I like to talk politics and I like to talk to rob, and from time to time I'll shoot him a 10-words-or-less text with a link to a politically charged article and if he isn't busy burrowing out of a snow storm or rearranging his acorn collection he'll provide a thoughtful reply. That happened tonight and, while discussing this article that captures the political malaise we share with Noam Chomsky, I found a link to another article that piqued my fancy and after I clicked on it, everything came full circle. So much so that this happened:
Boom indeed.
In 2008 a group of knuckleheads argued that Barack Obama could not be president because he was born in Indonesia and thus is not a "natural-born citizen." This despite the fact that he was born in Hawaii and his mother was a US citizen. One of these knuckleheads was Donald Trump, who is now raising this issue against Ted Cruz. Remarkably, Trump has been consistent in this regard for a few years now.
I first heard of Ted Cruz when he became a Senator and first looked at his Wikipedia page when he filibustered for 21 hours (which made me conclude that he's insane, which rob countered). I laughed out loud when I saw that he was born in Canada--I don't recall that Cruz ever attacked Obama's citizenship, but how could the Tea Party stand behind their Canadian-born darling when his natural-born status suffers the exact same defect they alleged disqualified Obama? Doing so would require such a massive dearth of critical thinking and intellectual integrity that ... well ... erm ... it's the Tea Party.
Sorry, I couldn't decide which image I liked more. Anyway, I am not the first person to latch onto this, not by a longshot. Many more active folks have written myriad articles on the topic, but one guy went above and beyond by taking the remarkably proactive step of suing Ted Cruz in federal court, seeking a declaratory judgment that Cruz is Constitutionally unqualified to be president.
Said guy is Walter L. Wagner, and this isn't his first pro se DJ action. In 2008, he sued the Center for Nuclear Energy Research (known by the inaccurate anagram "CERN") seeking declaratory relief enjoining CERN from ... wait for it ... operating the Large Hadron Collider!! Boom!!!
According to the complaint, Wagner and his boys "are experts in physics and other fields of science." The judge didn't care and dismissed the case, reasoning that she didn't have subject matter jurisdiction over the alleged dispute. You can feel the sarcasm dripping off of the page:
Plaintiffs allege that the collisions [in the LHC] are unsafe and could potentially result in the destruction of the Earth. Plaintiffs posit three separate theories regarding the outcome of the LHC particle experiments: (1) the creation of a runaway fusion reaction that would eventually convert all of Earth into a single, large ‘strangelet’; (2) the creation of a ‘micro black hole’ into which the Earth would fall; and (3) the creation of a runaway reaction due to the formation of a ‘magnetic monopole’. Under all of Plaintiffs’ theories, the LHC particle experiments could lead to the end of all mankind. Plaintiffs do acknowledge, however, that various competing scientific theories exist regarding the outcome of the subatomic collisions to be performed at the LHC.
I suspect rob shares Mr. Wagner's concerns and is apoplectic that they went unheeded.
Mr. Wagner's DJ complaint against Mr. Cruz is more objectively reasonable and it goes a little something like this. Article II of the Constitution says "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President ...." Everyone who was alive when the Constitution was adopted is now dead, so if you want to be president you have to be a "natural born Citizen." But what does that mean?
Mr. Wagner's complaint addresses this term, borrowing heavily from a law review article addressing Mr. Cruz's citizenship. Mr. Cruz is an originalist, which means that he believes the Constitution's words and meaning were fixed when it was signed and have not changed. To determine what these words mean, originalists go back to ancient texts and various tomes you had to read in AP History. Under an originalist reading, “natural born” means someone born within the sovereign territory or the children of public officials serving abroad because that's what it meant back in 1789.
Some old English statutes apparently extended English citizenship to children born abroad, but only if their fathers were English. Cruz's father is Cuban, and his mother's US citizenship doesn't help him under this theory. As an aside, do we really believe that the Republican base is down with the idea of a Cuban president?
There was another US statute enacted in 1790, after ratification, which stated that “children of citizens of the United States” that are born abroad “shall be considered as natural born Citizens.” Mr. Wagner's law review article latches onto the "considered as" language, asking "what the hell does that mean--does 'considered as' mean the same thing as 'are'?" (I'm paraphrasing). In my view, this statute cuts against Mr. Cruz regardless of what "considered as" means. If these children already were natural born citizens prior to 1790, then there would be no need to enact the statute. Thus, in 1789, kids like Ted Cruz were dadgum fer'ners. And they can't be president.
Just as everything here comes back to the LHC, the Tea Party's birther arguments come back to bite their favorite candidate. This election cycle is, in my view, a mess. So I'm voting for Eric B.
