Pancake City

Equality got some assistance from an unlikely source. A Ku Klux Klan group has asked for a permit to demonstrate in support of Augusta National Golf Club’s right to an all-male membership. Augusta granted the permit, but said only male Klan members could protest.

Okay, I made the last sentence up. But when the KKK thinks you’re doing something kool, it’s time to give what you’re doing a second thought. They’re like a morality shorthand. If you don’t have time to analyze the opinions of both sides, filter each opinion for bias, and determine how their arguments mesh with your own concepts of freedom and personal liberty, just see what the KKK thinks about it.

The KKK could even start a business where groups hire the organization to support their opponents.
“KKK Supports War in Iraq”
“KKK Praises New NBC Lineup”
“KKK Loves McDonalds’ Tasty Chicken Sandwich; Vows Never To Eat at Burger King”

Mr. Rogers gave a great speech last June at Dartmouth, his alma matter. Reading it was like being a kid again and watching his show.

“When I was in kindergarten, I was pushed into a water fountain, and split my lip open. I had to go to the hospital to get stitches, but instead of being scared, I was just really excited, since everything I saw was just like the “Going to the Hospital” episode of Mr. Rogers I has seen earlier that week.

My mom wrote a letter to Mr. Rogers thanking him for his show helping me through what could’ve been quite a traumatic experience, and Mr. Rogers actually wrote back two letters, one signed “Fred Rogers” that was addressed to my mom, and one signed “Mr. Rogers” that was addressed to me.” (commenter on Fark)

I wasn’t planning on writing anything about Mr. Rogers, but I was reading comments about him on Fark, like the one above, and it made me emotional to see how many people he touched.

I think there are no good or bad people, only people who do good or bad actions. Mr. Rogers may be the one exception to this rule. Over the years, everything I read about him suggests that he devoted his total energy to being kind to others, to understanding people’s suffering and easing it at the same time. Mr. Rogers’ warmth and sensitivity towards other people was so great that I can conceive of him being one of the few people able to resist, every day, the desires to be mean or hurtful that we all get because of the pain it would cause someone.

Everyone has flaws, but the image I have of Mr. Rogers is that he overcame the negative part of human nature as much as any human can. Maybe there exists a saccharine image of him in the media, but I’ve read so many personal stories that suggest otherwise. I still hold onto my belief that there are no good or bad people, only people who do good or bad actions. But it’s a belief that Mr. Rogers has shaken, if even for just a little.

I’m putting this link up for two reasons. One, putting the link up falls under my extended definition of nepotism: family members, friends, friends of family members, family members of friends, and monkeys with lipstick. Friends of friends, and monkeys who don’t take the time to look pretty, go screw yourself.

The site is Zruwkcab, the blog of my friend Dan’s younger brother. The second reason I’m putting it up is that Dan Jr. is a talented, funny writer who, although only 16, has yet to succumb to the temptation to make cheap monkey jokes. How many of us could say that when we were sixteen?

Simon has a difficult job. All of the contestants on American Idol have developed a knee-jerk reaction to him no matter what he says after their performances.

RANDY: “It didn’t do anything for me, dawg.”
CONTESTANT: “Okay.”
PAULA: “I felt like you over sang the song. I’m sorry. But you’re really beautiful.”
CONTESTANT: “Thank you.”
SIMON: “It was—“
CONTESTANT: “WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME THAT I SUCK? I HAVE BEEN SINGING SINCE I WAS A SPERM AND AN EGG! YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT WHO I AM. I MADE IT THIS FAR AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO STOP ME! [snaps fingers several times in the motion of an angry fly] [walks of stage to wildly cheering audience]

If I were Simon, I’d be even meaner to these people, like “That would have been great if you were singing out of your ass,” or “If this were American Barnyard Animals, you’d be a winner.”

And you know what else? I’m sad that Frenchie got kicked off the show. Go ahead, make fun of me. Reality TV has affected my life and I’m not embarrassed to say it. I even signed a Save Frenchie petition, in spite of the fact that its wording did not fully capture all of the intricacies of the Frenchie situation. “You kicked off Frenchie because she is big. Your going to get something else big if you don’t bring her back: big trouble. And less big ratings.”

“The dean of students at Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax County resigned this week after his name and photo were discovered on sexually suggestive Web sites devoted to leather, motorcycles and heterosexuality.” (Washington Post article)

Oops. I mean homosexuality. Although I’m sure that doesn’t make a difference. This article also contains the Quote of the Week:

School officials said the Web sites were discovered by a Paul VI alumnus who was doing research for a college assignment on vegetarians.

“In the course of his research, a Web site came up of people who promote wearing leather,” Shovlain said. “One of the people depicted was Mr. Santora.”

Last week, at the dorm room of the Paul VI alumnus…

‘Vegetarians vegetables’…55,100 hits! Damn it. ‘Vegetarians hate meat’…7,770! I have to turn this in an hour. What else do vegetarians hate? Think Paul LVII, think. That’s it! Leather! Vegetarians hate leather. But just to be safe: ‘Vegetarians leather cock sucking’

I found out a way to make text infinitesimally small. Check it out:

Cool, huh?

Colin Powell spoke recently to a group of high school students for a program on BET. Powell on Iraq’s nuclear weapons (real quote in italics):

POWELL: [justifying why we demand other nations to disarm while we keep our own nuclear stockpile] “…Iraq does not intend to use them for peaceful purposes but to be aggressive against other nations.”
STUDENT: “Peaceful purposes?”
POWELL: “You know, like a whitewater raft. Or a coffee table. Perhaps even a tetherball pole.”
STUDENT: “What about a mechanical bull?”
POWELL: “No, that’s too dangerous. [pauses to think] Well, maybe if it was set to buck at a low speed.”

The quote is midway through Courtland Milloy’s column.

Thanks to tusultusest and Paste Punk for the recent links to Pancake City.

I can’t wait until I become big enough so I can stop thanking other writers. Be warned, little people! The second I get a sliver of popularity, I’m buying a bottle of scotch and forgetting all of you. Plus my roots. And my family–especially my family. That’s right Mom. The love and support you’ve shown me for 26 years isn’t going to mean jack once the bling bling rolls in. Enjoy the biweekly phone calls while they last.

In a Strongman Competition, weightlifters compete against each other by performing Herculean, almost cartoonish feats of strength, like pulling chains, moving boulders, and lifting kegs. If they are going to do all that work, why don’t they do useful stuff, like shoveling snow, or helping people move? Instead of lifting a metal log, they could help someone parallel park by lifting his car into a space. Or instead of flipping a tire, why not give a tired fast-food employee a break and flip some burgers?

At least the competitions could be held in science classes. These guys are walking testaments to Newton. In lifting stuff solely for the sake of lifting it, they come as close as possible to the abstract ideals inherent in the laws of physics. Who could fail to love science after seeing a man pull a bus by the waist?

An English translation of the Kikkoman song.

This video is hilarious. (requires QuickTime)

(crap, this was supposed to go up yesterday)

A column and other new content is still in progress, the same way amazing works like “LotR: Return of the King” are in progress, and also many not-so-amazing works, like “Star Wars III: We’ve Given the Droids Pointy Ears”. New content will be posted late Tuesday morning.

“Jason Walther sure is a sexy beast” said Fred Flair, head of the Internation Committee on Sexiness.

…
(This is for the search engines. It’s a small step towards my dream of being able to tell people, “If you want to find me on the Internet, search for sexy beast.” There are currently 87,900 hits for ‘sexy beast’ on Google. Current beast factor: Prepubescent slug.)

Guess the rebus…