Not interesting.

Dear Ms. McNeece, Fuck You. Seriously.

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:16:53 -0500

Dear Ms. McNeece,

The bigotry shown by your decision to cancel prom shows a blatant disregard for the safety of your gay students. Kids look forward to prom, and having it taken away is surely going to cause some teenagers to retaliate against the people they feel are responsible. And it probably won’t be you, it’ll be the homosexual students in your school district.

You aren’t going to stop homosexuality by banning it at your prom, or by canceling your prom, or by creating a situation for gays to be attacked in a place they are legally required to attend. This story has already traveled around the globe, and people the world over are pointing their fingers at your bigotry. I hope you’re embarrassed because I sure am embarrassed for you.

Signed,
A. Coraccio
American resident of the Republic of Ireland

via The Stranger

"i’ve got a slot at eye level like a speakeasy door and I know you know the password cause..."

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:39:33 -0500

“

i’ve got a slot at eye level like
a speakeasy door
and I know you know the password
cause I’ve seen you here before
And I’ve got something sweet for you
and I don’t care if it is more than you deserve

i’ve got a lot of love and a lot of nerve
so watch me while I take this curve

”

via pictures for sad children

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:11:57 -0500

via pictures for sad children

Pizza scissors?!

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:10:41 -0500

Pizza scissors?!

"yeah, i know it’s been awhile, since i’ve stared at the stars."

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:07:05 -0500

“yeah, i know it’s been awhile,
since i’ve stared at the stars.”

The Art of Fiction No. 64

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:33:00 -0500

VONNEGUT
Many people see the Dresden massacre as correct and quite minimal revenge for what had been done by the camps. Maybe so. As I say, I never argue that point. I do note in passing that the death penalty was applied to absolutely anybody who happened to be in the undefended city—babies, old people, the zoo animals, and thousands upon thousands of rabid Nazis, of course, and, among others, my best friend Bernard V. O’Hare and me. By all rights, O’Hare and I should have been part of the body count. The more bodies, the more correct the revenge.

INTERVIEWER
The Franklin Library is bringing out a deluxe edition of Slaughterhouse-Five, I believe.

VONNEGUT
Yes. I was required to write a new introduction for it.

INTERVIEWER
Did you have any new thoughts?

VONNEGUT
I said that only one person on the entire planet benefited from the raid, which must have cost tens of millions of dollars. The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited—not two or five or ten. Just one.

INTERVIEWER
And who was that?

VONNEGUT
Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that.

Via The Paris Review

"Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is..."

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:28:06 -0500

“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.”

- Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

"I don’t know if I buy into this whole foursquare thing, but I’m sure not going to let..."

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:18:02 -0500

“I don’t know if I buy into this whole foursquare thing, but I’m sure not going to let anyone else claim my house”

- Famous last words from @nickdor

"We’ve been taught that our government, ostensibly a representative democracy, is effectively..."

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:07:11 -0500

“We’ve been taught that our government, ostensibly a representative democracy, is effectively neither. We’re powerless. We’ve had the civic engagement beaten out of us. Friedman’s assumption that we think our job is done is condescending and incorrect. We’ve been shown by all three branches of the federal government that they’ll do whatever they want regardless of popular opinion, that common sense and the people’s best interests don’t matter, and that there’s absolutely nothing we can do about it.”

- No, we can’t

Nous sommes foutus.

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:38:24 -0500

Nous sommes foutus.

Axxess and Ace

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 22:33:00 -0500

then it’s lights out after this kiss
then time can’t torment us
this will have to serve.

goodnight lover
goodnight lover
wherever you are.

"I fucking need to get out of here."

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 21:17:38 -0500

“I fucking need to get out of here.”

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:19:49 -0500

The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage

The Unwinnable War in Afghanistan (The Daily Show)

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:54:09 -0500

The Unwinnable War in Afghanistan (The Daily Show):

“Well, let’s also have a quick look at [Afghanistan’s] economy: its chief exports are heroin, and vengeance.”

Here is New York, E. B. White, 1949

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:00:42 -0500

“There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.

Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.

And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.”

"anger is a gift."

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:19:27 -0500

“anger is a gift.”

Far more profound than just an article about a phone

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 05:16:00 -0500

“While I’m ranting, let me ask you something, Randall. At the risk of sounding like Glenn Beck Jr. — what the fuck has gone wrong with our country? Used to be, we were innovators. We were leaders. We were builders. We were engineers. We were the best and brightest. We were the kind of guys who, if they were running the biggest mobile network in the U.S., would say it’s not enough to be the biggest, we also want to be the best, and once they got to be the best, they’d say, How can we get even better? What can we do to be the best in the whole fucking world? What can we do that would blow people’s fucking minds? They wouldn’t have sat around wondering about ways to fuck over people who loved their product. But then something happened. Guys like you took over the phone company and all you cared about was milking profit and paying off assholes in Congress to fuck over anyone who came along with a better idea, because even though it might be great for consumers it would mean you and your lazy pals would have to get off your asses and start working again in order to keep up.

And not just you. Look at Big Three automakers. Same deal. Lazy, fat, slow, stupid, from the top to the bottom — everyone focused on just getting what they can in the short run and who cares what kind of piece of shit product we’re putting out. Then somehow along the way the evil motherfuckers on Wall Street got involved and became everyone’s enabler, devoting all their energy and brainpower to breaking things up and parceling them out and selling them off in pieces and then putting them back together again, and it was all about taking all this great shit that our predecessors had built and “unlocking value” which really meant finding ways to leech out whatever bit of money they could get in the short run and let the future be damned. It was all just one big swindle, and the only kind of engineering that matters anymore is financial engineering.

And now here we are. Right here in your own backyard, an American company creates a brilliant phone, and that company hands it to you, and gives you an exclusive deal to carry it — and all you guys can do is complain about how much people want to use it. You, Randall Stephenson, and your lazy stupid company — you are the problem. You are what’s wrong with this country.”

A not-so-brief chat with Randall Stephenson of AT&T

"being in love means you are completely broken then put back together the one piece that was..."

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:26:00 -0500

“

being in love means you are completely broken
then put back together
the one piece that was yours
is beating in your lovers breast

we are proof that the heart is a risky fuel to burn
what’s left after that’s all gone I hope to never learn
but if you stick with me you can help me
I’m sure we’ll find new things to burn
cause we are proof that the heart is a risky fuel to burn

”

- Jason Molina

"It’s staggering really that modern American Christianism supports wealth while Jesus demanded..."

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:58:47 -0500

“

It’s staggering really that modern American Christianism supports wealth while Jesus demanded total poverty, fetishizes family while Jesus left his and urged his followers to abandon wives, husbands and children, champions politics while Jesus said his kingdom was emphatically not of this world, defends religious war where Jesus sought always peace, and backs torture, which is what the Romans did to Jesus.

At some point these charlatans need to be chased out of the temple. Which these days means the Republican party.

”

- The Prosperity Gospel And The Subprime Collapse

"it’s a stiff competition to see who can stay up later the stars or the street lights and all..."

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:05:05 -0500

“it’s a stiff competition
to see who can stay up later
the stars or the street lights
and all they really want
is to be alone with the darkness
no more wish i may
no more wish i might”