We knew that John McCain once called his wife a cunt and likes to hang out with people who say inappropriate things about rape, but looks like our favorite presumptive Republican nominee also likes himself a good rape joke. According to Wonkette, 1986 is not just the birth year of your two fearless bloggers, but it’s also the year a story about McCain’s tasteless rape joke appeared in the Tuscon Citizen. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to laugh:
Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?’
This is not a joke. You, or should I write ‘U’, can now get texts from Pope Bennie 16 (which looks like an AIM screenname, don’t you think?)! This is part of World Youth Day 2008, a huge Catholic festival for people that want to hang out, be cool and “get jiggy” with his mighty papalness. This year’s festival is in Australia- on the opening morning, “G’day Pilgrims!” scrolled across the welcome screen. Haha.
How would you feel if you got a text from Benedict? There’s just something that doesn’t seem right about it. I think I would feel uncomfortable seeing it slammed in between drunk and/or inappropriate text messages from my heathen friends (LOVE YOU GUYS! And I’m just kidding, they are absolute saints). Plus, it definitely puts a whole new meaning to the idea that the Pope is a direct line to God. And the Pope has a direct line to your conscience via cell phone? I couldn’t stand all the Catholic guilt!
Besides the obvious objections to getting text messages from the freaking pope, as someone who is way into copy editing and believes that you should be consistent in your writing, the first thing that struck me was that he didn’t abbreviate ‘people’ to ‘ppl’ and spelled out the word ‘you’ after using the letter ‘u’. On top of that, I am absolutely against text abbreviations. JP II would never have done this! JP, we miss you, buddy.
So the Pope is trying to reach out to young people. That’s cool. I get it. Kind of. I always thought the church liked to kick it old school (as in, not evolve with the times), but maybe BXVI is a little too cool for school. Remember his shoes? Forget the devil, this Pope wears Prada. And sends texties.
Though I generally just support all Denver sports, I would consider myself to be a Yankee fan. It’s in my genes. My dad has always been a big Yankee fan (I’m actually not sure why, considering he was born and raised in Denver), and my mom’s whole side of the family is from New York. In fact, my mom and her four brothers grew up in the Bronx, not too far from Yankee Stadium. My mom’s youngest brother, my Uncle Kevin, is a die hard Yankee fan, and he truly appreciates the rare times he actually gets to go to a game in person.
My sister and I went to visit my Uncle Kevin about ten years ago, and he was determined that we experience a game at Yankee Stadium. I remember getting there, buying some souvenirs, and being introduced to what my uncle said was a quintessential New York baseball food: a soft pretzel with mustard on the side. (I still love pretzels dipped in mustard.) Then, to our disappointment — but much more so to my uncle’s — the game was rained out, and we didn’t get to see a single pitch.
Now that this is the last year the Yanks will play at their beloved old stadium, I’ll probably never get to see a game there. Still, I’m glad that I got pretty darn close, with someone whose passion for the game did the experience justice.
It seems like there’s a lot of good celebrity gossip out there right now, so let’s do a little roundup of the most interesting tidbits:
Khloe Kardashian is going to jail for violating the terms of her probation for a DUI she got last year. I really don’t know anything about the Kardashians, except that their parents cruelly spelled all of their names with K’s. Surely Kriminal Khloe won’t actually go to jail for that long, but maybe she’ll have to wear one of those ankle bracelet tracker things! (I saw a guy a Target wearing one, and I was scared of him, but then he was really nice to his wife/girlfriend so I decided he was okay.) [The Superficial]
Sienna Miller was caught kissing a married actor named Balthazar Getty! And she was naked! [AOL News]
Jimmy Kimmel and Sarah Silverman broke up after five years together. So first Ryan and Reese break up (I saw a picture of Ryan with that homewrecker nanny the other day and it still caught me off guard), then Heath dies, and now America’s favorite funny couple have called it quits. Sigh. [People]
Madonna’s brother Christopher Ciccone has lots of scandalous things to say about her in his book coming out this week, Life With My Sister Madonna. Notable among the life-ruining claims he makes: “Madonna hangs an 8-by-12-foot photo of herself in S&M gear and lying on a bed with dead animals in her home – in full view of the kids.” Um, ew. [New York Post]
Okay I’m starting to wish I hadn’t started this post because I’m finding out lots of things that I just wish I didn’t know. Like Drew Barrymore and that cute, nerdy Justin Long guy from Dodgeball broke up. They seemed so wacky and fun! CAN’T ANYONE STAY TOGETHER??! [People]
While I’m being a downer, can I mention that I’m still really upset about Anne Hathaway’s boyfriend turning out to be a huge sleazeball? Anne Hathaway is my number one Hollywood girl crush, perhaps because we look so much alike, and I not-so-secretly wish I was her character in The Devil Wears Prada, minus the horrible job but plus the scruffy boyfriend who makes me grilled cheese. Hang in there, Anne.
