Talk about temptation!!!

We have officially, again, reached an irony-apex.

Let's all just imagine for a second what it must be like to be married to G.W. Bush. So nice to be able to snap out of that daydream!

4.20 is Hitler's birthday.

4.20 is National Smoke Pot Day.

4.20 is when the Columbine School Killings happened.

4.20 is when Jimmy Carter's rabbit incident took place.

4.20 is when the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was signed.

Arianna raises an important question I really want answers to.

Jonah writes a very realistic and unfortunately true observation about the gun situation in America in light of the Virgina Tech shooting.

American gun policy is a deadly compromise.

Both sides are right, but they want to live in different worlds. continued...

Excerpts from most recent information about the gunman:

Professor Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of the university's English department, said Cho's writing was so disturbing that he had been referred to the university's counseling service.

"We just really knew him as the question mark kid," Poole said.

Omg, I am desperate for the fishies to nibble on my face of dead skin! No really, I mean that. I want to feel the suckling lips of fish and know that I'm getting the fishiest exfoliation treatment. I want fish to suck my face silly!!!

Let me start by saying, I can easily name a handful of people I know that aren't as smart as chimps!!! LOLOLOL.

“Jane suffered early rejection by the establishment,” Richard Wrangham, a Harvard anthropologist, said. “Now, the people who say chimpanzees don’t have emotions and culture are the ones rejected.”

Dr. Goodall recalled that when she went to Africa nearly a half-century ago, at least a million chimps lived in the continent, and “now there are perhaps only 150,000.” In that time, they have impressed scientists with physical and emotional reminders of their kinship to humans and their occasional triumphs over them at a computer screen.

In light of yesterday's horrific incident at Virgina Tech I am just hoping desperately and perhaps naively, that debate will result in a tightening of gun laws in this country. It is not rare that in public places I think, "it's possible someone has a gun right now". And that's not a nice thought. People are fragile. Sometimes all it takes is enough trauma to push you over the edge and boom, you kill over 30 people while searching for your girlfriend who surely wronged you in some way. Ugh. So sad.

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

My friends tell me to calm down. They say, "Lee, you're eighty-two years old. Leave the rage to the young people." I'd love to—as soon as I can pry them away from their iPods for five seconds and get them to pay attention. I'm going to speak up because it's my patriotic duty. I think people will listen to me. They say I have a reputation as a straight shooter. So I'll tell you how I see it, and it's not pretty, but at least it's real. I'm hoping to strike a nerve in those young folks who say they don't vote because they don't trust politicians to represent their interests. Hey, America, wake up. These guys work for us.

* From this interview on the subject of his new book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

** via Kottke.

This is a welcome tribute to Kurt Vonnegut and his work.

Rest in peace, Kurt Vonnegut (1922 - 2007). You inspired millions.

For more good Vonnegut links check out BuzzFeed.

Wow. I had never thought about how Gawker affects celebrities (that could be because I never think about Gawker) but Jimmy Kimmel made me do so for the first time and in the process, won my sympathy.

The reality of planned obsolescence is so deeply depressing to me. The environmental costs are obvious - the psychic costs may be less so but nonetheless harmful as we collectively partake in such depraved commercial strategy.

* via Kottke.

* via BuzzFeed.

* via Huffington Post.

What a great little profile of Prince in this week's New Yorker. My love of Prince is the closest I get to being religious (Prince would be the religion in this example) so when I read exalting things about him I just smile serenely and smugly and think, "I know that...now others will learn."

Though he’s just over five feet, lithe and pixieish, he never seems dwarfed by others onstage, and he is absolutely at ease guiding his ten-piece band. His backup dancers—Nandy and Maya McClean, twenty-six-year-old twins from Sydney, Australia—were energetic and effectively underclad, but Prince was still the most seductive presence onstage. When he simply cocked his head and smiled, it seemed like an act of public lewdness.

Anyone who's ever seen Prince perform has experienced this excerpt...and especially enjoyed the phenomenon captured in the last line. As a married woman it felt like I had just cheated on my husband and all Prince did was cock his head and smile.

For those of you without a TimesSelect account, here's the article in its entirety:

There are, Dr. Michael H. Stone says, 22 varieties of killers, and he has ranked them in order of evil.

I took the survey the other day, at www.depravityscale.org, but I found it hard and largely pointless to try to distinguish between, say, a contract killing and mailing anthrax.

Continue reading "Adding Method to Judging Mayhem By Adam Liptak" »

From today's Metropolitan Diary...

