Read

Normally, I'm a big Gladwell fan. I think that, even if occasionally not as thoroughly thought out or researched as they could be, his pieces usually present an interesting way of looking at something. And this one on power laws (i.e., extreme distribution rather than bell-curve distribution) does fall into that category, but to me, there's one big thing he's overlooking. The example he uses to illustrate power laws is homelessness, specifically the chronic sort, people who belong in a mental institution and/or are alcoholics, those who are violent and likely to cost the state thousands (sometimes more) of dollars in medical care, those who can't pick themselves up and get on with things.

Culhane then put together a database—the first of its kind—to track who was coming in and out of the shelter system. What he discovered profoundly changed the way homelessness is understood. Homelessness doesn’t have a normal distribution, it turned out. It has a power-law distribution. “We found that eighty per cent of the homeless were in and out really quickly,” he said. “In Philadelphia, the most common length of time that someone is homeless is one day. And the second most common length is two days. And they never come back. Anyone who ever has to stay in a shelter involuntarily knows that all you think about is how to make sure you never come back.”

The next ten per cent were what Culhane calls episodic users. They would come for three weeks at a time, and return periodically, particularly in the winter. They were quite young, and they were often heavy drug users. It was the last ten per cent—the group at the farthest edge of the curve—that interested Culhane the most. They were the chronically homeless, who lived in the shelters, sometimes for years at a time. They were older. Many were mentally ill or physically disabled, and when we think about homelessness as a social problem—the people sleeping on the sidewalk, aggressively panhandling, lying drunk in doorways, huddled on subway grates and under bridges—it’s this group that we have in mind. In the early nineteen-nineties, Culhane’s database suggested that New York City had a quarter of a million people who were homeless at some point in the previous half decade —which was a surprisingly high number. But only about twenty-five hundred were chronically homeless.

I can see that, and I can see how it follows that those people should receive targeted care, even free apartments, for being drunk assholes because it's cheaper to do that than it is to let them keep getting drunk and needing new livers and suchlike. But then it goes here:

The leading exponent for the power-law theory of homelessness is Philip Mangano, who, since he was appointed by President Bush in 2002, has been the executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, a group that oversees the programs of twenty federal agencies. Mangano is a slender man, with a mane of white hair and a magnetic presence, who got his start as an advocate for the homeless in Massachusetts. In the past two years, he has crisscrossed the United States, educating local mayors and city councils about the real shape of the homelessness curve. Simply running soup kitchens and shelters, he argues, allows the chronically homeless to remain chronically homeless. You build a shelter and a soup kitchen if you think that homelessness is a problem with a broad and unmanageable middle. But if it’s a problem at the fringe it can be solved. So far, Mangano has convinced more than two hundred cities to radically reëvaluate their policy for dealing with the homeless.

It would seem to me that one reason there are a lot of people who are only briefly homeless is because those resources exist. If you have a safety net, even a shitty one, it would seem to make it easier for people to get the hell out of there pretty quickly. If you get rid of it, you may very well end up with more chronic homeless, thus eliminating the benefits of deciding to "eliminate" as opposed to "manage" the problem.

Hobbyhorse

So, Jane Kidd's thinking about suing if the redistricting is pushed through, and good for her, but the most interesting part of the article is that, if Sonny wants it to go through this year, he actually is going to have to make a decision, rather than just letting it pass into law the way he normally could. The federal government needs to have it by April 24 to have time to review it (since we haveta, not having the best record on these things as a state), and that's before the 40-day window is up. Isn't Georgia also pushing to get the review requirement revoked, though? Could that derail all this?

Golden Dome dudes try to take yet more money out of state coffers in order to give you a tax break measured in pennies.

I'm not really getting this op-ed about community policing as a policy. It's all, "sure, it works, but only because the entire principle behind it works." To which, um, duh?

Sadly, there appeals to be more than one Brian Lawler around. I was really hoping this letter was from the Brian Lawler, but it seems to be rather from a Brian Lawler. What a difference an R makes. I'm guessing Brian R. Lawler has kind of an Office Space Michael Bolton kind of thing going on. Maybe a dartboard set up at home with the Prince's face on it.

And I'm sorry this lady got her money stolen, but the details are venturing into bizarre. In a flag? Really?

Finally, check out the gantlet you've gotta run if you want to go see some boobies. Intimidating, eh?

Mark it.

Crunk spelling bee. The second coming. A chance for redemption. Or, for some of us, for failure and a first time competing. March 31 at Go Bar.

Context-less

Here's my current favorite sentence from a project I'm working on:

Short, lustrous pile and loose weave lead to pile weavings' having a rich, silken-velvety appearance and a soft, flexible, floppy feel or "draping handle" as opposed to a crisp or a stiff and "meaty" one.

Rugs R Hot.

Facts

1) Peter Weller has totally had that same operation the Nazi clockwork guy had in Hellboy. And someone may have gotten his face with a belt sander.

2) Pineapple martinis. Not really a drank. Not a good combination with wangs. Maybe it seems like it at the time, but later, when you belch, you will regret it.

3) Non-townie-frequented/-staffed places downtown try very, very hard to make sure all your needs are met.

4) Whatever band that was playing at Wild Wing, torturing "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" to death, I'm totally gonna be reviewing their CD in a year and a half. Two years tops.

5) The Kangaroo on Lumpkin sells lighters by the register that are both shaped like and apparently (according to box advertising) make noises like pigs.

6) Someone who writes for 24 (I'm looking at you, Mr. Fury) really likes Jane Espenson.

7) Peter Stormare. I'll say it again. Unsung in his true genius. I hope he's not dead on Prison Break, but if he is, I'll take it in shorter doses.

Hobbalito

Son of a bitch. Explorer crash. Post go bye-bye. This is the part I cared the most about.

Which is the fact of all these large condo developments going up in downtown Athens. In some ways, some of them are nicer than the lack of anything that was often previously on those corners, and they do add to the tax base, but...

Georgia Traditions, The Athenian and 412 Thomas will add more than 430 dwelling units, many of those more than one bedroom each, to the area. The Hilton Garden Inn, which opened Wednesday, boasts 185 rooms and will draw people to town overnight, often for more than one night. These new living quarters will add to the pedestrian traffic throughout the day and night on downtown's eastern edge and can offer a symbiotic relationship to the multimodal center.

"Interestingly enough, one of the real pushes for Georgia Traditions in picking that location (on East Broad) was the multimodal system," Griffin said. "One of the first things they said was that one of the key components was the multimodal center next door."

The Georgia Traditions, which began construction last year, will house 95 condominiums ranging in size from 572 square feet to 1,545 square feet, and is expected to be completed by January 2006, said Tim Burgess, a partner in the venture. Nearly half the condominiums have been sold, Burgess said, and the majority of buyers likely will use the units as a second home. The unit prices range from around $240,000 to $850,000.

1) No one who buys an $850-grand condo is going to use public transportation. Because poor people also use it. They have germs. 2) If most of these units are "second homes," that means they're going to be empty most of the time, and much as I like my local government collecting revenues in sales tax and property tax that go to things like schools and sewers, I think it's not really worth it to add a giant building to the small downtown area and fuck up the skyline, which is one of the genuinely historic things about downtown--more the fact that there isn't much of one than that there is. It's not that we need to be slaves to the past and more that it might not be worth the cost for the tiny benefit.

Jim. Meme. Done.

1) What is the worst DVD/video you own?

This is hard. Team Brown might buy some shitty DVDs, but we tend to get rid of them pretty quickly, too. And we might have some DVDs others would consider shitty (e.g., Under Siege, Knock Off), but we're not talking about the judgment of others here. The worst one that's currently in the house--though it is in the pile of stuff to sell or get rid of somehow--is The Back Lot Murders, which, as you can no doubt tell from the cover at the link, is pretty egregious in its badness. It was a birthday gift, one among many that were better. But it should soon no longer taint our residence.

2) What is the worst concert you've ever seen in person? Long before Team Brown was officially a team, we went with a mutual friend to see Warren Zevon at Variety Playhouse in Atlanta (round about 1995 or so, before it was all cool to say, "the poor guy's dying of lung cancer, isn't he awesome?"). Two of the three tickets were freebies from a radio station. Shortly after he broke out the awful Beethoven tribute guitar solo, we left. Mind you, this was semi-early in the show. It was all that was worst about Z93. And then some. "Werewolves of London" is still a fab song, but I try not to connect it with the hairy cheeseball who played that night.

3) What is the worst experience you've ever had at a restaurant? This is hard. I'm very patient. It's possible that it's the one year we went to the Christmas parade in Athens with a bunch of people and afterward hit Mexicali on Broad Street. We waited around for 45 minutes and didn't get anything from water. Some people in our group were debating whether to leave a tip when we finally decided to go. I pointed out that 15 percent of nothing is zippo.

4) What is the worst movie you've ever seen in the theatre? The one I remember being most pissed about was Henry Fool. Before that, Hal Hartley was my guy. Kind of an indie dude, yes, but one whose look and writing and everything was always very clean. Unlike a lot of independent films at the time, he didn't revel in dirt, and he tended to keep things compartmentalized emotionally. You could say that's the same thing on two different planes. But Henry Fool was the opposite of all that, and it made me feel betrayed. I'd be curious to see it again now, but it'd be hard to get that chip off my shoulder.

