Antidisingenuousmentarianism

1) AJC smacks UGA for being as secretive as the state, specifically wrt Chitty. Steve Kassay doesn't care as much about the secrecy, more about the inequality.

2) More federal cuts in education, this time vocational.

3) ABH covers how people are feeling about the "quality of life" ordinances. We learn, for example, that though the commission wants Solicitor General Ralph Powell to get tougher with convictions that he's convicted 85 percent of those in ordinance cases.

Powell and Simpson require too much proof to convict ordinance violators, the CPD report said, which led to reports of a closed-session discussion among commissioners about not reappointing Simpson, whose two-year term expires March 31.

It's not like there's a law to go by or anything. Obviously, most of the examples given are relatively reasonable, but requiring proof of the violation of an ordinance is not an unreasonable thing. Oy, and my commissioner himself cites Rudy Giuliani as the example we should be following. Athens is not New York City, and while we have a crackhouse here and there, telling them they can't keep a pile of tires in their front yard is not gonna do much to shut them down. Allison Floyd sums it up in a shorter article.

4) How the office of lieutenant governor has been minimized and could be un-minimized and also how the party switchers, Republicans, and Taylor himself are all big jerks.

5) Hot Dog Man crushed at last (unless the Supreme Court takes up his case). Also, "other street vendors have snatched up all of the Hot Dog Man's former locations." Awww...

6) "No cruising" signs are up, as noted in general around Athens blogworld. But, as also noted, they don't specify what "cruising" is or when it's prohibited.

Lumpkin and other police officials did not respond to a call seeking comment Friday. Lt. Gary Epps of the downtown precinct said he did not know when police would begin enforcing the ordinance.

R&B mentions some of these issues.

7) ABH examines two majors the HOPE cap will affect strongly. "Landscape architecture is a licensed profession, Crowley said, and students must learn certain things to earn a degree." Learn things? In college? His royal Kempness says?

State Sen. Brian Kemp, R-Athens, said Friday he has not fully examined the bill, but he has some concerns about its implications.

"I'm going to be looking into it very closely," he said.

8) General Assembly stuff: Redistricting map getting closer. Budget moving also. House and Senate fight like old times (no one is Burger King).

9) ABH opinion about SB 270 notes the weirdness of the gubernatorial insertion.

10) Budget still not big. Dems would like some of austerity cuts restored.

This week, the Democrats announced their own budget initiative, accelerating the state-employee pay raise three months. They even showed how they would pay for it. It's simple. The Democrats propose taking money from many of Perdue's own initiatives.

Since minority-party proposals aren't likely to prevail anyway, they didn't have to be constrained by prudence, but Democrats are still in the habit of practicality from the decades when their ideas really did have to be realistic. Still, that's not much red meat to toss to the employee union.

And what employee union is that?

11) Jim responds to some of the flak he got for saying Oconee County is a place where education is valued (by citing SAT scores and average incomes and home values). The flak wasn't entirely justified, but neither was he in the first place. If he wrote, "rich people value education more" (which is what it boils down to), he should've received comparable crap. It's the "value" bit that's the trouble because it suggests that the poor don't care about education, as opposed to merely stating that the rich have more means to support it.

12) This is interesting. Letter writer mentions that Kidd and Heard both voted in favor of HB 218.

13) R&B explains what various fees go toward, solicits opinions from students on the fee raise (Willie's making a good case for it).

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

If you want one recap and one recap only of the Academy Awards, Mr. Sun's is your one. Note that it was, of course, liveblogged, which makes it more impressive. It also contains much lusting, but no boobie jokes about "million-dollar babies" (which were heard in the household of Team Brown, courtesy of the male half of that organization). Howevs, "gay-viator" is used. Props.

Via tremendous brain-box Matt Bucher, who also pointed out, in a bit of correspondence that featured me questioning who would be the recipients of the other nine in the pak, that the proper thing to do would be to wear all ten oneself. Indeed.

Second-best (or maybe best best) episode* of Alias so far? Marshall gets to be the hero. And gets a little sugar. The reveal of what he's really programmed? So best! Thank you, Gardner Linn, for being the sponsor of this moment of awesomeness (and others sure to come, no doubt), even if you are also facilitating the stealing away of Mr. Brown's heart by Lena Olin (which I will allow, because of her amazing hotness).

*two-parter, really

1) Driver 23/The Atlas Moth: Neither of these seems to have an IMDB entry, a rarity indeed. Grabbed on a whim to fill out the five at Vision Video and happily worth the rental. Described on the box as a real-life Spinal Tap, which is relatively accurate, but I see that the Amazon page also compares it to King of Comedy, which is something that kept popping up in my mind while watching. Both flicks are sort of excruciating to watch, in the way that failure tends to be, but I'm not sure whether you end up thinking the guy should be making music or not. Is it inspiring or is it pathetic, or is it somehow both? Whatever it is, it is quite the study of a personality and definitely worth the time to watch.

2) Crimson Gold: Damn. I was hoping I'd like this better, especially after my mom's raved about it for at least half a year. It's just too slow for me, but the picture of contemporary Iran is interesting, and there is something captured about income disparities and yearning. Is this how the whole country feels, flush with youth and cash but trapped at the same time? I wish I were more patient, or I wish that the movie had more to it, but I liked it more when I wasn't actually watching it.

3) Shivers: This is my Cronenberg. You can have your Naked Lunch and your Videodrome, just leave me this director. I prefer Rabid slightly, as far as your reimaginings of zombie movies with a sexual twist go, because I think it's got a bit more to it and because I'd seen some of the best clips of Shivers, but there are good bits and it's got that wicked streak of humor running through it (e.g., the vomiting of one creature off a balcony and on to an old lady's clear plastic umbrella). It just trails off a little at the end.

Awww. Really, it's great being a bridesmaid. You get to drink more at the party and make passes at the waiters. Plus, total pity sex.

1) Proposal to upgrade Tate Center, but will cost students $25 per semester, for the next 29 and a half years.

University President Michael Adams said through University Spokesman Tom Jackson that he thought the proposal would benefit the University.

"I believe the long-term benefits to the students will outweigh the nominal cost involved," he said. "I believe this plan will significantly enhance the student experience at UGA, and I'm in favor of it."

i.e., It ain't comin' out of my pocket, bitches. I'm guessing there's no way this passes. That's good beer money there. Referendum set.

2) Foundation looking for a director; article mostly focuses on salary concerns.

The new director will replace Allan Barber, a retired UGA finance director who has overseen the foundation since August 2003, when board members ousted Tom Landrum, Adams' executive assistant.

Foundation members, who were at odds with Adams over the use of foundation money, said then that they wanted a director who was not employed by the university.

Barber, who is paid an annual salary of $96,000, is the foundation's lone full-time employee. In the early 1990s, the group opted to do away with its own staff and use university employees.

In other words, what they want is a director they can pay anything they want and a bunch of serfs making way below market wage.

3) Kemp is among the sponsors of SB270, which theoretically requires private developers negotiating projects with the state to provide more information. Oh, except "Private companies still would be allowed to exempt certain proprietary information from the summary so that other companies wouldn't be able to steal 'trade secrets.'" What can't be qualified as a "trade secret"? Because it seems to me that's one giant-ass loophole, and the bill as a whole is designed to look like it does something without actually doing anything (except that it also gives Perdue more power). Kemp also thinks people wouldn't have opposed the 316 project so much if they'd, like, known where the ramps were going to be or something. (And speaking of 316, Sid Feldman has some ideas.)

4) SEC forms academic consortium for library sharing, appearances.

5) Jaws of Life used for really mild incident.

6) State senate approves smoking ban 44 to 7.

The bill initially extended non-smoking areas to 25 feet of a main entrance unless that distance hit a public road or someone else's property.

State Sen. Brian Kemp, R-Athens, said he supported the bill but wanted to get rid of the 25-foot rule because he was worried about how it would be enforced and whether the public would understand where they could stand and smoke.

"The concern that I heard from constituents back in Athens is downtown, where we have a lot of restaurants and bars, the whole downtown is wrapped up in public sidewalks," said Kemp, who amended the bill to drop the distance requirement. "If they move 2 or 3 feet away (from one business in) downtown they start moving within 25 feet of another establishment. I think it's too confusing for the public."

How about rather than "the public is stupid," you say something like "the 25-foot rule is stupid," dude?

7) ABH promotes mega battle of the bands thing at another Morris paper.

8) ABH editorial opposes the proposed random drug testing of students in Commerce schools.

9) Also, new redistricting proposal is better for ACC in that it doesn't chop it in half. JMac's talking about such.

10) Ishues is so awesome he picks his own album for "On the Record."

11) Task Force on Student Learning & General Education gets to show how out of touch it is.

Other recommendations include increasing faculty mentoring programs and extending the Ramsey Center's Monday-Friday closing time from 11 p.m. to midnight to provide, according to a draft presented at the meeting, "a late-night alternative to going downtown for students."

I mean, binge drinking only takes place from 11 to midnight, y'all. At the stroke of twelve, you turn into a pumpkin.

12) R&B provides instruction on how to make use of the freedom of information act and discusses attempts to short-circuit it.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

An Evening with Jon Heder (only an evening?), Mon., March 7, 7:30 p.m., Tate Center; free for students; $2 nonstudents. Suh-weet.

Also, Day of Soul this year? T.I. Props to the Union. That is definitely a coup and a timely one. Fri., April 8, 7 p.m., Legion Field, $10/$15 in advance, $15/20 at door.

Finished The Fortress of Solitude after quite a bit of time reading it in bits in between class stuff and so on and feel iffy about it. That is, I think it's good and that it accomplishes what it wants to accomplish, but I'm not crazy about the actual writing. It's much purpler than Lethem's usual prose, and while I don't mind purple per se (hello, I like James), it just seems overwritten at times. I would have thought I'd like it more, considering that I like both Motherless Brooklyn and As She Climbed Across the Table pretty well. I suppose my final take on it is that it might be trying too hard to be a great American novel, an encapsulation of a place, that he's trying to compete with Wallace and that in that particular American Gladiators of writing battle it is hard to knock the big dog off his mushroom thing. He is not the writer Wallace is, and that might be one reason it doesn't really do it for me.

1) Peter Schjehldahl's review of The Gates. That motherfucker can write.

2) But don't bother with Packer's piece on democracy in Iraq. Short version: purple fingers = good. Iran = big, scary boogeyman. Sigh.

You must watch until the end of "Girlfight," the new Lil' Jon/Brooke Valentine/Big Boi joint, because the end is particularly awesome. I don't think this is up to the level of Jon's best stuff (or even "Okay"), but for being about girls fighting serious-style, it is so cute. Also, which are smaller, Brooke's shorts or Brooke's panties? Because that is a fight of comparable closeness.

Here is part of the text of a New Yorker ad for They Might Be Giants's new album, Here Come the ABC's:

A is for original. B is for instant classic.

If you think those statements are true, you might actually need the CD.

1) Garden State: For the record, let me state that I was fully prepared to dislike this movie based on its twee soundtrack and popularity among the indie kids. And it still won me over. It is a bit reliant on manufactured drama of the sort McKee teaches you (rise, fall, development; that sort of thing), and there are exchanges of dialogue that are scripty as fuck, but it is funny and cute and warm. It is good visually. It is a nice little first film. And, of course, Zach Braff is adorable like a button, with those soft eyes and that fabulous honker. It's kind of like David Gordon Green but more reliant on the funny, and I like the funny. The end is admittedly dumb, being an example of that "this is only in here to increase drama" thing, but I believe the love story and, hey, I liked it. (Ooh, but must note irritation at beginning wrt the "we don't have bread; we're a Vietnamese restaurant" thing. Arg! A Vietnamese restaurant is the only type of Asian restaurant where they would pretty much be guaranteed to have bread, considering the long French occupation.)

2) Lakeboat: If I had to break this down to its simplest level, I would say this movie is about dudes shooting the shit, and that is something Mamet is great at writing; even though it's done in the most artificial way, it ends up feeling naturalistic, which is weird and cool. Mantegna directs well, too. Good character acting all around. I am especially a fan of Jack Wallace, who I have a strong feeling is just the William H. Macy-bot sent from the future to accomplish a goal we know nothing of as yet. Also, the boat is filmed very lovingly.

3) To Be & To Have: Fucking awesome. This is what documentary filmmaking is sometimes and should be the rest of the time. It touched my heart, damn it, and it did so in the quietest, gentlest, most ordinary way. It makes one want to be a teacher (even if one doesn't) and have tons of kids and live in France in the countryside, and I don't want to do any of those things. Monsieur Lopez = best teacher ever. And children are a crack-up. One of my favorite things is the recurrence of shots of cows being guided around by the farmers in the area (whose children attend the school); I think they're intended to draw a small connection between the correct management of livestock and the socialization/training process that is one function of school, but not in a "you're all robots" way. More in a sweet, warm, be good to your animals way.

EDNA K. MORRIS, the former president of the Red Lobster restaurant chain, has been named interim executive director of the James Beard Foundation.

So, uh, not going for being taken seriously then? [bugmenot]

Off tomorrow, y'all. Have actual stuff that needs to be done, sans distractions.

The problem with this meme is that if you've actually done stuff, it doesn't work. I'm really trying to think of 10 things, but it's difficult.

1) I've never had a driver's license (though I have had a learner's permit).
2) I've never had a roommate (post-high school).
3) I've never eaten a Twinkie.
4) I've never been more than a few miles outside the U.S. (I've been to Niagara Falls, Canada, and that's it).
5) I've never colored my hair.
6) I've never been to either a pro football or a pro basketball game.
7) I've never been broken up with (erm, knock wood).
8) I've never been to a strip club.
9) I've never fired a gun.
10) I've never really learned to whistle (but I have been practicing).

The Style edition of the NYT Mag adds a couple more.

9) Sexy underpants and snug tops now come with a graduate degree. The photographer Justine Harari . . . and the film director Jessica Sofia Mitrani . . . have introduced Six Inch Heel, the next brand to join the small category of smart, self-conscious underclothes, which includes Agent Provocateur and VPL. Six Inch is the most bookish of the lot. A T-shirt that reads, ''I am in training don't kiss me'' was inspired by the cross-dressing writer and Surrealist artist Claude Cahun. Another is printed with a passage derived from ''The Vagabond,'' by Colette, proclaiming, ''The only thing that stops me from crying is the mascara on my eyelashes.'' (in "Smarty Panties" by Mark Jacobs, 02/20/05; this is pretty much the entire content of the piece)

10) Of all her pieces, which have names like Kept Woman and the Heiress, Lane's best-seller is her cashmere jersey panties, which she was prompted to design after reading that Coco Chanel was the first designer to use cashmere wool jersey for outerwear (it was considered suitable only for undergarments at the time). Cut from a knit that's made exclusively for her by Loro Piana, Lane's whisper-soft briefs, which range from $78 to $135, come in a thong, a boy short and what she calls ''the big-girl panty.'' ("The Plaisir Principle," by Nancy MacDonell Smith, 02/20/05)

[previously]

1) ABH calls out the foundation board on the misuse of public moneys to give Chitty her raise, cutting through all this nonsense about "technically not a UGA employee" and the like. R&B does some good reporting in uncovering that the university does contribute funds that go to Chitty's salary.

