of the problem...)

Quote of the Day

From my husband, channeling Dave Barry: "Wouldn't Papal Tracheotomy be a great name for a rock band?"

Snow Daze

Sometimes being proactive is a good thing; I decided to call my boss at 5 PM and ask to go home a half hour early (almost everyone else leaves by 5 anyway), for which I received permission. Good job, too - the temperature plummeted throughout my commute and the visibility got less and less. By the time we donned the car cover and Rob put down the last of our melty stuff, the snow was sticking to just about everything. If I can't get out of the long driveway onto the street tomorrow morning I'm taking a "snow day" (at 75% pay), particularly if there's even more white stuff as predicted.

Blogging About Blogging About Blogging...

What's in the Liberal Coalition Kool-Aid anyway? Was it the Koufax Awards (where I didn't make it past the semi-finals either)? Please to calm down, Scout and Guy, you're making John look fairly prescient. :) I think you may be seeing what's not there - or should that be, not seeing what is there? I read Kevin and Duncan daily, and yeah okay, I've corresponded with both gentlemen and have found them friendly and nice so maybe I'm biased, but honestly, I think you're getting het up over a slight that doesn't really exist. Each of these guys does a heck of a lot of link-citing. Heck, even Mark Evanier has started link-citing, and he gets slack because he was doing an online journal long before the netiquette of "you really should type 'via so-and-so' if you're going to blog about an item you first read on someone else's blog" became established practice.

If the real issue is that the big fish in this medium-and-getting-larger pond don't acknowledge the smaller fish of which you consider yourself one, it may say more about you than about them. Take it from someone who's been a medium-sized fish in more small ponds than I can count - it's just not worth it to try to jockey for position. That way madness lies. It's not a competition, the 'net's just too large for that. It's not even a matter of a class-action snub the way the 90-day-female-poli-blogging cycle seems to be. And for gosh sakes it's not personal, so please don't view it that way!

I think y'all need to ask yourself what you really expect to get out of blogging. If I really yearned to win a Koufax instead of just make the first round of nominations, I acknowledge I would have had to post a lot more regularly, and write more longer essays like the "Conditions of Art" post below, than I did in 2004, so I truly cannot bitch about my exclusion from the Koufax finals. If I wanted "famous" bloggers to blogroll me, I'd e-mail them and ask what I could do to be worthy of their consideration (and in fact that's what I did in the past, before my own blogroll became nigh unwieldy). If my goal was to be a "famous" blogger myself - I'm sorry, that's out of my control but there are certainly ways to increase your online presence (join alliances and webrings, go out and actually find/report on real news scoops, attend Drinking Liberally or other social events). If you're looking to Make Money Fast - well, I'm sure there's a Nigerian prince with a message just for you waiting in your in-box.

My goal for Pen-Elayne on the Web is essentially what it's always been - to have at least as many regular readers as I did when I was spending $300+ every six weeks self-publishing and mailing out INSIDE JOKE in the '80s. And I met that goal within about two months of starting this blog, without having to spend a penny (my only non-emotional investment in Pen-Elayne has been my time). And to have fun with it, which I still am. In the end, all any of us can do is maintain the best possible blog to our standards, not to anyone else's, and keep at it and hope that enough people notice to make us happy. And if someone "famous" notices me and links to a post of mine, that's swell and I don't downplay it at all, although I admit it'll probably never be the high that being mentioned in the credits of a Firesign Theatre video credits was. (Plug time, Firesign chat tonight!) But I don't have a sense of entitlement about it, and it's not the reason I blog. Just something to think about, y'know?

A Tribute to Cannon-Ash

Ever since I discovered Mark Morford I always considered his writing style more or less the successor to Hunter S. Thompson's. Amazingly, Morford in his eulogy for the good doctor confesses he's "tragically underversed in the Thompson worldview..."

A Bit of Inside-Baseball Fun

Susie has the best post on the 2004 Koufax Award winners that I've read so far. It will probably be lost on anyone who doesn't follow the lefty political blogosphere, but I got a giggle out of it.

The Conditions of Art

A lot of folks in the blogosphere, and even the ACLU, are up in arms over the case of Edward Stross, a Roseville, MI artist who depicted a variation on Michelangelo's "Creation of Man" on his building eight years ago; unlike the clever parody currently making the blogospheric rounds showing Bush & co. reaching out to a nude Guckert, Stross' version had a bare-breasted Eve apparently being chased by an American flag conjured up by the finger of God and, inexplicably, the word "Love" somewhere about. (You can sort-of see the mural here, although I can't find the word "Love" at all. You can only see the God part in this PDF file, and in b&w no less, which does no good if you want to figure out what the fuss is about.) Stross faces a month in jail and a $500 fine for violating city ordinances prohibiting nudity and regulating signage.

I think a lot of the free speech advocates are missing the point here. This case has nothing to do with prudery (except insofar as, one can argue, regards the ordinance restricting nudity in the first place) or even with free speech. The fact is that Roseville's Zoning Board of Appeals originally agreed to let Stross paint the outside, public wall of his studio as long as he didn't paint letters or nudity, and as long as he maintained the work. That was the condition to which he agreed, and he violated it; flaunted it, even. I think it's telling that the jury took about 20 minutes to convict him. If you ask for permission to do something (and bear in mind, the variance he received in 1997 from the zoning board noted the mural was six times larger than zoning usually allows, so he was pushing it in the first place), and the people from whom you need permission give you conditions, and you say okay, you are obligated to stick to your half of the bargain, or face the consequences - period.

To me this whole thing smacks of "look how clever I am." It's no different from the comic book artists who insist on sticking "Easter eggs" in their art. Yeah, it might be fun for readers to spot the out-of-place pop-culture character lurking in the background of page 3, panel 4, but in 99% of the cases it utterly detracts from the storytelling that's supposed to be what the artist is getting paid to do. But hey, it gets the artist noticed, doesn't it? In Stross' case, if he wanted to depict "woman under attack by restrictive government" (just a guess; after all, it was the Clinton era when the atmosphere hadn't yet reached a fever pitch of hysteria), why on earth was she partially unclothed? So it could be "sex object under attack" or something? And what's "Love" got to do with it? That doesn't correspond to anything in Michelangelo's original. To me it says, again, "hey, look at me, I'm rebelling against Society's Rules by painting a mural six times bigger than allowed, and I'm putting in unneeded naughty bits even after I agreed not to so it'll get noticed because I don't give a shit if it happens to bother parents when they pass it on the street with their kids and can't do anything about it 'cause it's public, and oh yeah I'm thumbing my nose at the no-lettering restriction I said I'd follow because they'll all look silly when they protest the word 'love,' won't they, those love-haters?"