5) What is the worst book you've actually finished? Left Behind. Whatever the first one is. Or possibly The Firm. Or The First Wives' Club. I kind of can't believe I've read all three. All went down like a store-brand cola: quick, flavorless, bad nutrasweet aftertaste. All three were tacky and poorly written and with a mess of a plot. Much as I hate to admit it, sometimes things have bad reputations for a reason.

6) Who is the worst looking or least appealing celebrity you would have intimate relations with "just to tell the story"? Stephen Hawking? I think his big ol' brain is kind of hot. He's supposed to be kind of an asshole, but anyone who's guested on The Simpsons twice is okay by me. Or maybe Tom Baker, who I also carry a secret torch for.

I love my MTV.

I am very disappointed in all of you. Because I know you haven't been watching your There and Back. And not that I have been regularly enough, but whenever I have, the joy it fills my heart with is so great that it compensates for the intermittentness of my affections. I also know that you remember Ashley Parker Angel of O-Town, o he of the greatest boyband name of all time, he of the indeed angelic countenance, with blond hair and fluttery eyelashes and the whole package, really. And he remains adorable, only now with a different type of hair product (more bedhead than Dep) and a much smaller bank account. And a kid. And he manages to be stupid in exactly the right amount, calculated as if with a titration eyedropper, in that he's stupid enough to be amusing, but not really quite stupid enough to make you want to punch him (or, more accurately, to stop watching). You really want him to make it, to get out of his girlfriend's mom's house and have a hit video again and just not be quite so pathetic and helpless, but then he pees on the floor and looks at you with his big eyes, and even though you want to tell him to get a damn job already, you can't help it. Aww... If you want an idea of what you've been missing, you couldn't start at a better place than Reality Blurred, which does a fantastic job picking out exactly the right parts to hook you hard.

Movie Diary

1) The Butterfly Effect: Not genuinely good in any way, but somehow compelling in its sheer ballsiness and tackiness. Sort of an exploitation movie with a much bigger budget. And an Ashton. There is one moment that, to me, kind of sums up the appeal of the whole movie. (That is a lie. There are many.) But anyway, Ashton has changed his past and wakes up as a fratboy. Hazing pledges, he asks them to recite the Greek alphabet and whacks them with a stick on their helmets. Then, he busts out the chis madly, going through the whole alphabet in a few seconds, completely testosterone-fueled. And then, there is this little "acting" (with a sign flashing, "I'm acting") moment where his character is thinking, "Dude! How did I even know that? I don't know that. Do I? I just totally blew my own mind." It is also full of gratuitous violence and creepy child molestation stuff and animal abuse and general insanity and the kind of time travel stuff that's not thought out all that well but is very, very cool if you are a) 14, b) high, or c) stuck in the house because it's raining and cold and you have a low tolerance for entertainment. (Metacritic has much scathingness.)

2) Who's Harry Crumb?: Eh. I'd never seen it, and it was On Demand. It's not as good as, e.g., Delirious, and it's pretty stupid, but for late afternoon watching, it was fine. I think I'm a big fan of this Wesley Mann guy.

3) Good Boy!: Kid's dog is actually alien from dog planet sent to assess life on earth and how dogs have been completing mission. Kind of sweetly weird and peppered with loads of dog fart jokes. Good voice acting from semi-fancy cast (if Delta Burke counts). Also, balls double-entendre. Woot!

Jukebox

The second-worst-rated song this week, "Beep," was actually one of my higher ones. No, it's no "My Humps," no matter how you feel about that song, but it's catchy enough and amusing enough to rate a 6. The Brad Paisley-Dolly Parton duet isn't a great song, but it's pretty enough for a 5. Orson, which I don't seem to remember, got a 6. Bubba Sparxxx got a 7, even though it's not really one of his better tracks. If you ride the UGA campus buses, though, I'll be damned if you don't have "booty booty booty booty!" pop into your head at least once. Jim Noir also got a 6; low-key and not bad. Kashmir was boring and got a 4. Chipz's "1001 Arabian Nights" was ridiculous and cute and scored a 7. Everything else is scored and blurbed. If you want to hear anything, poke me.

Movie Diary

1) The 40-Year-Old Virgin: Another of those instances where people are right because it's totally funny and sweet and generally non-cornball. Keener's bit at the end is a little overwritten in its standard rom-com manufactured drama, but the characters need to be manipulated into doing certain things, and this does the trick, and at least they didn't go the whole "Aha! I caught you with another woman" melodrama, which they could've. Great, great guy stuff interactions. Song at the very end falls kind of flat for me, but perhaps this is due to a) growing overuse of the device, and b) major affection for entire Hair soundtrack, something Team Brown oddly bonded over. There will not be nerding out about the hyphenation issues. That was gotten out of the way last night.

2) Red Eye: Do appreciate it trying to go for small rather than the usual action excess, but it's not the only movie to do that (see, e.g., Cellular, which I thought did a slightly better job keeping the tension going). Am generally a big Craven fan, but not enough happens, and the fact that she doesn't get to shoot the dude is lame as fuck. What's most interesting about it is that it can work as a parable about diplomacy: i.e., to hell with it in certain situations. It focuses throughout on those who do customer service work and the ways they get abused and draws a parallel to the Homeland Security head's announcement on TV that diplomacy wasn't appropriate in all cases, which is, of course, part of the reason they want to kill him. Not that people who act like jerks to those who do their bidding should be rewarded, but I really think that politeness is always the right thing to do and the goal in any given situation.

3) Johnny English: Damn disappointing. A few perfectly understated bits, but mostly misuses Atkinson to make poo-poo jokes. Anti-French stuff without bothering to write anything more amusing than "ha ha! He's French" must play better in the UK. Even your inferior Leslie Nielsen stuff is loads superior.

Hobbyhorse

Whatcha gon' do 'bout all them rules? All them rules about them schools? We're a gon' act act act like fools. Rep. Bob Smith from Watkinsville vaults back into the most-hated-state-congressman pozish with his drive to reexamine the funding formula for higher education. If you don't want to play by the rules, well, you can apparently just change 'em. How long before Athens storms Watkinsville and annexes it?

Good timing, too, with this report on how drastically screwed repairs on campus are. I suppose this is what happens when you devote all your energy to building new structures. Or maybe it's a self-perpetuating process. You can't get any money to fix up old buildings, even ones like the Chemistry Building that are kind of necessary for safety, so you work on ritzy new ones, which you can fund through bonds and the like.

If we could just link it to all the concern about students getting their drank on...

Math Club-Geography Club potential rumble = hot. Math Club tattoos? Even hotter.

Secret ingredient is.... Pirate Ship!

I know y'all were all watching this and that on Thursday night: Winter Olympics, Dancing with the Stars, etc., and not that we didn't make an effort to tune in for our favorite little rock star, but ESPN smartly programmed extremely manly stuff against women's figure skating: a little college basketball, but mostly Viking: The Ultimate Obstacle Course (second thing on the page linked, though I'm really hoping the first gets picked up too). It's sort of a cross between parkour and Iron Chef, but with pirate stuff thrown in. Did the chairman create this too? It certainly seems like the kind of thing an enigmatic and insane Japanese billionaire would do. It's also quite a bit like MXC, but more thoroughly themed and with amazing feats of strength and agility, not just average people getting whacked with stuff and falling int the water. We thought pirates were totally over (Mr. Brown said, just the other day, "Bigfoot is the new pirates"), but, like many a rock band, apparently they're big in Japan.

Hobbyhorse

Well, gosh. That ban on happy hours in Stateboro must have done the trick. And in such a short time too. Kinda think this "scared straight + grossness with yer weenie" approach might work a little better. Can we expand this program to all students? Weird Christian rootbeer parties probably aren't going to do the trick. I mean, god forbid we focus on moderation. What was that Aristotelian concept about sin equalling the two extremes of any behavior again?

And now the part where I propose legislation. Beacuse I think we have stood by for too long and let our newspaper editors get by without having confirmation through standardized testing that they know what they're doing. They should be administered a battery of subject tests on every aspect of the news, plus your basic grammar and spelling. After all, they influence our children. They perform a public service. And as such, we can't let the fact that creating such a system of tests would cost vast amounts of money and decrease efficiency due to the time spent both taking them and preparing for them. We can't say that different places have different standards, or that more governmental interference might not be a good thing. We can't say that they should've learned these things earlier in life and been tested on them then. We must be sure. We all know testing works, right? (I'm really tired of this attitude that everything works like a market system, with investors deserving a return on their dollars. The market works like the market. And other things work in other ways. Ahh... shaddup and go read yer Prayer of Jabez.)

You know what else? Students deserve some straight talk about the part they play in Athens's poverty, not just easy encouragement to go out and volunteer. And characterizing the issue only in terms of self-interest kind of isn't cool:

Poverty in Athens affects the University in its goals of raising the educational and instructional bar, Whorton said. Since the University must compete with other schools in other areas, widespread local poverty makes it more difficult to attract high-caliber professors, he added.