2) State house votes in favor of capping HOPE hours, but only by three votes. And check this out:

The bill was supported by several college presidents. University System Chancellor Tom Meredith wrote lawmakers a letter in favor of it.

"A small number of students may have to pay for between one and 21 hours themselves, depending upon their degree program, but they have years to plan for that modest expenditure," Meredith wrote.

And check this too, from the AJC story:

Rep. Amos Amerson (R-Dahlonega), who taught at North Georgia College & State University, said some students take advantage of HOPE by taking extra courses or switching degree programs. "Students in college are not dumb," he said. "They know how to work the system."

Work the system to get what? An education? A modest check for books once a semester? It hardly seems worth it. Head of School of Environmental Design speaks out against it. SGA leadership sent a letter. R&B editorial suggests a compromise: maybe those majors requiring more than 127 hours for an undergrad degree should revise their requirements.

3) Strong alcohol-control laws lead to less binge-drinking, apparently, and Georgia is fourth lowest in the nation in college binge-drinking. So why the parental notification law again?

4) Fellow Republicans don't like Smith's 316 proposal, partially because it might involve not tax raises per se, but something that could be characterized as such:

Since improvements to Ga. 316 would increase property values along the corridor, Smith advocates a program that would require local governments to dedicate that extra property tax revenue to pay for the improvements.

Kemp is iffy about it. As frigging usual.

5) Someone writes in to defend Marilou, trash Yoculan.

6) Brief overview of proposed tree ordinance. "Even a majority of environmental activists polled by Landscape Management believe a landowner should have the right to cut down his own tree, she said. Athenians love trees, she said, and most will protect them on their own."

7) Shipp runs down Perdue administration's secrecy measures. Thurbert Baker guests and points out that government and business are two different things.

8) Moore's Ford Memorial Committee is going to keep pushing the issue of greater diversity among instructors in Oconee County. Not that they don't have a point, but I'm not sure anyone's going to grant it.

9) The one student who attended and spoke at the textbook prices forum has an editorial on the subject, but thinks, "The reason we have unnecessarily high textbook costs is because nobody in the textbook market communicates with any other party." Not because it's a successfully exploited captive market for profit by the textbook publishers? (Here's Russell McClendon's comment on the issue.)

10) Crap sushi is good for you. Also, locals, enjoy a hilarious review of DePalma's (service? terrible. food? terrible. grade? B-minus.)

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

From a friend of a friend. Photographer is apparently one Lori Epstein. Props, Lori.  

So, what's the matter with this one?

Theft: On Feb. 18, a resident of North Burson Avenue in Bogart reported someone stole $850 worth of stereo equipment from a 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass and they also removed $700 in wheels and tires from the vehicle.

Also, with a name like Donnie Ray, you know there'll be trouble:

Arrest: On Feb. 17, Deputy Jason Lowe was dispatched to the Circle C Mobile Home Park on Monroe Highway, where a person reported seeing a man in a Dodge Ram pickup driving reckless and spinning the tires. When Lowe arrived, he saw Donnie Ray Carroll sitting in the pickup. When Lowe asked him to get out of the vehicle, he said the man smelled of alcohol, had slurred speech and couldn't maintain his balance. Carroll, 52, of Monroe Highway was charged with DUI.

[Rest is here.]

This was waiting in the in-box:

Severe Weather Awareness Week Severe Weather Drill

The University of Georgia Police Department and the Environmental Safety Division want to inform the UGA community that Governor Sonny Perdue has proclaimed the week of February 20-26, 2005 as Severe Weather Awareness Week in Georgia. The annual Statewide Severe Weather Drill is scheduled for the morning of Wednesday, February 23. In the event of bad weather on February 23, the drill will be re-scheduled for February 25.

The National Weather Service will initiate the drill
sometime prior to 12:00 noon on February 23. When the drill
is initiated, Athens-Clarke County will activate the severe weather sirens and the University of Georgia Police Department will activate the campus Emergency Broadcast System. When you hear the activations, you should put your building severe weather emergency plan into action.

Each building of any type on the campus should have a plan, whether classroom building, auxiliary services, residence hall, or any other type of building. When you hear the warning, follow the directions of the persons in charge of the building where you are located. Actions upon hearing the warning may include moving to a safe location, activating phone trees, or other actions. (Please remember when going to a safe location to take your Emergency Broadcast System pager with you so that you may receive the all-clear signal. Each building should have at least one
pager.)

If your building does not have a severe weather emergency
plan and you would like to create one for next year, please contact the Environmental Safety Division at 542-5801. You may also contact the Environmental Safety Division if you have questions about your current plan after the drill.

If you have any problem with your Emergency Broadcast System pager during the drill, please contact the University of Georgia Police Department at 542-0097. If your department does not have an Emergency Broadcast System pager and you would like to have one assigned to your building, please contact the University of Georgia Police Department at 542- 0097.

Thank you in advance for your cooperation with the 2005
Severe Weather Awareness Emergency Drill.

Most especially amusing part highlighted.

Later: It appears to have been canceled, despite blue skies and birds singing. Perhaps more due to sheer uselessness.

The Village: Aw, people shouldn't have gotten so pissy about this. Sure, I'd agree its his weakest film yet, but then they all tend to get better and then also worse upon rewatching. I think it's mostly that the thrills aren't there as much this time around. And we love the thrills. Plus, Adrian Brody's retarded character, while decently played, is just a total license to overact. Miss Howard has a great deal of promise and has ramped up my excitement about Manderlay a bit more. So also, people seem to be really expecting the twist he's famous for always to be a major surprise, and it's not so much, but then, the atmosphere is big too. And it is neatly done. I'm not sure I can find a hole in the plot. And there are a few really well done scenes, esp between Howard and Phoenix (who has developed into something much more interesting and intense than his brother was or probably would have been). All this is to say: I did like it, but I also could have liked it more.

1) More on Miss Chitty's raise. AJC says staff are irked, immediately talks about faculty instead. Note to papers: faculty and staff are not the same thing. At all. Adams speaks:

"Ms. Chitty has done good work and she is an important member of the team here," Adams said in an e-mail. "Like Hank Huckaby, I abstained from voting principally because we were in a budget slump with minimal pay increases for UGA faculty and staff and I thought the timing was bad. I had these concerns then for the very reasons we are seeing today."

Also, I'm a giant pussy for not voting against it. You know what doesn't help the case of staff? Being lumped in with faculty.

University employees this year received a 2 percent salary increase effective in January, midway through the fiscal year. Staff and faculty received no salary increases the previous two years. The average annual salary of a full professor at UGA was $90,800 in the 2002-03 academic year, according to a survey by the American Association of University Professors.

ABH covers it too.

The board did not purposely hold the vote in private, said Mark Hodge, lead attorney for the Real Estate Foundation.

"It was no secret, it was absolutely an unintentional oversight," Hodge said.

And we should believe that why, when they've admitted it was a matter of concern that staff would be pissed?

2) R&B reports more extensively on the HOPE hours cap bill, talking to Jane Kidd, who admits that she voted to send it forward but has since changed her mind. "'I haven't really gotten a clear feeling about why they are trying to do this,' she said." Am I going to trash her for this? Nah. I appreciate her honesty. (And condolences on the death of her daddy, though obvs his record was mixed at best.)

3) State rep Bob Smith has an alternative plan for upgrading 316 that doesn't involve tolls. And his plan is? Uh, find the money somewhere.

4) Figured, with all the hoo-ha over trying to attract foreign students to UGA, that someone might bring up the fact that the university recently shuttered its American Language Program. Here we go.

5) Some jackass vandalizes Hodgson's in retaliation for the cedar they cut down. You know, most of us thought it was jerky of them to do that, and I'd resolved not to make a huge effort to patronize them, but Jesus H., y'all. This is what makes Michael Crichton write the crazy books. ABH editorial concurs.

6) Loran writes about hate, provides insane anecdote in the service of doing so:

This is the story: There was the typical wake. Mostly, the extended family showed up the night before the funeral and a few non-family as well.

Somebody, I'm not sure whether it was a distant relative or not, had held a grudge of long standing with the deceased. In his demented way, there remained time to get even.

He showed up for the wake, walked over to the casket and punched the deceased. All hell broke loose. A free-for-all broke out right there in the funeral home. Police cars came roaring up and it, as I understand, took several officers to quell the disturbance.

7) Chuck Jones writes about the need for secrecy. See, you shouldn't be mad at the guys who want to locate a landfill next door to your house that you didn't know about until they started construction. You should be thrilled they didn't stick it in North Carolina and thank your fine congressman for the rich scent of garbage that will be yours from now on.

8) Who dat complaining about students putting up their feet in the SLC (letter #3)?

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Who do I have to blackmail into murder around here to get the other people renting my Alias dvds to put a little get-up-and-go in their stride? Do y'all not realize that this show is addictive to the point of me calling video stores I haven't been to in years just to see if more of season 2 is in? Team Brown should get to skip ahead in line, since we're apt to burn through four episodes in an average night. We are fast, motherfuckers, and y'all should move y'all's asses out the way or prepare to be sideswiped into the wall in a holocaust of metal and explosiveness. Please....

Later: Or, as pointed out to me, someone we know could just lend us season 2. Surely one of you has it. Also know this: Team Brown is careful with stuff to the point of never having scratched a single dvd.

Seriously. What did we do? Because that was some big-ass hail.

So, even if you too are continually weirded out when Will Smith shows up to talk about the black folk on these VH1 specials on rap or gets called out as a traitor to this country, even if you are never gonna stop calling him the Fresh Prince and making fun of his jug-handle ears, even if you think his street cred can be measured in milliliters, you have got to admit that he puts out a fine song every once in a while. He is doing so again. I haven't been able to figure out what exactly the dance described in "Switch" (video and audio in a couple of formats here) entails (other than some kind of switching and, most likely, lots of booty), but the beat under the song is well-layered, stompy, with a cute keyboard bit. Not to mention that songs about dancing often lead to a lot of it. Good stuff.

It might be worth watching the trailer for House of Wax just to hear the one line that kind of explains the title. Or you might want to see Paris almost get poked in the boob with a knife. What you don't want to see is how far they've gone to un-cuten Lishies. I didn't think it could be done, but man... that hair. It's not so bad in the stills; it's worse in action. [via]

1) UGA Real Estate Foundation chief received a 40% pay raise while others were being laid off etc. etc. Unfortunately, as we've all been informed (to obviate active revolt, no doubt), the story's not entirely accurate, as the Real Estate Foundation is technically separate from the university, she's not a UGA employee (technically), and UGA doesn't make the decisions about her salary. Still... peeps = not happy. Word on the street is that Huckaby and Adams didn't vote for her increase, but neither did they vote against it.

2) House Bill 437 is designed to bust unions by not allowing the release of home phone numbers and addresses of state employees (this despite the fact that Georgia is a "right to work" state and most state employees are therefore barred from unionizing).

A spokesman for the State Merit System said the agency asked Scott to sponsor the bill after it received complaints from employees who had been approached by union organizers.

You heard it. Complaints. From employees.

3) Hunter-Gault responds to campus NAACP re: mural and context. I think her solution is fine. Ed Tant is in favor of leaving it as-is (which is not to say he would be opposed to H-G's proposal).

4) Redistricting: most people don't care.

Even political observers concede that few people other than political diehards will care greatly about any new congressional map that the state legislature draws.

It's not like it affects the power of your vote or anything... Gordhan Patel says it doesn't matter whether a Republican or a Democrat represents the district containing the university. He's right in that it's less important on a national level than it is on a state one. ABH editorial tries to explain the impact.

5) JMac takes a stand for truth, justice, and leaving the smoking ban compromise alone a little bit longer. Woot! John Tillitski has valid quibbles with the earlier ABH editorial suggesting more study. Owner of Nowhere Bar asks why Dodson didn't bring up the smoking ban when he was running for office and says that he's lost business in the daytime. Louis Kudon weeps, "think of the children!" Holly Cirri says it won't have a negative economic impact. Derrick Gable quotes Mill.

6) Closed ACC Commission meeting most likely was discussing whether to reappoint a judge who has been lenient about enforcing quality of life ordinances.

7) Shipp points out the irony of the location chosen for the signing of the tort reform bill.

8) Op-ed saying property tax is good, though he doesn't have a problem with this: "The correlation between good public services and high property values is no coincidence."

9) Was Jesus protecting UGA's cheerleaders when Braswell was around?

10) Allen Thornell, lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union, says he thinks there hasn't been enough discussion of the fact that the 2 percent pay raise proposed for state employees doesn't keep up with inflation.

11) It's time for your annual Fred Birchmore Is Awesome article. But what can you do? The dude is awesome.

12) R&B opposes further penalties for underage drinking.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Taste of Athens, the non-column version:

• Hot! And I'm always freezing. Can't they figure out how to blast the air for one night a year?
• Stress! Yay. It's fun when you want to punch people for being oblivious.
• Bleh. Food substandard as usual. How did J put it? Oh yeah. It makes you not really want to go to any of those restaurants. Even if you've been there before and know it's good.
• Sweet. Half the booths are offering some sort of sugary something or other, which is too many. Also, do I care about your hotel spread brownies from a mix with a pathetic strawberry on top? I do not.

Mini-milkshakes from The Grill definitely the highlight of the night. Even Weaver D's wasn't up to snuff (though still relatively tasty).

Your Brain is 33.33% Female, 66.67% Male

You have a total boy brain Logical and detailed, you tend to look at the facts And while your emotions do sway you sometimes... You never like to get feelings too involved

[from chip]

I thought it very well might be when, at the Georgia-Auburn basketball game Saturday, the score was tied 2 to 2. That sounds all normal. But this was at more than seven minutes into the game, and no one had actually made a field goal yet. Un. Fucking. Believable. It was getting to the point where we were by far not the only people laughing when the ball was heaved up helplessly yet again. Probably not the lowest scoring college basketball game ever, but not pretty to watch. Recap here, to prove I ain't lyin'.