Let’s end on a happy note, shall we? Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie had their twins! Yay for babies! Apparently the boy and the girl are healthy and everything’s great, except that their names are Knox Leon and Vivienne Marcheline. Eek. That makes for what, 27 children for the Jolie-Pitts? [People]
That girl did it again! Miley, why haven’t you learned that Disney stars taking naughty pictures never turns out well? Did Vanessa’s super hot pictures to Zac teach you nothing?! Did your first couple of episodes with naughty pictures teach you nothing?! Well, since you all are a bunch of pervs and it’s kind of funny, here they are– the newest scandalous pictures hacked from sweet, innocent Miley. She’s 15. How those hackers do it, I will never know.
Miley, all I have to say is you are no Annie Liebovitz. Come on! The lighting is ALL wrong. And the poses? A little amateur, don’t you think? What would your best friend Leslie say? (Lame joke, sorry). Mallory and I were talking about this too–where exactly is she? A high school locker room, perhaps?
It must suck growing up and making mistakes when you’re in the limelight, but as our genius president, George W. Bush once remarked, “There’s an old saying in Tennessee – I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee – that says, fool me once – shame on – shame on you. You fool me, you can’t get fooled again.”
Okay, so I really just want to write about two particular New York Times op-ed pieces, but let’s go ahead and call it a roundup because that sounds more bloggy and professional.
The first article that all of you must read is Nicholas Kristof’s “It Takes a School, Not Missiles.” Kristof talks about Greg Mortenson, “a frumpy, genial man from Montana” who has made it his mission to build schools (mostly for girls) in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson is the author of the crazy popular book Three Cups of Tea, which I actually had not heard of until my grandma recommended it to me this weekend. I can’t wait to read it. I’ll give you one of the best excerpts from the article, and then I’ll let you read it yourself:
“I am convinced that the long-term solution to terrorism in general, and Afghanistan specifically, is education,” Lt. Col. Christopher Kolenda, who works on the Afghan front lines, said in an e-mail in which he raved about Mr. Mortenson’s work. “The conflict here will not be won with bombs but with books. … The thirst for education here is palpable.”
Military force is essential in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban. But over time, in Pakistan and Afghanistan alike, the best tonic against militant fundamentalism will be education and economic opportunity.
So a lone Montanan staying at the cheapest guest houses has done more to advance U.S. interests in the region than the entire military and foreign policy apparatus of the Bush administration.
Here’s a photo of Mortenson and some of the kids he helped:
The second article I want to share with you was written by this obscure guest columnist for the Times, a United States senator from Illinois named Barack Obama. Saint B’s article is about his plan for Iraq. The article is worth reading for all those people who say that Obama is just some young punk who has no idea what he’s talking about and is going to send the world spiraling into chaos. Again, take a look at an excerpt, then go read the whole thing:
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.
Well put, Barry. Well put.
And I know I’m not particularly ahead of the curve in talking about these articles — they are the top one and two most emailed articles on the NYT right now — but in case you don’t frequent the Times, I wanted to make sure you could take a look. Happy reading!
Our bloggy friend Caroline over at Drunkinarowboat has posted a few times about how irritating it is when people get mad at you for liking mainstream music. In her articles, she talks about how much she loves Coldplay and John Mayer, and how, you know, we’re not supposed to like them because everybody likes them.