Also, considering how many university graudates go on to bum around Athens and work at T-Stand, I don't think this solution will work either:

Whorton suggested the gap between the University and the poor population in Clarke County can be bridged by “demonstrating the usefulness and value of education.”

And then this:

Sister Joan Morris, chair of the campus ministry’s human values committee who helped facilitate tonight’s event, agreed that students can make a difference in Athens by remaining active and informed to help the affected individuals.

For instance, Morris said, one of the basic needs of the local poor community is finding affordable housing. Students could volunteer with groups like Habitat for Humanity to fill part of that need.

Aren't students, um, part of the reason we have little affordable housing? Shouldn't they be made aware of that fact?

In Boulevard, apparently commercial buildings on three corners of a four-corner intersection is totally fine, but extending that to the last corner? Hold on a sec now. That's going way too far. We would much rather have an empty building.

Also, to hell with safety! We want to take left turns wherever we want. Consequences be damned.

And, in more prurient news, the Soloski story grows a new arm. A potentially really juicy arm.

Panty-watch

9) IN some rock circles, nothing short of landing in the center of a teen magazine with a staple through your skinny, skinny tie signals being a sellout faster. But ask Gerard Way, lead singer of the Belleville-rooted goth-pop outfit My Chemical Romance, what he thinks about being cast as a 5-inch-tall action figure with his four band mates, and you get this reply: ''Plenty of artists do it. It's a matter of taste. However, we do not sell panties or other products that we feel degrade certain people.'' [from "Gumby Was Never Like These Guys" by Tammy La Gorce on My Chemical Romance, 02/12/06, no longer up for free]

10) One pair of ruffled blue tennis panties with ball pocket, he reads the inventory.

One Izod white tennis skirt and matching shirt, bloody.. . .

His cellphone rings again. He ignores it. [from "Chapter 7: When the Evidence Doesn't Add Up," part of Patricia Cornwell's serial, "At Risk," 02/19/06; includes illustration of said undergarments]

11) So where's the nude photo of Brad Pitt? Or George Clooney, who appears later in the issue, dressed, amid a bevy of women in flesh-toned bras and panties? Let's face it, Min says: Women do like to see sexy men -- just not with all their clothes off. [from AP article "Two Naked Actresses Draw Magazine Buzz," 02/22/06]

Note: Panty-watch is a regular feature here dedicated to tracking appearances of the word "panties" or "panty" in the New York Times, partially because it's amusing to see the Gray Lady venturing into such areas and partially to see if it correlates with anything specific. The end of the year should result in a few more graphs.

[previously] [bugmenot NYT]

Read

Jeffrey Goldberg's pieces are always a little uncomfortable, ideologically, for me to read, and this isn't an exception, but this Gerson fella (Bush's primary speechwriter) is both occasionally deserving of admiration (Christian, believes in helping the poor, Africa, etc.) and really, really scary (believes in doing so through supply-side economics). And also, it's nice that there's a presidential speechwriter who believes what he writes, but he's also got an excess of earnestness. Call it, erm, zeal.

At a Welliver dinner, the remarks of ex-speechwriters tend toward carefully calibrated irreverence; current speechwriters aren’t expected to gripe or to disclose confidences. But at the 2002 event, Gerson spoke with immoderate earnestness. According to several people who attended, Safire asked Gerson to tell the group something it didn’t know about Bush. Gerson, in a quavering voice, responded with a story that left some of his audience nonplussed. He described a call that he got moments after Bush finished addressing a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001. Bush thanked Gerson for his work on the speech, to which Gerson replied, “Mr. President, this is why God wants you here.” Gerson then related Bush’s response, as evidence of his thoughtfulness. “The President said, ‘No, this is why God wants us here.’ ”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room, and then one of Bill Clinton’s speechwriters said, in a stage whisper, “God must really hate Al Gore.”

Anyway, it explores the disconnect between the lofty ambitions (frightening!) and the actual amazing failure of those ambitions in action (almost equally frightening).

Comics

House of M: The eight-episode (-issue?) limited series, plus the epilogue thing that segues into about 11 other comics, where the story is continued. It's definitely a little too confusing, especially with my small base of knowledge. I've heard about this stuff (Scarlet Witch wigging out) in other comics (Whedon X-Men, New Avengers), but I don't exactly have the details on it, and there are so many characters I don't know. Thank god for having read New Avengers or I'd be totally lost. Anyway, I like the premise, especially the end-premise, and the tabloid mockup is a highlight, as is Spidey flipping his lid (it doesn't seem like he does that a lot). The art is pretty good, though occasionally still too much with the pushing of the boundaries of the form. I don't think I can both concentrate on a story and attempt to follow complicated panel layouts. Or at least not unless it's Chris Ware and there's less to the story. And less fighting. Are Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch always Magneto's kids? Anyway, I'd like to know what happens in this new "Decimation" (to which, also, urg! Incorrect usage! A losing battle indeed, but I can't help it itching my brain) world, but am I going to go out and read 11 different comics series to find out? Meh... I think I'm too lazy for that. I'll wait until they make it into a movie in 20 years.

Hobbalito

CC Jail overcrowded. The most unbelievable part of this piece is that the jail's population has increased 93% over the past 14 years. Either our crime problem in the ACC is getting a lot worse, or we need to be considering more of those outpatient-type programs, especially for drug offenders. It's also possible it has something to do with mandatory minimum sentencing. Not that the current jail population necessarily should factor in during sentencing, but requiring excessively punitive terms probably doesn't help. Also, jail jam. Mmm...

There is awkward TV metaphor use by the Dept. of Transportation's spokesperson in the Red & Black.

More on the actual effectiveness of traffic calming in the Flagpole.

And the insane letter of the week, because a man of age, celebrating with a bottle of champagne, is exactly the same thing as a teenager who has 20 rum and cokes.

Trumposity

Or, why I sometimes miss watching The Apprentice. Here is Mark Singer's lil' Talk of the Town piece on his experiences with the Donald and book sales. And here is the guffaw:

Immediately, “Character Studies” levitated many thousand notches on the Amazon list. How could I thank Trump? Money, I thought, he likes money. I wrote him a check for a thousand dollars, then sensed that that was excessive. I tore it up and wrote another check, which I sent, along with a letter:

“Dear Donald: Thank you so much for that wonderful letter to the New York Times. . . . Though I’m sure that you, as an author, are aware that it’s considered bad form to pay the people who review one’s books, I nevertheless enclose a check for $37.82, a small token of my enormous gratitude. You’re special to me. Also, I enclose a couple of Band-Aids. Because you seem unable to stop picking at this particular scab, these should come in handy. Cheerfully,” etc.

Two weeks later, an envelope arrived, cream-colored with a gold-embossed “TRUMP” logo and, inside, my letter, returned, with a neatly written message from Trump in thick black uppercase letters: “MARK—YOU ARE A TOTAL LOSER—AND YOUR BOOK (AND WRITINGS) SUCKS! BEST WISHES DONALD P.S. AND I HEAR IT IS SELLING BADLY.” I treasure this memento. Indeed, it is now framed, along with a photocopy of the cashed check for $37.82; evidently he needed the money.

Police Blotter (Unchained Id edition)

So, did the deputies take a while to get there, or is this guy oddly impressive?

Arrest: On Feb. 14, a clerk at A.J.'s Food Mart on U.S. Highway 78 was working the store when she saw a man get a six pack of Michelob beer and walk toward the door. She asked if she could help him and he only looked at her and walked outside. There he opened a beer, drank some, then began walking away. She called 911 and deputy T.D. Kirkham was dispatched to the area, where he spotted the suspect near Ruth Jackson Road. He turned on his blue lights and stopped, but the man looked agitated and kept walking. As other deputies arrived, the man, who only had one beer by this time, set it on the ground and put his hands in the air. He was cuffed and questioned and he admitted he took the Michelob because it tasted good and he wanted it. Donnie R. Williams, 31, of Elberton was charged with shoplifting and the single beer was returned to the clerk.

Sometimes, we also really admire the patience of the OCPD, as well as their fondness for quotation marks:

Arrest: On Feb. 13, deputy Marvin Williams was dispatched about 5:30 p.m. to U.S. Highway 78 where a man walking near the Circle C Mobile Home Park was giving "the finger" to passing motorists. Williams spotted the man outside the trailer park, but before he could reach him the man could no longer be seen. As Williams patrolled the area, he saw the man again and called him over to his patrol unit. The man had bloodshot eyes and his face was perspiring. When Williams asked for his identification, the man stepped back and put a hand in his pocket, at which point Williams placed his hand on his pistol and told the man to remove his hand from the pocket. The man said "Go ahead and shoot me." Williams told the man to put his hands on the trunk of the car at which point the man again said "shoot me." Williams pulled out his taser gun and took the man's wallet. Inside the wallet he found a prison corrections release identification card identifying him as William Marty Thomas, 44, with an address of Dahlonega. Williams placed cuffs on the man and put him in the patrol car, where he began shouting and thrashing around. At one point, it looked as if he was going to kick the interior, so Williams opened the door and pointed the taser at him. Thomas laughed and said he was only joking. Four other deputies arrived and Thomas was taken to jail, where he threatened to kick Williams' rear end. He was charged with felony obstruction.