The Legend of Leigh Bowery: Rented for free because of getting to answer the easiest trivia question I've ever seen on Vision Video's whiteboard (This was director David O. Russell's first feature: ________ the Monkey). Documentary about the late and famed artist Leigh Bowery, who is sort of technically classified as both a fashion designer and a performance artist and is kind of both and kind of neither. Essentially, his art was making insane outfits and going to clubs in them, though he did design some costumes for a dance company and for Boy George. His aesthetic is utterly fascinating, in that it's got a great deal of the grotesque to it. It's more than just the usual strangeness of couture. "Grotesque" is actually the best word for it because it's got strong elements of both hideousness and beauty in it. And though you can see the cover of the box as an example of one costume at the link, this tribute site has many more to illustrate what I'm talking about. The documentary itself, as with most, is done competently but really coasts on the level of interest its subject provides. The visuals, though, again provided by that subject, are fab.

Also, Alias season 1 has been completed. It did get better. There was wriggling in excitement at times. Especially during the two-parter with Tarantino, which was awesome in so many ways. Also hilarious, both intentionally and un. I have to assume he assisted a bit with dialogue. And, like finally, we're getting more subtext and sicko love relationship stuff. 'Bout time. Still wondering why they never give Sydney a firearm and positive that in a fight between her and Buffy the slayer would win no question, but itching for whoever has season 2, disc 1 to get ass in gear and return it.

This is the opening text of an email I just received from igourmet. I promise, much like Mr. Barry, I am not making this up.

Vote for the President of Cheeses

In honor of Presidents' Day, igourmet needs your help in selecting a 2005 "President of Cheeses". While several cheeses over the years have been nicknamed the "King of Cheeses," including Stilton, Roquefort, Epoisses, Cabrales and Parmigiano-Reggiano, we believe in a more democratic approach.

igourmet has nominated four great cheeses to reign as President for a one year term, with re-elections to be held every year around Presidents' Day. Based on your votes, a President will be chosen. You can vote either by buying the nominated cheese or by emailing us with your selection. The election ends Monday, 2/21/05 and we will post the winner on our home page once the final count is tallied.

You can see the, um, candidates here.

Sooner or later, you knew there would be an American Idol Barbie, but did you know that there would be three of them? And that you could go vote for the pop star, the rock chick, or the R&B diva after watching them perform on the Barbie website? Or that you would suddenly realize, after doing so, that 1) Barbie makes Allegra Versace look like a heifer and 2) her dead eyes, jerky movements, and robot voice would have made her a much more effective villain than Chucky in the Child's Play series. Also note: No American Idol Ken (or Blaine or whatever). Mattel did not get the memo about the boys needing to be given special chances and a level playing field.

1) Athens EDC Lesser says we should be thinking of the area as united, not divided. Also we should be cashing in on the value of the university. But. Um. How? No ideas described. No advantages of locating in a university town mentioned.

2) More on the decrease in foreign enrollment at UGA. Why increase?

International students who come to the United States are the best and brightest students from their countries, Lusk said, and bring a different culture, different perspective and intellectual capital that can benefit the university.

Oh, and uh,

Plus, Lusk said, they invest millions of foreign dollars into the Georgia economy each year.

3) No one showed up at the textbook prices meeting. I love this bit:

Dunn said his first priority as a teacher is to give students the best "learning environment" possible, and that includes the best texts. But if he and other professors were more aware of the costs of the books their students have to buy, that could influence the teachers' choice of texts, he said.

It's all, "If I just could make myself expend a little effort..." R&B says only one student spoke.

Panel member Rich Bigger, director of Training and Customer Relations at Wiley Publishers, said textbook prices are a shock to students, especially since all the costs come at once.

"It's a shock," he said. "For 12 years of education, (they've) never had to buy a book."

This is interesting. At Paideia, we did have to, thus familiarizing us with the process and general costs. Not that that could be implemented in public school. But check this jerk-ass move: "Jim Flowers, special assistant to the Chief Information Officer of the Board of Regents, said some legislators are asking if students should have to pay back the HOPE Scholarship's book money if they resell their textbooks."

4) Kemp on redistricting:

But Kemp, on his way back to Athens to attend the funeral of the late former state Rep. Paul Broun, suggested moving into a different district could have its advantages.

"We're always kind of like the red-headed stepchild," Kemp said. "Everything Savannah and Augusta want comes before Athens."

It, uh, might have something to do with those who represent Athens as well.

5) Creative Loafing gets letters about the Bulldog Barbie article. But where's DJ's?

6) Kennesaw State's calling us out over the parental notification policy.

7) Eldridge comes out of the closet. Eh, we all knew anyway.

8) You remember a few months ago when the PSC said to Georgia Power, "hey, y'all. Here's an inch"? The predicted mile is coming up.

9) ABH supports Heard and Kidd's transit authority bill.

10) Luke Smith doubts God is taking much of an interest in Braswell's case.

11) We're sure she's perfectly objective...

12) Mural stuff: R&B runs an op-ed saying there is no perfect solution. This is also made eminently clear by the letters section.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Animal suits. They're the thing right now.

1) People know about furries, to the extent of CSI doing an episode about them.

2) Trigger Happy TV

3) Animal Collective

4) Grandaddy's new video (via stereogum)

More instances? Theories?

You sometimes see a horrible kid in the supermarket and think something very specific to yourself? These people took that and ran with it. [via and hosted at Bored Athenians]

Not only is MC Chris (a.k.a MC Pee Pants) hitting the 40 Watt, but the frigging Gaskets are opening. Mr. Brown had damn well better agree to take me to this show. Thursday, March 31. $10.

1) The Ladykillers (2004): Meh. In fact, more than meh. And also less. I was hoping it would be better than I'd heard. But it wasn't. Or, at any rate, it was pretty competent. It just wasn't funny. And that being the point of a comedy, it has to be considered a failure. It should be pointed out, though, that it's really great-looking. You would never mistake this (from the look) for your average hackily directed Hollywood comedy, and the credits sequence is slow and lovely. Speaking of fonts as we were below, this is a very nice one. Also, the sequence shot from Lump's POV from inside the football helmet is great. But, to say it again, it's just really not funny. Damn.

2) Napoleon Dynamite: This, on the other hand, is equally nothing in the grand sweep, but it does manage to be funny. Very funny. Team Brown was collectively shocked at how much it liked this movie, expecting it to be, I dunno, more reminiscent of Solondz (a comparison that tends to come up) than it was. The first five minutes could have led to a gut being busted. The thing is, so Napoleon's kind of a big retard, but this is not presented as tragic. Nor is it entirely presented as some kind of underdog triumph. Napoleon is just the way he is, and that's cool. Also, the humor is a great combo of laughing at and laughing with because, honestly, it's like a laughing at oneself. Deep down, we are all big retards. This makes for the funny. Jon Heder is also absolutely awesome with the small touches. Fella can act. It's Freaks & Geeks minus the freaks and the pathos, which makes it lesser work of art but still one worth watching.

So, about halfway through the first season of Alias by this point, and have a few questions and comments and whatnot.

1) Man, that font really does suck.

2) Does everyone kind of hate her friends? Or am I the only mean person who does? Because, while I'm enjoying this investigative journalist nonsense objectively, I really don't care if blondie lives or dies.

3) That's sort of the way I feel in general about the show. It's not that I don't like it, but even 24 has made me get pissed when they kill people and given me a moment or two of emotions. That hasn't happened yet with Alias, and I don't know if it's a weakness of the show or just that I haven't watched enough yet or something else. By the last couple of seasons of Buffy, I was tearing up practically once an episode, but I got nothing so far for this.

4) Also, it's a little predictable, even with its twists and turns.

5) Why does Sydney need to be a college student too? It seems like working in a bank is cover enough. The college thing is just a distraction and an excuse to throw not very well thought out literary references into the script.

6) Marshall still rules.

If you were writing a book for kids about sexual reproduction, in which the main character is a sperm, would you name it after a penile euphemism? (I do totally recommend taking a look inside the book, though, if only to see where he lives.)

If you're planning on trying to catch a glimpse of the Blue Collar guys behind the Classic Center, you do not know how much they've ramped up security. There are about four or five dudes (one dude was a chick) standing around, practically twirling their nightsticks, giving passers-by the sort of look that means, "I'm keeping an eye on you, missy. You might be reading The New Yorker, but you look like the type to stalk Jeff Foxworthy."

1) MNS reports Athens was the only metro area in Georgia to have a net loss of jobs last year.

A drop in University of Georgia enrollment and higher gas prices that cut into consumer spending are two likely reasons behind the tight job market, said Rajeev Dhawan, director of Georgia State University's Economic Forecasting Center who released his quarterly outlook Wednesday.

Not, um, dramatic budget cuts to the largest employer in town? On the bright side, he thinks employment will go up, especially underemployment. Yay!

2) Democrats complain about redistricting plans that would chop Athens in half to minimize its influence on elections.

"The urban areas have been split to weaken Democratic votes," said state Rep. Tom Bordeaux, D-Savannah. "If it was wrong when we did it, it's wrong now."

Um, yes. Kidd's right when she talks about it diluting the African-American vote, but she is playing the race card as well (and that's distracting from the clearer issue at hand).

3) It being February, Perdue reaches out to the Legislative Black Caucus.

So far Perdue has met only with officers of the caucus. Some caucus members express skepticism about the sessions.

"Just meeting with someone isn't substantive," said state Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta). "What's substantive is stopping cuts to social programs and stopping racial profiling. You have to be cautious and not fool yourself into thinking that meeting with someone equates to substance."

State Rep. Bob Holmes (D-Atlanta), a frequent Perdue critic, said he applauds increased dialogue with the governor, but doubts any shift in black voting patterns.

"There's always been a selective reaching out to blacks," Holmes said. "As my grandmother always told me, 'You look at what they do, not what they say.'"

4) An article on textbook prices that's slightly better than usual, in that it doesn't demonize the bookstore. But their editorial does: "Today, copy editing, graphics and photo research are often outsourced. In this age of computers and the Internet, I, the author, can do these tasks as well as the folks the publisher hires." Oh re-he-heeally?

5) Outgoing SGA leadership reflects on their tenure. Accomplishments? Got to meet the governor. Didn't affect his opinions at all. Um... anything else?

6) Heard & Kidd would like Athens to have the ability to create a transit authority, with some control over its own funding, as by, for example, raising the sales tax to 7.25% from 7% (which would, in a year, add up to $1.3 million more than its current budget).

In past years Heard introduced similar resolutions to the House of Representatives, but they never reached the Senate, said state Sen. Brian Kemp, R-Athens. While Republicans, who control both the Senate and the state House of Representatives, support public transportation, Kemp said some are concerned about raising sales taxes.

"Hopefully, (public transportation) will continue to be an option, especially in urban areas," he said. "How we fund it is the question."

You mean the question that has at least one good answer, jackass?

7) Even Start about to get axed. If you say something's not working, it doesn't matter if it is.

8) Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. This fella does have somewhat of a point:

A blind Athens man who complained about tripping over sidewalk signs downtown says a proposed ordinance restricting the signs does not go far enough.

"If this passes, I think I won't be able to walk on the sidewalk in Athens anymore," Sam Evans said. "I'll just have to walk in the street."

But the way he's putting it (if things get better, but not completely to the way I want them to be, I'll have to walk in the street, even though I don't now, when things are worse), is not gonna help his case.

9) Straightforward sensible op-ed from ABH saying we don't need to reconsider the smoking ban just yet. David Fuller has a letter that we might not want the commission to take too much to heart. And Ponsoldt has another one urging reason.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

As pointed out on last night's Daily Show, the Parents Television Council provides the valuable service of uploading the "worst TV clip of the week" (or should we say best?) for your, um, disapproving viewing. Ya wanna see ex-Brady Bunch Peter lick a stripper on The Surreal Life? You got it. Just look on the righthand side of the screen and scroll down a bit.

Gardner has an updated list of the 25 best songs of all time, culled from various folks' contributions of their own lists. But wait. There's still time for the rest of you to get in on the act. Especially if you (like I do) think two Bruce Springsteen songs in the top five is a bit ridiculous. I don't knee-jerk hate the guy anymore, the way I used to, but he's about on the level of U2 to me: which is to say, fine but doesn't get my rocks off at awl. It doesn't make me want to rip my ears off. But it doesn't make me dance a little happy dance.

Or so I learned from Richard Preston's piece, "Climbing the Redwoods," in the current New Yorker. Unfortunately, the web staff of the magazine (or whoever makes such decisions) are also jerks, so I can't link to it. It's just the sort of long, technical, surprising article that is the best thing about the magazine. There is much detail about how one climbs these trees but also why; that is, their canopy is about as rich in life as that of the rainforest. There are entire other trees up there, growing out of these trees, as well as fruit-bearing berry bushes and certain species of animal (lizards, worms) that aren't found on the ground. And a sense of danger.

The crown of an ancient coast redwood can bristle with rotting extra trunks, and it can be crisscrossed with dead limbs that may be up to several feet in diameter, and there can be broken-off dead branches hanging in the foliage, which are called widow-makers. The twitching movement of a climbing rope can stir loose a widow-maker, and a falling branch can tear off other branches, triggering a cascade of spinning redwood spars the size of railroad ties. A falling branch can spike itself five feet into the ground. Redwoods can have pieces of dead wood in them that are bigger than Chevrolet Suburbans. . . . Redwoods occasionally shed whole sections of themselves. Sillett calls this process calving. The tree releases a kind of woodberg, and as it collapses it gives off a roar that can be heard for a mile or two, and it leaves the area around the calved redwood looking as if a tank battle had been fought there. A calving event would obliterate any humans in the tree. Sillett told me, "The thing I fear most is a falling branch that hooks on my rope. It would slide down the rope into me, and it would tear through my body cavity. You are a grape hanging on a vine, and a falling branch can pop you."

Also, here's the confirmation of the subject-line:

In any ecosystem in which they occur, redwoods tend to dominate. They tower above other species of trees, and they shade them out, killing them or making it nearly impossible for them to grow. Trees are horrible to one another, and redwoods are viciously aggressive. They drop large pieces of dead wood on smaller neighboring trees, which typically shatters the tree. Sillett calls this phenomenon "redwood bombing." In this way, a giant redwood suppresses and kills trees growing near it, including hemlocks, spruces, Douglas firs, and big-leaf maple trees.

8) Look, I'm all for abstinence education. I support the booming abstinence industry as it peddles panties and boxers decorated with stop signs (at www.abstinence.net), and "Pet Your Dog, Not Your Date" T-shirts. [from Nick Kristof's op-ed "Bush's Sex Scandal," 02/16/05; article is about lack of sex ed in schools]

[previously]

1) UGA recruiting international students. You gotta spend money to make money?

2) Earl Ehrhart backs off desire to slap a Dooley on Sanford. Temporarily.

3) Pharmacy building may not happen after all, largely because they were gonna pay for it with instructional funds. This shit is complicated, yo.

