Q: What's going on in Darfur?
A: Good Magazine provides the Cliffs Notes version.
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label news. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Q: Why can't you trust the media to tell you which way the wind blows?
A: The current top headlines, via Google News:
You kids can feel free to refer to this post when claiming the media- controlled pollsters are all screwed up vis-a-vis President-Elect Ron Paul.
Q: In what manner am I going to rock you?
Hint: Not like a tsunami.
ALT. JOKE: Look, I know I'm hard on our Southern neighbors for producing probably the worst Attorney General in American history, but this is ridiculous!
ALT. ALT. JOKE, CUZ C'MON, I ONLY GET ONE HURRICANE: Look, I know I hate the Yucatan Peninsula with all my heart, but this is — Never mind.
(That reminds me, did I ever blog about the time I was a journalist traveling in Haiti a couple months after Hurricane Ivan, and I spent a few hours in the devastated city of Gonaïves, conversing in broken Franglish with a 20-something man who repeatedly and dispassionately stated "Je suis un zombie," because his home and workplace had been destroyed, and both his parents killed, by the mudslides that inevitably follow tropical storms in Haiti (thanks to decades of deforestation and environmental recklessness perpetrated by exploitative consumerist nations such as the United States), leaving him with nothing to do but wander the countryside, starving and alone — a conversation that forced me, for the first time, to confront the unresolvable horror of the majority of human existence, shattering my faith in the restorative powers of journalism and propelling me headlong into a state of confusion, guilt, and terrified detachment forever? BECAUSE IT'S A REAL GAS.)
I'd uploaded this song by the Scorpions, but now it seems kind of gauche.
RELATED: Hurricane Dean in pictures | More [BBC]
Monday, July 30, 2007
Q: Anybody seen a knight pass this way? I saw him playing chess with Death yesterday.
Ingmar Bergman: "You sunk my battleship."
In Europe, movie directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut helped break visual and narrative rules, but Mr. Bergman stood out for dreamy and often disturbingly psychological films that expressed emotional isolation and modern spiritual crisis.Intriguing. It entices me to take my Criterion Edition of The Seventh Seal
Women were especially prominent in Mr. Bergman's films and not as cardboard heroines. Confused by their doubts and desires, sometimes entirely driven by their passions, Mr. Bergman's female characters usually stood on the brink of mental collapse. Meanwhile, his men were often hapless bystanders, incapable of understanding their own lives, much less those of anyone around them."The people in my films are exactly like myself -- creatures of instinct, of rather poor intellectual capacity, who at best only think while they're talking," Mr. Bergman once said. "Mostly they're body, with a little hollow for the soul."
To Mr. Bergman, solace was only possible through erotic and intellectual connections, but this was complicated when people cloak their true emotions...
out of its Gatsbyesque plastic wrap one of these days. Until now, I only owned it so artsy girls would think I possess a vast and mysterious intellect.On a related note, I have recently discovered, and become totally obsessed with, Scott Walker's 1969 album Scott 4
. One of the best tracks is the Bergman-inspired, Spanish-flavored opener.
Scott 4, 1969
, 1969Sonically, it makes a nice companion to another song I've been way into lately, the White Stripes' "Conquest". And of course I identify with the mysterious and intellectually vast lyrics.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Q: With news like this, who needs Dick jokes?
A: Yes, Dick Cheney's robot heart ran out of batteries.
No, I don't even need punchlines anymore. I'm just going to sit here waiting for the dystopian-future vice president to shoot another old man in the face or whatever.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Q: Alberto Gonzales — a liar?
A: Say it ain't so! Say it ain't... oh, wait, it's so:
As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005.Oopsie daisy.
Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.
But aside from all the blah blah civil liberties blah, I mostly highlight this story for posterity, as it's the 1000th time the attorney general has been caught perjuring himself. Way to go, Al!!!
To commemorate the occasion, the Franklin Mint will release a series of collectible coins, and Gonzales himself will be awarded a special personalized coffee mug.
Of course, Gonzales is not truly a "grandpa" — but he would be willing to testify to the contrary, were he under oath. The man takes a lot of criticism for being what appears to be an execrable A.G. and lying fuckhead, but it's really just that he hates the Bible.
Alberto Gonzales: "I solemnly swear to ignore John 8:44."
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Q: Did you hear the one about the chief Al Qaeda propagandist killed by U.S. forces?
A: Man, Osama is as much of a jerk as a stand-up comedian as he is in his role as a terrorist mastermind. And yet I still prefer his act to Carlos Mencia's.