Honesty is also generally appreciated from the perp:

Arrest: On Feb. 19, deputy Marvin Williams was dispatched to a fight on South Burson Street in Bogart. When he arrived, he saw Wiley Earl Frederick Jr., 29, of Pittard Road, Athens, and Brian Andrew Frederick, on the roadside with bleeding mouths. A woman, Elizabeth Frederick, was also there sobbing. Department of Natural Resources Capt. Mike England was in the area and had stopped at the fight. Williams was told the trio were in a car when one man jumped on the other. The car stopped and the fight continued outside the car. Williams asked Wiley Frederick why he had jumped on Brian and he replied, "because I'm having a bad day." He was arrested for disorderly conduct.

All the rest.

Publications

Reviews of new albums by Big Earl and Jules Shear.

Biweekly grub notes.

The yearly puff piece on Taste of Athens.

Oh staff listserv...

The worlds you open up to me...

I need help in finding someone to paint a custom gun stock that I have. I shoot competition long range and would like to have this turned into a "show stock". I would like to talk to someone who does airbrush if possible. Anybody know someone?

Hobbalito

Yet another jerkass LPDS letter, comparing it to Mark Richt's hypothetical pig farm and bringing up, yet again, that Bruno currently has no restaurants, which, one still has to point out, is precisely because he hasn't had his own property yet. So, uh, good job not creating bitterness, you dildo.

Two Democratic state senators are trying to get a bill through that would create ballot initiatives like in California (and several other states). The article talks down their chances, and since it's a pretty clear effort to achieve some margin of control as a minority party (win enough people to your side on a particular issue, and you don't need the state government to pass it), it probably won't go through, but in this case, I think that's a good thing. I'm a strong believer in democracy, but I also like the representative sort. The way things have worked out in California, the endless ballot initiatives have strangled the state government. When you vote on a requirement of this (property taxes no higher than such and such) and a requirement of that (funding at such and such a level for schools) without considering the fact that they're often at odds, you screw yourself, and I have no faith that wouldn't happen in Georgia as well.

And Jimmy Williamson doesn't seem entirely honest in saying the increase in alcohol-related arrests on campus is random.

UGA Police Chief Jimmy Williamson said his department isn't doing anything differently that would result in more alcohol-related arrests, although in December he announced to the UGA student body that UGA police officers would do several things differently in enforcing alcohol laws, including conducting DUI road checks. "There is no proactive campaign" to enforce alcohol laws, Williamson said Monday. "The same thing we were doing last year is the same thing we are doing now."

Also, um...

UGA police put in place another policy change Jan. 1, booking even minor alcohol-related crimes, such as charges of underage possession and public intoxication, at the Clarke County Jail, rather than simply issuing citations. "I believe these changes will help students better understand the effects of negative behavior and the importance of personal responsibility," Williamson said in a December letter to the UGA student body.

Read (Can't)

Also not online from that last issue of the New Yorker is a serious reflection on Ratzinger's words at and visit to the graves of WWII German soldiers, talked about here. It's thoughtful, and it really tries to sift through what's behind his actions, but it seems, to me, not to grant enough ground to the whole forgiveness thing of Christianity. Yes, it's partially about Ratzinger being German, but it is more about both his doctrinal adherence and (even more more) about his deep reticence to explain himself to outsiders, which is both frustrating and comprehensible. It's arrogant and it's idealistic at the same time--i.e., it's pretty damn Catholic.

Fish. Yum yum.

Stanley Fish, big deal scholar, provocateur, fine writer, is giving this year's Sibley Lecture at 4:30 p.m. March 8, in the Law School's Hatton Lovejoy Courtroom. I haven't read Surprised by Sin, but I know its fundamental premise and that I should.

Jukebox

Mike and me are like twins this week, except apparently he likes the Knife single, and I reeeally didn't.

Among those not blurbed, P.O.D. got a 3, We Are Scientists a 4, BEP a 6, Corinne Bailey Rae a 5 (though I'm still a fan of her voice), Scooter a 5, Purple Ribbon a 7, Delays a 5, Kelly a 6, and Madonna a 6.

Feel free to shoot me an email if you want to hear any of it for yourself.

Movie Diary

DiG!: What a bunch of self-centered bohemian drug-addicted assholes, and what a good movie about them. They're not all that bad, and the music is good indeed, but it's also lucky that one can separate all three of those things. It's also interesting, being in a town that had its own 1960s revival/movement around the same time, to see the differences. Maybe it's just that people in Athens are more laid back. Or maybe they're more apt to drink cheap beer than shoot up, but I do feel like the people here in similar bands are a hell of a lot nicer. It's a smart movie in the way that it presents the supposed choice between "selling out" and "like, staying true to the music, man," but it also doesn't buy into that distinction, and it seems to have a certain amount of respect for people who have their act together. Or maybe that's just me reading into it since I feel that way. I think it's clear that Anton Newcombe is a sociopath and not nearly as much of a misunderstood genius as lots of people paint him, but, again, you kind of can't deny that the tunes are catchy. I just don't know if I'd want to see BJM live. I got no interest in either being kicked in the head or seeing someone else be so.

Hobbalito

A plan to speed up traffic-calming thingies (i.e., horrible giant curbs, road humps, etc.), but where? Five Points and Boulevard of course. Believe me, I hate people who speed through neighborhoods as much as Doug Haines does. I walk down my own road in the morning on the way to the bus stop, and when people gun their engine as they drive past me, I wish them considerable ill. And I also understand that part of the reason these neighborhoods get emphasis is because they are in town and, therefore, people are more likely to cut through them. And that traffic calming apparently works to some extent. But when all we're doing lately (besides fussing about students and beers) is talking about the poverty problem, laying out decently large amounts of moolah to fix a problem in some damn rich neighborhoods kind of reinforces the impression that the local government only cares about those with lobbying power. That said, Heidi rocks for saying there might not be money for it.

Good press for Sue Burmeister. What? No photo op? Maybe at the ribbon-cutting.

Adams figures out a way to make skyboxes uncool.

Winders only knows lame people not connected to the university.

And how many times do we have to say it? Kids. Always put your gloves on before you eat waffles.

The televisual experience

1) Go Kinky: Temporarily two-part series aired on CMT following the dude's run for Texas Gov. Very entertaining, as the link establishes, but also a) a fair-use violation (yes, I know it's not in effect any more, but that doesn't mean it's not something to aspire to), and b) as Mr. Brown put it, "Oh. You're not going to go to meetings. Ha ha.... but seriously, dude, are you going to go to meetings?" I think a lot of people thought Andy Rusk was the same thing, and he's not dissimilar (don't know his stance on giving cigars to children), but it seems like his campaign is less "spiritual" and has a good bit more policy in it. Would I vote for Kinky? I honestly don't know. I know I can't make that judgment based on an hour of TV time, but I can say I'd watch the show if they made more of it.

2) Flip This House: Not new, but new to the team. Mr. Brown says they should change the title to "Southern Assholes," and while I think that might attract a slightly different audience, he's pretty right. It's interesting, but too producer-driven and doesn't show results. What if we want these dickheads to fail? Must we simply assume they sold the house they've purtied up for what they wanted to? Even though they painted over the wallpaper and seemed to take far more time than they should've to drain the half foot of water the basement contained? All the fighting over colors and jumping into hammocks and treasure hunting was amusing, but I think I like more seriousness in my house TV.

3) Intervention: Back to it because of M. Bucher's reminder. And still riveting. Even when the addicts supposedly clean up and find new reasons for living and all, they sure can spew some bullshit. It is a show about how much people lie and how many ways they can find to make themselves unhappy. And yet, I like it.

Delirium

Lineup this year is a strong one:

Masters of the Hemisphere
Je Suis France
Bugs Eat Books
Fairmount Fair

April 29, 40 Watt, $5. Much fun will be had.

Boo!

Damn. Katherine Boo is the hotness. And she proves it more with every article she writes on poverty. This one is of course not up, but the "online exclusive" (i.e., suckaz! you didn't buy the magazine!) Q&A is pretty extensive for once and explores a few things the full article doesn't. Like this long response to the last question:

American social policy survives on over-promise, and necessarily so, I suppose, given a public that has a limited attention span on matters of poverty and inequality, an unwillingness to be separated from their tax dollars, and general skepticism about government competence in matters from hurricane relief to child-protection services to homeland security. So the politicians and the foundation and nonprofit-organization leaders who care about these so-called social-justice issues have historically made claims about the effectiveness of their pet programs which don’t begin to hold up under scrutiny. This expectation inflation is often perpetuated by journalists who spend a few days in a computer class for welfare moms or a charter school for inner-city kids, then write up the most uplifting stories. Alas, the fact is that many anti-poverty approaches—ideas that seem logical or feel right in situ—turn out, when studied longitudinally against control groups, to make little or no long-term difference in the lives of their alleged beneficiaries. What’s interesting about Olds is that he’s spent decades not only refining his ideas about nurse-visiting but doing what in a weaker program would amount to self-sabotage: raising (with some difficulty) millions of dollars to test whether his idea for addressing poverty will work across demographic, geographic, and generational boundaries. Around the country today, thousands of smart, committed people are running schools and social programs that are clearly benefitting their respective communities, just as the first nurse-visitors did in Elmira, New York. A pressing question is whether such good programs can be replicated—whether they can grow to serve a sufficiently large, diverse population to bring about even a small amount of national change. But people who try to answer that question with real data may find that their diligence redounds to political detriment. Findings like the ones that Olds has produced over the years are complex and replete with caveats: matters of statistical insignificance, data sparseness, and the like. Such nuances can really muck up a PowerPoint presentation, and they don’t lend themselves easily to political crusades. The trouble is that if we don’t evaluate social programs strenuously—and if we’re unwilling to risk the fact that even well-crafted and well-intentioned ideas may do little—we won’t progress very far in crafting the ideas that may do more.