Dear Diary:

Cheryl Chan

These people are great parents. If only more parents simply wanted their children to discover themselves in order to be happy, the world really would be a better place. I'm en route to Madison, CT to give them a big hug.

Equally consoling and horrifying, another exoneration by DNA.

The evidence, genetic material from two rapes stored on microscopic slides, had languished in a hospital drawer for more than 20 years, as the man convicted of the crimes languished behind bars. Numerous times, including four in the last two months, the authorities issued subpoenas for the material, only to be told that it was not in the hospital.

Mr. Capozzi, 50, who has been incarcerated since his 1985 arrest, could be freed within a week, the authorities said. continued...

What oh what did we do to deserve MC Rove??

I did not know that Alabama is the only state that doesn't provide counsel to indigent death row inmates Nice!

Nobody much likes the fact that Alabama does not provide indigent death row inmates with lawyers.

Lawyers for the inmates will ask the United States Supreme Court to hear the case next month. There is, they say, a constitutional right of meaningful access to the courts. No condemned inmate, they add, can be expected without a lawyer to navigate the procedural minefields that Alabama has erected in capital cases. continued...

I love this trend, mostly because it makes alpha-males so uncomfortable and upset which makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. So satisfying!

Oh my god. Someone please stop K-Fed. From Papazao to taking on Google. Oh K. K, K, K, K, K. You are a treasure. Sunk at the bottom of the ocean.

Sobering thoughts on the state of our financial times by old-school conservative Ben Stein of Beuller? Beuller? fame.

The average wage of the American worker adjusted for inflation is lower than it was in 1973. The only way that Americans have been able to maintain their standard of living at the middle and lower ends has been to send more family members to work and to draw down savings or go into debt or both.

This is a small part of what's new and exciting (or terrible) in America in the world of money right now.

* via Kottke.

I have been hearing the glories of unfiltered olive oil for a while now and can't wait to taste it because I know I will love it...imagine, olive oil...suped up!

The Holocaust survivor's ode to unfiltered olive oil is super touching and appetite whetting.

Apparently, everyone's talking about the fact that David Sedaris' non-fictional work is not entirely non-fiction. I don't get the uproar. When you write, blog and tell stories about your life, isn't the substance mostly non-fiction sprinkled with a little fiction? Or perhaps I'm delusional, fantastical, and an occasional liar.

* via BuzzFeed for which we are psyched to have Scott Lamb editing today and tomorrow!

Often times I don't feel American. These times include when I'm not in New York, San Francisco or LA and when I hear about things like this. How have I never heard of this before??

P.S. Jason Kottke is the BuzzFeed Editor for the day!! So far, so great!

I could have told you this but...

* via Kottke.

Oh my god. I am laughing so hard: One of several complaints filed against Prince's Super Bowl performance.

* via Anil, a fellow Prince and the color purple (not the book!) fan!

A moderately interesting NYT article on neediness.

Excerpts:

Neediness has a familiar face: the close friend who is continually asking for reassurance, for advice, for help with the wireless connection.

For some reason, that line is so funny to me. No! I don't want to help you with your wifi problems!

Tip for parents:

Researchers measure the strength of dependency traits by having people rate how highly they endorse certain beliefs, like, “After a fight with a friend, I must make amends as soon as possible"; "I am very sensitive to others for signs of rejection; or “I have a lot of trouble making decisions for myself."

In studies, people who score highly on these tests also tend to rate their parents as either authoritarian or overly protective (or one of each). "The message growing up is: You’re fragile, you’re weak, you need someone powerful to look after you," Dr. Bornstein said.

On compromise:

At least in the short run, dependent traits seemed to buffer the relationships in times of crisis, the authors suggest. Afraid of losing the relationship, “individuals high on dependency may actually behave in a more positive way to their partner, like being more complying, being more loving,” said Bénédicte Lowyck, the psychologist who led the study.

In the long run, Ms. Lowyck said, it is not at all clear whether such protective instincts nourish a relationship or smother it. The answer will depend on the couple, experts say, and likely on the content of a partner’s dependence: how it is expressed, whether the person is generous as well as needy, flexible as well as anxious.

iSpy on you!

Great.

For more images for your nightmare database, click here.

Wow.

Three Israeli computer scientists from Tel Aviv University (TAU) have developed the ultimate enhancement tool for retouching digital images. Called the Beauty Function, their program scans an image of your face, studies it and produces a slightly more beautiful you.

