Continuously doing what doesn’t work… – Nick Andre, “Stupid”
This was such a disappointing year for Halloween items, I’m glad I recycled a bunch of old ones for tomorrow’s column. Since I wasn’t about to let the occasion pass without a couple of spooky videos, I spent over 90 minutes yesterday screening candidates and found exactly three I thought worthwhile: the first one isn’t scary but it’s fun and spooky; the second is very subtle and mysterious and rewards close attention; the third I’ll share next week. Everything down to the first video was contributed by Jesse Walker, including the first of only three seasonal links; the other two appear directly after the first video and were provided by Aspasia and Nun Ya (who also gave us “headline of the week”). Grace supplied “knife”, “never call” and “meth”, Jason Kuznicki “WTF?”, Lenore Skenazy “student”, Jillian Keenan “names”, Amy Alkon “note”, Cop Block “tase” and Radley Balko “toy”.
- They Stole JFK’s Brain.
- Shades of Terry Gilliam!
- Q, W and X will soon be legal in Turkey.
- A history of my favorite type of amusement park ride.
- Sasquatch descendant attacks hunter; “rescue” cops get lost in woods.
- For the well-dressed Icelandic necromancer.
- An army of huge rats? Definitely seasonal.
- He “walked into the knife”. Repeatedly.
- From the “WTF?” department.
- Headline of the week.
- Student suspended for doing assigned schoolwork.
- This week in “Never call the cops for any reason whatsoever”.
- Animated map of most popular boys’ names in the US, 1960-2012.
- Neighbor leaves introductory note on woman’s car, so she calls cops.
- Cops can’t tell fantasy from reality, nor candy from methamphetamine.
- Some cops tase boys in the balls for being black; others murder them for toy guns.
From the Archives
- Weeds, cops, dogs, sedition, super-ducks, Pseudodoxia, ERB, hamsters, condom ads, dead birds, the end of Newsweek and All Hallows Read.
- Lady Marmalade, Cross-Eyed Mary, Hey, Big Spender, The Son of Hickory Holler’s Tramp and Sweet Cream Ladies.
- Do women prefer circumcised men because the average uncircumcised man doesn’t care for it properly?
- The Magdalene Laundries, Sweet Georgia Brown, Minnie the Moocher and Maggie May.
- Woman remembers being “trafficked” and also being raised by monkeys.
- Nature is a bitch goddess who doesn’t give a damn what anyone wants.
- Melissa Gira Grant on how “trafficking” hysteria hurts exploited workers.
- New York court rules dancing can’t be sexy; dissenting judges disagree.
- Reviews of Paying for It, Sex at the Margins, The Sex Myth & You Will Die.
- Even Rwanda understands sex worker rights better than the US does.
- The extension of “sex trafficking” hysteria to stripping continues.
- How the US “saved” 10% of all “trafficking” victims in the world.
- In Ireland, even some consensual adult amateur sex is a crime.
- Can a woman really fall in love with a man by seeing his penis?
- Would-be pimps harass escorts by calling the cops on them.
- If you had children, would you want them to do sex work?
- Three UN agencies officially call for total decriminalization.
- Profiteers try to rescue “sex addiction” by redefining it.
- Head G-man absurdly claims g-men never hire whores.
- The journalistic ethics of outing Alexis Wright’s clients.
- Man tries to rape a hooker by pretending to be a cop.
- My husband’s experience at a Japanese “soapland”.
- Somaly Mam has been caught in another huge lie.
- Women With A Vision moves into a new office.
- Prostitution is an elephant in America’s parlor.
- Dr. Marty Klein on Australia’s weird porn laws.
- What’s the truth about female sex tourists?
- Chester Brown sends me four of his books.
- Alexander the Great’s favorite courtesan.
- How do you stop spam comments?
- “A minor character in his own life”.
- A short anti-Swedish model play.
- My favorite Halloween stuff.
- Why are most pimps black?
