What's "evacuee" in Arabic?

With Mardi Gras in semi-full swing, some of the victims of Katrina are shaking off their misfortunes -- and the press is apparently shaking off its fear of the R-word. As you might recall, as the people of New Orleans suffered through a horrible catastrophe, some of the country was busy arguing about what to call them: refugees or evacuees? President Bush even briefly interrupted his complimenting of Mike Brown to weigh in:

"The people we're talking about are not refugees," the president said, according to the Associated Press. "They are Americans, and they need the help and love and compassion of our fellow citizens."

Despite the illogicalness of this argument -- refugees are just people who take refuge, and that’s what the people of New Orleans were doing -- the press went along with it. Someone fleeing their home but not leaving the country is now an evacuee, not a refugee. Got it. New definition. So, will Bush and fellow arguers be hopping mad over the following graf from today’s New York Times story about the Darfur crisis spilling over into Chad? It reads:

Arab gunmen from Darfur have pushed across the desert and entered Chad, stealing cattle, burning crops and killing anyone who resists. The lawlessness has driven at least 20,000 Chadians from their homes, making them refugees in their own country.

What’s that you say? Refugees in their own country? Isn’t that, by Bush’s definition, impossible? An oxymoron? Matter meeting anti-matter? The unstoppable force hitting the immovable object? My ears are perked, waiting for anyone so passionate during the Katrina episode to decry this linguistic lapse, this ignorant intonation. And hey, if such a debate does occur -- as unlikely as it is -- it really won’t be so bad. At least it’ll get people talking about Darfur.

Permalink: 07:30 PM | Comments (0)

Table scraps:

♣MORAL CRUSADERS, START marching: There's a pet store selling a rubber chicken doggie toy, and the chicken is wearing a bikini. So indecent! (Via Universal Hub)

♣AS STUPID AS this may sound, I've come to believe that some books contain too much information. Books like Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything" have so many ah-hah moments, but I fear that I'd ultimately be wasting my time because there's just no way I can retain that much information. In fact, I've tried: I read the first five or so chapters, and enjoyed them a lot. Now I can't remember any of it. So, that's why I haven't read any of Malcom Gladwell's books; they look fascinating, but I fear that their worth is larger than my memory capacity. I have, however, very much enjoyed his articles for the New Yorker, and for that I'm now gladly linking to his new blog. How's that for a roundabout way of just getting to a simple link? (Via Living Reflections)

♣I GUARANTEE THAT you've never see yo-yoing like this. It's yo-yo to the max-o.

♣NO MORE OLYMPICS. They were pretty entertaining, even for a guy who doesn't care much for figure skating (or speed skating or bobsled or, uh, well, I guess I'm mostly just interested in people falling at high velocities.) But for sportswriters, they were downright lousy.

♣PIMPIN' AIN'T EASY, but filing dumb lawsuits sure is. Following his arrest for pimping, a guy named Big Pimpin' Pappy is suing six of his former clients because they didn't tell him they were purchasing an illegal service. You think this would work for murderers? Not only did their victims probably not inform them of the illegality of murder, but they're not around to prove otherwise. Might as well just open the prison doors now.

♣THINGS THAT LOOK good in a job application: lots of relevant experience, a good education, published work. Thing that looks bad: the possibility that you're stalking Star Jones.

Permalink: 12:03 AM | Comments (1)

I give it three months, tops

Most single 64-year-old men would probably be thrilled to marry a 27-year-old woman. But they should be lucky enough not to be Stu Bykofsky, a former newspaper columnist, who is indeed about to marry a woman young enough to be his daughter. Their prenup is mentioned at the end of today’s clever WSJ piece about the fate of collections:

Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky, 64, has collected the last editions of 79 daily newspapers that closed down since 1963. His adult children don't want the old newspapers, which fill a closet. "The only kind of paper my family wants is greenbacks and stock certificates," he says.

He hasn't been able to find a university to take his collection, either. And now he's under the gun to get rid of it. He is about to marry his third wife, who is 27 years old, and in the prenuptial agreement, there's a clause that he must dispose of the collection by Dec. 31. She wants to store her shoes in that closet.

