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Ah, sweet, sweet desperation.



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I’m watching the situation in Iran with absolute awe. I said earlier that I’ve never seen anything like this, and I supposed that’s not true; tearing down the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR are similar, but not even half as well communicated. Even in a country where the government is continually blocking access to websites, preventing people from reporting on the situation, news is getting out. People around the world are setting up proxy servers to enable Iranian bloggers to post pictures and videos, and as has been noted elsewhere, Twitter has finally made it clear what a spectacular application it can be.

Andrew Sullivan, it should be no surprise, has taken the lead on coverage, with links to the Twitterers on the scene, commentary on how the cable news networks have just about ignored the situation, and good snarky comments on how the Neo-Conservative movement appears to be supporting Ahmedinejad. He’s even redone his blog theme in green to show “solidarity,” a strange word to hear from a conservative blogger.

I’ve added a bunch of Iranian folks to my twitter feed and the stories they send out are insane. They’ve made it possible to find things out like Basij thugs firing AK-47s into crowds and university dormitories being assaulted by government troops. There is a downside, of course; the government is opening its own Twitter accounts to disseminate fake information. If you’re interested, look at @StopAhmadi and @change_for_iran, both of which are reportedly very real.

BTW: lest we all forget, this is why we have a Second Amendment. “But this could never happen here,” you say. You keep thinking that.

This video of Iranians chanting on their roofs is simply amazing:

This actually choked me up a little. Never in my life, outside of a sporting venue, have I seen such solidarity among people. If nothing good comes of it that will be a tragedy.

I can’t stop playing with this. (I painted over top of a photo I took, which is why it’s only half-sucky.)

(For ease-of-reading, any speech below attributed to little boys has been translated into adult English, so that you don’t have to read text like “Thaniel, can you klay wif me?”)

Charles, like many kids his age, is remarkably literal. If I have to chastise him for not eating, I will often unthinkingly say things like, “No you may not leave the table; you’ve barely touched your food, Charles.” He usually responds by pressing his hands onto his food and saying “I’m touching it! Can I be excused?” It’s amusing, even when it’s annoying.

On Saturday we had a little early Father’s Day party at my parents, since for various reasons we can’t get together next weekend. My sister brought her brood as well, featuring her son Nathaniel, who is just about 9 months older than Charles, but roughly the same size. Charles is very fond of Nathaniel; I’m not sure that the feeling is entirely mutual. Anyway, Charles has the annoying habit of tackling people that he wants to play with. (This partly my fault, since I allow him to climb all over me when we roughhouse, but I’ll be danged if I can’t wrassle my son as I see fit.) After he’d dragged Nathaniel to the ground a few times, we convinced Charles to stop, or at least to ask first. So later that afternoon, he asked:

“Nathaniel, can I wrestle you?”

Nathaniel replied, “No.”

We complimented Charles for asking permission, and someone suggested that perhaps he might have better luck asking his Daddy. So Charles looked up at me and said,

“Daddy, can I wrestle Nathaniel?”

We found this greatly amusing. Charles likes when other people laugh, even if he doesn’t get the joke, so we got a hearty guffaw out of him as well.

This wedding party is going to get medieval on ye. (AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com)

Here are some things I love about this picture:

• Mixed in with the D&D drips are a couple of guys in suits and ties who actually look out of place.


• Is there a woman in this picture weighing in under about two-fitty? The redhead in the back, maybe. Also, is the bride pregnant? She might just be fat, but she’s got her right hand in the standard I’m-pregnant-and-don’t-nobody-forget-it pose, as if she’s saying “The doctor said I was too fat to get pregnant! Screw you, doctor-man!”


• There is a man in the picture wearing a matching cyan shirt and puffy hat, and he’s still not the gayest man there; that title goes to the fellow in the tux with the sparkly vest, who I believe to be the father-of-the-fatty, and who needs to have a heart-to-heart talk with his wife, now that the kids are out of the house.


• What sort of church would allow this, knowing that this sort of thing makes Baby Jesus cry?

Wow, the internet; this takes me back.

this story caused me both great mirth and a certain nostalgia for my teen years.

A Philadelphia school teacher is under investigation for allegedly throwing a stapler that struck a student in the head.

When I was in the 11th grade, I took “Honors Chemistry.” You would expect for someone who is, theoretically, very smart, I’d do well in that class, but I think I was barely making a B. (I was never what you would call “studious.”) Nevertheless, the teacher, Mr. Eshleman, and I got along well, despite the fact that Josh Lewis and I spent the entirety of each class period passing a notebook back and forth which contained our hand-written conversation, in outline form. It was the dork version of passing notes in class, except that since the pages were still attached to the metal spiral, it merely looked like we were sharing important chemistry-related information. (I oughta arrange to have some of the notebooks published after everyone described therein is dead. They were routinely hilarious, and contain detailed descriptions of girls we admired, particularly some of their softer portions.)

Anyway, one day Mr. Eshleman was discussing the difference between potential and kinetic energy. His technique was to take the piece of chalk in his hand and hold it in the air. “This,” he would say, “is potential energy. Raising the chalk in the air gives it the potential to fall, and release that energy. This is kinetic energy,” he would add, and throw the chalk as hard as he could against the wall in the back of the room. At least, that’s what he had done for 30+ years of teaching; on this particular occasion he threw the chalk directly into my eye.

I’m no stranger to having things thrown at my face, particularly now that I’m married to a woman who gets my attention by winging table lamps around the house. But I was completely unprepared for this; I don’t think I even ducked. I remember it hurt like the dickens. Mr. Eshleman was mortified, which actually made me feel a lot better; part of our daily ritual was to try and find ways to irritate him, because his pithy comebacks were amusing. I’m sure he thought he was about to be sued, but since I’m not a completely wuss, I rubbed the chalk fragments out of my eyelid and commenced with the wisecracking.

Our band teacher, Mr. Satcher, was also known to throw shoes at people who misbehaved. Probably doesn’t do that anymore. Those were the days.

Speaking of wiping,: Ew.

I was wearing the same pair of white Hanes briefs for nearly 36 straight hours.

And when I finally removed them, and kicked them into the corner of the bathroom, I saw something amazing. There, burned into the undergarment, was (I hope you’ll excuse the terminology) a large skidmark that looked almost exactly like silent film star Charlie Chaplin!

Hey, I’m as sad about posting it as you are about reading it.

I’m sad that something like this exists. This is what’s wrong with America, people.