I have absolutely no sympathy for this guy. Five hundred smackers and a month in a local jail cell (if that even goes through now) after eight years of getting away with knowingly breaking his promise seems a fairly small price to pay for one's art, and should be more than offset anyway by all this free publicity he's getting (and all the work his studio is sure to receive as a result of all this in-my-opinion misplaced sympathy). If my blog weren't so relatively insignificant I'd apologize for adding to that publicity.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, as long as I'm in a comic-book'y mood (see below), did you know that Superman is a Dick? Yeah, everyone else in the comics blogosphere did, I'm just a bit slow in getting around to mentioning it... (Got the new URL from Avedon.)

Rob's Latest Work

Just a plug for my husband's latest pencilled piece, an illustration that can be seen at the serialized online novel that Budgie is writing, syndicated at a site with way too many pop-ups and ads but that's not his fault.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Cory at BoingBoing, an odd collection of animations featuring Strindberg and Helium.

Yes, Minister

Okay, President-for-Life Sheelzebub, I'll take the Ministry of Sushi before anyone else gets it. I'd have asked for the Ministry of Cats as well, but we all know that humans don't exactly have dominion over those creatures in the first place...

The Good Doctor

Via Michael at Bookslut, a remembrance of Hunter S. Thompson from Ralph Steadman, his frequent collaborator/illustrator.

Silly Site o' the Day

Aye mateys, it's Captain Hooke Silver, Attorney at Law, here to deal with all yer ninja problems! Via that scurvy dog Cory at BoingBoing!

LC Presidential Brief(ing) Blogaround

Once more I've "finished the internet" except for my fellow Liberal Coalition members, so let's see what they've been up to:

Alex & co. at Sooner Thought urges that fellow Oklahomans write in to oppose a bill which "would deny the AG's ability to force polluting companies, companies who wish to use ourlands and waters as their private dumping grounds, to respect our right to a livable environment."

Amy at blogAmY highly recommends the documentary Race: The Power of an Illusion when it comes to your local PBS station.

Andante joins in presenting some of the Social Security faces in her family.

Bryant "Still No Working RSS Feed" Gries displays a postcard from the Monster.

Chris "Lefty" Brown suggests some games for long car trips.

At Corrente, Leah pays tribute to the late John Raitt.

Echidne is too modest to mention that she's one of the great feminist thinkers.

Edwardpig examines the case of a US citizen being held without charges in Saudi Arabia for almost two years. So do those wacky Scrutiny Hooligans.

Eryk at And Then... tells us of the sad, useless life of "professional Christian" Michael Marcavage.

At First Draft, athenae passes along a bit about a cool school with two student newspapers.

Guy Andrew Hall has rebuilt Rook's Rant to make it better, stronger, faster!

Jeff at Speedkill shares an odd letter to the editor of the Bozeman Chronicle.

John at archy flags down a bizarre wingnut complaint.

Jude Camwell at Iddybud warns of the rush to war with Syria.

Keith "I Don' Need No Stinkin' RSS Feed" Kisser examines the Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools.

Maru Soze informs us that "The chairman for the Young Republican National Convention has been busted for embezzlement."

Michael at Musing's Musings lists stuff he liked about France as well as a few he didn't.

Moi at bloggg wishes SNL a happy 30th anniversary (god I'm old).

Mustang Bobby impresses us all with his ornithological capabilities.

Norbizness has a global warming graph - aaugh, a graph, run away!

NTodd at Dohiyi Mir is also writing for Blue and Red.

Jesse at Republican Sinners advises patience is a virtue.

Scott at The Gamer's Nook whimpers expectantly that the hockey season may not be cancelled.

Steve Bates, the Yellow Doggerel Democrat, suspects there are some of you out there who enjoy a good slide show.

Steve Gilliard doesn't think the Joementum is worth the effort.

T. "RSS-less" Rex passes along a great Democratic zinger response.

Oh great, just what I need - Trish Wilson says NYC is the 5th most stressful city in the US, with Vegas (where Mom & Dad are) coming in at #4.

Upyernoz wishes Turkmenbashi a happy birthday.

Wanda at Words on a Page details the latest Chicken Little pronouncement.

And finally, this blogaround's informal ECSC (Echo Chamber Stat Count) of how many LC blogs mentioned some of the top left-blogosphere stories of the past week:

RIP Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - 15
PropaGannon - 13
Negroponte's Honduran Killing Fields - 8
Bush Smoked by Wead - 4
The Traitor from Plains - 2
EpiCPAC - 2
Where Have All Fem-Bloggers Gone, Long Time Passing - 2
Koko and the Boobies - 2

I take great comfort in the fact that talk of the gonzo journalist beat out talk of the fake one.

An Embarrassment of Riches

I think, if anything, female bloggers should be thanking Kevin Drum rather than piling on his latest version of the every-three-months "where are the women bloggers/why aren't women bloggers more 'famous' or 'popular' (i.e., listed higher up in a self-selecting ranking system)" discussion. All the responses from the many women on my blogroll, and particularly the comments sections of those responses, have elicited at least a half dozen new female-run blogs I'd never heard about, all of which have gone into the "Gals in Waiting" section of my Bloglines blogroll, which I peruse (as I do with the other "in Waiting" sections) whenever I get through the 300+ blogs I read regularly. [The only thing I didn't like about Kevin's thread was that there doesn't seem to be a place in his comment section for people's blog URLs unless they code that into their responses, or I'm sure I'd have gotten lines on even more new-to-me blogs.]

