Bad Aphorisms
Dare to hope, aspire to succeed, strive to excel, stop making so many to-do lists.
You are most likely unaware of how many problems you face, and that’s a big problem.
Poised at the brink of precipitous disaster, a man must pull back and consider taking the long way around or perhaps a bridge.
That which does not kill you probably left a trail of evidence and is fully prosecutable.
A scoped rifle and a clock tower will get you onto the evening news.
Fight for what you believe, and fail at it. Get up and try again. By the third time, reconsider your commitment to such a stupid idea.
Throughout history there have been moments like these when we must reflect on history.
Never open with a funny story. You’re not very good at it.
headline of the day, III
Woman’s Breast Implant Saves Her Life
Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Related to stuff we’re talking about.
headline of the day, II
Paula Deen confirms that she has type 2 diabetes, unveils partnership with drug company
headline of the day
Woman offered sexual favors for Chicken McNuggets, police say
Cooking Up Change
They looked so young, the four college students who sat down and ordered coffee at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., on Feb. 1, 1960.
Legal challenges and demonstrations were cracking the foundations of segregation, but a black person still couldn’t sit down and eat a hamburger or a piece of pie in a store that was all too willing to take his money for a tube of toothpaste.
Those four freshmen at North Carolina A&T College — Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr. and David Richmond — sat until the store closed, but they still didn’t get their coffee.
But that day helped spark other sit-in protests — led by young people like themselves — that spread throughout the South in 1960, energizing the civil rights movement. And the Greensboro Woolworth desegregated its lunch counter later that year.
It wasn’t the first time that food, or the lack thereof, figured large in the movement.
Not my super-heroine persona,
but I am thinking that somebody should assume the mantle of The Sanitizer.
After Farting
“Who run Bartertown!?”
I was feeling all hurt
and helpless and hopeless, then I heard this on the radio, and my heart rose up in spite of me.
From the Comments
Forgive me for touting my own.
Merry Christmas, er, Happy Holidays, whatever floats the boat.
Funk songs from Vietnam GIs
If you didn’t get a Christmas present from me, it’s because I’m waiting till the New Year to buy you East of Underground: Hell Below. (Thanks to Valerie for the tip.)
In 1971 the US was pulling troops out of Vietnam, and its bases in Germany were full of draftees at a loose end. “You were painting shovels, picking up cigarette butts – it was a lot of busy-work,” remembers former serviceman Lewis Hitt. “There was a longing by everyone, especially the draftees, to get home and go back to what you were doing before.”
This was the crucible in which were formed scores of raucous funk bands made up of servicemen, four of which have just been compiled by Now-Again Records. Adoring crowd noise was crudely dubbed on top of their records, which were then distributed in recruitment centres. These bands were used by the army to present service as varied, even hip. But the songs they cover – the bitter, suspicious likes of Backstabbers and Smiling Faces Sometimes – undermine any potential propagandising.
The Struggle for the Occupy Wall Street Archives
I thought at first that this long article by Michelle Dean might strike most of y’all as Too Much Archives, which is to say too much shop talk and too narrow in its focus. More than you really want to read about the issues archivists face.
Then again, maybe not. Maybe this will draw you in.
Read more
I am posting this post
because to now I have posted 1964 posts. So this will be 1965. And that was a beautiful year. I was just old enough to know that I wanted to be a grown-up woman. In 1965.
At least one of those grown-up women in the movies. Or to have a hit record.
Phil Ochs: “I’m Going to Say It Now”
Achingly brief clip of Ochs in performance. Said to have been filmed at a Free Speech rally held in the spring of 1965 on The Oval at The Ohio State University campus in Columbus, Ohio.
from the comments
I’m a dick grabber. Ask anyone.
Dear Clusterflock
Here I was having a terrible morning, and then I logged in to my work computer and got on here. I just noticed my stress headache is gone. Why didn’t someone tell me about all y’all when I was in rehab or when I felt like dying? I’m glad someone told me about clusterflock or I just don’t know where I would be right now.
Got any good jokes?
Duly Noted
On Saturday night, Jill, a blogger and founder of Feministe, flew from Newark airport to Dublin. After spending Sunday recovering from jetlag, she unpacked her bag on Monday morning and found a special message scrawled on the official form from the TSA. “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL,” it read.
“Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag,” she tweeted. “Wow.”
I am in need
Posted to the Dubuque Freecycle list:
I am in need of a nice big dresser mine broke so now I dont have one and all my cloths are on my floor and so if anyone has one or to they dont need please email me sooner the better thanks
How to use an apostrophe
tweet of the day
We failed
in our mission, but we learned from our mistakes and will try again.
Next time: different tools.
I did, however, stand in the pouring rain “in a lonely hollow” and scream, “I hate God! I hate the Devil! I hate the living, and I hate the dead!”
And dare lightning to strike me.
So that was all good.
Something I’m Working On…
I’ll say no more for the moment.
I think he nailed it
spam name
Winston Winston.
from the comments
This seems a good place to say I’ve been singing “Tyrone” ever since yesterday afternoon. Y’all should hear me. I’m singing it right now in my office.
I’m gettin tired of yo shit
You don’t never buy me nothin