"At least I can wear my shoes," says his fiancée, Jennifer Graham. "He never reads those papers, and besides, he likes how I look in my shoes."

Oh, it kills me! It kills me! Maybe it’s just because I’m a newspaper reporter, but I think it cuts wider. When she says that he never reads those papers, she shows that she doesn’t even understand why he appreciates them. They’re history, lady! Those copies are the last gasps of proud traditions. He likes them for what they represent, not for the individual stories on them.

Who could marry someone who can't grasp that? I bet she looks lousy in those shoes, too.

Permalink: 12:55 PM | Comments (3)

Thank you, disgruntled and intolerant employee

I went to a Chinese food take-out place to grab some dinner last night. It’s one of those bare-bones storefronts with no pretense of atmosphere -- essentially a kitchen with a desk and cash register at the front. I had been there before, and always seen it staffed by two young Chinese kids, a girl and a guy, and they take all the orders and do all the cooking. They’re always yelling at each other in Chinese, but seem to understand enough English to run the place fine.

Last night, though, there was a third person behind the counter: their English-speaking American driver. And because the two Chinese kids were so busy cooking, he was stuck taking the orders. I asked for the tofu with mixed vegetables, and told him I didn’t want MSG on it.

“Do you have an allergy to it?” he said.

“Yeah, really mild, but I’d rather not go through it,” I said. It is really mild -- a dry mouth and a rapid heartbeat, like I had caffeine -- but enough that I always ask for no MSG.

He said he wasn’t sure if they’d understand what “no MSG” meant, but he’ll try. He walked over to where the Chinese guy was and said really loud, “When someone says ‘No MSG,’ you know what that means? No monosodium glutamate. No MSG. You understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” the Chinese guy casually said.

The order was taken. A moment later, the girl came over to ring me up. As I was paying, the driver said to her in an equally loud, stern voice, “No MSG. Don’t give him MSG. He will die if you give him MSG.”

“Ok,” she said.

“He has an allergic reaction to MSG,” he continued. “He will die if it’s in there.”

I laughed nervously. I mean, I appreciated the effort, but jeez. I won’t actually die.

The food came, and it was MSG-free. Success. As I ate, I wondered why that driver was so stern. Do they speak less English than I thought? Does he just assume they don't understand English? Maybe he’ll die if he has MSG. I don’t know. But hey, he got the job done. What more can I ask?

Permalink: 12:13 PM | Comments (1)

Oh, you know, it's like pulling weeds

When I was at a summer camp in early high school, there were rumors flying around about a hand job gone wrong. I didn’t know the guy or the girl involved (or at least I don’t think I did), but the story went like this: He wanted a hand job, and she didn’t know how to do it. He tried guiding her through it, but somehow she managed to significantly bruise his penis. Was it true? Is it even possible to do that sort of damage? I have no idea.

But apparently this is no isolated incident. Check out the NSFW teaser for a Swedish film called The Ketchup Effect. Metaphors are tricky things, I tell you.

On an unrelated note, I apologize for the light updates over the past few days. I've got a few fun projects that have been sucking up my time, none of which, I’m glad to report, involve botched hand jobs. Worry not, though: I'll be unabashedly flaunting them on here as soon as they're done.

Permalink: 11:58 AM | Comments (4)

Dammit, Stephenson, didn’t you get the memo? When the president comes over, everyone wears blue hard hats! Is that so damn hard to remember?

Pasty McCubbster on the right can make excuses all he wants, but Bush’s face says it all: When dress code is broken, the terrorists win.

(Reuters photo)

Permalink: 09:25 PM | Comments (1)

Actually, it was a tussle with a geisha

My friend Joe spent the day painting, and got a bunch on his hands. (See above.) He then met me at a bookstore, and got a thing or two. When he presented his stuff at the check-out line, the cashier said, "What happened, did you punch a clown?

