I’ve been pretty lax about posting lately, I know. I took the GRE a week and a half ago and am in the middle of applying to grad school. So that’s my excuse. What’s yours? Anyway, here is an article that a friend sent to me this week which amused/disturbed me on multiple levels: Supermarket defends itself over Adolf Hitler cake. Here is a pic of the birthday boy, young Adolph, and his parents:
So the kid is pretty cute (as most three-year-olds are), but if Adolph’s parents are supposed to be examples of the Aryan master race, well I hope the White Power movement in America has a few better-looking physical specimens waiting in the wings, ready to represent. Oh and one of the couple’s other children (they have three stair-step kids, natch) is named “JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell.” Jesus that poor kid is going to grow up to be a walking Onion article.
That’s all for now kiddos. If you have suggestions on subjects I should be writing about (other than inbred Aryans), feel free to email me at info@pinkmoan.com. Cheers, queers…
I read about the process known as “Reality Mining” this morning in the below New York Times article. The piece talks about how complex social network behaviors and interactions may be monitored, digitally:
Click here to visit the MIT Media Lab site on Reality Mining. Fascinating stuff, if you like to geek-out like I do. Reality Mining’s potential for evil use, however, = high. If you’re still curious, read this great response post to the NYT article on Tim Boucher’s blog:
Every once in a while I have to do a WTF? post here to touch base with the latest oddities I’ve come upon. Here is one peculiar thing I’ve been meaning to talk about for a little while now: the Plan B gentleman’s night club in Los Angeles, which is located mere blocks from where I work. Below is the shitty, pixelated and aliased-to-hell logo from their web site (I know I shouldn’t post it but it’s so bad I have to):
OK so here’s my beef: who the fuck greenlights the development of a gentleman’s topless club named “Plan B?” Everyone knows Plan B is another name for the morning after pill, right? Yeah, um, there’s nothing sexier than a pregnancy scare, let me tell you. My male friend also commented last night that the phrase “Plan B” invokes images and feelings of disappointment and inadequacy for him. Like: “well I guess since I struck out with my date tonight I’ll implement Plan B, go get wasted and worked up at the strip bar and end my night a drunken, masturbating mess.” Oh and did I mention that this establishment, Plan B, is located exactly next to a charter elementary school? How does this stuff actually happen?
Item number two in my WTF post: Flippers. Flippers are partial denture devices that I first heard about late last Friday night on a VH1 show. Now this show wasn’t about the elderly, it was about the truly disturbing world of children’s beauty contests. Confused? I present to you exhibit A, Amber:
What’s wrong with this picture? Well, a child Amber’s age doesn’t normally have rows of perfect chompers, for one thing. A child Amber’s age usually has a mouth dotted with gaps and gapes from missing baby teeth and half-grown-in adult teeth. That’s where flippers come in. With a little cosmetic denistry your six y.o. girl too can look bizarrely doll-like and prematurely sexualized. Click here to read some important FAQ’s about flippers, including this chill-inducing factoid: “The flipper is also a choking hazard please supervise while your child wears it.”
OK, that’s all folks. Have a great weekend and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do (which isn’t much)…
It looks like those wacky geniuses who call themselves the Yes Men and specialize in corporate “identity correction” are at it again:
Read the real NY Times blog post on the spoof here. You can be sure I’ll be checking eBay from time-to-time in hopes of scoring one of these elaborately fake newspapers.
This is a historic night, boys and girls. I am so happy about Obama winning that I can momentarily forget how heartbroken I’ll be if Prop 8 passes. Seeing the phrase “eliminates right” on a ballot this morning sent shivers, literally, down my spine. I guess the days of Jim Crow laws aren’t really behind us. At least with Obama in the White House, I feel like the climate in this country will be conducive to dialogue and progress. Now, at the very least, all is not lost.
So last week I decided it would be a good idea to write about some of my favorite punk rock LPs and singles on this here blog. While many would argue punk music is better suited for the 7″ format, I’m going to start off this series of posts with a handful of punk rock albums I think are damn near, if not, perfect in all their 12″, 33 1/3 rpm, long-playing glory. I’m posting these albums in no particular order, no top 5 or 10, etc. Suffice it to say these titles are all the cream of the punky crop to my ears. I’ve decided to forego listing some of the classics like Never Mind the Bullocks… and the eponymous Clash debut in favor of including punk albums that are either: 1) specific to the time period in which I grew up, 2) personally important to me, or 3) simply kickass in my book. Here we go…
Operation Ivy - Energy (1989)
The original vinyl release of this now-classic ska punk LP was 19 songs of tight and tinny pure punk joy. Later reissues of Energy tacked on some earlier Operation Ivy EPs and singles, but I still prefer the 19-song original. Berkeley’s OPIV (do people still call ‘em that?) couldn’t have come up with a more apt name for their debut LP. Ska-soaked rhythms are combined seamlessly with hardcore freneticness throughout the entirety of the album. Blissful musical bursts are seasoned with lyrics about punky themes like disaffection, isolation and calls for unity among the scene. Guitarist and bassist Tim Armstrong and Matt “McCall” Freeman, respectively, went on to form Rancid, but I think Energy is their shining contribution to the punk rock canon.
Energy was a very important record for me and my friends when it was released. I remember my friend Steve telling me to buy it ASAP when I bumped into him at the local record shop, Music Town, in 1990 (as far as I know Steve still sports a large tattoo of the OPIV shadow man on his bicep). This album could be heard blasting at many a party and from many a car window during my high school years. Ah, sweet youth: skater boys and ska punk. Here are a couple of standout tracks for your downloading pleasure:
To me Southern racism embodies one of the truest, purest forms of evil. The spirit of Adolph Hitler is alive and well in Tennessee.
As a total aside, read this Wiki entry about the Thule Society to learn what fostered the thinking of Hitler and his Nazi cohorts. It’s truly interesting stuff, and perhaps even offers some insight into how the seeds of racism/antisemitism are germinated. To me it all seems to boil down to poverty, nationalism plus a fear of the “other.” That kind of thinking is rooted in our physical anthropology — how tribes are scared of other, unfamiliar tribes, and so on. I guess we really haven’t evolved much as a species in the last several thousand years:
