Glass Jaw
Glass Jaw by Michael O’Reilly was first shown to me in art school. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since my recent hospital stay.
Concerning events in and around Anoka, MN
This is so depressing/infuriating that I actually recommend putting off reading until you have time to decompress afterward. I took it in two chunks.
“This isn’t something you kid about, Brittany,” her mom scolded, snatching the kitchen cordless and taking it down the hall to call the Johnsons. A minute later she returned, her face a mask of shock and terror. “Honey, I’m so sorry. We’re too late,” she said tonelessly as Brittany’s knees buckled; 13-year-old Sam had climbed into the bathtub after school and shot herself in the mouth with her own hunting rifle. No one at school had seen her suicide coming.
Will Israel Attack Iran?
As for the top-ranking military personnel with whom I’ve spoken who argued that an attack on Iran was either unnecessary or would be ineffective at this stage, Barak said: “It’s good to have diversity in thinking and for people to voice their opinions. But at the end of the day, when the military command looks up, it sees us — the minister of defense and the prime minister. When we look up, we see nothing but the sky above us.”
Von Trier’s Antichrist
I finally found the strength to look at it. I didn’t want to look for so long. Finally, I looked this afternoon. Anyone else seen it? Your take?
The Unsayable
Last week I picked up The Unsayable: The Hidden Language of Trauma when I heard it was written by a disciple of Jacques Lacan. I’m not even halfway through this book, by Annie Rogers, PhD, and I cannot recommend it enough. Here are a couple snippets from the New York Times review:
Before they protect their predators, victims of trauma (defined as any experience “which by its nature is an excess of what we can manage or bear”) protect themselves by not consciously expressing what happened to them. To articulate, or to say, is to put together, to draw fragments of an experience into a coherent narrative, a potentially devastating process if the experience was so overwhelming as to have been, like the author’s own past, “shattering.” Before a thing is consciously (if not audibly) voiced, it has yet to be acknowledged or owned; it has yet to be believed.
It’s a Girl!
It’s a Girl! is a documentary about the systematic killing and suppression of girls in South Asia and around the world.
In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.
Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members.
The war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.
Speechless.
(via kottke)
headline of the day, II
Paula Deen confirms that she has type 2 diabetes, unveils partnership with drug company
dear clusterflock
Google alternatives.
Update: Why Google is ditching search
headline of the day
Did Purell Pay to Appear in the ‘Dragon Tattoo’ Torture Scene?
Place the medieval techniques alongside those laid out in modern handbooks, such as Human Intelligence Collector Operations, the U.S. Army interrogation manual, and the inquisitors’ practices seem very up-to-date
The inquisitors were shrewd students of human nature. Like Gui, Eymerich was well aware that those being questioned would employ a range of stratagems to deflect the interrogator. In his manual, he lays out 10 ways in which heretics seek to “hide their errors.” They include “equivocation,” “redirecting the question,” “feigning astonishment,” “twisting the meaning of words,” “changing the subject,” “feigning illness,” and “feigning stupidity.” For its part, the Army interrogation manual provides a “Source and Information Reliability Matrix” to assess the same kinds of behavior. It warns interrogators to be wary of subjects who show signs of “reporting information that is self-serving,” who give “repeated answers with exact wording and details,” and who demonstrate a “failure to answer the question asked.”
A history of torture and interrogation in the Middle Ages, and how it compares to the standards applied in “The Global War on Terror”.
Goodbye
by Kim Noble
(Did you spot the stormtrooper?)
posted by Pete
Dear Clusterflock
How do you deal with the unbearable rudeness of strangers? I’m serious, here, guys. It’s starting to really affect my life.
It could be anything — the guy who cuts you off when you’re clearly waiting for the men’s room, the guy who switches to the fucking right lane after he sees the “right lane ends 1000 feet” sign, the elderly couple who really ought to know better than narrate through the entire showing of The Artist (even after you finally yell “hey” after he says “he didn’t do it” – BANG!), the woman who starts doing her makeup next to you on the train, the omnipresent imbeciles yelling into thin air (oh, they’re on the phone).
I’m thinking of never going to another movie again (damn kids nearly ruined Red Riding Hood for me), or moving to a cabin in the woods. I’ve been checking Craigslist for jobs, but so far, nothing.
headline of the day, II
Penis tattoo gives guy permanent erection
headline of the day
Chile daily must pay readers for exploding churros
you’re welcome
dueling banjos
headline of the day
Financial crisis forces Berlusconi to delay release of latest love song CD
headline of the day
Teacher Sets Herself on Fire in Front of Students
Safe Sawblade
For some reason, all I could think of was Deron.
Daniel Rosenthal explains the enduring popularity of U2
Imagine you’re a middle-aged, upper-middle class male.You live in a large metropolitan area. You have a good job. Your wife does Pilates. Your oldest just started Kindergarten. Yes, you’re an adult but you’re still cool! Your jeans cost $125. Sometimes you wear sneakers with a blazer!
You like the idea of being a guy who’s into live music but the last few concerts you’ve been to were a) too loud b) too crowded c) too foreign (you’re lucky if you recognize one song). You’ll snap a few photos with your smartphone and tell your bros about it to get some street cred but let’s face it – you didn’t enjoy yourself. There are millions of you. And you’re willing to drop cash to have a concert make you feel cool again.
For 24 hours…
our internet connection, at the house, has been off. It just came back on 20 minutes ago. I’m FULL of shit to share. (Well, sort of full.) I feel like I lost the feeling in both my arms and got it back.
Emmitt Smith Plays With a Dislocated Shoulder
Since we’re talking momentous occasions from 90s-era sports history.
from the comments
Guns don’t shoot people in the penis people shoot themselves in the penis.
headline of the day
Police urge holster use after man shoots his own penis
unintentionally creepy web ad