Permalink: 09:10 AM | Comments (1)

It’s official: I’m not that shallow

So you’re a woman at a bar, and this homely fellow saddles up next to you and buys you a drink. Although you’re not out looking for company, let alone active flirtation, he hooks you quick. He’s smart and funny, and despite your hesitation and discouraging body language, he manages to steer you into a lively and engaging conversation. But alas, you two cannot stay at the bar all night; it’ll eventually close, and their cosmopolitans aren’t that great anyway. It’s decision time: Do you ignore his bad looks and give him your number (or -- gasp! -- just hop in a cab with him), or thank him for the drinks and get your vain, lonely self out of there?

Answer: neither. Instead, you think of safety first. You happened to read a Washington Post column about a study showing that unattractive people are more likely to commit crimes, and you’re not taking chances. Who knows what this homely guy is capable of?

Ok, so that was corny and dramatic. Really, I’m not knocking the study or the Post for mentioning it. There’s surely some real sociological benefit to identifying this sort of thing, in so far as it’s connected to other problems faced by unattractive people. As the piece notes, “Other studies have shown that unattractive men and women are less likely to be hired, and that they earn less money, than the better-looking. Such inferior circumstances may steer some to crime.”

But mostly, I mention this study because it makes me feel good -- because by golly, my stunning good looks will keep me out of jail for sure! No, no, that’s just a joke. It makes me feel good because it turns out I'm not as shallow as I thought.

Four or five years ago, I considered pitching a freelance piece about how people on the web have gotten more attractive. I’ve been a web geek since the days of BBS’s, when slow dial-up modems were cutting edge and we felt privileged to send a whole 30 e-mails per month through Prodigy before getting charged a 25-cent-per-mail fee. And after many years of poking around online, I noticed something amusing: As the web became more accessible, and therefore less geeky, more attractive people were becoming visible on it through personal websites, etc.

I did a little research on this, but killed the idea pretty quickly. There’s no way, I figured, that any serious media outlet would ever accept a story as shallow as that. Someone’s attractiveness simply cannot be used as a news factor, I thought. “And honestly,” I said to myself, “how obnoxious am I for going around the web and judging people on their looks?”

But hey, I guess I wasn’t so off after all.

Permalink: 01:24 PM | Comments (0)

Would I like BS on my pizza? No, cheese is fine.

Every Feb. 14, reporters struggle to find a fun, new angle on Valentine's Day. In the process, readers are subjected to some real stinkers like shopping guides, and some clever ones like how V-Day is the perfect time to find out if your spouse or lover is cheating on you. That’s all well and good, I suppose. There must be a market for it. But some of that stuff is really untrustworthy, because at least once a year there's a most unfortunate confluence of events: A company releases some bogus trend information as a way to get into the V-Day news cycle, and some reporters are so eager for a story that they accept the company's pitch without question.

Case in point: Domino’s and their absolutely mindless and pointless survey declaring that a person’s choice of pizza toppings reveals their intended mates. Perhaps you’ve seen it. Numerous news organizations bit on it yesterday, and Domino’s even launched a website to promote it. The study, commissioned by Domino’s and conducted by the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, consists of two elements: survey-substantiated correlations between one person’s preferred pizza toppings and the preferred pizza toppings of their ideal mate, and then total guesses and speculation over what the toppings say about a person. Let’s ignore the second part; fiction's pointless to debate. But what’s up with the first? Survey-substantiated data, you say?

The company claims this: If you like a topping, you like people who like the same topping. It’s a plain and simple conclusion, although Domino’s manages to stretch it out as long as possible. “Those pizza eaters who prefer more non-traditional topping combinations, such as pineapple and onion, are most attracted to people who prefer similar non-traditional toppings,” it says on its site and in press releases -- and this goes on for 141 words, through five bullet points, listing as many different toppings as possible. If you’re wondering how this data came together, though, don’t look through the release. It’s not there. But it is in the Cincinnati Enquirer -- a paper that ran a cheery, unquestioning piece on the study, but still did manage to muster enough reporting sense to actually explain the study:

[Researcher Alan] Hirsch conducted personality tests on a sample of 1,000 volunteers in the suburbs of Chicago, and then correlated findings with the subjects' tastes in pizza.

The researchers then cross-referenced this information with the personalities and pizza preferences of each participant's spouse.