Plastic surgeons, he adds, may find it helpful to increase business. With a flick of a switch they can show people how minor alterations on the face and neck can enhance attractiveness.

Ew.

* via Kottke.

BuzzFeed is nominated for best blog this year at SXSW so...party throwing time!!!

You may already know and love Ze Frank but you may not yet have heard of the unstoppable Wisconsin white-rapper Juiceboxxx!!!!

If you're going to be at the party, let us know here and not by being that guy or girl at the party.

Take him away!!! Remove him from his feeding machine!!!! or is this not some variation on Munchausen?

Whatever it is there's a custard battle going on, sorry, custody battle. Should this kid be allowed to continue sort of dying because it's his mom's fault or is it not her fault and even if it were, should she still be allowed to parent him however she wishes? These are the questions of our times, people.

"If I didn't give him enough at teatime then he would just go on at us all night for snacks and stuff," she told ITV.

Based on the above excerpt, this family is hopeless.

* via BuzzFeed watch on the extremely disturbing extreme eating trench.

And Brangelina's not going to save it.

* via BuzzFeed.

When I have kids I intend to drill the "stand up for what you believe in" mantra into their cute little heads. But I'm wondering if I can build in this clause: "Stand up for what you believe in unless you're a homophobe like Tim Hardaway in which case you should just sit down and be quiet."

Thanks to my brother for this link!

This is so awesome. Sure, it reveals depressing things about the state of our affairs like, meaningful research has been harder and harder to fund and that only with such crass commercialization of research does it become sexy to engage it in...Oh! and that we have a global warming problem!!! But hey!! Who's thinking much these days?! Not me! Just drinking coffee and reading US magazine! So someone get to work so my kids can also drink coffee and read US magazine carefreely k???!

Wait. Is this a case of the chicken or the egg? As in, was Kevin Bacon always interested in this area or is it because his name got hijacked by the six degrees concept game that he discovered his interest?

I really wanna go. AndreaHarner.com field trip??!

Megastores March Up Avenue, and Paris Takes to Barricades by Elaine Sciolino.

Yay Frenchies, do what you do best! I hope you're successful so when I visit Paris next, I don't discover that I could have shopped at the same, big, boring stores a few blocks from my apt!

There was a time when the Champs-�lys�es stood for grand living, high style and serendipity. With the Arc de Triomphe on one end and the Tuileries Gardens on the other, you could discover an underground jazz band at midnight and down oysters and Champagne at dawn.

And so, in a truly French moment, the Paris city government has begun to push back, proclaiming a crisis of confidence and promising a plan aimed at stopping the "banalization" of the Champs-�lys�es. The question is whether it is too late.

Look at this breathtaking picture:

The ending of Barbaro's life has made me sadder than I had anticipated. If his veterinarian had not become emotional and nearly unable to talk I would have been concerned that they had the wrong vet all along.

There's just something about horses.

Funny how much I'm looking forward to the Super Bowl this year especially the midpoint.

* via Kottke.

Who can do things on their own anymore? Not me! Who needs to ask the internet for help with minor to major decisions?? Me and China!

Got a good name for panda?? How about TP? For Tupperware Panda. :-(

A crazy yet authentic New York story. Stanley N. Alpert's book about this experience is out now: The Birthday Party.

This is a sad and hilarious sign of our times: Woman fired for writing about avoiding work.

"This typing thing seems to be doing the trick," she wrote. "It just looks like I am hard at work on something very important."

Bauer also wrote: "I am only here for the money and, lately, for the printer access. I haven't really accomplished anything in a long while ... and I am still getting paid more than I ever have at a job before, with less to do than I have ever had before. It's actually quite nice when I think of it that way. I can shop online, play games and read message boards and still get paid for it."

EEEEEEWWWWWWWW:

To show you that I care: 10 Top Foods To Help You Fight High Cholesterol.

Close to 107 million U.S. adults have cholesterol levels of 200 mg/dL or higher, a level that the American Heart Association says increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. At least 12 million of these people are taking statin drugs to lower their cholesterol levels, but there are more natural options out there.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute's Family Heart Study, participants who ate four or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day had significantly lower levels of LDL cholesterol than those who ate fewer servings. Among the most powerful veggies are the dark green, leafy variety, such as spinach, kale, collard greens and Swiss chard.

A trend here and in Japan too. Great dicussion topic for your dicussion group.