- The ethics of egg-selling.
Now, I’m standing in the kitchen, carvin’ up a chicken for dinner, minding my own business. In storms my husband Wilbur in a jealous rage.
“You been screwing the milkman!”, he says.
And he kept screaming, “You been screwing the milkman!”
Then he ran into my knife.
He ran into my knife ten times.
Pop! Six! Squish! Uh-uh! Cicero! Lipschitz!
Damn bold tags, ruined my quote.
You should be in bed! 😀
Why? It’s only just after 10:20 pm.
The Jolly Rancher-meth story made me laugh. I miss cinnamon (“Fire”) Ranchers and occasionally order them from usafoods.com.au, which imports exotic American groceries like Grape-Nuts, Old Bay seasoning and Frank’s Red Hot Sauce (can’t live without Frank’s on eggs). Cinnamon candies are not done here.
And the circumcision story: I am always baffled when people talk about the “hygiene” issue with uncircumcised men. Really in first-world countries with running water, how hard is it to wash your own dick?
Why do you suppose bidets are so popular in France? 😉
Fuck – I wish I had thought of the tweeting bra. Actually no – I’d just have it “text” … like her boyfriend. That’s soooo hot. I’m thinking right now – whoa – if I got a text message every time my wife took off her bra! Shiiiiit!
Yeah it sounds weird but …
Girls can simulate this stuff though – you don’t need to take pics – just text … it keeps the fire burning. “I’m naked in the bath – where are you?” … that kind of shit drives men crazy.
Sometimes I email my wife from my work email (which I know is monitored) to HER work email and say shit like … “What color underwear are you wearing?” or … “Shit I’ve been with you over a quarter century and here I am sitting here thinking about fucking you!”
Well … I mean … you have to keep the fire burning!
Kemal Atatürk is, in my view, the most interesting of early 20th century dictators. He attempted to drag Turkey, as the ‘homeland’ of the Turks, from the remains of the fossiised Ottoman Empire into a secular democracy. He set up a commission to oversee the change to a Latin alphabet; when told that this would take three years, he joined the commission. Their work was finished in six weeks.
He was a fluent French speaker, and this can be seen in so many Turkish words which clearly have a French origin. I never quite understood why ‘X’ was unnecessary; if you look for a cab in Turkey, it will have ‘Taksi’ rather than ‘Taxi’ as its sign.
Atatürk had very progressive views about women, at least in early 20th century terms; divorce was made much easier for them, for instance. He introduced surnames—Atatürk means ‘father of the Turks’. He was also a profligate womaniser who died without issue, for he didn’t want to found a dynasty. A heavy drinker of rakı, he died of cirrhosis. And, yes, you read that correctly; it’s rakı, not raki. As well as cedillas, Turkish has both ‘I’ and ‘İ’; the ancient city is properly İstanbul, not Istanbul.
The ‘ks’ for ‘x’ in a rather convoluted way also reflects the major problem with English orthography. There are about 44 phonemes in English, depending on your accent, but only 26 letters in the alphabet to represent them; so those not represented need letter combinations, and these were rather fluid at times. George Bernard Shaw’s alphabet attempts to correct this deficiency.
…so, İstanbul, not Constantinople?
As a third-generation language pedant, I salute you, Korhomme! 😉 I think diacritical marks are sexy.
Turkish is one of the best languages for diacritical marks. They have so many of them. (Just off the top of my head, I know they have at least six letters that can have diacriticals.)
Hasn’t been Byzantium or Constantinople for a long time. Rather boringly, İstanbul apparently means ‘to the city’. Which isn’t at all sexy. 🙂
Korhomme: Sigh. This is what I meant.
Ornith: I know,right? Turkish writing looks fantastic. One of the things I like most about my mobile phone is that diacritical màrĸß âre vérÿ êåsý tõ typĕ 😉
İ ăḿ ṧȭ ȴȋƭềṝẫṙȁł. 🙁