According to the bill, the state House took $2.7 million needed for the College of Pharmacy as well as a series of other campus projects around the state from the $9.4 million the governor allocated to instruction costs, only for that money to be put back in the senate version.

Rep. Bob Smith (R-Watkinsville), who chairs the subcommittee on higher education, said his committee treated the $9.4 million like other state funds.

"That was the governor's proposal. My committee disagreed with that," Smith said. "We really think we need to keep these projects moving."

The $9.4 million was originally intended for a University project that never materialized.

The Board of Regents decided last fall to use the money to cover a shortfall in the budget that could have led to a mid-year tuition increase.

The gap was created when Gov. Sonny Perdue went back on a decision to shift the final pay period of the 2005 fiscal year -- which ends June 30 -- to July.

So the money wasn't there, and then it was, but it was allocated to something, but that something doesn't exactly seem like "instructional" funds, but then the House took part of that money that had already been allocated and stuck it toward the Pharmacy renovation? My head hurts.

4) Campus NAACP says quote can remain on mural if accompanied by a personal statement from Hunter-Gault explaining it and suchlike. This is rather the equivalent of the "do not eat iPod shuffle" instruction, but room must be made in life for stupidity. R&B editorial doesn't think so.

5) More fussing from state Democrats about the $1.7 mill from HOPE for Perdue's website.

6) Kidd doing what she promised.

7) Fundraiser to create driver's ed program in Clarke County.

"Part of the problem is that everybody thinks we already have something going on," Elam said. "The schools in Madison County, Jackson County, Oconee County - they all have some kind of program, even if it's limited. I don't understand why a community the size of Athens wouldn't have a similar program, if not a quality program."

8) Unfortunately, outrage doesn't always mean bills won't be passed.

9) Could smoking reduce drinking? This letter in the Flagpole (3rd down) provides an example of how the ban's being enforced (sorta).

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Heather writes about current best show ever, and not just from the perspective of watching it, but from experiencing it. Cesar is indeed the hottness. [Salon, so clickthrough bla bla bla]

Trailer for new version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is up on amazon today exclusively. Some things seem better than the original BBC version; others seem worse. It could be considerably drier, for example. But am taking the whole thing with mega-grains of salt, considering that the purpose of a trailer is to sell the movie as though it's a wacky action-packed buddy flick. Rockwell looks good. Most annoying thing about it is the end title, which is made to resemble the book, but does not contain the "Don't Panic" on the cover, a point which is only reiterated about five times in the novel. They do put it directly after, but it's lacking something.

We are so happy it's back. And how.

Complaint: On Feb. 8, Deputy M.E. Taylor was dispatched to a location in Bogart, where a teenage woman reported she was receiving some unwelcome books from her parents. On Feb. 5, the pregnant teen said her mother left a book for her called "What To Expect When You Are Expecting." Then on Feb. 8, she found a half-cooked beef roast wrapped in foil and another book "The First 12 Months of Life." The woman said she recently was married and her parents don't approve of her older husband.

So was the book also wrapped in the foil? Or just next to it?

Found: On Feb. 14, Deputy Brian Yoder was dispatched to the intersection of Hodges Mill and Mars Hill roads where there was a report of Santa Claus in the roadway. When he arrived, Yoder found a plastic santa in the road. He took the santa into custody and brought him to the sheriff's office.

So sometimes, even when there are only two entries to pull, they are two fine-ass entries. Kudos, OCPD. [The rest here.]

1) I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants to enter this "Rock Star for a Day" contest.

2) On the main, non-pop-up page, I know what they mean when they say "beauty for your inbox," but I also know that that's not exactly what it makes me think of.

City of God: See? A lot of times when y'all tell me to watch something, I actually will. This was very good, but I don't think it deserves its #21 spot among all movies ever made (according to the IMDB rating). It has tremendous energy, which is the main thing it's got going for it and why (I think) it's so much better than, say, Larry Clark's Kids, as far as your movies mining the terrain of nihilistic youth go. It also doesn't give you that creepy old man feel. The kids are, of course, naturalistic and great and real-looking, as they would be. The camerawork is great, and the structuring of the storyline in all these mini-narratives that veer off and come back very cool. There are scenes that just take your breath away (the long one in the dance club being the primo example to me). But it's not perfect. It is a bit too long, for one thing. When your strength is explosive energy, it's hard to keep it going for 130 minutes. The fact that it's based on a true story is a sort of unnecessary piece of info to learn. And the thing with Otto (?) and Knockourt Ned at the end struck me as really off (that is, how can I complain if it's based on a true story, but it doesn't fit tonally with the rest of the movie). But I liked it very much, partially because although it is nihilistic, it's also full of the joy of running around, even if that joy is criminal.

Dominos + beat + fire + Rube Goldberg + ever-increasing destruction + heavy eye makeup = The Bravery's "An Honest Mistake," which is kind of cute and should definitely be popular with the late-nite crowd, who will be hypnotized. (click video on their site)

Brie Larson's "She Said" may not be an especially interesting song, with its "la dee da, la dee dee" bit, but seeing just how close you can get to showing your 15-year-old star's vagina will get you on TRL in three, two, one...

Narrowcast's got the link up to the transcript of this Kanye/Mayer meeting of the minds, and damn if John-John doesn't pinpoint Kanye better than anyone I've ever heard, while still managing to be funny as a motherfucker:

Mayer: Well, your world is what you sing about and what you write about, and artists are kind of defined by that. Kanye's world is like the front porch, Star Wars toys, a nice bowl of soup, a nice bracelet and a watch.

West: And some strippers!

Mayer: And some strippers ... I wrote this thing about Kanye for Teen People and they didn't use this line: "Some rappers come from the wrong side of the tracks, but Kanye comes from the wrong side of the mall." Which I think kind of sums it up: Kanye is from the Food Court, in front of the Orange Julius, right there, on that bench, where you kind of feel uncomfortable eating when there's no other tables available.

I do encourage those of y'all with the ability to to watch the video bits that are scattered around too.

Kottke links to this Telegraph article about the return of rivalry in the arts. But seriously, doesn't something have to go away before it can come back? Or did I miss that twenty-year period where Salman Rushdie and John Le Carre were getting along swimmingly, where critics stopped turning their thumbs up or down, where painting and conceptual art skipped hand in hand through the park?

1) RIP Paul Broun. Nothing snarky to say here. (Oh, except to note that Kemp says Broun was a big influence. Humph.)

2) Ex-UGA Pres Knapp back part-time as a teacher, leading to wistful memories of his tenure.

3) Even Yarbrough gets up Leeburn's butt, uses the phrase "horse patoot."

4) Macon Telegraph says, wrt Hunter-Gault mural, history shouldn't be sugarcoated, but won't print the offending word.

5) Minority college enrollment up hugely in Georgia since '91, but Bush wants to cut or eliminate programs that fuel it.

6) Taylor criticizes Perdue for the cost of the web site (which seems to be mostly in the apparently nine people needed to run it and an ad campaign).

"The HOPE scholarship is not Sonny Perdue's piggy bank, and this is going to cost 450 scholarships," said Taylor, who is expected to run against Perdue next year. "It is disappointing that when, on one hand, he is wringing his hands about the future of the HOPE scholarship, he feels free to swoop down and take $1.7 million or more from the program."

7) Remember all that hoo-ha about how everyone was living on campus at UGA now? They're not.

8) Mark Bell makes my point on the increased drink sales. This Frankenstein analogy doesn't quite fit. Nedra Johnson thinks he should be concerned with more facets of public health. Ditto for Jerry Haas.

9) GSU employees rightly pissed that while they're getting a 2 percent raise, their president is getting one of 21 percent.

10) Braswell: "This is God's battle." So that earlier smackdown in court, that was just a Job-type situation, honey?

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC; bugmenot MDJ; bugmenot MT; bugmenot SMN]

That's right. March 23rd at the Georgia Theatre, at both 8 and 11 p.m., for $10, Mr. AFV himself. Here's the release:

Bob Saget is most famous for appearing on two of the most grating family-friendly shows network TV has ever produced (i.e. "Full House" and "America?s Funniest Home Videos"). But he's also a whip-smart standup comedian with 30 years of experience, not to mention an act that's dirtier than the average frat boy's Olsen twins fantasies. As anyone who remembers his scene-stealing cameos in films like "Dumb & Dumber" and "Half Baked" will attest, there's something utterly hilarious about seeing the clean cut, boyishly charming Saget embracing his dark side. And his decidedly adult brand of comedy, which largely deals with the aftermath of divorce and life as a single dad, will leave you looking at Saget in a whole new light.

About Nicholas Lemann's New Yorker piece on criticism of the mainstream media, you'd think he actually answered the question posed in his subtitle ("Why is everyone mad at the mainstream media?"). He doesn't even come close. What he says is: some people are kind of crazy, especially conservatives, but then the press also should do a better job maybe portraying those who are anti-abortion as not slack-jawed yokels. What he doesn't say is: people are mad at the mainstream media for different reasons. Some people are mad at it just because they think they should be. Some people think it's either too ideological or needs to be more so.

Warren was frustrated that what seems obvious to him and his colleagues evidently doesn’t to their audience. “We’ve done significant research with readers of the Tribune Company’s three big papers, the Tribune, Newsday, and the L.A. Times,” he said. “There was an increasingly visceral distrust in us—a stated, increasing lack of confidence in the local papers, very consistent across the three markets. They didn’t see what we were doing as materially different from local TV news—that was depressing. People don’t associate investigative reporting with us, but with local news. They see what we do as no different from ‘Could this pastrami sandwich kill you? Could this screen door harm your child? Tune in at ten!’ They don’t see any difference between an investigative reporter and a blow-dried idiot.”

But then... no reasons people think this. Surely they're not all completely nuts. And maybe things like Judith Miller running around Iraq essentially making shit up and getting it on the front page of the Times contributed to that impression. Maybe Lemann could have mentioned, you know, like one time even, the growing importance of the bottom line with regard to making a proft for one's shareholders and how this leads to a shrinking number of reporters on the ground, especially in other countries, and an increasing reliance on, say, google to source a story. Or how speed is a mixed blessing. But what it comes down to is a bit more "waa! People are stupid. Also mean!"

Has been the case this a.m. only because I was formulating my thoughts on this album for publication. Real short version? It's good. The price is a bit high, but they don't skimp on the amount of music included. If you like this sort of thing, you will like this album.

Whose job was it to pass out the white-suit memo? Also. What the fuck?

But then the thought occurs, "Could we trap and skin this cute little fella to make him into a festive muff for the winter months?"

Um, Best. Valentine's Day. Story. Ever. Yes, I know it was technically published yesterday, but it seems utterly appropriate for this day celebrating snookie-wookumses everywhere. [bugmenot]/[via]

1) ABH comes out against HB 340 (the one that throws a piece of blackout cloth over donor info wrt UGA). We also get some clarification on what exactly that bill entails:

While the language clearly indicates that all "personal information" about donors would be exempt, legislators pushing for the bill are trying to sell it as a measure to keep only sensitive data - such as information on a donor's net worth or a donor's tax filings, for instance - from public disclosure.

R&B has an article on it, too, with more bull from Hembree, and an editorial of their own.

2) Bar owners don't really care what Adams thinks. Fella who owns the Firehouse has this to say: "We're not telling people to blow off your school work and get drunk. . . . We're saying, if you go out, come here." Also, a history lesson:

Adams' comments were not the first time he criticized the drinking culture in Athens-Clarke County. Five years ago he told members at a Rotary Club meeting that he would like to see Athens "develop along the lines of Harvard Square, and not toward becoming another Bourbon Street like you see in New Orleans."

Because there's no middle ground, of course.

3) www.collegeisgoodyo.com. Not such a bad idea, but $1.2 million?!!

4) Clearly, the housing office at UGA doesn't know that line from Field of Dreams.

5) What's goin' on in the GA.

"If the new majority is unable to deliver adequately in the eyes of the Christian conservatives, it's basically disappointing, which might even promote some Christian conservatives not to vote in the future," Bullock said.

Very interesting. Tell me more... Also, illegal immigrants ain't gettin' no HOPE.

6) Task force on academic rigor still thinking about things, including a uniform course evaluation survey. Because Intro Biology? Totally the same as a senior seminar in Ulysses.

7) This is a nice letter saying Dr. Odum's house shouldn't be torn down, and I kind of agree. It is indeed an excellent example of mid-century modern architecture that incorporates the landscape.

8) The waters of heritage are hazardous ones to navigate. Jim Thompson has some things to say on the subject.

9) So, if you saw the headline "Parental notification an intrusion," and you'd been following events lately in this town, what would you think it referred to? The right of students who've moved out of their parents' house to do what they want with their lives? Or the right of younger kids to do so? (Here's more on that.)

10) Dodson continues conspiracy-minded busybody rantings. Don't you know they stopped putting the mind-control chips in the filters last year? His concluding paragraphs:

We are but a tiny county commission, purporting to challenge the corporate might of one of the most powerful lobbies in America. And because we as a people, thankfully, have begun to distrust those corporate lobbies directly, the industry has been exceedingly efficient in feeding us home-brewed fears of a community with no restaurants or bars, with Big Brother in our living rooms.

That is not the intent, and will not be the effect of this health initiative. Many people have been destroyed for daring to challenge the industry. Maybe some of us on the commission will prove to be its latest victims. But, as Archer Jones preached, "The cost may be dear but the cost not to do right is far more dear."

Dude. You are so getting the finger every time you show up on my Channel 7 screen. Paul Thomas mentions one possible factor in increased liquor sales.

11) Special education really crappily funded in ACC.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Xzibit's "Hey Now (Mean Muggin')," viewable on his site in a variety of formats (Win Media, Quicktime, Real) if you click "video."

1) The hand-clap beat is a fine one and the best thing about the song.

2) The herky-jerky feel of most of the video matches the beat. It should be annoying, but it's not.

3) The song is okay. Not great. But Xzibit is better on video than just through audio because he's a very appealing dude. And I don't mean exactly to imply hotness in saying such. More that Crest Whitestrips should be givin' the fella a call because that smile is such a winner.

Help. Please. Even more proof of the possible awesomeness of John Mayer? Augh. Can't. Resist.

1) Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle: Okay, so the first half-hour is really excellently done, but how many movies of this sort are the rest of y'all watching that you think the whole thing is genius? Because the answer is: clearly not enough. The whole middle is pretty draggy, with occasional flickers of good or even great stuff (yes, the fantasy with the giant bag of marijuana is fantastic). And on the whole it moves along like they're checking off every element of a successful teen movie from their list: boobies (check), toilet humor (check), weird cameo (check), sing-along to vaguely nostalgic but clearly intentionally terrible song (check). And so it goes. The other problem being one of filmmaking incompetency, which I noticed bits of (hey! look, it was day in the last scene and now all of a sudden it's night?) but not as much as J, who was commenting that someone didn't know how to shoot coverage for shit, resulting in incoherent editing at times. But anyway. I don't mean any of this to sound as though I didn't like the movie. Because I was entertained by it to a relatively high degree. It's just that, well, I do watch a lot of these things, and while this was far better than average, there are also plenty of recent ones I happen to think are better. Like Eurotrip.