Got that? The results were created by looking at the toppings preferences of married couples -- and shocker of all shocks, the preferences were similar! Translation: This isn’t a study in how pizza preference can be a predictor of compatibility; it’s a study in how people in established relationships influence each others’ topping preference. By using married couples as the sample, the survey's data doesn't fit Domino's conclusion. When you’re with someone for long enough, you begin to eat and enjoy some of the same foods. For example, I like caramelized onions on my pizzas -- not because I ever liked them before, but because my girlfriend does and we’ve split enough pizzas for me accept them.

This kind of thing irks me, because it seems like the result of news organizations too smitten with a story to question its value or truth -- and that's especially true on holidays like V-Day, when the desire is strong to give readers more dopey, time-specific features. It is, in a way, just like the many bogus trend stories that get run every year. And also: Shouldn't alarm bells have gone off when a study about pizza was being presented by Domino's? Does Domino's even know how to make pizza? Last time I checked, they didn't.

Permalink: 08:07 AM | Comments (1)

Table scraps:

♣HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY. Now it's time to get flirting international style.

♣HAVE YOU EVER had a bad job interview? Just be thankful it didn't go like this.

♣THE WEBSITE FOR the Manhattan Center for Vaginal Surgery claims, "We are also proud to be known as a warm and friendly place." This joke writes itself.

♣DON'T CALL HIM chicken, or he might have to make out with you. Coming to a theater nowhere near you: Brokeback to the Future.

♣ILLUSTRATIONS PLUS BLOG equals Drawn!

♣HERE, SUPPOSEDLY, IS a 1901 magazine article giving advice on how to fight and fend off attacks with a cane. Even if it's true, I suppose it's not all that useful: Canes aren't exactly in style, and those who use them would probably fall down if they tried using it to fight. But this article is worth something, and that's propagating an image of a world in which handlebar-mustachioed men routinely broke out into cane fighting. I dig it. (via TMN)

♣SOMETIMES, LO-FI IS the only way to go. Check out this amusing music video from Albumen, a band my friend Mark is in. (And if you live in the Boston area, you can check them out Sunday in Somerville. I can't vouch for them -- after all, I've never actually seen them play -- but I'll be there anyway.) Update: No show. Friday's wind storm did a number on the band, and they won't be able to make it.

AND THEN, THERE'S this.

Permalink: 08:15 AM | Comments (1)

What, should I buy her a snorkel?

Check out the subject line of this spam I received yesterday. First, ick. But second, is there really a safe way to do something like that?

Permalink: 09:51 AM | Comments (2)

This just in: No new news!

It’s snowing in New England, which means television news crews are on top of the story like a convicted child rapist broke out of prison and murdered the pope. But this morning, I saw something I’ve never seen before. I was watching part of Channel 5's marathon weather report, and one of the anchors (Heather Unruh, the blond woman in the photo) had her dad call in to report what it was like in his corner of the state. He even took some photos, and sent it to the station. Obviously they just didn't have a reporter down there, so they stuck him on the air instead. And I was thinking: Is this what cuts in news staff have reduced us to? Are we going to start enlisting our parents as free reporters? Jeez.

Then again, television news stations aren’t exactly using their resources wisely during these storms. There’s simply no need to send all their reporters out to different spots, only to breathlessly report that it’s still snowing 20 miles away from where the last reporter said it was still snowing. So perhaps this parent-recruiting technique is the station’s problem, not the industry’s.

Permalink: 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

And you thought Livejournal was bad

The image that greets you at SamAndPam.com

If your name is Kevin and you’re dating someone named Tina, you’ve got two options: You can either miss out on the latest form of gratuitous, public declarations of love, or you can dump the girl and find someone else. You see, both KevinAndTina.com and TinaAndKevin.com are taken, so your couplehood is doomed. But if you do get rid of Tina, be careful: You don’t want Jo or Jane, because other Kevins beat you to it. KevinAndBertha.com is still free, though.