This NYTimes article came at the perfect time for me. For the very first time last night as I was washing my face before bed and putting on my plethora of skin creams, I saw my skin differently - in a (metaphorical) light I've never seen before. I noticed the lines and grooves forming in my undereye and crows feet area and felt extremely happy, endeared and touched by was developing. I felt like they were telling me a story of my life, my adventures, misadventures and my tendency to squint and to smile a lot. At the risk of sounding completely retarded I finally felt love, respect and appreciation for living life fully, without fear of aging and for my unique epidermal expression of that.

* via Kottke.

LOVE him - here's a nice little clip of the genius you may recall - after a great acoustic medley he's interviewed by Sway during which time he gives props to Outkast & Alicia Keyes - rightfully - although no one can top the one and only Prince!

An inspiring story of a woman and a lion in love, desperate to wed. JK Rowling!

Watch this:

I'm a Gates girl, myself.

Stickam, where we can finally connect in potentially sweet ways and certainly perverse ways.

See who's live and broadcasting themselves.

I look forward to when my future children, at age 11 or so, start making their live selves available to internet strangers.

I love discovering stuff like this. Gives me hope. And nightmares.

From the bizarro world in which we live.

via Kottke.

Just for the sake of showing you that I am not above the Brangelina craze...here's the wholly irrelevant, somewhat interesting drama on what it was like for Matt Damon to make out with good friend Brad's lady Angie.

Thanks HuffPost!

I love when I'm understood:

via Google Earth. It's so painful to see the lodge so close to their car and his path away from it.

Update: Missing father of family stuck in the wilderness for 10 days found dead.

I think because their family is also half Asian, half Caucasian, I related to this case more than I could have expected. This is horribly sad news.

Here's CNET's In Memoriam. To leave the family a message or to make a donation check out this site.

What is happening??? This is so sad. And mysterious.

Via Huffington Post.

It's even better, I say! We need less, not more these days and BuzzFeed filters and it filters well and entertainingly.

If you haven't yet checked out BuzzFeed consider today your lucky day!

More email etiquette. Not that you need it.

"While on the one hand e-mail encourages people to write," she said, "on the other hand it discourages people to write thoughtfully." SO TRUE.

Robert Verdi, a fashion stylist and a host of "Surprise by Design," a makeover reality show on the Discovery Channel, is a self-described "xoxo offender." "Never in the first or second communication," he clarified. But after a few friendly phone conversations or e-mail exchanges, he feels comfortable with the affectionate and casual sign-off, though he generally waits for the other party to make the first move. "The other person gives you the cues," he said. "They send a 'You're the best! Love, Alison,' and you send a 'Hugs and kisses' and all of a sudden you're over that awkward hump and you're best friends." I LOVE THIS GUY ALREADY.

Many e-mail users don't bother with a sign-off, and Letitia Baldridge, the manners expert, finds that annoying. "It's so abrupt," she said, "and it's very unfriendly. We need grace in our lives, and I'm not talking about heavenly grace. I'm talking about human grace. We should try and be warm and friendly." I WANT HEAVENLY GRACE.

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

FYI, when I'm really hungry (and my friends know how pleasant I am in these moments) I might pay $1600 for a can of Classico.

Robert Altman, one of the most adventurous and influential American directors of the late 20th century, a filmmaker whose iconoclastic career spanned more than half a century but whose stamp was felt most forcefully in one decade, the 1970s, died Monday in Los Angeles. He was 81. His death, at a hospital, was confirmed today by a friend, the singer Annie Ross. The cause was not announced. Mr. Altman had a heart transplant in the mid-1990s, a fact he publicly revealed for the first time last March while accepting an honorary Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremony.

Continue reading "Masterful Director Robert Altman Dies at 81, RIP" »

What a father! What an asshole.

It's almost laughable when anyone compiles a list of what they deem are the most important works of art because it's so highly subjective of course but it's certainly a worthwhile discussion topic!

* via Kottke.

I enjoyed being interviewed last night by the cool chicks Jackie and Lisa at CHRW's Broadly Speaking show. For a listen, click here!

My favorite new article in a long time: Doggies are drug addicts too. Pathetic, just pathetic.

"We couldn't keep our dog's addiction a secret any longer," Laura Mirsch says. "The neighbors all knew that Lady was a drug addict, and soon the other dogs weren't allowed to play with her."

In the end, Lady seems to have found a way to manage her problem.

"She seems to have outgrown the wild toad-obsessed years of her youth," Mirsch says, "and now only sucks on weekends."

Suuuuure.

via Kottke.