As I've noted countless times before, both here and in comments on others' blogs, all of these types of questions start with a phallfallacious premise - that there is a definitive, quantifiable method of judging popularity, and that said method is not self-selecting. Whenever guys would wonder aloud why there aren't any famous female writers and artists in comics, I'd respond by asking them to define "famous." Does Marjane Satrapi count? What about Rumiko Takahashi? If not, shouldn't you be asking yourself what the hell criteria you're using to quantify popularity? Wizard magazine? American comics published by Marvel and DC?

So it seems to me the real question here is, if part of the self-selecting process for blog fame is that a blogger needs inbound links in order to get noticed, why aren't more famous male bloggers linking to more female bloggers of quality rather than bemoaning their (our) invisibility on a continuous loop? Let's put the onus where it belongs for a change.

Oh, and folks are welcome to peruse the aforementioned "Gals in Waiting" section of my Bloglines blogroll; during March, which is Women's History Month, I plan to add to my main blogroll/sidebar at least one new female-run blog a week, based on Pen-Elayne readers' suggestions. (I was going to say "one a day" but I already have over 300 blogs I read regularly, and if I'm away a day or two it takes forever to catch up as is...) So get ready to vote for the Gal in Waiting of your choice!

Update: Well, as most women on my blogroll (and Gals in Waiting section) know, the number of responses continues to grow, to the point where at least a half dozen blogs are compiling them for easy reading (thanks for making this one of them, folks!). Also, Ginger Mayerson at Hackenblog has declared this Women in Blogging Week (which I'll be bowing out of because of the Women's History Month blog thingie mentioned above), and MadKane wrote a poem that made me giggle, the way girly-girls do.

Bloggers as Viable News Sources

Well, at least one enterprising venue is taking advantage of this. From my e-mail in-box:

Greetings, fellow blogger! My name is Robert Hayes. I am the editor of a new blog news site called the Blogger News Network. BNN exists to provide bloggers with a new forum for their news stories and analysis. As the mainstream media is discovering, a distributed network of tens of thousands of fact-checkers, reporters, and editorialists provides a superior method for disseminating news and vital information. BNN intends to extend that advantage and to become a premier news destination site.

BNN needs two things to succeed: writers, and readers. I am asking for your help with both.

I urge you to submit stories that you write to BNN. Your story remains your property entirely - we are a consolidator and reprinter, not a purchaser of content. You will be paid for your story - we track the readership for each story on the BNN site and distribute ad revenues to the author of the story proportional to their stories' popularity. You can see details of our payment system - and take part in discussions ofhow it should be more formally structured - at the BNN forums.

There is no time commitment - you can send us a story once in a blue moon, or you can devote your life to creating content for BNN. It's entirely up to you.

We also need readers - if you like the idea of BNN, please give us a link either in your sidebar/blogroll, or by making a post concerning BNN. Like all networked products, the more people that know about and use BNN, the more valuable it is for everyone. I greatly appreciate your time and consideration. If you have questions about BNN, or would like to discuss how this site can be a valuable resource for the entire blogosphere, please drop me a note!

Best wishes,
Robert Hayes
Editor

I think it's a spiffy idea indeed; although I'm pretty sure other aggregators exist, I don't know of too many willing to pay for stories. This should be an interesting site to watch.

Quote of the Day

"It's one thing to have people looking at your sex tapes, but having people reading your personal e-mails is a real invasion of privacy."

Silly Sites o' the Day

Via BoingBoing, some parodies of Christo's "The Gates" exhibit - The Somerville Gates and a creative use of crackers. Better watch out, folks, I understand Christo's people are lawsuit-happy.

Gonzo Suicide

Oh my god. RIP Hunter S. Thompson.

My Own Version of the "Where Are The Women Bloggers" Question

Which is really just passing along Morgaine's request on What She Said!: "Apparently, someone is putting together some events for women bloggers in NYC and they want to see how we're scattered... I'm asking you all to help. If you or anyone you know is on the blogroll here at WSS! please drop an email to me and let me know where you are. All I need is your state. Thanks!" Personally I want to know more about this event organizer; as MadKane, Julia and Liz will all attest, few things pique my interest more than the phrase "events for women bloggers in NYC"...

[Note: My actual response to the latest women-bloggers brouhaha is here...]

Lousy With Virginity

RIP Sandra Dee. Guess she's with Bobby now, comparing notes on Beyond the Sea. (Thanks to Elaine at Kalilily for the heads-up.)

Milestone Note

Happy first blogiversary to Liz and friends at Blondesense! I can't believe y'all have been around only a year!

The (Non-)Search For Women, Redux

Dori at Backup Brain details the latest version of the seasonal (every three months) phenomenon of men asking (but not really wanting to know) where the women are in a particular field/hobby/venue. This time it's in the form of a panel called "Where Are the Women of Web Design?" Why the men don't just ask the women where they are (and, you know, blogroll them) is still beyond me. At least at comics conventions (and I'm talking pre-Lulu and pre-Sequential Tart) panels like this were never phrased as questions, although far too many readers and con programmers still believe "Women in Comics" refers (or should refer) to fictional characters rather than real people...

Silly Site o' the Day

Past time to plug some more JibJab and their "latest" (by which I mean, something that they did about a month ago), Second Term. Via the Progressive Blog Alliance.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Hanan Levin, it's Star Wars: Designer Edition, and it's so very wrong.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Robin took my camera this evening and decided to have fun with close-ups. Here's Datsa, taken from below the box where he likes to sit:

And here's Amy, skulking around to see what's going on and why Rob was on the floor:

She looks pissed, doesn't she? Moody kitty bitch...

Happy Birthday, Atrios!

Boy, I don't even remember being 33, that was so long ago...

Maintenance Notes

I did a bit of sidebar straightening to make my blogroll easier for folks to peruse, and wanted to mention two new entries - long-time Alas, A Blog poster Bean now has her own blog, and my Firesign chat buddy Fran Parker (aka Bambi) has also started a weblog, which ought to be fascinating. On the sidebar I've put Bean in the News+Views section and Fran in the Kultcha section.

Ain't Technology Wonderful?

