Elayne Riggs' Journal (for Leah)

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Blogaround Placeholder

Now that my long-ass MoCCA con report is done, I'm not only blogging stuff I've liked from the past week, but also stuff I want to blog on ComicMix so I'll remember:

• Mark Evanier has some interesting thoughts on how and why some people have responded as they have in presidential popularity polls.

• Lisa at Sequentially Speaking wants to implement a gameplan for the new P.O.W.E.R. in Comics Forum. On Independence Day members are invited to create "a list of recommended independent comics/graphic novels we like, created by women and minorites. These should be comics/graphic novels that are still in print and readily available. We would then take the list and publish it on our blogs, send it to our local newspapers and some of the internet news sites, give it to local comic book and book stores and libraries and suggest that they dedicate an endcap or display to these great independent comics and comic creators for the week of Independence Day." I still want to Blog Against Theocracy in my Independence Day ComicMix column, but I'm tempted to do this as well.

• Speaking of Independence Day, Karen McLaughlan informs us the annual hot dog eating contest won't be the same this year, as champ Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi has suffered a severe jaw injury "due to his rigorous training." You can't make this stuff up.

• Hey, check it out, Val D'Orazio says the new Mother Jones will have an article on women's activism vis a vis the Big Two comics companies! Not online yet but I may just grab it on a Manhattan newsstand for this one. I haven't subscribed to Mother Jones in at least a decade.

• Over at Hobotopia, Ape Lad has upped the ante regarding the ancient origins of LOLCats. I love LOLCats, they get me through my day.

• Tom Russell at Monitor Duty pens a really sweet ode to Big Ethel from the Archie comics, who he says has sadly undergone a personality-ectomy in recent years.

• I've finally added Kate Harding to my sidebar, as she comes up with another couple of great posts -- an open letter to NAAFA about their website which is very much the kind of thing I'd like to say to Friends of Lulu about the WDC site I used to maintain, and a look at health care which hits very close to home for me.

• Yes Susie, I have a problem with logging in to comment on your blog. I can even log into my own WordPress blog, which I don't even use, but I've tried about six different ways to log into yours for commenting and WordPress is not accepting any of my login names or passwords. Thanks for the item about aspartame, by the way. I don't touch the stuff, myself. I love this quote from you: "Personally, I don't eat things made from petroleum byproducts if I can avoid it. And I'd like to point out here that a teaspoon of sugar has only 15 calories…"

• Juan Cole notes how many people are deliberately mistranslating Mahmud Ahmadinejad to further their own agendas. I don't have much use for Ahmadinejad, but he did not say anything about wiping Israel off the face of the earth -- "He quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for 'this occupation regime over Jerusalem' to 'vanish from the page of time'," and that's very different. I had no love for Khomeini either, but I admit I am also in favor of the occupation vanishing.

• Lastly, Kevin Drum is confused by the post office having different rates for letters and flats. As my office's mailroom, I was also surprised when I printed out the new Pitney Bowes rate chart (PDF) in prep for updating the postage machine, until I realized the old rate chart had the same separation of letters and flats, and I'd probably been getting away with sending flats at letter-rate for a couple years. I think it actually works out cheaper for offices like mine that send a lot of flats, since the additional-ounce rates have been reduced.

And with that, it's time to get caught up on blog reading (and work!) again...

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