I’ve been thinking about this today for a couple of reasons. First, this quote was in Quotes of the Day today (yes, I know, I’m obsessed):
The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good. [Robert Graves]
I hear ya, Robert! I mean, who’s to say John Mayer isn’t to music what Shakespeare is to writing? (That could be just ever so slightly a stretch, but you see what I mean.)
Second, this morning over breakfast, I read a Coldplay-bashing article in the NYT magazine. In it, Virginia Heffernan spends an agonizing 15 paragraphs dissecting Coldplay’s MySpace page. No Virginia, not okay. She draws this impressive conclusion at the end:
Because it lacks the conviction of a real, florid MySpace page, [Coldplay’s MySpace page] is obscurely embarrassing. Yet, in a straightforward way, it underscores the embarrassment of Coldplay’s music — the mawkishness, suppressed arrogance, halfheartedness and squeamishness about rock stardom. When illustrated by the graphics here, embarrassment seems like an entirely worthy theme for very hard soft rock.
Wait, what? Either way, I’ll still going to consider it totally enjoyable and acceptable to loudly duet “Viva la Vida” in the car with my sister.
The third reason I’ve been thinking about all the elitists who hate popular music is that I’m going to a festival this weekend that several of my hippie/emo/elitist friends have condemned as “too mainstream,” as if the crunchy folk and the angry teenagers had the market cornered on music festivals. I think the lineup is amazing: headlined by Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, and TOM PETTY, with other acts like Stephen Kellogg, Jason Mraz, Citizen Cope, moe., O.A.R., Spoon, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Brett Dennen, Ingrid Michaelson, Flogging Molly, The Roots, and The Black Crowes. Plus some others that didn’t make my short list. And yes, I did just want to brag a little bit, because how kickass of a lineup is that?
Even though I’m thrilled about the above mainstream/hippie/jam band acts that I’ll be seeing this weekend, I’m still annoyed that people are so condescending about it. I was talking to this kid at a bar about the concert, for instance, and of course he said that he wasn’t attending because it was “too mainstream.” He then asked me what my favorite band was. Here’s the moment where I know I’m about to be judged by a person like him, because, goddamnit, I just happen to be hardcore in love with the Counting Crows.
Now, why on earth should I be embarrassed about that? Alternative Elitist Boy at the bar seems to think I should be, but it’s not like I’d be admitting to owning every S Club 7 album ever made (did they even have more than one album, by the way? And didn’t they have a movie?).
The point is, everyone should just calm down, pour themselves a tall Jack and Coke, and admit that songs like “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” really are insanely good. (Incidentally, “Mrs. Potter’s Lullaby” is the song I request every time I’m hammered and someone pulls out an acoustic guitar. The fact that NO ONE ever knows how to play this song has never stopped me from begging.) Anyhoo, let’s take a listen to a live version and I’ll stop ranting:
The “World’s oldest blogger”, 108-year-old Olive Riley, died on Saturday.
I was just perusing her blog and I cannot even believe how cool this woman was. If you want to know what it was like growing up in WWI and WWII, you should read it. She saw a lot in her lifetime. Plus, she was all about singing happy songs and so am I.
Olive, you have totally inspired me. I want to blog until I’m 108 and make you all read what I have to say (and never get a real job! AHHH). But seriously, she was pretty amazing and I wanted to acknowledge that.
Today’s video is brought to you by the number 4! Here is Feist (who I L-O-V-E) on Sesame Street singing a Sesame Street version of 1-2-3-4. I giggled the entire time. I think it’s really cute how in to it she gets. Also, this really struck me because I suffer from post-college depression and yearn for my youth and I was talking about an old Sesame Street video featuring Smokey Robinson with my mom just a few days ago. Kudos if you remember it too. If you don’t, maybe watching it will help you remember and make you nostalgic. Here’s You Really Got a Hold on Me, featuring and brought to you by, you guessed it, the letter U! I am such a child.
six words to change the world. 