TURTLE THOUGHTS

Those Innovative Al-Qaida

What's worse than being blown up with plastic explosives? Being blown up with plastic explosives that have been packed inside the bomber's rectum, of course. I've heard of blowing it out your ass, but I never thought of it literally.

How Could That Possibly Be Dangerous?

    

There is a chain of bars called "Coyote Ugly" across the country based on a 2000 movie of the same name. It's customary at these places for female patrons to climb atop the bar and dance. (Believe me, it's not nearly as hot as you might hope.)  Last year, a Kentucky college student named Brittany Barnes went to the Coyote Ugly in downtown Nashville with some friends. At the end of the night, she clambered atop the bar to boogie and get her picture taken.

Lo and behold, this tipsy girl tipped over backward and fell to the floor, smacking her head. Now it's lawsuit time. Barnes' attorney, Rob Shelton, is acquiver with indignation. He talked to the Nashville Tennessean.

Shelton claims the bar should do more to protect those who venture up to the bar top, especially when they've been drinking. He said Barnes "had had a few drinks" but was not drunk.

"When you've just been invited to get up on a bar by the owners of the bar, I think you can presume it would be safe to get up on the bar," he said

The law is the law, of course, but the laws of physics are the laws of physics. Just because an establishment lets you climb onto its damp bar when you've been drinking doesn't mean the bar owner has made a deal with God to suspend the law of gravity till you get down safely. So now Barnes is hoping to get half a million dollars for being stupid.

But the best part?

Shelton said Barnes had lost her sense of smell as a result of her head injury.

Well, she should have been paying attention to her sense of touch when she was pulling herself up on that slippery bar. Or her sense of sight. Hell, she'd obviously lost her sense of taste already or she'd never even walked into that bar. So I'm thinking she just didn't have much sense from the outset.

                 

It all looks perfectly safe to me.

 

 

 

California Nightmare

Actress Mackenzie Phillips says she had a long-term incestuous relationship with her father, John Phillips of the Mamas and Papas. It began on the night before her wedding, and by her description it wasn't consensual, yet it became consensual over time.  If you ever needed a more twisted and unsettling example of intra-family weirdness I can't think of it. I don't think I'm going to be able to process this.

   

Gay Marriage Continues, World Keeps Turning

I realize that legalized gay marriage has probably resulted in untold numbers of hetersexual marriages to disintegrate (I mean, how could it not?) but they don't have the word yet in Iowa.

One of the most common arguments against marriage equality is that the legalization of gay marriage threatens the institution of traditional marriage. But a recent poll conducted by the Des Moines Register finds that 92% of Iowans believe that "gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives." The study comes just months after the Iowa Supreme Court's unanimous decision to overturn a 10-year-old ban on same-sex marriage.

Wow, I guess heterosexual marriage must be stronger than some people thought, huh?

It's Friday, Go Crazy!

Well, not too crazy.

Henry Gibson (1935-2009)

You may not know his name, but you will probably recognize the face. Actor Henry Gibson has died at the age of 73. While he's most famous for being a regular on Laugh-In, he first hit my radar as a leprechaunn on "Bewitched."  Later, he played a very funny judge on the series "Boston Legal" where he was known to utter the phrase "Outrageous!" during whatever strange case happened to be playing out at the moment. On "BL" his character ended up filing suit against an organization claiming to 'cure' gays of their homosexuality because it didn't work in his case. I also enjoyed him in the movie "Magnolia." RIP, Henry Gibson.

                                              

Jimmy Carter Calls It Like It Is

Jimmy Carter might not have been a very effective president, but he has proven over and again that he is the most important former president ever. Carter has told NBC's Brian Williams what so many people have observed but haven't had the will or opportunity to state: Opposition to Barack Obama has nothing to do with his policies, it's rooted in the fact that many white people simply don't think a black person is qualified to run the country.

"I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man," Carter said. "I live in the South, and I've seen the South come a long way, and I've seen the rest of the country that share the South's attitude toward minority groups at that time, particularly African Americans."

Carter continued, "And that racism inclination still exists. And I think it's bubbled up to the surface because of the belief among many white people, not just in the South but around the country, that African-Americans are not qualified to lead this great country. It's an abominable circumstance, and it grieves me and concerns me very deeply."

Patrick Swayze (1952-2009)

That's sad news. Living two years after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is very rare, so you know he was a fighter. I always enjoyed Patrick Swayze's work (well, except for his singing). "To Wong Foo" and "Dirty Dancing" were both great, and I think his role in the "North and South" TV miniseries way-back-when was, too. Still, my first thought on hearing this was, now he's a "Ghost."

                                 

Teabaggers On Parade

Tens of thousands of angry white people (not hundreds of thousands or millions, as they'd have you believe) met up in DC over the weekend to stoke their rage about having a black president. Or something like that. Anyway, the teabaggers brought some lovely signs. This assortment of images comes via the good folk at the Great Orange Satan.

        

UPDATE: Some of the anti-healthcare reformers are trying to inflate their numbers by trying to pass off a five year old photo as a snapshot from this past Saturday.  

Thanks, Joe!

If you're an obstructionist Congressman who hates the president, why not scream out that he's a liar during the middle of a joint session of Congress?  One reason not to do that is because it will enrich your election opponent by more than $200,000 in just a few hours.