LA TIMES: Chief propagandist for Al Qaeda in Iraq killed, U.S. military says
Monday, April 30, 2007
Q: How did no one die in the Oakland highway tanker explosion?
A: Good thing it happened at 3:45AM. And that the tanker was being driven by Bruce Willis' character in Unbreakable.
But really this is just an excuse to post a song from one of the best albums of 2007.
], 2007AP: Fiery Crash Collapses Bay Area Freeway
Speaking of the Bay Area, my aforementioned relocation has been postponed a bit. More news on that when I have it.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Q: Why is the U.S. Army now recruiting lions and wardrobes?
A: After a decade of squabbling, the Department of Veteran Affairs is officially recognizing Wicca as a religion. As of Monday, the Wiccan pentacle is among 38 other religious symbols available to be engraved on veterans' headstones.
"I don't know why I bear arms! The Wiccan code says 'Do no harm!'"
Wicca, it should be noted, is not Satanic. It's witchcraft. Crazy witchcraft. Although, you know, it's strictly taboooooooooo.
More precisely, Wicca is "a type of pre-Christian belief that reveres nature and its cycles." So, you know, basically Unitarianism with a cooler logo.
By the way, there are 1,800 Wiccans in the U.S. military! Who knew? Also, who knew there were 39 viable religions? Granted, one of the religions is "atheism" (Scientology = surprisingly, refreshingly not listed).
This would be great news for Willow Rosenberg, but unfortunately, the military still doesn't recognize gay as a sexuality.
Q: Why is the grass always greener on the other Earth?
A: Did you hear about how global warming is, like, solved? No, it wasn't the announcement of the Spinal Tap benefit reunion. It was the recent discovery of an AWESOME NEW PLANET!
They're calling it Second Earth. So pack those bags, baby! We're MOVIN' ON UP — TO THE GLIESE SIDE!!!
AP: Potential Habitable Planet FoundWow, that sounds a lot like my high school. There were quite a few kids smaller and dimmer than me, but they were all way, way cooler.
For the first time astronomers have discovered a planet outside our solar system that is potentially habitable, with Earth-like temperatures, a find researchers described Tuesday as a big step in the search for "life in the universe."
The planet is just the right size, might have water in liquid form, and in galactic terms is relatively nearby at 120 trillion miles away. But the star it closely orbits, Gliese 581, known as a "red dwarf," is much smaller, dimmer and cooler than our sun.
But hang on, they expect us to believe that some "red dwarf" is cooler than our precious, precious sun?
I mean, a "red dwarf" sounds like he plays a lot of D&D and makes constant snickering references to the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow
, am I right?Well, turns out I'm not right. I called some of my friends at NASA this morning, and the evidence they just sent me is pretty conclusive: Our sun is, comparatively, a total nerd. Click to enlarge:
My NASA friends also revealed the reason the grass is always greener on Second Earth: Despite being smaller and dimmer, Second Sun is so totally cool that it gets other, smarter stars to do its photosynthesis for it, while it makes out with its hot girlfriend, a varsity volleyball player, in the woods behind school. Wow, that is one cool dude.
I don't know about you, but I'm DONE with the Milky Way.
It's a galaxy full of losers, and I'm pulling out of here to win!!!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Q: Does someone still love you, Boris Yeltsin?
Yeah, I know Russians don't drink Absolut. Just go with it.
A: I sort of hate this band (sorry, greater blogging community), but what the hell. It's a special occasion.
"Oregon Girl" once appeared on The O.C
. It is perhaps the least distasteful song on the band's much bloggihooed debut album, Broom, which you can buy here
, or whatever.So hey, former president of Russia Boris Yeltsin is dead at 76. My condolences go out to anybody who still loved him.
Yeltsin will go down in history as Russia's first democratically elected leader evs, and the country's most politically progressive and least dictatorial since, oh, the guy who came immediately before him. He drank a lot of vodka, he killed a lot of Chechnyans, he drank a lot more vodka, he fixed a bunch of things, he fucked up a bunch of things, he resigned when everyone was distracted by Y2K terror, he drank a lot of vodka and he generally left Americans confused as to whether they were supposed to like him.
We thought he seemed like a swell guy — he never threatened to crush us, and he was always smiling and waving friendly hand signals.
At least, I think they were friendly hand signals. It's a fine line between the peace sign and "I'll take two vodkas."
One thing we can never take away from Mr. Yeltsin is his proving to the Western world that Russians named Boris aren't all bumbling caricatures who hang out with women named Natasha.