2) Have been sloooowly working on Alias, season 1. That is, it would be moving along a lot faster if some people could get their asses in gear and return shit to the video store before or even when it's actually due. Halfway through disc 2 and enjoying it, though still think it is far inferior to Jossverse stuff and even 24. It's good with the twists, and I like several of the characters fairly well, mostly Marshall and good CIA dude (Michael Vartan?). But it's also silly. Why does she need all the disguises, when most of the time, there's no one involved with her mission who would recognize her anyway? And why can't they reuse cool techie stuff Marshall comes up with? It's been pointed out by J that it would be really handy to have one of those rings with the stone that knocks people out at, like, all times. Still, am having faith in the series and it is sort of cute and shiny enough to keep watching.

We're looking for a 25- to 35-year-old male to go around acting like a self-righteous jackass intent on sucking the fun out of everything in life by making overbearing documentaries about it. Mustache a bonus. Send photo and immature rant about your topic of choice.

About the new Audiofile daily download thingie in Salon you can learn from looking at the list of mp3 blogs linked on the righthand side of that page. Who's missing? (clickthrough and all that shit required as usual)

1) Open government, my ass. This bill would allow anyone who doesn't want his or her name disclosed to donate money to state colleges and universities. The pro take on this is that it'll bring more cash in. The negative, of course, is that it would allow future Leeberns to boost Adams's personal expense account with no disclosure. Jim Ponsoldt says, "A bill like this is designed to promote public corruption." There's some fudging about whether names could be excluded or just Social Security numbers and the like, but when one of the co-sponsors says they could be, that's not a good sign.

2) ABH editorial on school funding, which at least doesn't bring up the sales tax again. There is a good bit:

On a related front, communities that find themselves courting new industries and businesses should make it clear to those prospects that whatever other incentives are offered to bring them into a community, they will be expected to bear the full weight of property taxes, in terms of the revenue they provide to school systems. If an industry or business is not willing to invest in the education of its most readily available workforce, it might not be the kind of enterprise a community would want in the first place.

And there is a bad bit:

On the other side of the ledger, local school districts should also take a hard look at their personnel and programs, with an eye toward reducing, modifying or eliminating those things not directly related to instructing students or making certain students have the tools they need to learn.

So they should stop lighting their cigars with hundred-dollar bills? Or they should, like, get rid of math? Because somehow I don't think the former's much of a problem.

3) More mural stuff. R&B reports campus NAACP still divided:

While many valued Hunter-Gault's opinion, some students argued that student opinion matters more.

"We're here, she's in South Africa," said Tiffany Chatman, president of the campus chapter.

Best bit? "Some residents of Myers Hall said they didn't really notice the quote." Sounds like student awareness might need raising in multiple ways...

4) McCarter and Jordan push for another vote on the smoking ban now, in case they don't like what the state comes up with. I mean, the state might, like, let people smoke outdoors. In a downtown area. Sales of mixed drinks are apparently up though.

In the past six months, receipts of a 3 percent tax on mixed drinks are up about 12 percent, according to Athens-Clarke Finance Director John Culpepper. The finance department collects the tax based on sales reported by 110 bars and restaurants.

What could have happened since August to cause that increase? Maybe the start of the school year and an influx of thousands of people who like to go downtown and party? Can we have a comparison between these six months and the same from a year earlier?

5) Can we have an op-ed on how the choice of the Classic Party over that of the Vote Naked Party reflects our current moral climate? I like this op-ed in the R&B.

6) Perdue says, "I will let the General Assembly's judgment guide it. (When I already know they support something that I not only support but helped put forward)."

7) Kemp continues to vote party line. Also responded with what seemed very much like a form letter to the concerns of staff about the "postponed" raise budget trickery. And I quote:

The budget process is very complex, but the bottom line is that we are trying to accomplish many things with limited resources. We are restoring funding for K-12 education, trying to give teachers a pay raise, mitigating cuts to health care, restoring funding for higher education and trying to provide a pay raise for state and university employees.

We simply do not have the money to do all of them fully at one time.

There are legitimate concerns about the equity of splitting the start date of pay raises for different state employees, however, the hard fiscal reality is that the alternative is to not grant a pay raise at all. I realize that what is proposed is not perfect - no budget is ever perfect. But it appears it is the best we can do as we balance competing needs in these tough economic times.

As we move out of our current economic downturn, I will continue to fight to restore higher education funding and for more pay increases for university employees. I hope that in the coming years we will have the funds to give all University employees the pay raise they deserve.

The "continue to" in particular provoked much laughter.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Don't we all?

Philly Daily News's Ellen Gray has some changes she'd like to make in the next season of The Amazing Race, to which I have two responses.

1) Just because someone puts "model" on his/her resume doesn't make it so. What it means is: I am vaguely hot. And probably a bartender.

2) "there's nothing particularly entertaining about watching people vomit"? What world are you livin' in, Ellen Gray?

[bugmenot]/[via]

At Cambridge University I was taught a laudable method of argument: you never personalise, but you have absolutely no respect for people’s opinions. You are never rude to the person, but you can be savagely rude about what the person thinks. That seems to me a crucial distinction: people must be protected from discrimination by virtue of their race, but you cannot ring-fence their ideas. The moment you say that any idea system is sacred, whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology, the moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.

Take it to the hoop, boy.

That's how fast, comparatively speaking, Mr. Brown came up with his own list. I thought, underestimating his diligence that it would take a week at least, but within less than 24 hours, he had produced his own set of 50 songs, with these caveats: 1) No one gets more than one song (though he says he could have picked 50 Beatles songs easy), 2) Everything is post-1960, 3) "The life expectancy of this list is less than 24 hours." It was waiting for me this morning. Here goes; my comments in bold. More from him to come in the comments or something.

1. "Baby You're a Rich Man"--The Beatles
2. "Beyond the Valley of a Day in the Life"--The Residents
3. "Train in Vain"--The Clash
4. "A Quick One While He's Away"--The Who (live version from Rock n' Roll Circus)
5. "The Fairest of the Seasons"--Nico
6. "Attitude"--The Misfits
7. "Rocks Off"--The Rolling Stones
8. "Space Oddity"--David Bowie
9. "Bohemian Rhapsody"--Queen
10. "Chainsaw"--The Ramones
11. "Thirteen"--Big Star
12. "Needle in Camel's Eye"--Brian Eno
13. "Re-make/Re-model"--Roxy Music
14. "Who Loves the Sun"--Velvet Underground (Hey! I thought you said no Doug Yule)
15. "One"--Harry Nilsson
16. "Still in School"--NRBQ
17. "Strange Magic"--ELO
18. "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"--The Band (I was stricken with remorse upon not having included "King Harvest")
19. "Whatever Happened to You"--Jason Trachtenburg
20. "Game of Pricks"--Guided by Voices
21. "Hope"--The Descedents
22. "Fingertips"--They Might Be Giants
23. "Picture Book"--The Kinks
24. "Hard Luck Woman"--Kiss
25. "Drain You"--Nirvana
26. "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want"--The Smiths
27. "Strange"--Wire
28. "I Get Around"--The Beach Boys
29. "Suzanne"--Weezer
30. "Give Me Back My Man"--The B-52s
31. "Andalucia"--John Cale
32. "Uh-Oh Love Comes to Town"--The Talking Heads
33. "The Caterpillar"--The Cure
34. "Teenage Riot"--Sonic Youth
35. "Sounds of Silence"--Simon & Garfunkel
36. "The Saturday Boy"--Billy Bragg (Damn! I forgot about this.)
37. "Accidents Will Happen"--Elvis Costello
38. "Wall of Death"--Richard & Linda Thompson
39. "The Smokey Life"--Leonard Cohen
40. "No Side to Fall in"--The Raincoats
41. "We're Desperate"--X
42. "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing"--The Minutemen
43. "New Kind of Kick"--The Cramps
44. "We Walk"--R.E.M. (apparently, this song is just that good)
45. "I'm Straight"--The Modern Lovers
46. "Hello, It's Me"--Todd Rundgren
47. "See Emily Play"--Pink Floyd
48. "Sing to the Singer"--The Danielson Famile
49. "Belle"--Al Green
50. "Don't You Worry 'Bout a Thing"--Stevie Wonder
51. "Tell Me Why"--Neil Young
52. "I Can't Stand Losing You"--The Police

If you're wondering why it's 52, it's because there was some unwitting repetition of numbers in the mid-20s. It was late. You wanna cut two, J? Or leave it as a list of 52.

Elvis Costello (& Impostors) to play The Classic Center April 27. Tickets set at $35. Why the hell come to Athens, really?

Update: In what is, of course, poetic justice, after my bitching about ticket costs and not really considering it that much, Mr. Brown wants to go. So I guess we're probably going. Not that I'm not excited.

It took me a few days, but Gardner asked for it, so he gets it. I went with 50. This list may very well be outdated in an hour. Feel free to suggest modifications. I may have missed some fantastic stuff.

1. “Billie Jean”—Michael Jackson
2. “A Quick One While He’s Away”—The Who (live version)
3. “Changes”—David Bowie
4. The medley at the end of Abbey Road—The Beatles
4. “I'm Looking Through You”—The Beatles (happy?)
5. “Wall of Death”—Richard & Linda Thompson
6. “Straight Tequila Night”—Jon Anderson
7. “History Lesson, Part 2”—The Minutemen
8. “Attitude”—The Misfits
9. “Strength to Endure”—The Ramones
10. “Thirteen”—Big Star
11. “Oh Sweet Nuthin’”—The Velvet Underground
12. “Jailbreak”—Thin Lizzy
13. “Fast Car”—Tracy Chapman
14. “Hope” —The Descendents
15. “Showdown”—ELO
16. “Dirty Work”—Steely Dan
17. “Needle in Camels’ Eye”—Brian Eno
18. “Sisters of Mercy”—Leonard Cohen
18. “Chelsea Hotel No. 2”—Leonard Cohen
19. “I Can’t Explain”—The Who
20. “King of the Road”—Randy Travis
21. “Ignition (Remix)”—R. Kelly
22. “Maggie May”—Rod Stewart
23. “In My Room”—The Beach Boys
24. “Little Red Corvette”—Prince
25. “Happy”—The Rolling Stones
26. “Satellite of Love”—Lou Reed
27. “No Action”—Elvis Costello
28. “If I Can Dream”—Elvis Presley
29. “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”—The Smiths
30. “Like a Prayer”—Madonna
31. “(Nothing But) Flowers”—The Talking Heads
32. “Anarchy in the U.K.”—The Sex Pistols
33. “Don’t Let’s Start”—They Might Be Giants
34. “Everyday Clothes”—Jonathan Richman
35. “Hello Goodbye”—The Beatles
36. “Discovering Japan”—Graham Parker
37. “Take a Chance on Me”—Abba
38. “Debaser”—The Pixies
39. “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”—Neil Young
40. “Higher Ground”—Stevie Wonder
41. “Rumble”—Link Wray
42. “Classical Gas”—Mason Williams
43. “I Want You Around”—The Ramones
44. “Go on Ahead”—Liz Phair
45. “More Than a Feelin’”—Boston
46. “Don’t Fear the Reaper”—Blue Oyster Cult
47. “Turtles Have Short Legs”—Can
48. “America”—Lou Reed
49. “We Walk”—R.E.M.
50. “Cuddly Toy”—The Monkees

Edited slightly.

1) Government giving back to itself? This article about the largesse shown legislators in Georgia says,

Colleges within the state's university system paid for nearly $6,300 worth of goodies for lawmakers during the month, including $3,000 for a 'promotional item' for lawmakers.

Tom Daniel, a vice chancellor, described the item as a small lap blanket with the Georgia State University logo on it.

Not tons in comparison with some other donors, but presumably paid for with private funds.

2) Kelly Proctor says, "don't give up on the media." Weirdly doesn't mention FOX News. Even once.

3) What's that? Charlayne Hunter-Gault thinks the offensive phrase should remain? R&B agrees with her. Adams not sure he cares what she thinks:

University President Michael Adams -- who saw the mural for the first time Wednesday afternoon -- said he valued Hunter-Gault's opinion on the matter, but no decision about removing the quote would be made without a recommendation from the provost and other members of the staff involved.

Adams said there has to be a balance between accurate historical accounts and what some people find offensive.

"The offending epithet is not one I would use and is best left to history. I think there is a legitimate question for a historical portrayal and what offends someone," Adams said Wednesday night in a telephone interview. "There is a balance we have to seek."

Adams said he didn't know about the discussion over the mural until he started reading it in the newspapers.

I mean, what we want is a president who's aware of what's going on on campus, don't we?

4) Signs can be a problem, but the real issue for pedestrian traffic downtown are the metal boundaries around outdoor seating that for some reason had to be welded in place.

5) Next up, the bill requiring all kids under 21 to be on a leash attached to their parents at all times.

6) Wow.

7) Today we agree. Let the flag issue die, you bastards.

8) Now Stanley Fish wants to eliminate teaching evaluations by students too. R&B opposes that proposal, with good reason.

[bugmenot ABH]

The United States of Leland: Quite watchable, but both stagy and immature. People talk to each other in adolescent speeches, both far too mature in composition and very sensitive teenager in content. American Beauty lite is not entirely fair, as I'm not sure it is lighter than that flick, but it does have a lot of the same weaknesses. Good people in it, though, including big ol' Frankenstein head Ryan Gosling, who makes his "too delicate for this world" character bearable, Michelle Williams (who I never would have predicted to turn into a really competent actress), and the ever-marvelous Martin Donovan (who is nearly as cute as ever). If you were in high school and a bit depressed and intelligent for your age, you might think this was a great film. It's not, but (again) it doesn't annoy consistently enough to be a burden.

Pronouncing it "nucular" isn't a Southern thing. It's a stupid thing. Didja catch pretty much everyone on 24 doing it season after season? Is William Devane, who got it wrong in the promos for this past week (but was tweaked for the actual show) from Alabama? Nope. Albany.

Sorry, kids. The citizens of Oconee County have totally behaved themselves this past week. Or at least not misbehaved in any particularly entertaining way. So here's a bit from the big city, via Creative Loafing, to tide you over.

A 39-year-old man called police and said a bag of women's panties and bras were stolen from his apartment on Canterbury Road. He suspects his wife (a blond woman who is 17 years younger than him). He and his wife are getting a divorce, and the wife left the apartment two weeks ago. He thinks she returned to the apartment and took the panties and bras (which belong to her).The officer noted that the husband and wife continuously call police on each other. The husband said the wife had permission to retrieve her panties and underwear, but she was supposed to bring a sheriff with her.