While close observers of the man might not be surprised by much in the MJ article, some will be struck by both the depth of hatred for the Texas Senator and the consistency over time of the opinions of others. Truly, this man has been a dick since high school, single-minded in his self-regard and self-promotion.
It would be impressive, would it not for the fact that he finds in this unique moment in our history a plausible (if, hopefully, still unlikely) path to the Presidency.
From Mother Jones: "Ted thought he was an expert on everything," says [a Bush 2000] campaign veteran, who asked not to be named. "He was a smart and talented guy, but completely taken with himself and his own ideas. He would offer up opinions on everything, even matters outside his portfolio. He was a policy guy, but he would push his ideas on campaign strategy. He would send memos on everything to everyone. He would come to meetings where he wasn't invited—and wasn't wanted." In fact, this Bush alum recalls, "the quickest way for a meeting to end would be for Ted to come in. People would want out of that meeting. People wouldn't go to a meeting if they knew he would be there. It was his inability to be part of the team. That's exactly what he was: a big asshole."
You could write that off as garden-variety, if somewhat obnoxious, political striving. We've all met that guy. Hell, the W&M Political Science department was overpopulated with him, and all of us have met him in any number of corporate settings. Cruz's assholery isn't bounded by your standard ambitious, upwardly climbing framework, though. It's deeper and more comprehensive.
In law school, as Mother Jones notes, "GQ reported that Cruz started a study group during his first year in Cambridge, but he announced that "he didn't want anybody from 'minor Ivies' like Penn or Brown." In an interview with the Boston Globe, another student recalled what happened when she agreed to carpool with Cruz: "We hadn't left Manhattan before he asked my IQ."
To be sure, Cruz was an asshole well before Harvard Law. As the Daily Beast points out in a 2013 profile that posits that he was both off-putting to many and well-liked in debate team circles, "In addition to [Cruz's freshman roommate Craig] Mazin and [freshman dormmate Erik] Leitch, several fellow classmates who asked that their names not be used described the young Cruz with words like “abrasive,” "intense," “strident,” “crank,” and “arrogant." Four independently offered the word “creepy,” with some pointing to Cruz’s habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm’s hallway where the female students lived.
“I would end up fielding the [girls’] complaints: 'Could you please keep your roommate out of our hallway?'" Mazin says.
While all of these stories combine to paint a picture of an unpleasant guy, it remains hard to put into words the overall Cruz Affect. It's equal parts smarm, intellectual arrogance, and dangerous ambition. To borrow a word from German (and God Bless you industrious Teutons for your habit of creating evocative words), Cruz personifies backpfeifengesicht, which translates to "face that should be slapped".
We've been lauded for our work in explaining the election thus far, but I have no explanation for Ted Cruz. (Molly Ball's piece in The Atlantic today is a pretty good primer, though.) He's a man who will say and do anything to become President, to appeal to the baser instincts of the electorate - if there's a more cynical construction than, "We will utterly destroy ISIS. We will carpet bomb them into oblivion. I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out," in this most cynical of electoral cycles, I've yet to hear it.
No, I can't explain this one. I can only be afraid of it. Ted Cruz scares the shit out of me. Naked, Machiavellian ambition on a global scale should scare the shit out of all of us.
One of the unexpected side benefits of being forced to spend the better part of six hours (and counting) shoveling snow was getting to catch up on NPR Music's excellent All Songs Considered podcast.
Hosted by DC music veteran Bob Boilen (who's Tiny Desk Unit was the very first band to play at the old 9:30 Club) and Robin Hilton, All Songs is a reliably diverse (if alt-skewing) survey of new music. Their first effort of 2016 featured Glen Hansard covering David Bowie, new music from W&M's own Thao Nguyen and her band, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Lucius, and Ray LaMontagne, among others.
The latter two feature new sounds, a bit harder than the music that made their names. Quality stuff, both. Check out the podcast here:
And if you just want a little taste, here's Thao & the Get Down Stay Down with 'Astonished Man':
I'll be back with more after my next shoveling session.
There's nothing better than sitting by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate on a snowy day and listening to an action-packed episode of The Test. And this one is hot off the press, with real time references to the on-going blizzard from The Voice of God.
I've already done one round of shoveling, then I took a break to edit the podcast, and now I've got to get back out there-- six inches came down in the last two hours. I can't imagine there's going to be school on Monday. My younger son is out sledding in the blizzard, and I think I'm going to suit up and go check on him. It's wild out there. Good luck with the snow, stay safe, and happy listening.