Some of them, we learned, hang out with women named Naina.
Ah, but Boris, comrade — I keed, I keed. I'm sure it couldn't have been easy, the whole trying to build a newly de-Commied nation of 140 million from the ground up thing. Your administration may have been riddled with corruption and confusion, but old Soviet habits die hard, I'm sure. Hell, just look at the dude running things now.
POSTSCRIPT: Further reading...
- Yeltsin Factoids [Reuters]
- Comments on his passing from world leaders [Guardian]
- Comments on his passing from crazy CNN viewers [CNN]
- "Yeltsin known for gaffes, off-colour jokes" [Reuters/ABC]
PREVIOUSLY IN OBITS: Don Ho, shocker of monkeys.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Q: What's a Hokie?
A: "The origin of the word 'Hokie' has nothing to do with a turkey. It was coined by O.M. Stull (class of 1896), who used it in a spirit yell he wrote for a competition..."
I've somehow managed to avoid the topic of Virginia Tech this week, for a few reasons. For one, because as Charles Krauthammer writes, "What can be said about the Virginia Tech massacre? Very little. What should be said? Even less." (He goes on to say several hundred words after that, including several dozen I disagree with, but I'll get back to that in a later post).
I do try to keep things lightish here at The Answer May Surprise You, so — even though I was privately (embarrassedly) devouring every bit of psychological voyeurism in the slow unraveling of the shooter's psyche — I opted here to focus on breezy, more hilarious stories like, you know, Sanjaya or the disintegration of the U.S. justice system.
It just seemed like — with the news media doing such a fine job of botching the story themselves — maybe the nation could do without T.A.M.S.Y.'s Photoshopped input on this one.
(That said, there are still a few things stuck in my craw that I'd like to write about later on, maybe not so much for your sake as for mine...)
Anyway. Today is a day of mourning in Virginia — but Virginia Tech's alumni are also calling for solidarity, declaring it National Orange and Maroon Effect Day and encouraging everyone, alum or otherwise, to wear the school's colors. I don't own any orange or maroon clothing, so I went for the next best thing and dressed up my blog.
I've never even been to VT, but having seen and read so much coverage of the campus, its students and community this week, I can't help but love 'em a little. And what better way to show my respect and support than by redesigning a blog they don't read?
On the off chance you are a Hokie, past or present, T.A.M.S.Y. salutes you.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Q: "The most important work anyone has ever done in blogging about sports"?
A: Here I though it was Deadspin's coverage of Carl Monday, but it turns out they're #2.
CANADA.COM: Midnight blogger exposes a scandal
KC Johnson does not fit the stereotype of blogger, journalist, legal analyst or lacrosse fan.Nothing against Johnson, but the day my lawyers are relying on "the blog" is the day I get new lawyers.
Yet in the last year he has become all four. The bow tie-wearing, Harvard-educated professor is the prolific blogger behind Durham- in-Wonderland, writing hundreds of posts about the Duke University sexual assault scandal. A tenured history professor at Brooklyn College in New York state, he stays up until midnight to post his latest musings on the case, even though he is five states from the action in Durham, N.C.
One of the accused lacrosse players publicly thanked Prof. Johnson for his "diligent work exposing the truth" after the North Carolina Attorney-General dropped the charges against the three last week. Indeed, some of the defence lawyers relied on the blog to help build their court arguments.
Fellow bloggers frequently said if a Pulitzer were awarded for online commentary, the contrarian professor would win. "There is absolutely no doubt that Johnson's blog, Durham-in-Wonderland, was the single best source of information about what happened in that house in March of 2006 and what has happened with the case since," one sports blogger wrote this week.Nothing against Johnson, but the day a Pulitzer is awarded for online commentary is THE DAY I WIN A PULITZER.
"[W]hat he's done is the most important work anyone has ever done in blogging about sports."
Friday, April 13, 2007
Q: What do Don Imus and Kurt Vonnegut have in common?
A: They're both famous Americans! Also:
- Several thousand consecutive bad hair days.
- Imus was a champion of radio aired during breakfast; Vonnegut wrote Breakfast of Champions
.
- Recent career setbacks.
- Black humor.
Friday, March 2, 2007
Q: What happened to the Sands?
A: Hey, remember that episode of Full House where Stephanie and DJ Tanner won $100,000 from a slot machine at in Lake Tahoe casino, and then their dad made them give it back to teach them an important lesson about underage gambling?