This is too funny: The mean Paris Syndrome.

"Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

"A third of patients get better immediately, a third suffer relapses and the rest have psychoses," Yousef Mahmoudia, a psychologist at the Hotel-Dieu hospital, next to Notre Dame cathedral, told the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.

Already this year, Japan's embassy in Paris has had to repatriate at least four visitors -- including two women who believed their hotel room was being bugged and there was a plot against them."

Thanks to my brother for this great link!

I finally have proof that the guys who ride bikes with modified pipes have tiny testicles. Thanks, New Scientist!

via Kottke.

Compliments of the New Yorker. He's still out and about, smooth talkin' and fugitivin'!

SFGate's Special Report on Sex Trafficking.

and this video helped to make it happen. Actually, this video was the deal clincher:

I haven't figured out how to put this on my wishlist yet so until I do, know that I want one of these hypoallergenic cats. Thanks in advance.

A small California biotech company says it is ready to deliver the Holy Grail of the $35 billion pet industry: a hypoallergenic cat.

Two cats with a mutant gene that produces a modified protein far less likely to induce allergies.
At the start of next year, the first kittens � which the company calls �lifestyle pets� � will go home to eager owners who have been carefully screened and have been on a waiting list for more than two years.

Continue reading "Cat Lovers Lining Up for No-Sneeze Kitties by NY Times' Elizabeth Rosenthal" »

Reading this excerpt, I laughed out loud thinking a) that's funny! and b) I'm going to choke on my vomit when my future child describes a relationship she has as "friends with benefits".

Over Labor Day weekend I heard all the weird and frightening details about the eighteen year old Austrian girl who was kidnapped and held for over eight years in a windowless cell and then now I hear about the fourteen year old girl who was kidnapped and held for ten days until she snuck a text message to her mom that consequently saved her. Craziness.

Makes me think of a great book I read a few years back. It's about...guess what? A guy who kidnaps a girl and keeps her for a long while and all the mind games and tortures that ensue. If you're drawn to this morbid stuff and prefer it served to you well-written, you'll love The Collector by John Fowles.

In the hot field of behavioral economics another interesting article has been written and tells us that most people have strong 'loss aversion' which often makes us lose out on beneficial, risky opportunities.

An interesting New York Times article on our desire to be famous. This is not only interesting because it tackles the most interesting question of human psychology but also because I just started taking two pyschology courses in preparation for grad school!

---
Mental Health & Behavior
The Fame Motive

By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: August 22, 2006

Money and power are handy, but millions of ambitious people are after something other than the corner office or the beach house on St. Bart�s. They want to swivel necks, to light a flare in others� eyes, to walk into a crowded room and feel the conversation stop. They are busy networking, auditioning, talking up their latest project � a screenplay, a memoir, a new reality show � to satisfy a desire so obvious it is all but invisible.

What�s the formula for fame? Some write fictionalized memoirs, like James Frey, top; others, like Paris Hilton, above, become famous for, well, simply being famous.
�To be noticed, to be wanted, to be loved, to walk into a place and have others care about what you�re doing, even what you had for lunch that day: that�s what people want, in my opinion,� said Kaysar Ridha, 26, of Irvine, Calif., a recent favorite of fans of the popular CBS reality series �Big Brother.� �It�s strange and twisted, because when that attention does come, the irony is you want more privacy.�

For most of its existence, the field of psychology has ignored fame as a primary motivator of human behavior: it was considered too shallow, too culturally variable, too often mingled with other motives to be taken seriously. But in recent years, a small number of social scientists have begun to study and think about fame in a different way, ranking it with other goals, measuring its psychological effects, characterizing its devoted seekers.

Continue reading "The Fame Motive by Benedict Carey" »

A very interesting New York Magazine article.

A fascinating and frustrating New Yorker article by Mitchell Zuckoff - How does someone, especially an educated someone, get duped time and time again??

Update: Here are the ads.

JWT Puts a 'Roadblock' on Huffington Post by Julie Bosman.

Read this article.

In case you needed more proof, you'll discover that people are sheep. It's truly sad that so many women have lost their minds and souls.

Is it such a crazy idea that what makes for the most beautiful woman is one who has learned to embrace her so called flaws and aging and through that process has become truly confident and attractive??!!

Thanks to Celeste for the article!

Pregnant woman beaten at baby shower.

A worthwhile read by John Lanchester for the NewYorker.

I tend to agree that people are probably most happy when they're doing as opposed to seeking, pondering, obsessing, etc.