Snow has been falling in parts of the G:TB viewing area since this morning. Since we haven't heard from Whitney, it's probably safe to assume that he's buried and/or drunk. Here in the greater DC area, the precipitation is expected to begin around noon, with some forecast models calling for as much as 45" in my area, and more than 24" in the District proper.
As a public service to the G:TB community, here's an open thread for chronicling your Revenant-like struggles with the impending doomstorm.
Last year, four teams tied for first place in the CAA with identical 12-6 conference records.
It was just a prelude, as it turns out.
Right now, six teams have 4-2 marks in conference play. Sixty percent of the league is tied for first. Notwithstanding the Ivy, where everybody's only played one game, no other league has more than two teams deadlocked at the top. It is, in the aggregate sense, a rock fight.
(Rock fights, to the uninitiated, are the CAA's stock in trade. Or at least they were before several of the league's programs began to develop highly efficient offensive games. The phrase was coined by the granddaddy of CAA bloggers, FOG:TB Michael Litos to describe offensively-challenged, hard-nosed, inelegant and slap-the-floor entertaining ball.
Unlike last year, when our Tribe would've walked away with the league regular-season title had they only been able to beat the worst teams in the conference, the Green and Gold have held their own against the CAA's dregs, beating Drexel and Charleston (twice) in addition to a convincing home win over defending league champion Northeastern. W&M's losses have come to fellow league-leaders Towson (at home) and UNCW.
That latter loss was a textbook case of a defeat that left no sting. On the road, in a tough building, without second-leading scorer Daniel Dixon (out with the flu), the Wrens went to overtime before falling in a 97-94 classic. We're not losing sleep over that one.
Not only is the CAA arguably the most competitive conference in the NCAA this year, the league is having one of its best seasons in history, top to (nearly) bottom. Boosted by a strong out of conference performance, the CAA is currently ranked 9th in RPI, the highest in league history at this point in a season). At 55, W&M boasts the league's highest RPI.
The competitive nature of the conference makes for compelling basketball nearly every league night, but it's a bit of shame in one sense. CAA teams are eating their own, all but assuring the league's once promising chance of multiple NCAA bids have dwindled away to nothing. Alas, poor #2bids4caa, we knew you well.
#1bid4wmtribe, though, is still in play. And like always, it'll come down to March. The Tribe doesn't need to win the league, but they do need to find a way to finish in the top six and avoid a first-round conference tournament matchup. That's a pretty strong likelihood, given what we've seen of this team. (In an amusing conference history coincidence, the first round of the CAA tournament is colloquially called Pillow Fight Friday, as it features the bottom four teams in the league.)
One of the ways they'll do that is by winning at home and beating bad teams wherever they play them. W&M gets a chance to take care of the first part of that equation tonight when Elon comes to the TribeDome. The Phoenix are in seventh place in the league, but only a game out of first at 3-3 in CAA play.
Saturday, the Tribe heads to Hempstead, NY to take on fellow co-leader Hofstra. That place is a house of horrors for W&M, which makes the Elon matchup all the more important. We'll take 5-3 after this weekend.
The authors acknowledge the tribalism and subjectivity that makes this an impossible task, and are quick to note that this isn't a rap Hall of Fame. Instead, "(b)eing the BRA is sort of like being the MVP—even though rap doesn’t follow a rigid cultural calendar quite like major sports seasons—because it only requires looking at the current crop of active artists and picking a winner."
Given the fairly loose guidelines Complex uses to assess the BRA, there's room for quibbling. As they say, "...one thing we know for sure, it’s more about a general feeling among fans rather than any discernible facts. (What facts? It’s all just opinion anyway.)" And if it's a feeling, give me Killer Mike in 2015 instead of Drake. The authors do cover themselves by offering a handful of honorable mentions each year.
Nearly as good as the text is the accompanying artwork, stylized portraits of each year's winner. Kool Moe Dee's wraparound shades will bring you back to 1981. LL Cool J's Kangol the same to 1985. Q-Tip and his winter hat and polo shirt in 1991 sit between Ice Cube and Redman, stylistic differences obvious visually as much as they were sonically. It's worth a skim just for the art.
I'd love to hear the opinions of people who actually know what they're talking about on this topic. I expect response tracks from Mark and Z by the end of the week.
I would like to humbly suggest that an excellent way to celebrate MLK Day is to listen to The Test. This episode features three white people quizzing each other about Salvador Dali. What could be more appropriate?
Not only that, but eight minutes into the show, I call Stacey a "menace to audio" and Cunningham joins right in. It's not the struggle, but you've got still got to feel for her.