Blogger's been spotty at best for most of this week, as folks know. No big deal for me, I'm not paying a cent to blog and I have no illusions that the world somehow cannot get along without my online presence, but a minor frustration just the same. My home computer's been having problem restarting as well, so once it's up again I'm just leaving it up. I got into work today to find one of our trunk lines ringing incessantly (with nobody on the other end) and our internet down. Took an hour for things to get back up. I'm old enough to recall adult life without computers, and maybe I'm just misremembering nostalgically but it really does seem to me that we were able to get along just fine before the "paperless society." Okay, all small stuff, easy workarounds or just patience does the trick in most of these cases, but still, enough little itches and soon you have a real rash. On the other hand, all of this pales beside what nature can dish out, and it just started snowing sideways (i.e., snow + wind). Have I mentioned I'm looking forward to the upcoming 3-day weekend?

Silly Site o' the Day

Looks like the Students for an Orwellian Society are going to have to update their homepage to cross out "Iraq" the way they crossed out "Afghanistan." Via Arthur Hlavaty.

Bloggers Take Over Toons

Frank Paynter grabbed this illo from Nick Anderson at the Louisville, KY Courier-Journal, and Elise at After School Snack found another at the Washington Post. How long before Daryl Cagle gathers them all?

And the Winners Are...

Here's my latest award; thanks, media girl! Click on it to see what everyone else won...

Oddly, I believe "warm and fuzzy yet rational" describes me to a "T"...

Silly Site o' the Day

Via my "sound-alike" Laura Gjovaag (check out her first audioblog post to hear an uncanny similarity to my own voice), "Someone took a badly drawn little golden book and changed the captions to fit the pictures," calling the result The Cuddly Menace, aka We Are Zogg.

Finally!

I was wondering if and when The Daily Show would get around to mentioning the blogosphere, Jeff Gannon, Eason Jordan, etc. Tonight was the night. Congrats to Atrios, the Daily Kos and John Aravosis' AmericaBlog for the name checks! Update: Here's Frank Rich on the Propagannon affair.

Silly Sites o' the Day

As Jessica at Feministing notes, it's National Condom Awareness Week! What better time to watch the Three Amigos PSA spots? And as long as we're aware of such things, Amanda at Mousewords found what appears to some to be a refreshing drink, and Arthur Hlavaty recommends some cute and cuddly Weenies. Update: Here's another interesting discovery Trish made.

We're All Gay

Well, we are.

Five-Time Champ Yet No RSS Feed

Those of you who follow Bob Harris' blog as eagerly as I do (when I remember to check it as Bloglines can't notify me when he has new posts because of that non-RSS-enabled thingie) will be interested to know that he will be appearing on tonight's broadcast of Jeopardy!'s Ultimate Tournament of Champions sweeps-month ratings-grabber. Hope ya passed the semi-finals, Bob!

Propagannon Report

Fascinating e-interview with Joseph Wilson reproed at the Daily Kos last week, which was brought to my attention by a comment thread in Hullabaloo. The quote with which it ends is spot-on: "I think that in the absence of a responsible national media, the blogs play an important role in trying to shed light on various issues, including the bona fides of so-called White House correspondents as well as tackling questions overlooked or ignored by the national journalists. I also believe that the nature of the profession has changed to the detriment of good investigative journalism. No longer is there a quest for the truth so much as there is this apparent need to present both sides of an issue even if one is nothing but lies and distortions. Giving the same value to fiction as to fact in the interest of so-called fairness is to mislead the American people and the press has become party to that." Emphasis mine.

Goldberg Variations

Well, it looks as though another story may make it beyond our online echo chamber, only this one really doesn't deserve to, as it's been strictly a blogospheric pissing contest of little interest to anyone who doesn't hang out here - and of minimal interest to many of us who do. From what I've been able to figure out, seems a couple weeks back the son of right-wing sleazemonger Lucianne Goldberg, who has a blog at one of those radical rightie think-tank aggregates that I've never had occasion nor desire to visit, said some stupid things about Iraq. Whereupon Juan Cole, Professor of History at the University of Michigan and an acknowledged expert on the Middle East, called Goldberg on his fallacies. And the war of words escalated from there, culminating in some bloggers holding contests to come up with the cruelest/funniest nickname for Goldberg and others announcing, "When WW1 broke out young Englishwomen would hand white feathers to men on the street who were not in uniform to shame them into enlisting. Let's send white feathers to a prominent chicken hawk who is willing to vilify anyone who opposes the war in Iraq but seems to have many reasons for staying safe here." Accompanying tar not needed, I suppose, as that's all been verbal and Goldberg has proven himself quite the tar-baby.

Anyway, I'd given this as much attention in my blog as I thought it obviously merited - none - until I noticed that both Cole and Goldberg are scheduled to have a "throwdown debate" tonight on The Majority Report. Why on earth Air America is stooping to the same mentality as many of my blogpals astounds me. Didn't anyone learn that the more attention you pay to trolls the more they love it, and the more it validates the nonsense they're spewing? It ought to be self-evident that this guy's an idiot; why give him the satisfaction of more publicity? People like Goldberg are going to lap up the Air America appearance, even if he "loses" the "throwdown." The most effective thing one can do about these folks is to stop wasting time and energy on them; ignore them and let them languish in obscurity. But, sadly, I appear to be well in the minority on this thinking.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, I'm not sure it's silly, really, rather than haunting or mesmerizing, but it's Over Time, "a student film, a tribute of sorts to Muppet creator Jim Henson, directed by Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland and Damien Ferrie as a graduation project at the French animation/media school Supinfocom." Found via Avedon Carol at The Sideshow.

Wonderful Wendy

The inspiring tale of Wendy the Wonder-Dog, via Len at Dark Bilious Vapors.

BHM Post of the Day

Lots of recommended reading from Adam at The American Street.

Love is in the Air


Last week Robin told me that, in England, Valentine cards are sent anonymously, so I thought today would be a good day to look at how different countries celebrate Valentine's Day. And lest we forget, it's also World Freedom to Marry Day, and the fourth anniversary of Canada's first legal same-sex marriage. Lastly, via Cookie Jill at skippy, we learn that today is also International Quirkyalone Day.