Poverty Task Force, you have been served notice. Her articles would be a good thing to read, not only for comprehension, but for ideas. [Sidebar: Check out how cute she is, too.]

Read

Gladwell on the flaws of profiling, as illustrated through legislation banning pit bull ownership. One of the things that he talks about over and over again, in all his articles, is the way people generalize immediately from one case to all cases, and this discusses specifically some of the ways in which that generalization fucks up. You can apply the same discussion to a lot of different areas, some of which we were talking about last night: zero-tolerance policies in schools (e.g., the kid who got suspended at Cedar Shoals), hyperactive pontificating in the newspaper about the problems with student partying (with no evidence cited), people who've changed their entire outlook on life since 9/11. The thing is, obviously some generalization is needed, but it has to come from a smart place. You can't just go around wrapped up entirely in your own fearful perception of the problem without at least trying to take a look at what the case might actually be. Or you can, but you're really not going to make anything better by doing so.

OSWS

Oh shit! We saw Mama Kim on Friday, driving down the Atlanta Highway on our way back from The Sultan. By which I don't mean we saw Emily Kuroda. We're pretty sure she was in town for the big biannual soy lovers/Seventh Day Adventists convention.

And wuv. Twue wuv.

Apparently, it consists in buying each other comic book stuff for V-Day, not in any kind of elaborately planned secret way, nor in a way that is obligatory and known to be such. More just like, "Hey. Dude. I appreciate you. Here is a present of stuff you (and I) have been into of late." What is it like not sharing most interests with one's spouse? A process of frequent retreat into self, I would have to think.

Anyway. Thank you, nerd brethren who are having a borg-like effect on us (see! Star Trek reference!), most recently wrt Preacher. Highly enjoyed first volume "Gone to Texas." It is certainly somewhat overwritten and obvs deliberately provocative constantly (plus: white jeans? seriously?), but I am amused by people's noses being shot off and intrigued by interpretation of Biblical matters therein. Vol. 2 up next.

And along those lines

Because we like the leg: Why is the UGA men's b-ball team such a bunch of wusses that when they rock the old-school unis, they still gotta have the knee-length (and sometimes longer) shorts? Is it an expression of manliness? Not only in an "I'm no Richard Simmons" way, but in a "My wang is so large, tiny shorts could not possibly hope to contain it" way? You know what? The short shorts look good. They say: "I cannot be encumbered by the chance that I will get tangled in my shorts on my way to the hoop." They say, "I am proud of my legs, even if they're probably a little skinny compared to most of the football playaz on campus." They say, "I respect my history in all aspects, not just those that are convenient to me." And they say, "Ladies! You are more than welcome at Stegeman Coliseum."

Digga, not Finga

Ye don't know one word from another. Or needs to clean out his ears. But still. The results are good. And this is quite a contingent of ladies who is fit in the way where you drop the "t" when you're saying so. You could maybe see a rib or two if you looked hard, but those legs are legs that have spent more time with Tae Bo than being wrapped in sweaty saran wrap to lose inches. Yay. We love Ye.

Oh staff listserv...

I believe you are tempting fate with these potentially evil, unlucky kittens:

Could the lady that emailed me about the kittens that were born on Friday 13th contact me. My daughter is interested in getting one. I believe you were from the Hull area. Thanks

[Insert joke about the Hull area]

Take a knee

Edna Lewis is dead. That means nothing to most of you, but I kind of never thought she'd actually die.

Lil' hobby

Pettiness is the new black. ABH editorial is all, "yeah, it's kind of a jerkoff measure to charge illegal immigrants (or anyone not providing those crucial papers, because, as we learned during the voter ID fiasco, anyone who doesn't have the required papers isn't really a citizen) 5% of their wire transfer fees, but since proponents of this bill and others say illegal immigrants cost Georgia $1 billion a year, and we're sure their figures are totally accurate, what the hey." And, essentially, "it's not my problem."

Despite hyperactive Adams-quoting headline, Jimmy Williamson is quite reasonable in his approach to improving the atmosphere of gamedays. Lately, I wonder if El Presidente has been thinking about moving on. Or maybe it's more about creating a legacy besides the huge percentage of campus that's still pissed about parking fees yadda yadda.

Also, this would be the one week of the year where I kind of wish I hadn't changed my name when I got married.

What, Freaks was taken by another network?

Here is how the NYT describes what may be my new favorite show (without its having aired yet):

"Black.White.," a six-part documentary that makes its debut on March 8, follows the race-swapping experiment of two families. The white Wurgel-Marcotulli family of Santa Monica, Calif., (along with Rose Bloomfield, the 17-year-old daughter of Carmen Wurgel) and the black Sparkses of Atlanta, including Mr. Sparks's wife, Renee, and 16-year-old Nick, undergo a racial transformation through the magic of sprayed-on color, wigs, contact lenses and other makeup tricks. The whites appear black; the blacks appear white.

Except that it might want to take that last sentence with a veritable ocean of salt. And I believe someone owes Eddie Murphy some royalties.

Fried pickles

Thank you, Monsieur McGinty, for introducing me to one of the more glorious things that can be fried. Sliced thin, coated in cornmeal batter loveliness, paired with a side of America's favorite dippin' sauce, hooray for the fried pickle. It might not quite the heights of the flash-fried tofu Fusebox used to serve in Atlanta, or even the pork rinds you can get off the back of the truck on gameday, but all things pickle (ice pickle excepted) are appreciated in these parts.

Oh staff listserv

We have neglected you of late, ignored your insanity, but then, out of the blue, a request of simple beauty.

Date: February 16, 2006 4:38:21 PM EST
To: UGA-FORSALE@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: WTB: Nascar Curtains


at least 63" long.

Sibiliance, sibilance

Not mine, but Mr. Brown's. Regularity? We shall see. It was described as a "pain in the ass."

Well? Is they?

Georgia Republicans: Won't Even Eat at Taco Bell

So it continues. House passes a bill that imposes a surcharge on wire transfers if you won't hand over your papers showing you're in the country legally, more or less. Howevs, at least two GOP dudes expressed some reservations about a) enforceability and b) the fact that it's not a long-term solution. Ya think? House Majority Leader Jerry Keen shows that he has no soul:

House Majority Leader Jerry Keen of St. Simons sought on Monday to downplay the legislation's focus on illegal immigrants.

He said the bill should be viewed as a new source of funding for hospitals to treat the poor and needy because it earmarks funds for indigent care.

A constitutional amendment, however, would be needed to dedicate the funds for indigent care. Without that amendment, Democrat Bob Holmes said, next session's legislative leaders could easily abandon their commitment.

Please note, though, that it's an issue of national security, as it always is when you want to get something passed:

State Rep. John Lunsford, a McDonough Republican, pointed out that the bill won't punish students, migrant workers and others who are in Georgia legally.

"This directly pertains to drug dealers, to terrorists and people who practice human trafficking," said Lunsford. "We live in a very generous state, but there are limits to our generosity."

You wanna provide an example of that generosity, bub? Cutting health care to the poor repeatedly? Refusing to fund schools (upper and lower) fully? Generally handing out tax breaks like candy to companies that pay their workers dick? Oh yeah. We're geenrous as a motherfucker.

Editorials (101)

So here's a comparative exercise.

Editorial 1: Freedom only goes so far. It certainly doesn't extend to letting schools decide whether or not their students can have sugar and fat during school hours. Bla bla. Standard figures on obesity. What? Is Jim on SugarBusters now?

Editorial 2: Cut it out, President Adams (sources have told us that's what he prefers over Dr. Adams, and presumably over Mikey Boy). We're a student newspaper. Let us make a joke or two. Note that this latter makes the excellent point that several of the university's biggest boosters are in the drank business.

Slow news day? Different priorities?

When you gonna ring it? When you gonna ring it?

Alex Rowland writes Flagpole (second letter on the page) to make a point I've been trying to make ever since States started going off on the La Puerta del Sol development: namely, there were a lot of people in the area, even though the issue was continually framed as East Side v. everyone else in Athens, who weren't asked a damn thing about their opinion. Many of them live right next door to the planned building(s). But because they don't own property, they're not really considered constituents. This is why Dodson's voting the way he did (i.e., "I'm personally for this, but the people in my district aren't") really bothered me. How about any kind of accurate picture of the district and the people who live near the changes before we start making decisions based on that?