Danny Tanner sure was an idiot. He could have used that cash to get Michelle a much-needed college education. On a related note:
Casino told to fork over jackpot won by minor [Reuters]Uncle Jesse Katsopolis could not be reached for comment.
Macau's gaming bureau has ruled that the Sands Macao casino — operated by U.S. gaming giant Las Vegas Sands — must pay an under-age player's HK$740,000 ($94,900) jackpot winnings to her mother, a local daily said on Saturday.
The Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau — Macau's gaming watchdog — made the decision after meeting the 16-year-old girl and her mother, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported.
The Hong Kong teenager was playing at [the] Sands on Tuesday with her mother and grandmother, the paper said. She put HK$100 into a slot machine, and it stopped on the winning number.
By the way, I kind of get the feeling that Reuters has never actually been in a casino. It "stopped on the winning number"? Was it a roulette-themed slot machine? This sounds like the easiest $100,000 jackpot ever. No wonder the Sands Atlantic City went bust.
PAS/CAL: Left us out in the cold?
Anyway, Tiny Mix Tapes says the album will revisit a couple of old PAS/CAL songs, including this old T.A.M.S.Y. favorite:
SHODDIER TRANSITION: The Brothers Maloof do not own the Sands. They do, however, own the Palms, as well as the NBA's Sacramento Kings. The Palms is a great casino. The Kings are not a great basketball team. They are, in fact, in last place.
Joe Maloof recently referred to his team's coach, Eric Musselman, as "inexperienced." It is generally not a good sign when you are one of the highest ranking employees of a company, and your boss refers to you as "inexperienced." It is also not a very good sign for your boss, especially if he's the one who hired you. So it wasn't long before the other Maloof stepped in to clarify the issue.
"He's still our coach, plain and simple," Gavin Maloof said. "It's still what it's always been. We're behind him, and that's the way it is. We're going to move forward until he's not our coach. That's the way it's always been. We're behind him, and that's the way it is."So don't worry about your job status, Eric! Plain and simple, you are not going to be fired until you are fired.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Q: What's on your mind?
A: Because I got nothing over here.
For God's sakes, the top story on Google News involves Tom Vilsack not running for president. In other words, the most newsworthy thing happening right now is that one of the least newsworthy stories of the year no longer exists.
Also, it's very cold.
Feel free to elevate the level of discourse in the comments. Or just continue my theme of whining about how boring Fridays are.
UPDATE: Stop the presses! The Cleveland Browns just won at something!
Granted, it was a only coin toss. And granted, winning it only means they'll get to waste the third pick of the NFL draft instead of the fourth pick. But let's not get bogged down in semantics. WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS, MY FRIENDS.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Q: How tall is Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
A: Five foot four1! Who knew? Well, probably a lot of people knew, but I just found out.
How did I find out, you ask? The answer... MAY SURPRISE YOU.
D.C. blog Wonkette is reporting that Israeli newspaper Haaretz is reporting that Iranian pro-gov't news agencies are reporting2 Iranian Revolutionary Guard top dog Nur Ali Shushkari's claims that a sneaky submarine commando unit etched the military force's logo (see: right) onto the side of an American warship stationed in the Persian Gulf.Those. Bastards. Skateboarding may not be a crime (or so I hear), but graffiti? Now that's just taking it too far. How dare they risk their lives and their submarine for such a rude prank!
It's infuriating! It's hackles-raising! It's... a really weird plan that I don't understand even a little! Which is extra infuriating! And the worst part is, we just had that warship washed!
(By the way, what kind of national guard calls itself "Revolutionary"? Isn't the point of a national guard to crush down revolutionaries? And smack around hippies? I'm so confused, I need another nap.)
Anyway. For some reason, no one seems to be reporting what the Revolutionary Guard painted on the other side of the warship. I warn you, before you look down one quarter of an inch, it is very unsettling.
I would respond, but my hackles can't even reach that high.
EARLIER: How tall is Nancy Pelosi?
1 As reported by Brian Williams, or his producer or somebody who had a tape measure or whatever.
2 Iranian pro-gov't news agencies not available via Google News. I mean, probably not, anyway. It's not like I checked or anything.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Q: How did Ted Haggard un-catch gay?
A: In case you missed yesterday's fabulous, fabulous news, the Rev. Ted Haggard has been totally de-gayified, after an "intensive" three-week program in Arizona. From the Denver Post:[The Rev. Tim] Ralph said three weeks of counseling at an undisclosed Arizona treatment center helped Haggard immensely and left Haggard sure of one thing.
"He is completely heterosexual," Ralph said. "That is something he discovered. It was the acting-out situations where things took place. It wasn't a constant thing."