Zeroing In on the Kids

Fellow Liberal Coalition members John at Archy and athenae at First Draft have details about a southern California grade school requiring students to wear radio frequency identification badges that can track their every move. What's more, the system was imposed without any parental input! The thing that creeped me out the most was the revelation that "similar devices are being tested at several schools in Japan," where parents are apparently not objecting. Must be a cultural difference... To learn more about the insidiousness of RFIDs, go here.

Charitable Works

Over at Cliff Meth's website you can read all about The Three Tenors: Off Key, "a new bizarre collection of heroic and tragic tales from the unorthodox trio of Dave Cockrum, Clifford Meth and Bill Messner-Loebs." That's some trifecta! Cliff details the genesis of the project in his latest Past Masters column. [And yes, once again up crops the mythical name of Bill-Dale Marcinko, my best friend in college and still at the top of my wish list of folks I want to (a) start a blog and (b) someday get back in touch with me...] Meanwhile, out Bill Loebs' way the locals at Mercury Studios have been holding an auction to benefit Bill and his wife Nadine, so check it out. Comics folk have always been at the forefront of worthwhile charitable endeavors - up in Canada, for instance, today starts the third round of auctions to benefit the Canadian and US Red Cross in their tsunami relief efforts, and a lot of other places have been pitching in there as well.

Silly Site o' the Day

For whatever reason, Dean Friedman's new Flash song Four More Years, which he mass-advertised in e-mail, is taking forever to load on my work computer, so I'm just going to trust it's funny and watch it when I get home this evening. I'm also interested in checking out Friedman's Bosom of Suburbia fumetti and, of course, in his fascinating bio. (And yes, this was my Valentine's Day present to Robin, a big Dean Friedman fan.)

BHM Post of the Day

Steve Gilliard on Ossie Davis' funeral.

Anger Management

Very good post by The Poor Man yesterday about how some right-wing radicals will not only never be happy, but in fact seem to live for their self-righteous anger. Sayeth Andrew,

It's not an incomprehensible urge - I read David Brooks simply to irritate myself, and I follow the madness of Kaye Grogan not to get angry, exactly, but for a kind of bemused contempt. Less masochistic people may enjoy watching inane or awful movies, or particularly terrible TV shows, or occasionally hanging out with their stupid next-door neighbor just to hear what sort of stupid things he'll say today. It's fun to be angry or contemptuous sometimes, especially if it can be directed at something which you really can't take that seriously, which really, by itself, doesn't matter. It gets the blood flowing, which is nice, and it reminds you that, no matter how much of a a loser you know you are, there are people out there who are so much worse, so you can probably fool the world for awhile yet. People may not always approve, but it’s good, clean fun, and it keeps your teeth pearly white. No problem there.

Well, I used to think that way too, until yesterday. I've slowly been coming to a realization that, while this sort of anger might provide a momentarily adrenaline rush or sense of smug self-satisfaction, it can also impair judgement and in fact become quite dangerous depending upon the circumstance. And one moment of flauting one's perceived superiority just isn't worth that kind of aggravation.

I quickly remembered this when I got behind the wheel regularly again last summer. My commute is so short that it makes no sense to cut people off or exhibit other hazardous behavior, nor to get upset at other drivers doing so. In a traffic jam caused by the impediment of traffic flow I lose anywhere from 30 seconds to maybe 10 minutes at the very worst; big effin' deal. If the impatient bozos ahead of me screw up the flow and it's in my power, I try to drive so as to restore that flow for the drivers behind me. But I don't get angry. Sometimes I amuse myself by calling someone an idiot for not following through on the basics (the use of turn signals, suddenly opening a driver's side door on a narrow street just as my car passes), but they don't hear me and my head-shaking never even comes close to road rage.

For some reason, though, supermarket checkout lines were a different story. I would often make all sorts of remarks to Robin (frustrating him to no end) about the nimrods ahead of us in the queue, flaunting one rule or other - too many items in a "10 or less" queue, not keeping control of kids, screwing up in their payment method, etc. Every little thing annoyed me like I owned the supermarket or something. Well, no longer. Henceforth I'm applying the same calm laissez-faire attitude I have on the road to checkout queues, whether in supermarkets or department stores or what-have-you. The fact that I almost got into a brawl with a very angry Irishman at the local Yup Emporium yesterday may or may not have everything to do with this newfound attitude (and besides which, karmic justice visited me instantly in the form of a geezer trying and failing repeatedly to squeeze past big ol' me in the narrow aisle getting us both pinned there about four times whilst completely ignoring my pleas to "just back up, then I'll back up and you can get through" before it finally sunk in). But that's entirely beside my point.

Which is that anger may give us a momentary rush but it also saps us of energy far better employed in more constructive endeavors. Is it better to feel an instant of satisfaction that you've "won" a meaningless confrontation that's forgotten in the next instant, or to feel a lasting satisfaction that you've actually accomplished something worthwhile (and/or made someone feel better rather than worse) with that rechanneled energy?

They Don't Call Him Mellow Yellow

Keith Olbermann's takedown of Christo's latest "art" project is well worth reading. Yeah yeah, Christo isn't doing anyone any harm - well, except for people who insist on calling any act of ridiculousness "art" (remember, if everything's "art" then nothing's art) - but can you imagine what he could accomplish if he used his powers for good instead of throwing all that money away?

Silly Site o' the Day

Okay, that's two Silly Sites in a row that Mark Evanier has enjoyed, so the pressure's on now. :) Hmm, how about the Scooby Doo ending for Hamlet, via fellow Shakespeare aficionado Lis Riba? It's an oldie (from a dozen years back) but a goodie...

Johnny Come Lately

A big virtual hug and welcome to long-time friend and comics writer extraordinaire John Ostrander, who has started his own blog called Off in the O-zone. (Thanks to Mark Evanier for the pointer!) I also notice that Tim Truman and Mike Gold have Malibulist blogs. Geez Glenn, how many does that make, and when do you ever sleep?

Silly Site o' the Day

Do you need a jacket today? Well, do ya, punk? Via Lis Riba.

Milestone Note

A very happy third blogiversary to Julia at Sisyphus Shrugged, who I'm thrilled to say has become an offline friend and constant inspiration as well!