Thanks to the Internet, couples can share their love with us all the time. Didn’t quite get enough of Joe and Sara’s wedding pictures? Don’t worry, the same couple registered both JoeAndSara.com and SaraAndJoe.com. Type in just about any two common names, slap a dot-com at the end, and you’ve got a couple who thinks their friends want to keep tabs on every sappy, wuvey-lovey-dovey moment. In fact, they’re convinced of it. Here’s John of JohnAndKate.com, in a message specifically addressed to his family and friends:

We are so excited that you have taken the time to join us in celebration of our marriage and the beginning of our life together. Please enjoy your visit here and all of the information you find while perusing the site. There is a lot to see and we will try to update the information frequently.

That’s right: You can find out that John and Kate totally love taking pictures of each other, and they just adore going to the park together! I’m so glad I don’t know John or Kate, because I really hate vomiting on my friends.

But wait, there's more! Kevin and Jo keep a diary from the perspective of their dog. Frank and Lisa ask you to guess what kind of cat they want. And don't think this is a hetero-only thing, because Dave and John want to show you floor-by-floor photos of their new house.

Nauseous yet?

Permalink: 12:15 AM | Comments (5)

Poop or die

That's a Kellogg’s Bran ad from 1924, which I found while going through some newspaper archives recently. Its opening claims are great: Who knew that in classrooms across America sit not roomfuls of bored children, but actually roomfuls of children who desperately need to take a dump?

Compared to the shticky, focus group-tested ads of today, I’m really amused by the language of old ads. They’re so earnest. They want to lay out an argument and expect consumers to consider their points -- as opposed to today, when I suspect most advertisements just try tricking you into buying their product by appealing to some emotional trigger. (Then again, maybe the folks behind this one were just trying to scare people into buying Kellogg's Bran. It's certainly possible.) Can you imagine today's Kellogg's promoting any of its products by promising that it "sweeps, cleans and purifies the intestine"? There’s something admirable about that.

Permalink: 06:59 PM | Comments (1)

But hey, it's got a bubbly personality

A new soda called Turn On promises to sexually arouse its drinker -- that is, if the person covers the can in something fuzzy and rubs it on their naughty bits. Well, ok, so that’s not true: Its formula is supposed to somehow act like an aphrodisiac. And what proof does the company offer, you might ask? This news report cites a product tester:

"We watched a film and then afterwards I felt like my senses were more like turned on, like I could feel more, I felt more on my skin," a tester said.

Yes, but how was the soda?

Let’s get this straight: The tester was given the soda, watched “a film” -- for argument’s sake, let’s say it was “Undisciplined Whores, Volume 1” -- and then felt a little different. Is this all it takes to claim your product is arousing? You give it to some people, show them some porn and then claim your product was the turn on? Jeez. Can someone please watch some porn while viewing this blog? With a consumer-tested claim of arousal on my side, my traffic will quadruple in no time.

Related: Bloggers take a taste test.

Permalink: 01:17 PM | Comments (2)

Interactive manhunt

As you’ve no doubt heard, an 18-year-old kid from Massachusetts attacked people in a gay bar, drove to Arkansas, killed a cop and a woman he knew, and then was shot to death by police. It’s been a disturbing, eerie saga, but the news reports weren’t the only way to follow the story. For days, I’ve been regularly checking the 18-year-old’s MySpace profile, which has been even weirder -- and not because one of the first items shown is the result of an online survey he took called “How will you die??”, or that he actually lists his preferred murder weapon as a hatchet (which is what he used in the gay bar), or that he had posted the "evil" graphic I copied above. (Update: Looks like they took the profile down today. Update on Tuesday: The MySpace profile of the friend he killed is still up, though.)

Instead, check out the comments: His friends have been writing them for days -- originally trying to get in touch with him after he fled, and then mourning his death. It’s been a pretty fascinating insight into this guy, and these kids. I wonder if this is the new post-crime fad: When a person goes wrong, their friends go online and give public shout outs. Somehow, surely, the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel will find a way to blame MySpace for the murders.

A sample of the more interesting ones is after the jump.

Permalink: 01:36 PM | Comments (1)

A million little sips

Oh come on, don't get all touchy over some addict humor. To master exaggerator James Frey, the definition of "alcoholic" is probably having a wine cooler on his 21st birthday.

In any case, this might be a little too tasteless but it was the first thing I thought of after finding this great Simpsons character creator. (I did a little Photoshop work as well.)