  That is, I know what this photo (which accompanies a Salon piece on abortion rights today) is supposed to be. I did have my requisite seven years of sex-ed at Paideia, after all. But I can't help thinking, "Why is that monster throwing two footballs in the air?"

1) More budget modifications in the GA. Money for renovation/construction at the Pharmacy School, which Jane Kidd says has been needed for a while. And "$175,000 in new funding for the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government." Budget now goes to the Senate, after passing the House.

As finances stabilize after a recent recession, the state should be able to loosen its belt, Sen. Brian Kemp, R-Athens, said Tuesday.

"There's just not enough money to restore these cuts (in the midyear budget)," he said. "Now, '06 is a different story."

We're filing that one away mentally. Kidd and Heard stick up for education and health care.

2) Gwinnett college closer. Legislators screw around.

The bill passed in less than 15 minutes, a time slightly prolonged by a mock honor bestowed on Balfour. Sen. Preston Smith (R-Rome) introduced a "joke" amendment to name the college the Don Balfour University Center and have the mascot be the "fighting green tree frog." Balfour looked shocked when Smith rose to read the amendment. Then he realized a joke was being played on him.

Smith later withdrew the amendment.

But by saying it'll relieve pressure on UGA, do they mean "yay! we can cut the pointy heads' budget even more"?

3) R&B covers the HOPE hour cuts really well, mentioning that if the architecture school were to shorten its program, it would lose its accreditation.

4) Also trashes preferential housing assignments despite making the case for them within the same editorial.

5) Augh. Shut up about the textbook situation already.

6) ABH weighs in on the offending mural. What's their problem with it? No parenthetical citation. Ridiculous. You know, Jesus probably wasn't crucified through the hands either, but that's no reason to dis any number of artists who've portrayed as being so.

7) Shipp breaks down several bills in the GA, blunt-style.

8) R&B reviews Utage. "There exists a diversity of far eastern cuisine options available to the discerning digestive tract." Heh. Yeah. But not in Athens, kids.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Or aren't we? Anyway, this is just to comment on my favorite moment of the past week's 24 (my second favorite, but just barely, being Jack saying, "she seems nice"), which is when Tony Almeida, a broken man and now a heavy drinker, signifies the latter by pouring a beer into his coffee cup. Are you so craven to the FCC, FOX, that you couldn't spring for a fake bottle of Jim Beam? Some brown-colored water? Are there really alcoholics who seek to semi-conceal their drinking by opting for low-alcohol brew in a cheery mug? Because, at least in the cliche, I could have sworn there weren't. How did it come off? Very high school play, i.e., we can't really get/use the props we need, so we're gonna fake it and hope nobody notices. Good try.

The conclusion is that no matter how nice and hard working you are, life is full of randomness, like trains. Oh well. We did learn that Adam and Rebecca are "good at pizza," though I think it ended up being only the latter who was.

Next season: Ramber! Holy cannoli! Llamas spitting on people! Back Flips! Ex-POW! (Guess which of those is the main reason for me to watch the show again.)

Menand does The New Yorker "A Critic at Large" thing with several recent books about how Hollywood is dead and talks about blockbusters and bla bla bla the same old crap about how the latter is responsible for the former. He backs off it a little at the end, providing examples of all the things he's trashed from earlier times (i.e., they're not all recent innovations), but still. Can I stand by an article that trashes Jaws, The Terminator, and Alien? That relies plenty on a book by David Thomson, who "thinks that Hollywood had only two phases of first-class product: from 1927 to 1948 . . . and from 1967 to 1975," thereby ignoring (just from the top 25 of AFI's silly 100 Greatest list) Lawrence of Arabia, On the Waterfront, Schindler's List (again, not my opinion, but AFI's), Singin' in the Rain, Sunset Boulevard, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Some Like It Hot, Star Wars, All About Eve, The African Queen, Psycho, and E.T. Really, it's probably not worth getting pissed about.

Copy, Right? has a linky to the Dresden Dolls ultimate karaoke video of Avril's "Together," which is just lip-synched. So, I like the idea, and the execution is okay, but the song is what got me. She really sells a chorus. You can go straight to the source at Missy Punk-Rawk's own personal site and click on "music." A certain someone who I won't embarrass in public (s/he still has some indie cred) is so burning me this album.

1) NYT runs article on state schools asking students for money. Georgia is sort of among them. I find this creepy and weird. Not that some of the kids don't have money, but if I'm going to pay for my own education, I'd rather not do it that way.

2) Repubs opening up the pork barrel or funding education in the budget? A bit of both.

By cutting funds elsewhere, House Republican budget writers also were able to add $7.6 million to education in a one-time only grants in an effort to help offset budget cuts of past years.

I'd guess the school systems affected (and it seems to be a bit more secondary than higher-education focused) would rather it be an adjustment than a one-time grant. And what got cut? Also, what's more important: annoying spam or embarrassingly undereducated kids?

3) Tony Cole continues his legacy of being a fine, upstanding citizen.

4) HOPE hours cap architect throwing around words like "fairness."

Hembree, who chairs the House's Higher Education Committee, said the measure targets "creeping programs," that stretch beyond the original intention of the scholarship.

These are programs such as a Bachelor of Architecture, requiring 156 credit hours, or a Doctor of Pharmacy, which takes up 209 credit hours.

Hembree offered a scenario where one student of history is able to graduate within the traditional four years while a student majoring in engineering might take up five.

"Where's the equity? There needs to be some equity," Hembree said.

The plan, Hembree said, is for universities to find ways of squeezing these programs into a more reasonable timetable for graduation.

God forbid we train our pharmacists. It might lead to them giving out RU-486... Kidd seems to be on top of it, though.

5) Miss UGA seems pretty awesome, but she should be kickboxing while playing that violin for full multitasking effect.

6) Hunter-Gault has no comment yet about the mural. Letters in the R&B have more to say about it (as well as more on the parental notification deal: "In one of my classes is a 70-year-old man. Is the school going to notify his parents if he screws up, and if not, why?").

7) "the Georgia Department of Economic Development fully supports open government and wants the public to be aware of the work we are doing to make Georgia the best place to live and work." I'm not buying it.

8) Savannah Morning News comes out against the toll road proposal for 316 and points out that public safety is the government's job. ABH covers the changes Linnekohl wants to make to the current public-private partnership system, like allowing multiple companies to bid on something the DOT decides is important, instead of one company deciding there's a problem and that they should be the ones to fix it. Dan Moody (R-Roswell) has an editorial in favor of "sensible, well-considered public-private partnerships."

9) Georgia's congressional districts may be redrawn again. Admittedly, they're gerrymandered as fuck, but I'm not sure I have any kind of faith in a fair and balanced solution.

10) SGA president argues for importance of SGA. Nuh duh. Also, SGA (in the form of the Classic Party) apparently wants to take over everything on campus.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC; bugmenot NYT; bugmenot SMN]

Caught most of 12 Angry Men on TCM's 31 Days of Oscar and thought again what a wonderful movie it is in favor of reasoned thought. You don't see so many paeans to that these days. It is indeed stagy and occasionally overacted, but it seems to have become relevant again, with its plea for the importance of the dissenting view and its portrayal of the quashers of such as bullies, thugs, or even ordinary men who just want to make a ballgame on time. Henry Fonda in his white suit is as shining an emblem of justice and truth as Atticus Finch.

Sidebar: No one really seems to have picked up on TCM's decision to give loads of famous characters their own blogs for the month (except TV Tattle), so consider it noted here. Fred C. Dobbs, for example, posts pictures of his favorite food and his only friend and notes, "Don't talk in sleep. Might reveal location of the treasure. Then someone gets it all before me. The gold is mine, mine, mine." To hit up others, just change the number at the end of the link; they run from 1 to 31. [Later: This one might be my favorite.]

Paragraph 1 contains:

Since I was old enough to start exploring music on my own (beyond peer groups and parental vinyl stacks) I knew that investigation, evidence, and research were needed before drawing the kind of black and white conclusions that led to statements like “[insert band name] are shit.”

Paragraph 2 begins:

In this, the winter of 2005, there just aren’t enough hours in the day to be wasting those precious grains of sand in hunting down the less well-known Stones stuff to see if I’d made a grievous error by dismissing them as an influential ingredient as opposed to a musical force I can enjoy.

For fuck's sake. The kids are clearly not all right.

But still... The trailer for We Jam Econo is up and the movie is finished. See the historic tree. And also how many records Thurston Moore has.

The show last night was small but mucho fun, with audience participation that even I got caught up in. Review will hit the F-Pole at some point.

i.e., The first part of this last Trading Spouses swapperoo was painful enough to watch, but the second part maybe even more so. FOX, do not disappoint me. I feel in my bones that there is a reunion special in the works. J thinks it is imperative that we get footage of the families watching the show. Because no one can be that deluded and horrible, right?

PF's top 100 albums 2000-2004, combined with Stylus's version of the same thing, some weeks before. Same methodology as last time. PF ranking + Stylus ranking (2), then averaged.

92.5--The Unicorns--Who Will Cut Our Hair... (PF #99, Stylus #43)
87.5--M83--Dead Cities... (PF #75, Stylus #50)
70.5--Yo La Tengo--And Then Nothing... (PF #91, Stylus #25)
70.5--Eminem--The Marshall Mathers LP (PF #93, Stylus #24)
65--Missy Elliott--Miss E...So Addictive (PF #76, Stylus #27)
60--The New Pornographers--Mass Romantic (PF #78, Stylus #21)
59.5--Jay-Z--The Black Album (PF #35, Stylus #42)
55--Godspeed You Black Emperor--Lift Your Skinny Fists... (PF #41, Stylus #35)
55--Clinic--Internal Wrangler (PF #30, Stylus #40)
53--The Flaming Lips--Yoshimi... (PF #32, Stylus #37)
51.5--Basement Jaxx--Rooty (PF #65, Stylus #19)
51--The Rapture--Echoes (PF #38, Stylus #32)
51--The Streets--A Grand Don't Come for Free (PF #36, Stylus #33)
47.5--The Boredoms--Vision Creation Newsun (PF #17, Stylus #39)
44.5--Cannibal Ox--The Cold Vein (PF #55, Stylus #17)
42--Fennesz--Endless Summer (PF #26, Stylus #29)
41.5--Radiohead--Amnesiac (PF #21, Stylus #31)
40--The Fiery Furnaces--Blueberry Boat (PF #40, Stylus #20)
40--Daft Punk--Discovery (PF #12, Stylus #34)
33.5--The Arcade Fire--Funeral (PF #45, Stylus #11)
33--The Microphones--The Glow, Pt. 2 (PF #22, Stylus #22)
22--Spoon--Kill the Moonlight (PF #14, Stylus #15)
21--Sigur Ros--Agaetis Byrjun (PF #6, Stylus #18)
20.5--Broken Social Scene--You Forgot It... (PF #27, Stylus #7)
19.5--Dizzee Rascal--Boy in Da Corner (PF #15, Stylus #12)
19.5--Madvillain--Madvillainy (PF #13, Stylus #13)
18.5--The Avalanches--Since I Left You (PF #5, Stylus #16)
18--The White Stripes--White Blood Cells (PF #8, Stylus #14)
17.5--Ghostface Killah--Supreme Clientele (PF #19, Stylus #8)
15--The Streets--Original Pirate Material (PF #10, Stylus #10)
12.5--Modest Mouse--The Moon & Antarctica (PF #7, Stylus #9)
12--The Strokes--Is This It? (PF #16, Stylus #4)
7.5--Wilco--Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (PF #11, Stylus #2)
7.5--Interpol--Turn on the Bright Lights (PF #3, Stylus #6)
6--Jay-Z--The Blueprint (PF #2, Stylus #5)
5--Outkast--Stankonia (PF #4, Stylus #3)
1.5--Radiohead--Kid A (PF #1, Stylus #1)

Hey, you know what would've made that Budweiser "We love our troops" ad that they showed during the Superbowl better? If when everyone's applauding, they show a couple of dudes in the camo who can't. Because they got their hands blown off. I'm thinking there's a good possiblity I'd be pissed if that's how I was welcomed home. You can watch it here, on Bud's site.

1) State tax revenues continue to rise.

Despite the encouraging financial report, Gov. Sonny Perdue said at a news conference that he's giving no thought to relaxing any of the past or proposed spending restraints he's imposed on state agencies.

"Our economists, as we continue to talk with them, caution us about getting too giddy about revenue," he said.

"Obviously, seven months in gives us more confidence that the revenues could possibly be greater than we project. But we don't want to return to the old ways. All that we've cut is not necessarily bad."

I.e., "hey, poindexter, don't get to smiling yet." AJC covers the same. Huckaby talks about the portion of the budget that'll go to UGA specifically. What's great here?

Some of the other areas in which Adams said he hated to make cuts are the library, the UGA Press, the Carl Vinson Institute of Government and research support.

And then a bit later:

Public service institutes, which include the Marine Science Extension, the UGA Press, Business Outreach Services and the Vinson Institute, likely will be funded at a 90 percent level, Huckaby said.

2) Did I previously miss that the diversity initiative is called Georgia Daze? Does the current plan involve Rohypnol to help multicultural students make up their minds about where to enroll?

3) Mural temporarily modified. Explanatory notice reads:

As the result of students' feedback concerning the presence of a racial epithet in the display, (the) section will be covered until further notice. Decisions will be made in the near future concerning what course of action or changes need to occur to address these concerns. Apologies are extended to anyone who may have been negatively impacted.

Opinions editor of R&B is opposed to removal.

4) R&B of course opposes the new parental notification plan wrt underage drinking/drugs, concluding, intelligently,

We are here for an education, but we also are here to learn how to function independent of our parents.

We have often heard professors and administrators gripe -- and rightly so -- about parents who call to try and fix their child's poor grade or disciplinary infraction.

At freshman orientation, parents are pulled aside for their own seminar on how to let go and not meddle in their son's or daughter's life.

So why does the administration insist on creating policy that invites such meddling and prevents students from making -- and learning from -- their own mistakes?

ABH, on the other hand, thinks it doesn't go far enough. Fight! Fight! Fight! R&B also has an article suggesting that this type of policy has worked elsewhere. Students, howevs, know there are ways to get around it: "You can just drink off campus," as one of them says.

5) Ralph Reed thinking about running for Lieutenant Gov of Georgia. Isn't this how Omen IV starts?

6) Total smoking ban not to be revisited for now.

Dodson said he still supports a full 24-hour ban, but said it can wait until the time is right.

"I don't feel compelled to rush this process," he said.

