Earlier this week I received the distressing news that one of my fraternity brothers, Jose Fernandez, was dead. Jose – aka Joe – was in my pledge class, a small group that somehow earned a reputation for … underachievement? To be sure, we had our share of fuck-ups. But we also proved, when all was said and done, that were a
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Lonelyman walks into Ernie’s a pizza and Italian in Northwest Denver. The hostess, a pleasant enough looking blonde woman, greets him and asks “how many?” Lonelyman has always dreamed of responding to this sort of query with some wiseassery, like motioning to either side and saying “just the six of us” or “table for 8 – I like to move
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WikiPedia’s List of Hobbies page is a long one – over 170 entries. Included are some you’d expect: cooking, birdwatching, knitting, stamp collecting, all manner of sporting activities, etc. There are also some you may not have thought of. For example: Chainmail making Conlanging (artificial language construction – think Esperanto and Klingon) Locksport (the sport or recreation that aims to
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Sometimes I have no clue what the WWE Creative team is doing. Which is appropriate, because I don’t think they do, either. Case #1: Recently the WWE made a token donation to Chris Nowinski’s organization, which is dedicated to studying and preventing Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. The gift is being made to the Sports Legacy Institute, a Boston non-profit with a mission
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1: The enemy of my enemy Conservatives hate Obama. Progressives hate Obama. Hmmm. Let’s say that you and I and our mutual friend Bob are going to dinner. Bob is up for Mexican and suggests that we hit The Hacienda. I say no, The Hacienda sucks. Their chile verde is too hot. You say no, The Hacienda sucks. Their chile verde
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I’ve been thinking about the Paula Deen mess lately. As any number of previous posts here will suggest, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for her or her kind. At the same time, I grew up in the racist South like she did, and I see the situation in more nuanced terms than do her critics these past few
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As I’ve noted before, I grew up working class in the South. My neighborhood, my school, my family and friends, it all oscillated between “redneck” and “white trash,” and yes, there’s a difference. I wrote not long ago about the challenges facing those of us trying to climb the socio-economic ladder when nothing in our upbringing had taught us which fork
Read moreA Special Guest Commentary From Randy Wayne Boudreau, Grand Dragon of the Alabama Tea Party All right thinking citizen patriots hate gummit. Wasteful bureaucrats living off hard workers like you and me. Might as well be welfare queens. And now, thanks to the good folks at Deadspin – private, non-union workers, I should note – we know who the highest
Read moreWhen I first saw this story on NY artist Danny Evans’s Celebrities Make Under project, my first reaction was…well, let me quote my Facebook comment directly: Oh, this…I mean…gods, no. They…WTF?! To summarize, Evans has used the magic of Photoshop to “normalize” (my word, not his) some of our artificially beautiful celebrities. “It was a reaction to the insanely over-retouched photos
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I recently came across a useful article over at Ragan’s PR Daily entitled “What to wear to work in the PR and marketing industry.” After reading through it, my first reaction was that it was mistitled – what it offers is good advice for what to wear to work in just about any industry. From where I sit now, there’s nothing
Read moreIf you only read one thing today, make it this. Scott Fujita of the Cleveland Browns reflects on what it means in a society when some people are regarded as “less than” others. A snip: I support marriage equality for so many reasons: my father’s experience in an internment camp and the racial intolerance his family experienced during and after
Read moreTo announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. ― Theodore Roosevelt On March 10, 2003, at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire theatre in London, Natalie Maines stepped to the microphone and said this:
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The American soccer sphere has been abuzz these last couple of days thanks to a question that first popped up on Alexi Lalas’s Twitter feed: Last night this was discussed: If you live in the U.S., can you call yourself a “soccer fan” even if you don’t support @MLS? The question gets a thorough working over in an article posted
Read moreThis is hardly the first time pro wrestling has come at the audience with a blatantly racist angle, and WWE has, through the years, perfected the arts of cheap stereotyping and jingoism. So their latest gimmick – the anti-immigration “real American” Jack Swagger and his mentor, thinly veiled Tea Partier Zeb Colter – are hardly news. Except for one thing
Read moreIt’s been an interesting few days. The American Benefits Council and 278 employers, organizations and municipalities have filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case regarding the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Earlier today the far right Drudge Report was linking to a story outlining a new study that suggests gay marriage may
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lullaby pit 