Best Wishes to Randi

I haven't been able to listen to my radio goddess Randi Rhodes for a number of months, as I talk to Robin on the bluetooth during my afternoon drive in the darker months (I'm not fond of being alone in a car at night), but I knew she was due for the same type of abdominal surgery I had myself five years ago. Her date is now set for this coming Monday, and even though she doesn't know me from a hole in the ground I just wanted to wish her a speedy recovery. Check out the guide to her guest hosts during her recuperation period. If Mark and Marc are doing Friday I think I may have the radio on in the car instead of the phone after all...

More Sadness

My deepest condolences to Eva Whitley on the loss of her husband Jack. (Update: Funeral arrangements and donation information here.)

Redefining "Found in Nature"

Via Simbaud, King of Zembla, homophobia in the human species has reached a new low, with a German zoo trying to "cure" three perfectly normal gay penguin couples using aversion therapy. After being mystified as to why there were no chicks, they realized it was because, um, no chicks were involved. We're leaving behavioral therapy (that doesn't even work on humans) up to these clueless ones? All in the name of desperately trying to deny that sexual diversity in the animal kingdom is natural and plentiful. Because from there it's a short step to admitting that, creation myths aside, humans are also members of the animal kingdom.

Death of a Champion

RIP Arthur Miller.

Hans the Wanker

Just when you're being forced to re-evaluate Popeye the Sailor, along comes another biography of Hans Christian Andersen which discusses, among other things, his "ardent" masturbation, obsessive compulsive disorders, and how homosexual tendencies made it into his fairy tales. (My goodness, in retrospect it seems perfect that Danny Kaye played him in a movie...) Via Michael Schaub at Bookslut, slowly destroying all my remaining illusions...

Koufax - The Last Round

I didn't make it into any of the finals, but I didn't think I would. I'm just glad people thought of me at all for the first round. Anyway, the 2004 Koufax Award finalists have been posted and final voting is now open. What a wonderful embarrassment of riches. Have at it!

Valentine's Day - A Feminist An Elayne-ist Analysis

[This is in response to MediaGirl's first annual Feminist Valentine Blog Awards contest. Thanks for the pointer, Trish!]

I've always liked Valentine's Day. When I was in elementary school, as I recall, it was mandatory for all kids to make out Valentine cards to all the other kids in their class so nobody got left out, and it was cool for this crybaby outcast to be included for a change.

Plus, Daddy always bought me this large heart-shaped box of candy every year and I'd use the empty boxes to store stuff (very often Valentine cards). It helped a lot during those lonely, angsty, hormone-ridden teenage days when I never thought I'd ever find someone to love, and I hated all the other couples my age every Valentine's Day. And when I'd come back from college for the occasional weekend around that time of year, Dad would have a choccie box waiting for me. This tradition continued till Mom and Dad decided to "snowbird" and spend their winters in Vegas, but as I recall Dad still brings back a choccie box now and again. Granted, the stuff is probably a bit more edible prior to May, but you know it's the thought that counts. And now Robin gets me choccie boxes (or Godiva during more prosperous years). Chocolate is lovely for the old endorphins, and the fat content of this most comfortable of comfort foods (yes, I am planning to watch many of these shows, why do you ask?) is particularly welcome during the cold weather.

The thing I don't like about VD (as we used to sniggeringly refer to it) is how it's marketed in the mass media. Oh, sometimes it's okay even if a bit manipulative (I wussed at an Emeril rerun featuring two couples getting engaged right then and there, even if it was the guy proposing to the girl in each case), but mostly a Valentine's Day celebration is commercialized as something a man does to a woman, rather than something a man and woman do together. I'm a hopeless romantic (yes, both male and female feminists are allowed to be romantics), and to me something that involves just one half of a couple and isn't reciprocated doesn't count as romance. This is doubtless a longwinded way of saying "screw you, DeBeers," but you probably knew that.

So the thing I like best about VD is that it's like the "Christmas season" - i.e., romance and affection are not things to celebrate only during a certain time of the year. I count myself very fortunate that, with Robin, just about every day is Valentine's Day. Being loved unconditionally, and being willing to love someone else unconditionally, is one of the greatest things we can do as human beings, and speaks to our potential as higher beings to someday evolve and leave hatred and war and such behind us.

BHM Post of the Day

Jessica at Feministing reports on recent statistics regarding AIDS and women of color.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Xeni at BoingBoing, and in celebration of Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum), it's a unique way to clean your computer screen from the inside.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

This week we celebrate the helpfulness of kitties! Datsa, for instance, finds this printer very cozy:

And Amy enjoys helping Robin work:

Life without kitties - easier perhaps, but a darn sight less interesting...

Milestone Note

Wayne at PSoTD reminds us that yesterday was the 28th celebration of National Girls & Women in Sports Day, as well as this year being the 30th anniversary of issuance of the Title IX federal regulations, just a wee bit too late to be of any benefit to me in high school or I mighta been a contendah (although, admittedly, I was all hit and no field)...

BHM Post of the Day

Mark Evanier mentions long-time Disney animation employee Floyd Norman and recommends Norman's column at Jim Hill Media that talks about his experiences with Song of the South and black audience's actual reactions to it.

Silly Site o' the Day

As long as I'm awash in a wave of nostalgia for my youth, I note that Spike & Mike have taken their sick and twisted animations online. If memory serves me right, I first saw Beavis & Butthead at one of the S&M Sick and Twisted animation fests that used to play at the Thalia Theatre in NYC, back before VCRs and such. (Yes, I'm old enough to have achieved majority before ATMs, VCRs, CDs and a whole bunch of other acronyms.) This is the place to go for the latest Happy Tree Friends snippet, Kevin Kalliher's Home Honey, I'm High (via Hanan Levin) and lots of other weird and fun stuff.

Blast from the Past

This is one reason why I've never had much desire to look up old high school and college friends, Bill Marcinko excepted. When Jill passed along this article I'm sure she never envisaged someone reading it going, over and over, "hey wait, I used to know this woman!" Now if only I could remember specifically from where I knew her...