Just changing the view up in here, friends. I'm really digging Ra Ra Riot's relatively new tune, 'Water'. It's got a little Beta Band vibe, with some modern alt-rock thrown in. Enjoy:
I keep it very literal on this week on The Test. Special guest Gabby Green joins us, and so all of my questions revolve around colors. This is because her last name is a well-known hue, created by mixing yellow and blue. Stacey and Cunningham are not particularly impressed by this rather superficial connection, but the quiz proves to be tougher than they imagined. Nevertheless, the theorize and hypothesize valiantly, and Stacey even creates a test within the test.
Near the end of the episode, we give a shout out to our youngest fan. This nearly goes horribly awry, but God saves the day with a well-placed BEEP. Give it a shot, see how you do, and let us know what you think.
Jon Wurster, drummer for Superchunk, the Mountain Goats, and for the past several years Bob Mould, says that the latter's new album, Patch the Sky, "really feels like a period on a sentence". Wurster's referencing the three-album cycle that began with 2012's Silver Age, continued with Beauty and Ruin in 2014, and concludes with Patch the Sky.
The records marked a return to the guitar-heavy punkpop that's characterized so much of Mould's career, from Husker Du on. And in a crossing of rock threads, Mould says we have Dave Grohl to thank for the three albums. In a revealing and detailed Stereogum profile, Mould remembers a 2011 concert appearance with Foo Fighters, "Dave, fuck, how much has he given me in the last five years. Dave doesn’t even know what he did, by helping put the light on me for a minute. Shine a light on the monster again."
The monster is alive and well. Patch the Sky is scheduled for release in late March. Here's the first single, 'Voices in My Head'. It's vintage Mould, tinged with darkness, guitar-driven melody, and the singer's gruff, self-conscious voice. Dig it.
Yesterday we lost one of the greats in entertainment.
Yes, David Bowie passed away too, but I'm here to remember the work of character actor David Margulies. You may remember him from his cinematic turns in 9 & 1/2 Weeks, Ace Ventura or even Ishtar. Alternatively, you may recall his television appearances on Kojak, Law & Order, or as Tony Soprano's lawyer. However, David will always be best remembered as Mayor Lenny Clotch, the man who saved the lives of millions of registered voters from the wrath of Gozer the Gozerian.
Godspeed Lenny, may Cardinal Mike be waiting for you the pearly gates.
On the eleventh day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me... Eleven Months of Magic Ten (give or take) inches of girth Nine internet moments of levity Eight Tribey moments Seven books for reading 6.9 Non Sequiturs Six All-Star Nods Five podcasts for listening Four posts zman meant to write but never did Three French Hens Two in-state rivalries And a dork with a split personality
The Gheorghian calendar and the Gregorian calendar have never been particularly synced, at least after the first few years of Gheorghemas. Our festive season ended in March in 2014, so I feel pretty good about where we are now.
If we're being honest, 2015 was a fairly mediocre year for postcount, the standard that matters most to us. We dropped 266 posts, the least since 2007, and 29 of them were Dave promoting his podcast. I'd like to believe we made up in quality what we lacked in quality, but I pride myself on integrity, and I cannot tell a lie. It did make compiling this end of year post much (not much, honestly, as it's still a bitch, and would it kill you fuckers that thank me for the effort?, but somewhat) easier, though, and for that I thank you all for your lack of industry.
I lied about the quality thing. We wrote some pretty cool stuff this year. And where we flagged a bit in quantity, I'm honestly grateful for the fact that this remains a community. A small, silly, stupid and generally insignificant community, but - and I mean this sincerely - a real, meaningful (to me, anyway) community. And I love that. It truly does make me happy.
God Bless, Gheorghies. Take a look at what you wrought in 2015.
Zman doesn't always post things. But when he does, it's generally lengthy (girthy), evidentiary, and enlightening. And ironically (or perhaps tellingly), his first post of 2015, like his first post of 2016, had references to male scrota.
We did a book review. With an actual author. If you haven't yet picked up Eric Angevine's Hinkle Fieldhouse: Indiana's Basketball Cathedral, well, why not?
The month ended in a blizzard of filler. Peeps, music clips, Kurtis Blow, ephemera. Bygones.
April
It took us until April 13 to post anything that couldn't be called filler. Before that time, a smattering of hastily scribbled beer posts (good filler, but filler nonetheless), some more music, a bunch of hoops, and Sim Bhullar.
That first real post was a good one, though, featuring the Bank of Dave. Loathe as we are to post anything that reinforces our Dave's already overfed self-image, this was too on point to pass up.