Police Blotter (laughing at folks from the outer counties, who are probably kinda poor and so we feel guilty edition)

Not that that's not pretty much every edition. I must admit to a certain respect for one Kelli Thornton:

Arrest: On Feb. 7, deputy Shane Partain was patrolling on the Atlanta Highway about 1:40 p.m., when he saw that the driver of a blue Dodge Neon was not wearing his seat belt. Partain followed the car as it turned onto Osceola Avenue in Bogart, where he pulled it over. He identified the driver as Jeff Thornton and the passenger as Kelli Michelle Thornton. Deputy Kevin Nolley also stopped to assist and he asked the man why he was with Kelli Thornton, considering they had some past domestic problems. Jeff Thornton didn't have an answer, but as they talked outside the car, Kelli Thornton climbed over into the driver's seat and sped off. Nolley jumped in his patrol car and pursued the Neon, which turned down Elder Street. Deputy Scott Underwood heard the radio dispatch that Thornton was fleeing the area, so he responded to assist. Nolley lost sight of the car, but Underwood reported that a witness in the area told him which direction the Neon gone. Underwood located the car abandoned behind Benson's Bakery. Another witness gave them a tip that Kelli Thornton had fled into some nearby woods near Shady Acres Mobile Home Park. As they patrolled the area, Underwood spotted their quarry behind a trailer. Thornton bolted for the woods, but by this time Partain had gotten out of this car and had joined the foot chase. Finally, she was surrounded by the deputies and was handcuffed without a problem. In June 2005, she had been arrested and deputies had to use a taser to subdue her. Kelli Thornton, 33, of Lee Circle, Bogart, was taken to the Oconee County Jail on charges of obstruction, attempting to elude and driving while her license was suspended. She was also wanted on an outstanding probation violation warrant.

New lessons in how not to get arrested for DUI:

Arrest: On Feb. 6, deputy Brad Williams was patrolling on Ga. Highway 316 about 9:10 p.m. when a Mazda 626 passed him, then began flashing it lights. After about 30 times, Williams let the car pass him, then he activated his blue lights and stopped it. The woman, who had slurred speech, said she didn't know why she was flashing the lights. Kay Swan, 61, of Georgetown Drive, Athens, was arrested for DUI and failure to dim her lights.

If I were the police, I might also be keeping an eye on this guy, even though he's the victim here:

Burglary: On Feb. 8, a man reported that someone went onto his property on Rose Creek Drive by cutting the lock on a gate. He said about $3,000 in coins, mostly Susan B. Anthony quarters and 50 cent pieces were stolen stored at a cabin there.

And more adventures in bad drunken excuses:

Arrest: On Feb. 10, deputy Brad Williams was asked to check on a report of a prowler outside a home on Union Church Road. When Williams was driving down the driveway he spotted a man staggering in the road. Williams asked what he was doing and the man explained he was looking for his dog. The woman in the house said she heard a loud banging on her door about 9:40 p.m. so she dialed 911. The man, Dominic L. Hernandez, 45, of Bradford Place, Watkinsville, was arrested for public intoxication.

All of it.

Reading/Comics

Not that the two are exclusive.

The next four issues of The New Avengers (7-10), focusing on the story of The Sentry were indeed much improved. Once I wasn't being distracted by the horribleness of the art, I was able to get into the story a lot more. Plus, the fact that I'm working on the X-Men 1-10 (Masterworks) meant I could appreciate the Stan Lee parody a whole heck of a lot. Am about halfway through that latter and, while the reading is filled with much snickering and smirking (how I wish I could reproduce my favorite panel so far, in which Magneto is talking so much that the dialogue balloon actually covers his entire head), am also finding it very enjoyable. Yes, the man has a hard-on for exclamation points, and it is all quite insanely expository, and major character elements (the Beast is a smart dude) are introduced quite suddenly, several books in, but it's so darn cute.

Also working on Sayers's Divine Comedy, which we should start next week in the supplemental grad class. Since I have time, I thought I'd try to read the whole thing, not just Paradiso, which I'm responsible for. It's been about six years since I read it the first time, but I'm as thrilled by it as I was then. Her stuff is so vernacular, but so perfect, and it moves speedily along. Plus, she does not wuss on the terza rima. Here's a brief sample, from Canto II of Inferno, stanza 40:

So I stood havering in that moorland dim,
While through fond rifts of fancy oozed away
The first quick zest that filled me to the brim.

Here's Ciardi for comparison:

I hung back and balked on that dim coast
till thinking I had worn out my enterprise,
so stout at starting and so early lost.

Singles

Which, it's been pointed out to me in the comments, I apparently wrote the title for.

I was apparently in a damn good mood this week, which you couldn't necessarily tell from my blurbs. Elisa got a 5. Song from High School Musical, Pitty, Amine, Meck, and Goldfrapp all got 6's. Ems pulled a 7.

Blurbed but not selected?

Hilltop Hoods -- Whiteboy retro rap that not only doesn’t annoy but manages to be both melodic and sound like that dance where you’d hop on one foot and knock your shoe against your partner’s? Yeeeaahhh, booyyyeee. Crackaz can walk the line that’s neither Paul Barman nor House of Pain. [7]

And people. People! The Keyshia song is awesome. It rated a solid 8. Not a pathetic 3.91. Jukebox folks ain't got no soul.

Email if you want any of 'em, though I don't have the Keyshia since I already knew it.

Police Blotter (early edition edition)

Via the Red & Black, two entries of pure greatness.

A customer called “Rick” by Taco Stand employees stole money from the tip jar and tried entering the kitchen.

According to police:

A cashier at the downtown Taco Stand said a regular customer named Rick became agitated about his burrito.

She said Rick was angry that his burrito didn’t have enough tofu or beans in it, so he tried to go back into the kitchen.

A couple of customers saw Rick take an unknown amount of cash from the tip jar near the register, and the cashier saw several dollars in Rick’s hand.

Another employee told police that Rick often plays guitar on the sidewalk on the corner of Clayton and Jackson Streets and is a nightly customer of Taco Stand.

The police report described Rick as a curly-haired Hawaiian between 45 and 50 years old, weighing 180 to 210 pounds and measuring approximately six feet tall.

No one had been arrested at the time of the report.

Tofu eaters aggressive now? Must be that TGH.

A University student had a dirty mouth in more ways than one Friday morning, according to police.

According to the police report:

An Athens-Clarke County police officer heard loud voices and saw several people pushing each other near the intersection of College Avenue and Clayton Street.

One of the men, University student Thomas Eugene McNaull of Duluth, followed one of the other men while yelling “son of a bitch,” and other profanities.

The police officer grabbed McNaull and took him to his squad car. The officer noticed McNaull was intoxicated and smelled of alcohol.

When the officer asked McNaull how old he was, he said “look in my pocket.”

The officer found McNaull’s ID, which indicated the student was 18 years old. McNaull was placed under arrest for public intoxication and underage possession.

McNaull spit all over the inside of the squad car while being transported to jail.

Sure, the end is great, an unexpected twist of gross-out humor, but I gotta give the gold to "look in my pocket."

Clarification

So, yes, that thing about the tanning cream? Joke. Dry like Southern Cracker.

We also get to meet the ladies. Go, vet med girl!

Bunny Crumpacker

If you haven't gotten your daily dose of grossness, please enjoy Salon's review of The Sex Life of Food, just the sort of overheated comestible writing that makes me ill. Happy V-Day, kids!

Lil' bit o' hobby

When 9th district supacommish candidate Kelly Girtz says

He was inspired to run by his students and their families at the alternative Classic City High School. . . . "They feel like their government might as well be on Mars, that's how disconnected they feel," he said. "There's more that can be done for these families."

, he's talking about a lot of things, and this issue at Insomnia with the owners having to acquire a special permit to host Gucci Mane (no trouble resulted) might be a lil' part of that.

Wizzayne Fizzord hunts the critter known as (woop woop!) bigfoot.

And despite UGA's continued efforts to play mom and daddy to all the sweet little babies from Marietta who have no minds of their own, Winders goes on a strange rant about how, in fact, the "campus" has become ever more tolerant of binge drinking and how we should kick all the kids who push partying too far out of school, to which... huh? Sometimes the first time you go too far is also the last time, and how are we supposed to anticipate that? And is it really going to deter the youth from doing dangerous things? If the possibility of dying didn't stop Lewis Fish from snorting whatever he could, I sincerely doubt the chance of getting booted out of school would've done much more. And is there really an increased problem locally with partying and its worse results? Or have there just been enough high-profile incidents of late to create the impression of one?

You, too, can look like Superman in your kitchen

Is it wrong of me to think he kind of pulls this off?

Panty-watch

V-Day brings a plethora of underthings.

6) "In the lingerie show there's also an Anna Sui camisole and panties from 2001, with a printed trompe l'oeil design of a corset and laces," Ms. Sewell said. "It's a soft T-shirt for a modern woman that evokes the heightened erotic sense of that era of the hourglass shape and bloomers and petticoats."

The witty Anna Sui screen-printed tank top and matching panties (in both a boy shorts and thong style) are available online at Hipundies.com, in black or red, at prices that range from $35 to $65.

..."Do they all itch?" I asked.