That's what South Carolina GOP Representative Joe Wilson is learning today after his disrespectful outburst during last night's presidential address to Congress. Wilson, sitting among a pack of smug Republican Members, apologized almost immediately, but the damage has been done. Along with raising money for his opponent, Rob Wilson, he made himself and his party look like shrieking babies.

     

UPDATE: Rob Miller has now raised $600,000.

Sites That Make Me Laugh

My friend the priest sent me this photo today from the website uglydress.com. He thought it might be one of my Mississippi relatives. The answer is no...My cousins just wear pistols strapped under their wedding gowns. Machine guns are gauche.

                  

Another site I enjoy is People of Walmart, which includes rude pictures of Walmart shoppers.

          

Headline of the Day: Is Your Baby Racist?

Seems it's a just a tiny step from diapers to Klan robes for some babies. Beyond that, the Newsweek article by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman has some important points to make about children, parental attitudes, and race. It features work conducted by the Children's Research Lab at the University of Texas.

Vittrup also asked all the kids a very blunt question: "Do your parents like black people?" Fourteen percent said outright, "No, my parents don't like black people"; 38 percent of the kids answered, "I don't know." In this supposed race-free vacuum being created by parents, kids were left to improvise their own conclusions—many of which would be abhorrent to their parents.

The study took place in relatively liberal Austin, TX, where researchers got another surprise:

These parents were to discuss racial equality on their own, every night for five nights.

At this point, something interesting happened. Five families in the last group abruptly quit the study. Two directly told Vittrup, "We don't want to have these conversations with our child. We don't want to point out skin color."

Vittrup was taken aback—these families volunteered knowing full well it was a study of children's racial attitudes. Yet once they were aware that the study required talking openly about race, they started dropping out.

It was no surprise that in a liberal city like Austin, every parent was a welcoming multiculturalist, embracing diversity. But according to Vittrup's entry surveys, hardly any of these white parents had ever talked to their children directly about race.

The article's in-depth and goes on to talk about education, how kids group themselves according to race, and how topics like Black Pride have a significant impact.

 

September 4th

September 4 is a very significant date for me.  I quit tobacco exactly six years ago today. I smoked more than a pack a day. But I decided to quit cold turkey just a few minutes after learning that my dad had died suddenly from a heart attack while working in another state. I couldn't understand why that could happen unless it had something to do with his 2-pack+ a day consumption of cigarettes. Keeping that up for well over 40 years takes its toll on your heart.

I''d smoked for about ten years when I stopped.  Occasionally I'll have a dream in which I'm smoking a cigarette, and I wake up in tears thinking that I've somehow let down my dad. I don't know whether it's healthy to tie a decision to give up cigarettes to the death of someone you love, but so far it's been effective.  I find its strengthens my resolve by thinking of Not Smoking as a way to honor my dad. I think he'd appreciate that. Like most smokers (70%, according to the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health) my father wanted to give up his smokes, but he never figured out a way to do it. I can't and don't blame him for that. Cigarettes are more addictive than cocaine (more so when you have coffee...or maybe that was just me). So you just keep quitting and keep quitting and eventually it sticks. I'd quit more than once before my dad died, but on that day, my quitting 'took.'  Use whatever you can to help you quit smoking, and if that entails tying your decision to a personal tragedy, well, there are worse ways to react.

Odd side note...my dad died on September 4th of his 59th year. His dad died on the same date, also in his 59th year.  The year I turn 59, I'll probably just stay home on this date. 

This image has little to do with this post except for the depiction of smoking, I guess. I only post it because I think it's proof that George Burns occasionally liked to hang out in drag. 

Not Your Typical Policy Debate: Man Gets Punched Then Bites Off Opponent's Finger

If the people on both sides of the healthcare insurance reform debate keep at it like this, they'll need to start bringing doctors and medical supplies to the rallies. Forget healthcare. They need triage.

          

Have I Mentioned I'm Really Glad She's Not Vice-President?

I have to hand it to Levi Johnston. He has turned his 15 minutes of fame into something a lot longer. At least it feels that way. His latest?  An interview in Vanity Fair in which he says his baby's grandmother, Sarah Palin, tried everything she could to hide the fact that her daughter Bristol was pregnant.

Sarah told me she had a great idea: we would keep it a secret—nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant. She told me that once Bristol had the baby she and Todd would adopt him. That way, she said, Bristol and I didn’t have to worry about anything. Sarah kept mentioning this plan. She was nagging—she wouldn’t give up. She would say, “So, are you gonna let me adopt him?” We both kept telling her we were definitely not going to let her adopt the baby. I think Sarah wanted to make Bristol look good, and she didn’t want people to know that her 17-year-old daughter was going to have a kid.

Johnston also said that after losing the election with John McCain, Palin just walked around the house pouting about how being governor was hard, and she just wanted to quit and make "triple the money" writing a book or having her own show.  It's a real shame this nutjob didn't become V-P, ain't it?

                           

Back to School

Time again to note the transition to a brand new month. August (aka, National Catfish Month AND National Water Quality Month, though I hope we're not talking about the same batch of water) and September (aka, National Yoga Month) can be celebrated simultaneously.

In the interest of saving time, simply pair August's Studious Behavior Awareness Month together with September's National Bourbon Heritage Month. The result? Undergraduates, of course.