There are obvious reasons one would want to date an Indian, such as how successful and professionally desirable they are. … Indian people tend to be really good looking. According to Wikipedia, "India holds the highest number of Miss World winners, only to be tied with Venezuela."

Don't be a bakehead; check out this Dictionary of Old Hobo Slang!

I admit, when the recent Nikki Haley story broke, I looked up her bio and was surprised to learn that she's (1) of Indian descent and (2) of Sikh heritage. Not that I care one way or another, but I was surprised that the famously stupid "seekrit mooslim" crowd was letting that fact slide by without any distortion, to the extent that I was actually thinking maybe all the racist shit at the Tea Party rallies was really just particularly nasty partisan blather, rather than some deeply rooted racist beliefes.

Yeah, not so sure about that:

It sounds like South Carolina State. Sen. Jake Knotts' "raghead" comments last night are even worse than first reported.

Not only did he refer to Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley as a "raghead" during an internet political radio show taped in a bar -- Knotts called her a "f---ing raghead," according to a report from the Free-Times.

"She's a f---ing raghead," Knotts reportedly said.

That's, um, wow.

I like a lot of this guy's videos. He caught my eye with his video on what a "hung Parliament" means and, more recently, his video summing up Lost, which show I didn't even follow. But I still found the video interesting.

Enjoy.

This space-saving furniture is so cool:

from, via Jammies

The other day I attended a concert in the decorated-like-a-dilapidated-airplane basement of a dingy bar (with a surprisingly fancy website). I got there somewhat early, and a person who turned out to be the singer/guitarist/leader of the first band was talking outside with some friends. I overheard: "So I was watching this porno called Art School Sluts …". I'm not sure precisely what he went on to relate regarding this film but it had something to do with the commentary track (pornographic DVDs have them, apparently).

The only decipherable lyrics of the first song his band played were "I thought you were the one". After the song, he told the audience, "that was about a Suicide Girl".

Then I lost an arm, a leg, five dollars, and a wife.

Dear Mineshaft:

I've recently been hanging out with new friends. They're people I'd like, but every time I've seen them they've been texting or checking stuff on their phones.  We're at the table, small tables with friends, and they've gone off into their phones.  These are people who otherwise have good manners, which means that they've either forgotten this is rude or are too addicted to care.  I'd like to be friends with these people, but not if they are only intermittently present.  My question:

Should I tell them to put their phones away?  or
Should I stop hanging out with them without telling them why?

Thanks.

Ned Ludd

Dear Ned:

Ooh, this one's hard. It's certainly rude to be focusing on something other than the people you're with when you're socializing -- someone who was making lengthy, inessential phone calls, or who pulled out a book to read, while hanging out at a bar would be an obvious jerk. The thing about texting or Internet use, though, is that they eat time insidiously. A text, or a quick email or other message, seems almost instantaneous to the person writing or reading it, but to the person tapping their fingers while waiting for the texter to finish, it's a big annoying hole in the conversation. If you're doing something other than socializing for four minutes out of every ten, you might as well have pulled out a book.

On the other hand, I have no idea what to do about it. Telling people their manners are so bad that you don't want to hang out with them unless they get fixed is not a tactic likely to produce a lasting friendship, and this particular kind of rude is something that it's really easy for otherwise great people to fall into. I've been guilty myself. Um, ignore it until you can't take it anymore, and then start to avoid? I haven't got any better ideas.

Uselessly,
Lizardbreath

Or, rather, the Blume-Tweetys are visiting NYC. Those wishing to bask in their presence may do so at Pegu, Wednesday June 2, from around six to eight or so. Check in in the comments if you'll be there, and lurkers are welcome as always.

The end of a NYer article about WikiLeaks and its founder:

The Web site's strengths--its near-total imperviousness to lawsuits and government harassment--make it an instrument for good in societies where the laws are unjust. But, unlike authoritarian regimes, democratic governments hold secrets largely because citizens agree that they should, in order to protect legitimate policy. In liberal societies, the site's strengths are its weaknesses. Lawsuits, if they are fair, are a form of deterrence against abuse. Soon enough, Assange must confront the paradox of his creation: the thing that he seems to detest most--power without accountability--is encoded in the site's DNA, and will only become more pronounced as WikiLeaks evolves into a real institution.