"There's a definite split," she said, "between foundation wear like bras and corsets and soft lingerie like panties." [from the Online Shopper column "He Says Lingerie, I Say Underwear," by Michelle Slatalla, 02/09/06, an entire page devoted to the subject]

7) After much deliberation, however, Mr. Morris decided to costume his dancers — although scantily — in bras and panties. "The music is 'The Creation of the World' by Milhaud, and that's naked as far as I know," he said. "But with costumes, it's better; it's way more erotic than if it were naked." Besides, he added, unrestrained anatomy makes some of the more vigorous movements, as he put it, "a little bit comedic." [from "The Bare Essentials of Dance," by Gia Kourlas, 02/12/06, a piece about nudity in dance these days]

8) There is no mistaking the literary influences on Desai's exploration of postcolonial chaos and despair. Early in the novel, she sets two Anglophilic Indian women to discussing "A Bend in the River," V. S. Naipaul's powerfully bleak novel about traditional Africa's encounter with the modern world. Lola, whose clothesline sags "under a load of Marks and Spencer's panties," thinks Naipaul is "strange. Stuck in the past. . . . He has not progressed. Colonial neurosis, he's never freed himself from it." [from Pankaj Mishra's review of Kiran Desai's novel The Inheritance of Loss, 02/12/06]

Note: Panty-watch is a regular feature here dedicated to tracking appearances of the word "panties" or "panty" in the New York Times, partially because it's amusing to see the Gray Lady venturing into such areas and partially to see if it correlates with anything specific. The end of the year should result in a few more graphs.

[previously] [bugmenot]

Jet-propelled

Here's my favorite bit so far of this Lynn White book, which made me snort on the bus while reading it:

Despite al-Hasan al-Rammah's suggestion, jet propulsion for anything save fire-arrows was not developed until the fifteenth century when Italian engineers started to speculate about its possibilities. About 1420 or a bit later, Giovanni da Fontana sketched a naval ram and a military tank pushed respectively by two and three rockets. He designed, likewise, a swimming fish, a flying bird, and a running rabbit, all jet-propelled. These are models for his Tractatus de pisce, ave et lepore in which he proposes a plan for measuring surfaces, depths of water, and altitudes in the air by means of jet-propelled rabbits, fish, and birds.

Movie Diary

1) Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star: Corny (central plot device Rob Reiner's script sounds like worst movie ever made) and with occasional scenes of misguided, badly executed slapstick, but mostly kinda sweet and pretty funny. Expectations weren't through the roof or anything, so that's probably why, but I have no beef with Spade. I've watched bits of Joe Dirt on TV many a time, and this is about on the same level.

2) Bunny Lake Is Missing: First, Keir Dullea always creeps the hell out of me, and second, English movies from this era (late 60s, early 70s) kind of do the same thing, though the former is more explicable than the latter (way too calm). I think it's maybe got something to do with how on edge everyone in them seems. People are weirdly rude for no reason. Parts of it go on a little long, and the end is one of those parts, but it's still vaguely scary. Notable for its completely gratuitous and un-plot-related cameo by the Zombies.

Movie Diary

1) Ski School: Craptacular, and not so much in a good way. Jews v. Aryans in party v. antiparty battle, though the Semites only manage to win with the help of a gentile who's mastered this art they call skiing. Full of really unattractive underthings, way way too many lambada jokes, fake boobs one must avert one's eyes from lest one be struck blind by visible creases (!), and just general incomprehensibility. Cheating is allowed? Why is that lady buying the mountain? Hypnotizing a girl in her sleep into screwing your friend again is cool? Black lights really are awesome? 1991, why did you ever exist? Was gonna make a feeble joke about how it's Bode Miller's favorite movie, but, inf act, have too much respect for him to do so.

2) The Blob (1988): This, on the other hand, surprisingly good. Have seen the original, but not for more than ten years, so it's hard for me to remember what all is echoed here and there. Mostly, am impressed with its ruthlessness. Almost every character you know anything about dies, generally gruesomely. Lots of grossness (dude gets sucked through a sink drain, people's faces eaten off, etc.), decent jokes, just for the most part entertaining and well done.

Comics

Bizarro World anthology: Some hits, some misses, but it's nice to spend a little time in the DC universe after the Marvel overload of late. And also, it has got to be one of the most beautifully printed books I've ever seen. Color quality, sharpness, blacks, all are just eye-poppingly gorgeous, to the extent that if one is a nerd about this sort of thing (and I am, since I'm digging the idea of going to a conference on exactly such, run by the folks I'm guessing printed this book [it says "printed in Canada," so I'm thinking Friesens]), one can actually get distracted from the message by the medium. There are even little glossy bits on the cover that contrast with the more silk finish of the rest of it, causing me to caress the book repeatedly. Aquaman and Red Bee parts are indeed highlights.

Movie Diary

1) Without a Paddle: Mostly full of lazy direction and whatever will make a good soundtrack, but with a few highlights: a) mountain man Burt, b) one fine testicle joke, c) lots of Bubba Sparxxx, and d) Benrubosity. Someday, my boy Abrhaham will get to show the world what a fine actor he truly is. Don Gately, y'all. You could not cast better. Also, Matt Lillard mostly manages to be more endearing than annoying. Poor Seth Green is merely stuck in his undies for much of the movie.

2) Around the World in 80 Days (2004): Have I, uh, mentioned yet that Steve Coogan is my new boyfriend? Because he is. And although this is no '56 version, being rather strongly Sandler-flavored, it is still darn watchable, and he is meltingly adorable and funny. Here's hoping Mr. Brown agrees to incorporate him into the team. Movie is full of weird cameos (including Governator) and a little amusement parky, but really not bad.

New Buddy. Good Friend.

Blurry from fear?

Well, um, yeah... kinda...

Another thing that's nice about the cable is the extra channels, i.e., Showtime, allowing Team Brown to check out Penn & Teller's Bullshit, which we've wanted to do for a while. They showed an episode on college (translation: "diversity" is crap and so are college speech codes; now we will make fun of Noam Chomsky) and an episode on antismoking activists (translation: crap, flawed science, yadda yadda), both of which seemed older. And I appreciate the irreverent place they're coming from, and I certainly have more than a small libertarian streak in me when it comes to social issues, but they're not exactly attempting to make a cogent argument. Or if they are, it's at least one in which yelling sometimes (read: often) substitutes for reasoning. Not that it's O'Reilly or anything, but I know they're smart, and I'd like to see them try a little harder not just to call people idiots and make with the easy mock (e.g., don't use clips of a diversity training guy that are clearly from the 1980s--hair is a big clue--and try to act like it's a big problem on campus today without explicitly tying it in somehow).

Fact-o-matic

The fancy cable is not just cool because it comes with a giant remote with all sorts of buttons on it that say things like "info" and "page down." It is partially cool because of the numerous music channels, the cable radio as it were, which include Radio Disney, along with loads of others. So last night, as I was reading the X-Men stuff, I didn't want to be too distracted by dialogue, so I flipped to the hip-hop/R&B station. And as I listened, lulled by the soft sounds of Busta Rhymes's yechfest latest, my eyes occasionally skimmed up to the screen, where various facts flip past (presumably to keep one watching, though lord knows why). Here is the fact that the cable radio thought you needed to know (rightly so):

Young Jeezy has said that he could eat chicken wings all day, every day.

We salute you, Young Jeezy, not only for remaining in touch with your roots, but for bowing to the power of the wang.

Damn my puritanical money-management upbringing

I wish to god I could motivate myself to spend $55 for crap seats and a drive to the ATL on a weeknight for a dude who might very well cut out on the show and serve Quarter Pounders the rest of the night. It does not seem likely. If any of the rest of you have bigger balls than I do, I commend you and direct you here.

Comics

Okay. So fine. Y'all were all right. Whedon's Astonishing X-Men (vols. 1 & 2) does everything I would like my comics to do. The art is pretty and not trying to do the horrible 3-D thing. The colors are attractive and not dark. The writing is witty. The plot is good. And, damn it, I care about the characters. Already. With virtually no X-Men background. There is much genuine drama. Sometimes, I think Joss Whedon deserves a punch in the back of the skull for being so talented, but then I just think of the awkward figure he cut on the extra Buffy disc in the mega-nerd box collection thing, and I feel a bit more at peace. Genius, but also not the coolest guy in the world. Universe remains in balance.

Various Masterworks Spideys have been ordered. And there is yet more to get through. It makes a nice break from Andreas Capellanus (<-- unnecessary dis. I like Capellanus.)

We are merely exchanging long protein strands

One of the more entertaining spam emails I've gotten in a while:

From: "Cameron England"
Date: December 9, 2004 9:33:53 PM EST
Subject: Former President Bill Klinton uses Voagra!
Reply-To: "Cameron England"

Everybody knows the great sexual scandal known as "Klinton-Levinsky". After the relations like this Klintons popularity raised a lot! It is a natural phenomenon, because Bill as a real man in order not to shame himself when he was with Monica regularly used Voagra. What happened you see. His political figure became more bright and more attractive.

It is very important for a man to be respected as a man!

See our Voagra shop to enter upon the new phase of your life.
http://ferrurne.com/

Sparks = flyin'. Gaskets = still sealed.