The Rev. Ted Haggard: 'I'm gonna wash that gay right outta my hair...'
Well, I made some calls to my network of mountain reverends and undisclosed Arizona treatment centers, and it turns out I misunderstood. When Ralph referred to "acting-out situations," he meant acting in the literal sense. As in, community theater.
Remember: Last summer, Brokeback Mountain was irrefutably linked to having turned everyone gay (as reported by some of our nation's finest news sources, and Fleshbot). But if that's true, which it is, doesn't it stand to reason that watching Brokeback Mountain in reverse would turn everyone straight? The only logical answer is yes.
It was a similar stroke of brilliance that led Haggard's doctors to test out a revolutionary and more powerful new treatment: First, to have a group of gay men watch Brokeback backwards repeatedly; and then, to give them three weeks to adapt it to the stage, and mount it as part of the renowned Tempe Experimental Christian Theater Festival.
As you probably guessed, the project proved to be an unqualified success -- theologically, medically, artistically and most of all, heterosexually.
Haggard, left, prepares for the confusing backwards tent scene.
Not only did Kcabekorb Niatnuom sweep the festival's audience awards (including an honor for Haggard himself in the category "Least Homoerotic Performance by a Male Reverend"), but it also turned the entire cast completely straight. Which is good news for them, because otherwise, they wouldn't have been allowed to go home.
Unfortunately, because the recovery process involved community theater, Haggard is still considered gay by the U.S. military. All in all, though, the man can only feel encouraged by his progress. Consider that many people struggle with addiction for decades -- hell, Barack Obama can barely quit smoking. And yet it took Haggard just three weeks to kick one of the world's most powerful addictions, that of having sex with men who aren't your wife.
At this rate, Ted should be able to get off the meth in, oh, five days, tops.
RELATED: Andrew Sullivan remains skeptical, not to mention aroused. But c'mon, what does Sullivan know about being gay that xenophobic Midwestern evangelicals don't?
PLUS: Did Brokeback turn you gay? | Meth humor, cont.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Q: What is the most infuriating story you'll read in 2007?
A: It's still early, and there's plenty of 2007 left to be infuriated by, but I doubt you'll come across a story more absurdly, pointlessly horrible than that of Genarlow Wilson, the African-American former honor student currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for having received a blow job from a 15-year-old when he was 17.
No, you didn't misread that. Wilson's been in prison two years already.
Journalist Wright Thompson has the whole story, currently parked front and center on ESPN.com (and getting the bejeezus dugg out of it on Digg -- for the second time in as many months). Read it and weep.
It's about time this story is drumming up the attention/indignation it deserves, and you have to believe/hope something will be done to grant Wilson his freedom, and soon. But until that day, all the coverage in the world can't possibly provide due consolation for a young man so ruthlessly hijacked by the justice system.
RELATED: I first discovered the Genarlow Wilson story last month in the New York Times, via this tangentially related Daniel Radosh post on the fascinating complexities of kiddie porn laws.
I've been meaning to bring these topics over to T.A.M.S.Y., but they're such a Pandora's box can of worms (see: the crazed long-windedness of my response to Radosh) that I kept putting it off. Misguided sex laws drive me absolutely insane. Now that I've brought this up, expect me to never shut up about it ever again.
Monday, December 4, 2006
Q: Could someone get Angela Lansbury's agent on the line?
A: She's still alive, right? Because I have the comeback role of a late-lifetime with her name on it. Think Golden Girls meets Weeds in the Arizona desert: An adorable grandmother turns to dealing dope, hundreds of pounds of dope, to feed her crippling bingo habit. Based, obvs, on a true story:
Bingo-playing grandma guilty in pot case [AP Wire, via attu]
This thing has all the universal themes covered: crime; money; drugs; bingo; sweaty senior citizens; did I already say bingo? And it's the role Angela Lansbury was born to play -- an desperate, impoverished Mexican American.
Jessica Fletcher: She just don't give a fuck.
"People who play bingo almost every night of the week end up losing in the long run," Prosecutor Doyle Johnstun told jurors. "The underlying issue is that she's got a bingo problem, which explains why an otherwise nice person might get sucked into something like this."
Oh, maybe also because she was trying to survive on a $275/month welfare check. On the other hand -- 210 pounds!? Christ, that must have been some high-stakes bingo.
Anyway, kudos to the American legal system for sending a 61-year-old woman to three to 12 years in prison for the unthinkable crime of getting a bunch of people stoned. Man, do I feel safer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