Update #1: Robin displays his superior reading comprehension by opining it's doubtless from my Uncle Floyd fandom days, out of which grew INSIDE JOKE, as Dawn and I still share an affinity for much of the same comedy even though we seem to be at opposite ends politically. So, as Steve opines in the comments, she probably did show up at one of our IJ parties...

Update #2 (2/10): Dawn e-mails back briefly to also confirm that INSIDE JOKE was the first place she was ever published, at the tender age of 13... it'll be interesting to see if we can pick up our friendship from such opposite ends of the political spectrum, so stay tuned!

Popeye the Stoner Man

Thanks to Heidi MacDonald for passing along this fascinating bit of speculation on the true meaning of Popeye's spinach. I would never be so crass as to remark "so that explains why he found Olive Oyl so attractive," as that would be very wrong.

On Shooting the Messenger

As many bloggers will readily admit, we can be a rather insular bunch - a bit of an echo chamber, if you will, although I would imagine no less so than any other loose confederacy of folks engaged in the same basic interests or functions (like journalists or comic book readers or whatever). We often believe that everything going on in the world outside our particular sphere of activity revolves around said activity, rather than the other way around. Now, it's true that political blogs and real-life politics sometimes converge, but it always helps to retain some perspective on things.

For instance, when I got up this morning I had no idea who Eason Jordan was or what he did that had the blogosphere abuzz. Then I find out he heads up CNN's news division and made some remarks at a World Economic Forum panel last week which were clarified pretty much right away but still apparently served as fodder for a whole bunch of right-wing bloggers who, from all accounts (I don't read any right-wing blogs; I barely have time to keep up with all the writers I like and admire!), have their panties in a bunch out of a sense of guilty conscience. After all, as Jeanne from Body & Soul illustrates so well, there has been a consistent pattern of journalists being targeted for harrassment or even death when they don't report what the targeters want them to report. It happens on all sides; just today, Abdul-Hussein Khaz (correspondent for the U.S.-funded television station Al-Hurra) and his 3-year-old son were shot dead by unknown gunmen in Basra. But it's like these guys are figuratively shooting the messenger over perceived accusations of literally shooting the messenger! Or, as Jeanne puts it much more eloquently,

You don't have to buy any theories about the military deliberately targetting journalists to recognize that there's been a clear pattern throughout this war of indifference to the deaths of reporters, mixed in with a good deal of harrassment. In a truly democratic country, with any interest in freedom of the press, that would call for investigations and a serious look at what could be done to make sure reporters aren't killed by soldiers who are stressed or who haven't been given information they need. In the country we live in, it invites the vultures to circle around our moribund press.

The other insular story making the rounds has to do with a fake journalist for a fake news service being given unprecedented access to the White House (under a fake press pass name!) for the apparent purpose of lobbing softball questions at the President and Press Secretary, until the left blogosphere did a little digging to uncover his lack of credentials and his hypocrisy (not to mention that he's one of the people under investigation in the Plame treason case) and, thus discovered, he runs sobbing homeward and the rightie bloggers once again engage in shooting the messenger (in this case, the amateur sleuths) instead of discussing how this happened in the first place and how it can be prevented from recurring.

Not for nothing does Barbara at Mahablog call this the Alternate Universe, asking, "Which story, do you think, will most likely break through to dead-tree and network/cable media?" Good question - they're both about the media, and the media loves self-proctology as much as the blogosphere does. We are, after all, sort of a microcosm of what's out there in TV and newspaper land. But I'm not sure they'll be able to fit either story in, what with waiting breathlessly for the latest development in the Michael Jackson saga...

BHM Post of the Day

Pam's House Blend has the lowdown on Maya Keyes' father (former Presidential wingnut candidate Alan Keyes) throwing her out of the house because she's gay. Here's a good overview of the situation from the Progressive Blog Alliance.

Silly Site o' the Day

Gung Hey Fat Choy!

Welcome to another Year of the Rooster, to which I tend to be partial because I was born in the Year of the Rooster. You really don't want to shoot the rooster, do you? I mean, that would be so wrong...

Neil Before This

A very happy fourth blogiversary to my greatest blogging inspiration, Neil Gaiman!

After Hours

Well, I can't go home yet but at least my boss is in a good mood. We just traded websites of interest - he told me about the Washington Post's annual neologism contest, and I told him about Ellen MacArthur... Ah, I can go home now, yay!

Lean Tuesday?

Apparently Mardi Gras crowds are relatively sparse in New Orleans so far. I'm sure it'll pick up by evening. Things look to be well underway in Mobile. Here's a good Mardi Gras FAQ.

BHM Post of the Day

Again, I'm not sure whether I'll be able to keep up the pace of at least one Black History Month post every day in February, particularly now that I'll be preoccupied with job stuff and may fall behind again in my blog reading and other leisure activities. But at least I have one for today: Diane Warth on how our country has regressed in yet another way since the radical right took over, as more than a third of the progress made in the 1990s in reducing poverty among African-American families has been erased.

Silly Sites o' the Day

Posting may be pretty light today and tomorrow. I have no idea why my boss' return puts me in mind of George W. Bush, Episode II (via Hanan Levin) or Fear and Loathing in Mos Eisley (also via Hanan), but for some reason I can't get the Darth Vader theme out of my head this morning...

BHM Post of the Day

Two good ones from Natalie Davis, a lovely eulogy for Ossie Davis (no relation, I'm presuming) and a nice commemoration on the anniversary of Bob Marley's birth.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, after a very productive weekend it's back to reality. Speaking of which, via Aine at Silent Lucidity comes news of a new sect in the making, the Church of Reality - "if it's real, we believe in it!"

And The Winner Is...

...the FedEx/Kinko's meta-ad, hands down. What? There was a football game too?

Going to Pot

The pot rack is up and stocked; thanks, Robin!

Yes, that is a Beatles tray in the background at the far left of the picture, and yes, I actually use it as a tray, so sue me.

BHM Posts of the Day

Two good ones from Jesse Taylor at Pandagon about Republicans playing the race card in favor of conservative wingnut judges and The Conservative Message to Black Americans.

Silly Site o' the Day

Hell with football, are you ready for some trebuchet? Via Augie DeBlieck.