Please to enjoy a small piece of my recent listening. Bros. Mael have not lost their touch. It may be better than evs. This new album is almost guaranteed to be one of my favorites of the year. Review will hit the F-Pole at some point.

Also, the new Gaskets album arrived in my mailbox today, complete with press card thing festooned with quotes that seemed awfully familiar, for good reason. It is a very odd feeling to think, "Hey! Someone's ripping me off!" and then realize, "Oh. Wait. That's me."

Crack (or should that be cleavage) reporting

Our ace staff here, after much rooting around prompted by a flash of insight not unlike the one Mr. Wallace describes below, thinks they've uncovered the identity of one local blogger, alias Publius.

Witness the following quotes:

"For instance, your crack editorial staff often emails their Commissioners (everyone has two, just like boobies) about the pressing
issues of the day" [here]

"The final point on the LPDS stuff for the night is this: If you
haven't emailed your commissioners (two, just like boobies), then
you're letting them off easy, regardless of which side of the issue
you're on" [here]

And finally, an entire post titled "Boobs and Stuff."

Ladies. Gentlemen. I believe it's eminently clear just who our friend is.

Where all that HOPE money goes...

And who knew such a dorktastic item could be used for such nefarious purposes?

Please to enjoy the list of things confiscated from Lewis Fish's car, dorm room, and party house, including:

1 silver-colored cylindrical grinding device containing a green leafy material

1 multi-colored glass pipe (approx. 6 inches long) in a padded case

1 large clear glass water bong (approx. 15 inches tall)

1 large blue/green glass water bong (approx. 15 inches tall)

1 hand-rolled cigarette containing a green leafy material

1 plastic Gatorade bottle containing $12.30 in U.S. currency bearing a handwritten sign that reads ".50 Beers $5.00 Night"

1 750-mL bottle of Hiram Walker Chocolate Mint liquor

4 empty beer kegs

And much, much more.

Perhaps some sand, some coconuts

The Red & Black today has the beginning of a limited feature that could be pretty entertaining, in which this law student will go on dates with five women, then, as they put it, "At the end of his busy schedule, Burch will ask one of the women to be his girlfriend." Here's a bit of his profile excerpted:

Biggest turn on: A dry sense of humor.

Biggest turn off: Apathy towards physical fitness.

If he was stranded on a desert isle, what three things would he want? Bike, iPod and tanning cream.

Oh, David, I really hope that's an example of your own arid wit. I can appreciate someone who takes skin care seriously enough not to want to turn into Fergie, but I believe the point is that there's no one else around.

Supa _______

Pretend it is the end of Match Game. And it is this past Sunday.

"Bowl" is probably the number-one answer.

"Dupa Fly" maybe in second place.

But our answer was "Model," as in America's Next Top.

Thank you, VH1, for marathoning cycle 4 (?). Thank you, Michelle, for getting what we thought was indeed the flesh-eating bacteria on your face and sucking us in. Thank you, Gardner Linn, for being associated with such a marvelous TV product.

We'll see if Mr. Brown can be convinced to tune in for the next cycle.

Wallace reads Augustine

Well. He clearly has. Have been slowly working way through Oblivion, in between medieval stuff for class ("Dierdru" and Lynn White's Medieval Technology and Social Change, most recently, both of which are also neat), and reading the whole thing at once rather than piece by piece in greedy but also highly involved fashion (the things one has to go through to get some of these stories) will just slap you around good with how amazing it is (especially the humanity of it all, as you're riding the bus early in the gray morning and a baby is coughing in your ear), even if we would mostly all really love another fat novel. So, here's a bit from "Good Old Neon," still one of my favorites, only maybe even more so now:

It's not that words or human language stop having any meaning or relevance after you die, by the way. It's more the specific one-after-the-other temporal ordering of them that does. Or doesn't. It's hard to explain. In logical terms, something expressed in words will still have the same 'cardinality' but no longer the same 'ordinality.' All the different words are still there, in other words, but it's no longer a question of which one comes first. Or you could say it's no longer the series of words but now more like some limit toward which the series converges. It's hard not to want to put it in logical terms, since they're the most abstract and universal. Meaning they have no connotation, you don't feel anything about them. Or maybe imagine everything anybody on earth ever said or even thought to themselves all getting collapsed and exploding into one large, combined, instantaneous sound--although instantaneous is a little misleading, since it implies other instants before and after, and it isn't really like that. It's more like the sudden internal flash when you see or realize something--a sudden flash or whatever of epiphany or insight.

Anyway, it's hard to excerpt, as the sentences can be extremely long, and the paragraphs even longer, and all this is intensified by the fabulous design of the book, which has wide margins on the outside side of the page, but tiny ones at the top and bottom, so the sheer amount of text can be very intimidating. But also awesome. So this bit of the story, which goes on, as I said, reminds me tremendously of Augustine talking about how time works (or doesn't exist, really) for God.

Police Blotter (Hyundai's new image edition)

Ineffective lies = funniest:

Arrest: On Feb. 1, deputy R.W. Elder was dispatched at 2:43 a.m. to check on a car parked in the middle of Union Church Road. When he arrived he saw an abandoned 2004 Toyota Camry with it's ride side damaged. Both tires were gone and the rims were melted down with the right front wheel broken away from the supports. He also found a parking ticket inside the car issued for a violation at 2 a.m. on East Clayton Street, Athens. As he checked the car, a woman identified as Grace Fernandez arrived and said her husband had come home without the car. They waited until Self's Wrecker Service towed the car, then drove to the woman's home where Elder went inside and saw the woman's husband, Dominic Louis Fernandez, asleep on the floor. She woke her husband, who upon seeing the deputy explained that a deer had run out in front of the car. But Elder said the damage was not consistent with such an accident. Fernandez, 45, had slurred speech and said he had drank some beer about four hours earlier. The man failed a sobriety test and was arrested for DUI, failing to maintain a lane and affixing a license plate to conceal its identity. Elder later found out that Fernandez lost a tire in the area of Kohl's on Epps Bridge Road, struck a concrete median, and had another tire go flat. He drove all the way into Union Church Road, which destroyed the wheels.

Especially when the evidence is so close:

Arrest: On Feb. 3, deputy R.W. Elder was dispatched to Ga. Highway 53 about 11 p.m., where a witness called in that a man was standing in the road in front of Oconee County High School. When Elder arrived, the man said he was trying to stop people that were driving and drinking. He was having trouble standing and smelled of alcohol. Nearby, Smith saw two broken bottles of Mad Dog 20 20. Anthony Roy Nichols III, 21, of Union Church Road, was arrested for being a pedestrian under the influence.

Oconee High Schools new motto: "arson and we can't take a joke":

Arrest: On Jan. 30, deputies were summoned to North Oconee County High School, where a student was arrested for assaulting another with a razor knife. Joey Chavez Dodie, 17, of Plantation Drive, Bogart, was charged with aggravated assault and possessing a weapon inside a school safety zone. Bodie told deputies that he pulled the knife in the bathroom, but did not strike at the 16-year-old student. The incident stemmed from a joke that turned into an argument, according to the victim's account.

And, as per usual, we love the implicit fashion criticism:

Arrest: On Feb. 5, a Watkinsville man was leaving church on Whitehall Road, when his pickup was struck from behind by a man driving a Hyundai car. Both vehicles pulled over and the man said the other driver seemed OK. The man said he called 911 to have a deputy come out to the scene, at which point the other man got back into his car, and drove off. The Watkinsville man got back into his pickup and followed, hoping to get close enough to identify the license plate number. He called 911 to inform deputies he was in pursuit of the car. Speeds got up to 70 mph on Whitehall, then 80 mph on Milledge Avenue after they entered Clarke County. On the Athens Perimeter they increased to 90 mph. The Hyundai turned off onto Old Hull Road, where the man lost sight of the car. However, a Georgia State Patrol trooper in the area spotted the car on Old Hull Road and stopped it. He noticed the car was leaking antifreeze. The driver, Jesse Daniel Broadus Jr., 22, of Greensboro, was wearing a black Kellogs Racing Team jacket. He denied being involved in the accident, but later he admitted he made a stupid mistake by leaving the accident. He was charged with following too close, leaving the scene of an accident and driving while his license was suspended.

All the rest here.

Not too busy to stick it to the man

Whether that man is Brantley Gilbert (not stuck it to so much as dissected) or folks who feel highly superior to high school students who can't spell.

Can they just make a movie out of it?

Blew through The New Avengers Nos. 1-6 (Breakout!), lent by a friend, earlier tonight. Plot is not bad, and I'd like to know who this Sentry guy is, but hate the art and find things hard to follow. There is such a thing as not only too much color, but too many colors, and the depth of shading is a) distracting, and b) leads to the artist setting too many scenes in the dark. Also, lots of the characters look the same. I know this is the case with older comics as well, but these dudes are also ugly. Font variation from time to time in text bubbles is neat and helps one distinguish, but overelaborate overlapping conversations with swoops and too many connecting lines not so much. Am confused as to who guy with nunchuks in art in the back is and must mention that Purple Man is among worst names ever for supervillain. Spiderman ain't bad, but I'm undeterred so far in thinking Capt. America is lame.