First, there is zero relation between WL's presence in a liberal or illiberal society and its being, in virtue of being extremely secure, hard for affected entities to combat. If, indeed, there is a paradox in WikiLeaks, it does not manifest itself only in liberal societies (nor is this a weakness). Second, it is not clear that what lawsuits deter is abuse per se, even if we grant that they are fair, which would be rather a lot to grant. Finally and most astoundingly, the idea that democratic governments, in the first place, actually do keep secrets (tout court) because citizens agree that they should is risible, as is the conclusion we are presumably meant to draw from the claim that such governments should be able to persist in keeping such secrets. As to the first, plainly it is not the case that citizens agree regarding each secret that it should be kept secret, since for the most part the secrets are secret from the citizens themselves. It may be that citizens for the most part do agree that, in general, the government should be able to keep secrets in the pursuit of legitimate policy, but even there we might hope that for the most part if your policy's so legitimate you don't need to keep many secrets in order to pursue it (entanglements with other governments is an obvious case where this is not true). But what has that got to do with keeping secrets generally? We are (or, prior to now, so I would have thought) aware of illegitimate policies and illegitimate means to carry out policies not in themselves illegitimate even in the history of these United States.

Basically the contrast is: you have "societies where laws are unjust", and then "unlike in authoritarian regimes", as if authoritarian regimes just are (a subset of) those where laws are unjust, and in democratic regimes laws just are just. What?

If the Korean situation had you a little freaked out, here's something to help take your mind off it. Turkey has announced that another set of supply ships will be sent to Gaza, this time escorted by the Turkish navy.

I bought a pair of white boat shoes today, with tassels. Last night I had a dream that I was planning a family trip with the LizardBreath family to St. Augustine, FL. Then my mom started complaining about how we were ignoring my step-father's family, and when were we going to pay any attention to them? (They were all stipulatively alive). I was all, fuck a bunch of his family! I care way more about my imaginary internet friends than those Sewanee fuckers! When I woke up I was still angry.

In real life, only his evil sister remains alive. They had an incestuous relationship and she's always hated all of us for breaking them up (?!). At the funeral she, no lie, ran up and snatched the ashes from my sister and poured them into the grave herself, then cast herself on the grave, wailing. I went to a meeting today and I was trying to think if I could think of him as a fellow alcoholic, a fellow sufferer. I mean, he had a terrible childhood. And he destroyed everything good in his life.

Long-time-readers know this, but the nickel summary is: my mom divorced him after he cheated on her; he had a stroke in his 40s from drinking which paralyzed the right side of his body, though he recovered a lot of mobility; then he drove drunk and crashed his car into someone, injuring them and pinning the left side of his body in the wreck; he decamped to a S.C. home for the infirm where he lived in a wheelchair and everything smelled like disinfectant and pee; one suicide attempt failed, and then one week later he saved up the pills and did it up right with a couple bottles of Mattingly and Moore, and died. The End.

I mean, I would be sorry if that happened to a stranger. And I hear people share bad things that they did in a meeting and I feel sympathy for them. I don't know if I can work myself all the way up to pity, though. I'm glad for him that he's dead, that's reasonably charitable, right? And then, I've never heard anybody share that they did messed-up stuff to kids, I don't know how that would play. (They probably save that for the men's meetings, amirite? OK, that was bad: sorry, majority of the men in the world who aren't bad people) One of the fabled 'steps' is you telling your sponsor everything you ever did that you feel bad about; I don't know what the protocol is if someone confesses to a crime. It must happen a lot. Well, and I mean a real crime, not dealing or theft or something.

There is a museum devoted to my step-dad's great great, who was a Civil War general, in St. Augustine, I guess that's the connection. The wicked sister took his sword and donated it to the museum so my sister couldn't have it, just like she broke every last gravy bowl and plate of the Singapore Bird china set for the same reason. I am slowly re-creating the set for my sister, buying them for her on eBay bit by bit. Them Southern fuckers don't play, I'll tell you that. Enjoy the start of Summer!

I have four grandparents still kickin' it (two paternal, two maternal, duh), and each couple shares a single e-mail account (that is, paternal grandparents share an account; maternal grandparents do the same).

I find this anecdote interesting. Why not each have your own, after all? But they seem to regard e-mail as they do regular mail: we're at one computer; it comes here.

I remember, as a kid, being aware of moments like "Dad's paying the bills", which was just a thing Dad took care of (Mom being off at night school).

I also recall dating someone in high school and learning that her mom handled the finances, because it just worked out that way, and that being a minor "Huh!" moment.

I'm not sure I have a point other than being all, hey, look: progress! (I think.)