Permalink: 12:25 AM | Comments (1)

Table scraps:

♣IF EVER THERE was a grown man photographed in a newspaper who couldn't have been saying anything other than "Talk to the hand," it is this man.

♣THE RACE IS on: Which company's customer support e-mail teams will respond first to a simple question? I suppose it depends on what time it is in India when the e-mails are sent.

♣WHAT DO YOU think of Google's main page design? Me, I've never thought anything about it. This person is different. (via notmyself)

♣SORDID DETAILS OF the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders' bathroom sex-turned-brawl is up at The Smoking Gun, and includes salacious legal talk like, "Keathley was making facial expressions and noises were consistent with that of a person engaged in sexual activity.” Oh yeah, baby! Take off those legal briefs and show me your disposition.

♣HOW EASY IS it to track someone through their cell phone? Really easy, apparently, thanks to a strangely unidentified piece of technology in this story. All you have to do is steal their cell phone for five minutes and do all sorts of sketchy stuff. Or, you know, you could just save yourself the trouble and call the person.

♣ADAM GAFFIN FROM Universal Hub was kind enough to excerpt this blog in his latest Boston Globe column. Thanks, Adam!

♣AND THEN, THERE'S this. (via sunshine chron)

Permalink: 12:01 AM | Comments (1)

Too bad this wasn't sent to Psychology Today

A journalist I know, at a publication that shall go unnamed, passed along an unbelievably weird letter to the editor that was submitted yesterday. It won’t run at the publication for many reasons -- chief among them, I’m sure, is its general incompetence. But that’s never stopped me from running stuff here.

Please behold:

Sent: Wed 2/1/2006 12:50 PM
Subject: Gambling

Dear Sir/Madam,

Can you do articles on illegal gambling. As far as Aiding and Abetting. What happens during a raid and what happens after a raid. Also can people be video taped after a raid gambling??

That is aiding and abetting letting everyone know where you car is. So they can use a lookalike car and you registration for 12 years and even fly out of town with your name or use your charge. Also yelling up from a spot of a raid using the voices similarities of school bus drivers, janitors or librarians should not be allowed. Or tell you to claim amensty or be holy.

Please make young and old aware.

(Please sign the letter)

Anomously
Front Broken Door Handle

So tell me, Front Broken Door Handle. This sounds like a, uh, personal story. No?

What’s really funny is that while it was signed “Anomously” (presumably that was supposed to be “Anonymously”), the writer sent it from a personal e-mail account that carried her first and last name. I suspect the door handle isn’t the only thing broken over there.

Permalink: 12:25 AM | Comments (0)

Love me, love me, say that you love me

This may surprise you -- when it began years ago, it surprised me as well -- but I get occasional fan mail. It’s very nice. My ego loves a good stroking, and you’d be amazed at the soothing caress of a nice fan letter. And so on Saturday, when an e-mail arrived with the singular exclamation “i'm a huge fan!!!!!!!!!”, I didn’t question it. I liked it. Oh, and the line was followed by a little animated doggie catching a Frisbee. A Frisbee of love, I thought.

I wrote back, “thank you!!!!!!!!!!!”

The next day, the person responded -- but this time, when she reached for my ego, she did it with a fist. The e-mail read: "WHO R U?IF U R A STAR,COULD U GIVE ME SOME OTHER STARS SCREENNAMES?" It was followed by 11 cartoon dog heads. Hateful, mocking dog heads.

So now, let’s debrief: The first e-mail was actually directed at someone she didn’t know, in the off chance that I was a celebrity. And if I am a celebrity, she’s still not interested in me. Oh, ego, it’s ok. Don’t cry. We’ll have some ice cream and make it all better. You want whipped cream on that? Sure.

I responded with genuine curiosity: "What? Why did you e-mail me if you didn't know who I was?" She wrote back, “your web mail adress was on a website.” Who knew that’s all it took? You may have to sleep your way to the top in Hollywood, but on the web all you need to do is cough up a few bucks for a domain name. Why don’t I have an agent already?

“oh, right. in that case, yes, i am a star,” I wrote back. She never responded.

Permalink: 12:02 AM | Comments (2)