Who Needs History
AUSTIN – Republicans on the State Board of Education soundly rejected a Democratic-backed proposal Thursday that would have required Texas students to be taught the reasons behind the prohibition of a state religion in the Bill of Rights.
See the whole sad tale here.
DFW, Annotated
Kottke links to the newly established David Foster Wallace archives at the University of Texas. The image above is the inside cover of Wallace’s heavily annotated copy of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run.
Bye-Bye, Boner Party
Today Ned Hepburn shut it down. Boner Party, perhaps the greatest bait-and-switch blog of our time, (I’ll distract you with breasts but really I’m going to talk about how it’d be great to just settle down.) is over and done with.
I’m sad to see it go, but I think the last post sums it all up.
No, We’re Investigating YOU
The Church of Scientology has hired a crack journalism team to investigate the St. Petersburg Times, which ran some damning features on them last year:
[A] Pulitzer Prize winner, a former “60 Minutes” producer, and the former executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors — are taking the church’s money to examine the paper’s conduct.
The reporters hired for the study are Russell Carollo, who won a 1998 Pulitzer for Dayton, Ohio’s Daily News for a series on medical malpractice in the U.S. military, and Christopher Szechenyi, an Emmy-winning former television producer who has worked for the Boston Globe’s Web site.
too early to tell
Someone flew a plane into — or a plane crashed into — an IRS building in Austin.
Dear Chicago
Where do you find these people?
The Democratic nominee for Illinois lieutenant governor has dropped out of the race amid a political uproar about his past less than a week after he won the nomination.
The nominee, Scott Lee Cohen, announced his decision Sunday night at a Chicago bar.
Mr. Cohen, a pawn broker and owner of a cleaning supplies company, won the nomination Tuesday. Since then, it has become widely known that he was accused of abusing his former wife and holding a knife to the throat of a girlfriend.
Charlie Brooker — how to report the news
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday, Simone.
Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
The committee will “determine the extent to which the challenged material supports curriculum, the educational appropriateness of the material and its suitability to the age level of the students,” according to school district policy.
After Three Months, Only 35 Subscriptions for Newsday’s Web Site
Wah wah wah waaaaah (as in sad trombone)
UPDATE: See, also, the web game, Paywall!
NYT paywall
This won’t affect me since I read the hard print copy at my local café, but it’s still dumb:
Taking a step that has tempted and terrified much of the newspaper industry, The New York Times announced on Wednesday that it would charge some frequent readers for access to its Web site — news that drew ample reaction from media analysts and consumers, ranging from enthusiastic to withering.
I foresee a bleak, copy-and-paste future for the news organization with my email inbox filled with entire NYT articles from friends who actually shell out the cash for a subscription.
the first legal male prostitute
I think for a male, if you want to be successful in this type of venture, you’re not a prostitute. You’re a surrogate lover. You encompass everything that’s required of you—not only emotionally, physically—but psychologically. Because women are wired differently. They’re much more sensitive creatures. You actually have to enjoy what you do. You can’t necessarily say, “Oh, it’s just a job.” You actually have to say it’s a passion. I think it’s the same situation as with anything that happens when you break apart a social institution. There has to be some kind of change in terminology to describe persons like myself. And it’s more of a civil rights thing now. Basically this is the first time in the economy of the United States that a male has actually stood up and said, “I want to do this for a living.” And be protected under law to do it. It’s just the same as when Rosa Parks decided to sit at the front instead of the back. She was proclaiming her rights as a disadvantaged, African-American older woman. And I’m doing the same. I’m actually standing up now, and hopefully I can be supported by the male community and be understood as a person. This actually isn’t about selling my body. This is about changing social norms.
Congratulations.
(via marginal revolution)
this feels more Texas to me
A driver whose SUV plunged into a Northern California creek after he was startled by his hands-free cell phone device escaped the sinking vehicle by blasting out the window with a handgun.
Not Nearly Perishable
I’m not one of those boutique survivalists. You know the type: the ones who buy up every case of expensive thirty-year shelf life turkey chili they can find, and then gorge on it secretly, pre-Armageddon, while they’re alone watching Seinfeld reruns. They don their radiation suits and prance around in front of full-length mirrors. Drop water-purification tablets into bottles of Perrier. Fucking posers.
Monica’s Letters
“I feel disposable, used and insignificant.”
Letters of Note posted a link to the many documents involved in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. The “Handsome,” to whom Miss Lewinsky writes, is none other than Slick Willy himself. Reading them, I think, lends the situation a certain humanity.
quote out of context
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French … and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. So the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.’
new da Vinci
The Washington Post receives a tip from a source who wishes to remain anonymous that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has in its possession a painting believed to be by the Italian master, and is in the process of authenticating it. Were it deemed a true Leonardo, such a painting would be only the second one in all the Americas.
‘the weirdest thing’
Dr Tandberg said: “I agree with everyone in the science community that this light was the weirdest thing. I have never seen anything like this ever.
“It may have been anything from an exploding missile whose launch went wrong – to a comet or other celestial object that for some reason has been behaving strangely.
Hat tip Andrea
It took me a while to figure it out
Michael and Sarah have the same last name.
Luby’s Closing 8 Dallas-Fort Worth Cafeterias
Just days after posting a $23 million loss, Houston-based Luby’s said it is closing eight of its 21 cafeteria locations in North Texas.
The chain will shutter four locations in Tarrant County (South Arlington, Bedford, Grapevine and Fort Worth), three in Dallas and one in Denton.
This is distressing news.
More later.
Angry people in local newspapers
remember that census worker in kentucky?
The one found hanging from a tree. It wasn’t a murder, it was a suicide:
Kentucky State Police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said an analysis found that “fed” was written “from the bottom up.” He was touching the ground, and to survive “all Mr. Sparkman had to do at any time was stand up,” she said.
Paralysed man misdiagnosed coma
What really slayed me was this startlingly obvious line:
Mr Houben said that at first he felt angry at his powerlessness, but eventually learned to live with it.
Woman calls 911 to report herself for drunk driving
“I am them,” Strey said.
McSweeney’s Newspaper
It really looks gorgeous.