More Shelving

Now that we're done filing all our comics in the third bedroom/library, it's time to start work on Robin's studio (what would have been the dinette/breakfast nook) and the kitchen, so today the three of us - me, Robin, and my nasty cold - visited Ikea in Paramus (about half an hour away from us at the most - I couldn't believe how close it was!) to get a storage system for the former and a wall-mounted pot rack for the latter. I was pretty proud of myself that I kept the impulse purchases to a minimum (a few pot holders, a grater, cheap flatware, and if there had been a cashier at the Swede Shop I would have grabbed some lingonberry preserves), but my head was a bit too stuffed up to think straight. Stopped at Fuddrucker's for lunch on the way back (note to self: next time ask for medium on the ostrich burger, not well done) and then caught a kip whilst Robin put together our newest piece of furniture:

He's already filled a few of the shelves with original art, for which this unit works perfectly. (Oh, and speaking of original art, a big thank-you to Budgie for mentioning that Rob's going to be doing a piece for his online novel You'll Never Believe A Man Can Fly!) He's been scanning all the art in preparation to update his for-sale page, and it'll be nice to finally have it all out of FedEx boxes and easily accessible for shipping purposes. Tomorrow we visit Home Depot to pick up some screws and such (word to the wise, Ikea stuff only comes with the screws needed to put the stuff together, not to affix it to walls) and stock up for the big adfest.

BHM Post of the Day

Well, an e-mail rather than a post, but I did want to mention that Rich Watson is now producing a monthly e-mail newsletter for the black comics community (and anyone else who's interested, like me) called The Glyph. Rich is a very entertaining comics columnist, and the newsletter is well worth subscribing to, but I wish it were archived somewhere on the web...

Silly Site o' the Day

Have some Wacky Warning Labels, courtesy of Simbaud, King of Zembla!

When Pay and Egos Collide...

"...executive assistants stand to gain." Yeah? Where can I get me one of them jobs? Listen up Wall Street and Tyco and Mr. Epstein and all the rest of you - I have 25+ years working as an executive assistant. I'm damn good at it. I absolutely deserve a six-figure salary, which I don't begrudge any of these other EAs - after all, they probably know where the bodies are buried, so to speak. Have I mentioned I'm good at keeping confidences? Sayeth the article, "Recruiters say the average salary, not including bonus, for assistants outside of Wall Street ranges from $60,000 to $100,000 a year." I wish! Obviously I'll have to step up my job-hunting come spring, I could sure use $60-100K!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Amy perches on the back of the recliner, as usual (yes, that's part of Robin's head to her left):

Whereas Datsa likes to spread himself out across the living room carpet, like the meatloaf that he is:

Hmm, looks like it's time to vacuum...

Ossie Davis RIP

Damn.

BHM Post of the Day

From a few days back, actually - C.M. Rabb at Afro-Netizen passes along an article from the NY Times about black migration to the US, also the subject of the Schomburg Center's newest research project.

Silly Site o' the Day

Icky slushy stuff earlier this morning. Slippery to walk on, so Robin helped me down the stairs and brushed off the car for me. Yay Robin! Already clearing up, and the next few days at least should reach the mid-40's, so we're looking at some major meltage. Now if I could only get rid of this cold. I've gotten back on the stationery bike, though, so that's a good thing. I wish I had a living space big enough (or that I were rich enough) for the Game Bike. Via Dori at Backup Brain.

Firesigniana

One of the great things about getting through my blog reading and my e-mail in-boxes is that I can remember to post timely messages. As many readers know, Thursdays are Firesign Chat nights, held from 9 PM Eastern until everyone calls it an evening. Tonight's chat should be pretty good, as the 4or5 are currently in the middle of their Big Broadcast of 2005 tour on the left coast. And tomorrow, starting at 11 PM Eastern time, you can tune into their live performance at the Marin Center in San Rafael, CA via Radio Margaritaville, which is also selling tickets for the event. More news to come, no doubt, in tonight's chat!

Update 2/4: Chat was a lot of fun, and we're doing it again tonight whilst listening to the San Rafael show. Also, Rudy Rucker reports on last night's show.

BHM Post of the Day

I'm currently all caught up on my blog reading (or as I like to joke with Robin, "I've finished the Internet!"), save for a few posts I've retained to pass along. Two of those belong to Steve Gilliard, who writes about race so astutely (particularly when calling out black members of the Bush administration who've pretty much turned their backs on their roots) that he's often accused of being a racist by people who are, well, racists (or, at the very least, ignorant). Earlier this week he wrote about the Eyes on the Prize copyright battle and reproed an article from six years back about how some Southerners are trying to rewrite Confederate history.

Simon Says

I suppose I should say something here about last night's installment of 60 Minutes II (where correspondent Bob Simon talked to and about Stan Lee), as both Mark Evanier and Franklin Harris had very nice things to say about my comment in response to Heidi MacDonald's review of the segment, wherein I noted that the thing everyone seemed to be missing is that this segment wasn't really about Stan Lee at all. It was about Bob Simon blowing his own horn, implying he was the impetus for Lee to dispute his contract. That's what all the "two years ago" footage was about. It was just filler so Simon could show himself off and puff himself up. I guess I've watched so many Daily Show segments that I thought that was obvious - Jon Stewart's crew are all experts at puncturing the media's sense of self-importance. It's almost like, the more irrelevant these so-called reporters and correspondents become to actual news (and the stenographers-to-power phenomenon has only escalated the deeper they find themselves in the Bush Administration's pocket), the more they have to convince themselves of their own essential role. I think this is the reason a lot of pundits try to dismiss The Daily Show as some sort of bad influence on young people, or even accuse the show itself of being dismissive of reality rather than satirical of same - they have a hard time accepting blame for their own part in contributing to the absurdity of current public discourse, and they've long since learned to ignore any pangs of guilty conscience in favor of filthy lucre. Bob Simon may have scored his one good beside-the-point last night by observing that Stan Lee was far from poverty-stricken before the contract dispute arose, but one wonders how much Simon's raking in to recycle his own puffery and proudly display his ignorance of his subject matter.