You mean like by bringing it up right after taking office?

7) Disparity between growth of student population and growth of number of BOR state employees. Understandable, but it's still kind of large.

8) "And staff," "and staff," and "and staff." Jay Hamilton knows they exist!

9) ABH editorial on Ron Stephens's bill that would make all school systems in the state start and end their years at the same time establishes how it's a relatively ridiculous proposal.

10) Winders is right that Georgia is a green state more than anything else, but man that conclusion is awfully defeatist: "And as soon as this anti-Adams crowd realizes they're in a game they can't win, the better off all will be." So we should what now?

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

6) "It's the celebrity case of the century, up to this point," said Jeff Rayner, part of the British paparazzi, whose recent credits include a photograph of Britney Spears shopping for panties in Los Angeles. "The Jackson trial will be absolutely riveting. It's got everything. Fame. Race. Homosexuality. A Peter Pan love story." [from "At Celebrity Trials, Spotlight Is Sharp but Shifting" by Charlie LeDuff, 01/28/05 and unfortunately now only Lexis-Nexis available without paying; article is about how no one's covering the Robert Blake trial anymore]

7) An entire article called "What Boyfriend Will She Wear?" Sample quote:

There is no better way to provoke such wistful memories, Ms. Ross says, than to embed the olfactory trigger in a pair of panties. Her line of women's underwear, which she introduced in the fall of 2003 in camisole-and-brief sets, bears cartoon images of past boyfriends. When scratched, the images emit scents.

[by Brendan I. Koerner, 02/06/05]

[previously]

Spider Monkeys have a new sketch, approved by the audience members at Channel 102. I, for one, am pleased to see that the lack of beard has not affected one Ed Mundy's acting ability a whit, despite depriving him of the mannerism of stroking it thoughtfully. Props.

But Macca showed up and did fine, even if they only let him play one song from his solo material. Pyrotechnics were neato. But did he say, "thank you, the Superbowl"? It's still strange without the article, but with it? Marvy.

1) I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: I'm quite the fan of both Mike Hodges and Clive Owen, but this just didn't grab me. I didn't think it was badly made, and obviously plenty of people liked it, but I simply didn't care and wanted it to be over. Plus, even though Mr. Owen can pull off the mountain man look far better than most, it's a bit of a jolt to realize he's going to look like that the whole time. However, it attained higher status in retrospect after watching...

2) Stephen King's Riding the Bullet: Man but a bad Stephen King adaptation is tedious, and this one is extremely so. It makes Graveyard Shift look a whole lot better. At least that had a giant monster bat in it. This just has hallucinations by an already annoying main character to the point of madness. It's really never a good sign when you're rooting for your protagonist to get it over with and die. If not for David Arquette, not worth watching at all, and probably not anyway, even though the two seconds when he gets the shell of his hand ripped off are vaguely cool. On the whole? Lame-ass crap.

3) The Paper Chase: Now this was quite a contrast, and I liked it very much. It definitely shares tonal elements with Carnal Knowledge, but I prefer this. It's hard to put it better than Ebert's review does, when he concludes,

What's best about the movie is that it considers interesting adults--young and old--in an intelligent manner. After it's over we almost feel relief; there are so many movies about clods reacting moronically to romantic and/or violent situations. But we hardly ever get movies about people who seem engaging enough to spend half an hour talking with (what would you say to Charles Bronson?). Here's one that works.

It gets something right about the thrill of the mental chase in a great class, about the interplay between student and professor (even if reflecting on the fact that, if you want your kid to grow up to be a successful actor of long standing, you definitely shouldn't name him Timothy, there being quite a few who had a promising start but then went nowhere. [!! Except that I've now just realized that Timothy Bottoms is that Timothy Bottoms, and how in the world did he end up looking like that??!!]

4) Danny Deckchair: Another feel-good comedy of the type the English and Australians seem to have patented the formula for. Not going to rock your world, but also really quite well done, if silly and semi-cliched at the end. Rhys Ifans is rapidly growing on me, with his moony eyes and talent for reaction shots, both of which he gets to use frequently in this. It made me laugh relatively hard a couple of times.

Or just let them run around in a football themed pen for hours and hours, which is apparently what Animal Planet's "Puppy Bowl" (running opposite the big game) was. No really. Anyone looking for narrative was SOL. They, uh, say, "We've got plays, tackles and fumbles too, only ours are much cuter," but when they say that, they lie. See puppies bark a lot and occasionally fight a bit. See the ball cam on wheels freak them out to the point of provoking whimpers. See how long you'll watch just to see if anything happens. I will tell you that every half hour or so, a ref made an appearance to blow his whistle and say something like "illegal use of the paws" or "poor sportspupship." There would be penalties announced, but since there wasn't a game--or even teams--it didn't really come to much. Cheapest programming ever. If you missed it, they did advertise often that you could buy the whole thing on DVD for $9.95, so if you're the most easily entertained person ever, and you have a tenner burning a hole in your pocket, I'd recommend it.

Be still my beating heart. No really. The idea of having Jason Lee in my living room once a week is at least potentially awesome. In practice, I'm guessing it's terrible and gets canceled after two episodes. [via]

Vonnegut cancels. Health problems or something.

Xon wants to fight about socialism. He's kinda making my head hurt with his math and diagrams, but I'm trying. It's probably been too long since I had my intro ECON class.

Follow-up to the brief Electric 6 disagreement in the comments earlier. Teaching the Indie Kids How to Dance has three songs up from that band's upcoming album, and they will rock-dance your ass! It's crunchy and waily and the way they collectively go for it on the "baby" in the chorus of "Dance Epidemic" is esp pleasing.

There were instants at which he could ask whether, since there had been fundamentally so little question of his keeping anything, the fate after all decreed for him hadn't been only to be kept. Kept for something, in that event, that he didn't pretend, didn't possibly dare as yet to divine; something that made him hover and wonder and laugh and sigh, made him advance and retreat, feeling half ashamed of his impulse to punge and more than half afraid of his impulse to wait. . . . [The books] represented now the mere sallow paint on the door of the temple of taste that he had dreamed of raising up--a structure he had practically never carried further. Strether's present highest flights were perhaps those in which this particular lapse figured to him as a symbol, a symbol of his long grind and his want of odd moments, his want moreover of money, of opportunity, of positive dignity. . . . he had ceased even to measure his meagreness, a meagreness that sprawled, in this retrospect, vague and comprehensive, stretching back like some unmapped Hinterland from a rough coast-settlement.

1) Dude, in loco parentis much? At least you get one free pass, so make the most of it, kids. Really, it's not so terrible, but the timing is a bit odd.

The policy was spurred by increasing concerns about drug and alcohol use, Mace said, and will help UGA work with parents to identify students who may need counseling.

Note: increasing concerns, not increasing use. AJC has Adams differing there:

President Michael Adams said the policy is an attempt to rein in escalating problems associated with alcohol use by students. Adams has said previously he is troubled by recent incidents, including one in December in which a student was severely burned while playing a drinking game.

Now how can we tie this in to other issues on campus? I know!

Ethnic differences. The data from the surveys described above show that rates of binge drinking are highest for White college students. African-American students are lowest on measures of binge drinking, and Hispanic students fall between the two groups. On the basis of MTF data, differences among race/ethnic subgroups seem to have remained constant since 1980. According to CAS, Core, and MTF data, the prevalence of binge drinking among White students is between 40 and 50 percent, among Hispanic students between 30 and 40 percent, and among African-American students between 10 and 20 percent (O’Malley and Johnston, 2002).

R&B also covers, of course. We feel a little bad for Wayne Duncan, but by the end of the article, he seems like he doesn't care too much.

2) To be modified to what? Make way for the African American doesn't really have the same ring. Also, Adams actually says some reasonable things, but has been too busy or something to go look at the mural itself. Now that's a commitment to diversity. Campus NAACP has mixed feelings.

3) UGA = White Chick U. Hmm. Sort of. But then, "What used to be a university that served as a geographical melting pot for all Georgians has now become an elite finishing school for white suburban girls"? Ouchie.

4) Bill Hembree wants you to have some HOPE, just not an excessive amount. Why 127 when "bachelor's degrees take about 120 credit hours" and most classes are worth 3 hours?

5) Vince Dooley would have fired self? Or at least thinks Regents should fall in line and not disagree with Adams publicly.

6) Make damn sure you don't have a blowout during rush hour, y'all.

7) ABH opposes House Bill 218, designed to remove that icky public comment/knowledge thing from the process of cramming certain kinds of legislation through.

8) John Barrow speaks out on Social Security, but remains committed to bipartisanship.

9) Also, a total smoking ban would bring us all rainbows and unicorns and happiness and free ice cream forever.

10) Students want to have to do more writing, but also want more constructive feedback from instructors.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Because you could totally get one here, at the Government Surplus Property site for Georgia. I haven't bid on anything yet, but I sure do like to look at the pictures, especially when they have machinery, and if I needed 50 desks or had anywhere to put them, I'd be all about it.

So, obviously, by this point, all of you who make an effort to be in the loop (and those of you who don't, I love ya anyway) know about Martha Stewart's new gig and have probably ridiculed it. But I'm looking forward to this quite a bit and was figuring out why last night. What prompted the revelation was Trump getting back into his limo at the beginning of last night's Apprentice, and, since they're in Times Square or wherever, he thrusts out an awkward wave and greeting to the folks milling around. This quality of ego and weirdness can be excruciating to watch, but it's also possibly the main thing that keeps me watching. I certainly hate Donald Trump to some extent, but there is also something compellingly human and idiosyncratic about him. He's a control freak, and his acknowledgment of this varies week to week. He acts as though he has to play by the rules he sets and then breaks them without a second thought. He's a big ol' ball of both complication and simplicity, and Martha Stewart is a comparably fascinating personality. It's not just the tight-wound perfectionism; it's the failed effort to cover that up, to be more likeable and TV-ready, that's interesting. Reality TV is built on casting and editing, but the former is primary, and a strong, layered figure at the center is a great start.

Y'all know the current crop of Oreo commercials that are blanketing our fiber-optic lines? There's a description here. Anyway, they're all about milk, or at least as much about milk as they are about Nabisco's cookies, and it's kind of nice and cute that they're multicultural, but the main one they run features an Asian grandpa and grandson. It looks great, and the Nick Drake-esque song is hummable, but hey, aren't Asians generally lactose intolerant? Yeah. About 90 percent of them. So it's sort of a weird choice, isn't it?

1) Text of Meredith's state of the system address in full. Who can tell me what's funny about the first paragraph:

Thank you. As University of Georgia professor Cameron Fincher concluded in his book on the history of the University System: "In many respects and from many different perspectives the University System is the state of Georgia's most remarkable achievement and the finest thing that Georgian's have ever done for themselves." We are mindful of that fact.

Ooh, and also, "In the area of academic program review, this Board has made a conscious effort to eliminate non-viable academic programs, so dollars could be directed to higher priority academic areas. Since 2000 we have eliminated 211 academic programs." Great, huh? Short version: we are so awesome, even though we have no money; and we might raise tuition; also, textbooks are expensive. ABH covers it, adds this:

A task force already has formed to study creative ways of assessing tuition, Meredith said after his speech. The task force will examine things such as whether schools should charge more for junior- and senior-level classes, which cost more to teach than freshman- and sophomore-level courses. And, he said, the task force will look at whether certain areas of study should have different tuition levels or whether in-demand times should cost more than courses at 8 a.m. or 5 p.m.

R&B covers too; we learn that Adams liked the speech.

2) Controversy over tha N-word appearing in a memorial intended to show stuff about how that's bad. Is it good art? Can't say, as haven't seen it. But fussing about the artist's choice is a bit ridiculous.

3) Bla bla. More on textbooks. AJC quotes Meredith as saying, "Georgia is among the leaders in looking at this issue." Yeah. Because there's not a lot you can do about it.

4) I knew you'd come through, Gen. Beauregard Lee. Also, he gets to eat hash browns? I'm coming back as a weather-forecasting groundhog in my next life.

5) See? God does hate the Georgia trees.

6) General Assembly discussing new potential restrictions on teen drivers.

7) It should be fucking hard to vote, ABH.

Making it too easy to vote carries with it the possibility that someone who normally would not make the effort - for lack of interest, lack of time to learn about candidates or lack of time to study issues - might be prompted to cast a ballot, if it was convenient enough. Even if relatively few voters opted to rely on whimsy over wisdom, their ballots could carry significant consequences, particularly in close contests.

Yeah. How about we have some sort of literacy test...

8) Jack Logan's new thing is out, but man that's a creepy picture.

9) You'll see a couple of butts.

10) One SGA ticket believes in tuition increases. The other doesn't. Everyone remains uninterested.

11) R&B in bed with Big Tobacco? Sex-ay. (letter #3)

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

One thing I like about Adam Green is his ability to drop a line like that in the middle of what sounds almost like a Nashville-era country crossover hit (that is, it's not all that country; it just has enough of a flavor of it to climb up both charts). But the thing I like most about him is his grasp of melody, which gets overlooked because of all the focus on silly lyrics and fluffy hair. The new stuff is considerably more polished than previously, and I'm looking forward to picking up the album at some point (looks like it comes out Feb. 22). Props to Stylus for reviewing it nicely. Rough Trade has a couple of songs and a video up, but you'll need Flash and either Windows or Real to check it out.

1) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story: Not underwhelmed, not overwhelmed. It was right about at the level I expected it to be, in that some jokes are absolutely awful and others very amusing. The entire TV intro to the tourney is brilliant, complete with the dodgeball-playing robots that are a great tweak of FOX's sports coverage. Rip Torn is very good, as usual, though he's gotten to go for it with even more gusto at times (see, for example, Freddy Got Fingered). It's a good entry in the genre (ragtag team of losers beats team of ostensible winners) and interesting to compare with Anchorman, which is much less committed to plot, but also (probably) funnier for the most part.

2) The Last House on the Left: So, for years I had been kind of wussy and nervous about watching this, since it's regularly cited as terrifyingly realistic and extremely sick and so on, but dude, the tag line ("To avoid fainting, keep repeating 'It's only a movie...It's only a movie...'") is about as accurate as the ones from the 1950s warning, e.g., that those who die of fright during the film will not receive refunds. It's not a bad movie at all. I love the look, for example. But it is not scary for one damn minute, though there is a half-second startle when Krug unexpectedly steps into frame with the machete. The weirdest thing about it is the comparison one can't help but see to John Waters, especially in the chicken-truck scene, but really throughout. That is, there's a lot of comedy and zany music (shades of Benny Hill). So the question is: am I that desensitized? Or is it just much faded by today's standards?

