Beautiful.

I got a pretty great promotion code from Borders this week, so I went onto their website last night and today to see if there was anything of interest to use it on. Wow, their new website is such a joke. I was on it a few months back for similar reasons and had problems, but chalked it up to them doing some sort of maintenance. But no, apparently not, or else I'm really unfortunate in my choices of days to shop. It was sloooow, continually popping up with errors, and at one point basically completely shut down. Just like last time. Not to mention that without the promotion none of their prices would have been anything like competitive with sites like Amazon. Why, oh why, did they break their partnership with Amazon? No wonder their stock is in a slump.

( Yep, still White on the Color Code - You scored 63% on White, higher than 98% of your peers. )

Since I've now seen several entries freaking out over the AP news story re: Obama's faith-based initiative, I thought I would provide a link straight from the horse'sdonkey's mouth:
Barack Obama's Plan to Engage Faith-Based and Community Organizations

So, like it or not like it, at least you'll have the actual proposal in front of you.

Personally, I think in an ideal world faith-based groups should not be taking any money from the government because it makes them beholden to said government in a number of ways and also has a number of other potentially unsavory/less-than-faithful effects. However, that is not the world we live in, and government grants to faith-based agencies are nothing new. The Bush administration did not invent it. What it did invent was the ability to use public funds while also discriminating in hiring and proselytizing those you serve. Which Obama's plan clearly does away with, initial AP reports to the contrary.

Tim Russert is dead!

inspired by cqg's brief musings on Texas:
Google Trends on Obama, McCain, and Clinton.

Tags: politics

Or at least a new connotation. I've probably heard this connotation before, but it never really sunk in before. We were discussing Pascoe's "Dude, You're A Fag" article in class today¹, when one of the students noted that the term "Vag" is on the rise and is used similarly (though not identically - it is more associated with stereotypically effeminate behaviors like concern with appearance or emotionality, and less with behaviors that are considered non-masculine, like incompetence or stupidity). Apparently there is also an associated hand gesture, where index fingers and thumbs are placed together to form a triangle/V.

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¹ For those not familiar with Pascoe's work, which is also in book form, she argues "Fag" is predominantly used in adolescent culture as a temporary label to reinforce hegemonic masculine behavior among heterosexual males.

Tags: school/teaching, sexuality & gender/glbt

Well, well. Isn't that interesting. (thanks lord_kero for the pointer)

The NBC Nightly News coverage of Jeremiah Wright made me want to vomit.

News stories like this one make me want to vomit.

The much-touted-beforehand Moyers interview is now being almost completely ignored in favor of a new set of out-of-context sound bites and interpretations of sound bites from speeches to the NAACP and the press club. Much of what Wright has said speaks truth to power, and often in a pithy, humorous, even "sound-bite friendly" way. But while I didn't do an exhaustive search, I haven't been able to find a single news story released after the press club event that takes up that angle in a serious way. It's all about how Wright is either (a)crazy (b)radical (c)narcissistic or (d)all of the above. Perhaps that's no surprise.

Tags: politics, spirituality/religion

I always knew it would be the ferns!

Tags: humor