3) Shaq's All-Star Comedy Roast: Ready to send to DJ as soon as he emails me his mailing address. Mostly terrible, in that people are apparently too afraid of Shaq to insult the fella seriously, but with glimmers of amusement from Steve Harvey and Cedric the Entertainer and, believe it or not, from Jimmy Kimmel, who is awesomely vulgar and comes off like a real pro. The main reason to watch, howevs, is for Shaq's reactions, especially if you're a fan of the big man.

Seriously, dude. Ted Allen should at least get a stiff dressing-down (he'd like that) for the conclusion of last night's Queer Eye, in which, amid the drama of family reunion and going around on the millennium wheel in a pod, the combination of champagne and Stilton was seen to occur. Bleeeargh. Bad enough to kill a delicate cheese with bubbles, but to pit these against one another? You do not want a battle to the death in your mouth.

So, I don't usually do these because they're beside the point and relatively easy to come by in New York, but this one had to make it, due to (as was pointed out) its importance in the lives of both Team Brown and the tipster.

I was walking up 8th Ave around 41 or 42 to go to the Port Authority and catch a bus to NJ for my work. I was wearing clericals (Roman style, like I prefer, think Father Ted) because of work and this always gets me looks of respect or avoidance. Many people say hi. As I'm walking, I see a tall, young woman with a beautiful face and a rather bony frame. She's gorgeous. Dark hair, nice eyes, radiant smile. And then it hits me. It was: Christie Carlson-Romano. My head went "Ren!!". She's rather tall and her face is delicate yet looked like it had just been freshly scrubbed (could've been the cold). And I must have stared too long, because as we passed, she looked at me and said "Father" as a greeting/acknowledgement. I in kind responded "Christie" and she seemed impressed or something. Maybe scared. And I really had to bite my tongue and [not] say "Ren" because that would have seriously weirded her out. I have no idea what she was thinking, but I was impressed. She's hot!!!! And I'm a priest . . .

For those not in the know, her IMDB page, complete with requisite extremely outdated photo.

It must be noted that the thought bubble joke on this past week's Simpsons was not only funny, but fabulously creative and cheekily boundary-busting. The episode was a nice one in general, but to have a thought bubble invaded surreptiously by a character pretending (badly) to be another character and also to give the pretender the ability to shut the bubble like an elevator door? My love is like wo.

1) State of the System address today, plus important naming rights for plazas. Woo.

2) R&B on admission of minority students and recruitment. Two things to note:

In working reports, the Admissions Office only tracks black students' application numbers, Spatig said, and only started to track non-white enrollment about three years ago, as the diversity of the state grew.

Really? And there's this fact as well:

One student worried, though, that letters from deans and campus visits may not be enough to balance out a first look at a campus where approximately 26,000 out of 33,405 students are white, according to the Office of Institutional Research's Web site (www.oir.uga.edu).

It's even more lily white than that, y'all. Those are total enrollment numbers, which include grad students, many of whom are international. I'm betting undergrad numbers look even worse.

3) Executive MBA program gets super-nice building in Buckhead. "Benson and Rich Daniels, director of the Executive MBA Program, would not disclose the rent on the 10-and-a-half-year lease of the building." It's expected to be profitable, as tuition is (get this) $57K per year. I guess we'll see.

4) R&B also thinks Dodson is overreaching. You know what's different this time around? School is in session, meaning a lot more fuss could be kicked up. Opinions editor disagrees, has to write his own separate column.

5) Lottery screwing around, spending too much money, and yet, "The report found that lottery employees earn salaries that are slightly below the state average for big companies. The board has instructed staff to take a closer look at employee salaries and get them up to par, if necessary, Dooley said." That's Barbara, not Vince, and it's sort of a strange end to an article that seems to be pushing the idea that money's been misspent precisely on employees.

6) Misassessed property taxes to be refunded (before or after they pay up?). Also, case by case basis not allowed for four-lane to three-lane conversions?

7) Cox proposing longer early voting period. There are both pros and cons to this, but as long as Election Day isn't a national holiday, it seems like the right thing to do.

8) Also, they can't find things on a map, think John Adams is the name of Britney's dog. ABH in on the act wrt youth bashing because the kids are apparently not big on the First Amendment. Sure, it's a bit unsettling, but one does wonder if it's on the same level as the frequent "youth of America stupid" stories that come out several times a year and have been as long as I can remember. Doesn't mean they shouldn't kick up a fuss about it, but the importance of the survey may be overrated.

9) Shipp argues for transparency in government.

10) I don't have any actual basis for what I'm saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

1) In the R&B letters section, a bit more beauty pageant fallout, including a fine little editor's note.

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Do not fuck with Oconee County.

Theft: On the morning of Jan. 27, deputies received a call about 5 a.m. from a man who said he had two suspects cornered up in a tree. He thought they were the ones who had stolen his fleece jacket earlier. The man said he was holding them at gunpoint to keep them from leaving. When deputy James Brown arrived, he saw the man with the gun and one his neighbors standing below the tree. Brown took his flashlight and shined up in the tree, but no one was there. Brown walked around to see if he could see anyone and he couldn't. No explanation was offered on what might have happened to the suspects.

Or, uh, maybe do? And here, affray, specially for Chris, even if this is the sort of thing that really doesn't make the whole state look so hot:

Fight: On Jan. 26, a call came in about children riding bicycles and a party at Arbor Glen Mobile Home Park on Macon Highway. Deputy Bryan Smith was dispatched and when he arrived, he saw about 20 to 30 people gathered at a trailer watching two women fight. The crowd was loud as the fight occurred and Smith could smell alcohol coming from the people. Kenya Laquilla Harper, 23, who was pregnant, and Sandrika L. Gilmore, 17, were going at each other, when some people in the crowd began to separate them. Smith ordered the fight stopped, but Harper continued to threaten Gilmore. Smith called for backup help, while the two women continued to shout at each other. Then the crowd began getting hostile at Smith, at which point Smith told them to calm down. A few minutes later, more deputies and a Watkinsville policeman arrived. Gilmore was taken into custody and charged with affray. Smith wanted to have Harper checked by medical responders, but she refused the help. At the jail, Harper continued to be uncooperative and became verbally abusive. She also smelled of alcohol. She was cited for affray, then deputies allowed her to leave.

If it happens again, he'll be cited for ectoplasm:

Damage: On Jan. 27, a man returned to his home on the Atlanta Highway in Bogart and found where someone had broken the bottom of his door, then tried to repair it. When he went inside he could not find anything disturbed except for an urn that contained the ashes of his deceased wife. Someone had moved it from the bottom of a cabinet to the top of the cabinet.

All the rest here. [bugmenot]

Because I haven't watched any in a couple of days, so I might as well come up with something to write about 'em even though this thing going around Athens really isn't nearly in depth enough. [from Chip]

1. The last movie you went to see in a theater: This I used to do much more often than currently, especially when I was in school and an avid member of Cinematic Arts and hadn't yet seen everything they show at the ol' Tate Theater. Anyway, looks like it was Kinsey, back in mid-November, which is kind of sad.

2. The last movie you watched at home: Not nearly so difficult to answer, as they're all catalogued on here. So, The Wrong Man (just scroll down a bit for impressions).

3. How many movies do you own? Oy. Enough to have those times where I can't remember if I own something or not. Enough to buy things and not watch them, even if I haven't seen them. And I've cut way, way back as far as what I buy. Several hundred, enough to necessitate alphabetization, and we'll leave it at that.

3a. What was the last movie you bought?
Thriller: A Cruel Picture (see here).

4. What are the next three movies in your NetFlix queue (or similar service)?
Ha! I'm the last to be converted, which is to say, not only am I not a member, but I don't want to be one either. I'm much too impatient and need immediate gratification and live very close to multiple movie renting places that have fine deals. I am, however, waiting for whoever has it to return Alias season 1, disc 1, to Hollywood Video. It was due Saturday, you bastard.

5. List five movies you adore/mean a lot to you:

Holiday: Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in a surprisingly underrated rom com. It really doesn't seem that there should be anything especially great about it, but an exceptionalness beats in the heart of it. Stephanie Zacharek's review here captures some of what it is about it, and I would add that Grant's somersault is all the delight of the movie in about two seconds.

Kill Bill, both volumes (though I'm linking to 1): Gut-wrenchingly amazing and profound. J was saying the other day that in thirty years people are going to look back and go, "Kill Bill wasn't nominated for any Oscars?" the same way they do about other neglected classics. He's right. If there's a movie of our time that will be watched and rewatched and hold up in the same way that, say, early Godard or Welles does, it's this. I don't care if you disagree with me because I know you're wrong.

The Lady Eve: If there's anything this movie is about, it's sort of about the joy of flirting and the haze that love can put you in. And it's perfect. Here's Ebert talking about it and getting down pretty well the quality of Fonda's mooniness in his role.

The Kingdom, parts I & II: This is cheating because it's a miniseries and the time it has (ca. 9 hours between the two parts) gives it space to unfold in, but hell, I don't care. It's hypnotic, and it has everything you could possibly want. Do not dare to prejudge it by the execrable Stephen King adaptation from last year. We will pretend that never happened. It's Von Trier pushing things as much as he ever does, but giving back too, in that it's very entertaining.

If you choose not to count that, we'll substitute another multi-genred work, Shoot the Piano Player, Truffaut's gangster pic homage that I prefer to his Doinel films (which is a silly thing to say, as I've only seen the first two). It's sweet but not sappy, has great music and tons of little movie jokes, and will about break your heart.

The last one is the one that's hardest to pick. It could be anything, but for now I'm going to go with The Terminator, which is a favorite and one I've seen many, many times. It's not as cool as T2, and it's horribly dated in terms of the look, but it's also a tighter, tenser film, with less of the mythology and confusing time stuff, and more just an unstoppable killing machine going after a normal woman, with a score that will not stop pounding. It's a real shame the way Cameron's ended up when he could do this once upon a time.

6. Name your guilty pleasure movie (or genre): I try not to feel guilty about anything, but I am a bit embarrassed that I end up watching The Birdcage pretty much every time it's on TV, despite the fact that I don't particularly like it. Oh, and uh, Ladybugs.

7. Name 3 people to whom you're going to pass these questions on, and why: Nope. Anyone who wants to grab it can do so. I'm curious what any of you have to say.

Is it wrong to wish one of the teams in the Model Alliance would be eliminated instead of the total train wreck of a relationship that is Adam & Rebecca? Not that both Freddy/Kendra and Hayden/Aaron don't have a few charms (the latter being an esp interesting balancing of Aaron's steadiness and snark charm with Hayden's screeching and panicking), but there is something appealing about the midgets. Maybe it's their size. I don't think I can relate to the tall, bronzed gods and goddesses nearly as much. And they do make it more interesting.

Also, Shanghai is purty.

Word on the street is that Perdue's proposal for raises will defer those of system employees (as opposed to teachers) to July from January '06. But the thing is, January's already a deferment from the previous July because of the way the state FY works (i.e., our meager cost of living increase for this year just kicked in yesterday).

1) This really means no raise at all for one fiscal year.

2) While allowing the gov to claim credit for it.

3) I call bullshit.

Look for it in '05. Hot dudes are practically wasting away. Or maybe not:

Psychologist and Men's Fitness editor Dr. Belisa Vranich said Hollywood has such a diverse group of "sexy" men that the skinny kid is unlikely to start a starving trend.

"There is such a range of beauty for men in Hollywood," she said. "For women, it's young and thin. For men, it's short, like Tom Cruise, or fat, like James Galdofini, or powerful, with bad hair, like Donald Trump. Anything can be sexy when you're a man. So the images aren't that powerful."

Ouch. If I'm Gandolfini, I'm like "yay! I'm sexy!" but torn because also, apparently, a fattie. [bugmenot & via]

When the aliens finally land on our planet and we have long since extinctified ourselves, even they will be like, "Remember when..." [via]

1) More African-American students admitted to UGA through early action this year than last year, but (as the article points out) that's not so much the trick. The hitch is in enrollment, so they get a fun weekend, which (I think) coincides with the Alumni Association's multiculti conference thing.

2) Lord knows people drink a lot of wine during football season. It's selling plenty on ebay, and Muia, "Muia said he hoped the Regents would amend the rules for University offices that didn't receive state money, like the Athletic Association and the Alumni Association, saying the wine could be a 'grand slam' with alumni and Bulldog fans alike." Ah, so the money should go to those facets of the university that don't actually need it?

3) AJC runs a correction on Leebern. He didn't actually graduate from UGA. Oof. Aren't those usually supposed to make things better? Also, R&B prints some numbers, showing that the family gives money to everyone in Georgia politics, Dems and Repubs alike.

4) But where will you get a copy of your letter?

5) Couldn't one conclude from the evidence that people just haven't been practicing their shootin' and stabbin' as much?

6) Fucking A! Can we have an honest discussion on what funding schools with sales tax means? Please? Johnathan, how about you write a letter?

7) R&B discriminates against pageant winners, in favor of news. (Letter #3) Also, wrt Letter #4: ew!

[bugmenot ABH; bugmenot AJC]

Hey, you, pee in this cup. We hear you might've had a little "knee surgery" in the offseason.

I love the idea of analyzing album covers, but Stylus's first entry drops the ball early:

Iconic after the fact, Britney’s first album cover plays teen ingénue to the hilt, echoing Ingres’ Odalisque perfectly. Along with the schoolgirl outfit of her first video, it screams conflict: you can look, but you certainly can’t touch—the myth of availability. She has a bright smile, is leaning towards the camera and tilts her head in a questioning way, as if to ask the viewer if they are interested in one more time. She pulls back with her legs, clearly not open for any sort of business, reinforcing her chasteness.

First, which Odalisque? He painted three: here, here, and here.

Second, nope. I'm not seeing it.

Mr. Secretary, if you keep pronouncing it "nucular," we will be forced to hand you over to the terrorists.

You could fly to Vegas and do this. If you want more than one dead witness, you'll have to supply your own, presumably. Lots more choices here, including "The Tomb" (varies from Graveyard in that Dracula will marry you; also, Elvis can be added), "Gothic" (choice of Dracula or Death himself), "Sigmund und Freud" (sadly, not what it sounds like, but wouldn't it rock to be wedded by a giant penis-cigar?), and the coolest of the cool, "Intergalactic":

Stardate, your wedding day. Your special day is presided over by the one and only Captain James T. Quirk or Captain Schpock, in the Starship Chapel.

Surrounded by life-size cutouts of your favorite space characters, you enter into your new life, going places no man has gone before.

This wedding comes complete with one Minister, Transporter, one illusion entrance, Captain Quirk or Schpock as your minister, theatrical lighting, and plenty of fog.

Wouldn't your woman just love you if you took her to this? Personally, I'm happy they're rolling back into town, if only because it increases the chance of me actually getting an "Oh Shit I Saw." It's been a while. Ron White will also hit the Classic Center April 1.