Without looking, I'm going to say we had more footie posts than posts about American football. weighed in with a post about the Champions League semifinals, featuring Franck Ribery's handsome mug.
We're next level hipsters. Nice work, everyone. Here, TR
fatguyinaspeedo might've been our most prolific guest poster this year, contributing to our soccer-heavy lean. Here, he previewed the Women's World Cup.
Generally speaking, our guesties are better (or at least more important) than our usual crap. Case in point, baconbaking's piece about her friend's NGO, doing great work in alleviating poverty in Guatemala.
Clarence explained it all, ODU fraternity misogynist version. (And two Clarence posts in one week? The hell was happening in August?)
My kid made music. I bragged on her. It's my fucking blog, and I'll do whatever the hell I want. Okay, it's our blog. But I'll still do whatever the hell I want.
In one of the nominees for Post of the Year, zman demolished the NFL's Deflategate case, with extreme prejudice. (I don't know what other posts are nominated. The idea just came to me at this point in the process. I'll try to remember this next year.)
I expressed my growing and essentially complete ambivalence about that same NFL. In what appears to be a theme of this post, I watched significantly more Premier League this year than I did professional American football. Didn't really miss it, to be honest. When Trump gets elected, I'm going to be one of the first ones in the reeducation camps, aren't I?
More politics. I liked this one, too. Pretty full of myself, if I'm being honest.
The aforementioned Dave Fairbank returned to writing as a GTB guest blogger. He's totally slumming here, but his Chronicles of an Aging Gheorghie might be the best thing we've published this year.
October
Danimal regaled the shit out of us with tales of his father's drinking buddies, Joe Montana, and the Fighting Irish.
The Teej routinely delivers amazing imagery, here and on Twitter. He's so good at it that I fear we take it for granted. I mean, check this out. Don't worry about clicking the link. I've replicated it below in all its glory.
In the last of our 2015 posts about the upcoming Presidential election, I feel like we finally nailed our thesis. Look for us on CNN soon. This post also featured the Comment of the Year, from yours truly: "if jon hamm were sleeping with tina fey, it'd be hamm on wry".
You guys really slowed down this month, if we're being honest. I wrote 11 of the last 15 posts of the year, and two of the ones I didn't write were just Dave promoting his podcast. Performance evaluation season may not go as well for some of you as you might be expecting.
December
I'm not going post by post in December, frankly. You've all read it. It's good. I will say that I'll put this year's Gheorgemas up against any. Nice work, lads. May the road rise to meet you over the rest of 2016, and may we all just get the fuck past this election with our sanity mainly intact.
In the last installment of what's rapidly becoming the best recurring bit in G:TB history, Dave Fairbank coined the phrase 'Lindsay Graham Dance Party', and told of the atrial flutter his physicians sought to correct. Turns out the first efforts didn't take, so if at first you don't succeed...I guess you get your groin shaved. I'll let @fairbankobx explain.
Let me begin with praise for medical talent and progress,
and by saying that nothing prepares you for the day quite like an early morning
groin shave.
Not the top of Dave Fairbank's penis
People gripe about access and cost and availability of
health care, with plenty of justification. But if you’re fortunate enough to
make it into the pipeline, it can be nothing short of incredible.
I was wheeled into an operating room at Norfolk Heart Hospital
at 9 a.m. for a cardiac ablation, a procedure designed to return my heart to
its normal rhythm. Seventy-five minutes later, they were done. By 11 a.m., I
was awake in a recovery room. Three hours later, I walked a lap around the
floor of the cardiac wing. I probably could have done so earlier. They
discharged me before 3 o’clock, and I was home by dark.
Doctors inserted catheters into veins on each side of my
groin and snaked them two feet into my heart. They identified the bad
electrical circuitry and deadened it. They removed the catheters, leaving only
two tiny puncture openings. All without killing me or my heart doing the Mother
Popcorn or even the briefest interruption of service.
I moved gingerly in the hours afterward, but basically had
no pain. Pulling off the tape and gauze around my groin the next day was the
most painful part of the entire ordeal.
In today’s cardiac medicine, this is considered a fairly
routine procedure, with an absurdly high rate of success. My doc told me: If
you’re going to have a heart condition, this is the one to have.
Fucking amazing.
The last time I posted, I had just gone through a less
invasive procedure to correct an atrial flutter. It was a variation of what I
believe is known in rendition circles as the Iraqi Jump Start. The electrical
shock worked initially, but it didn’t hold. A follow-up visit revealed that the
flutter had returned.
I had a consultation with an electro-cardio specialist, an
engaging 40-something chap whose name was misspelled on the office outer door,
but in 10 years said that he never insisted that they correct it.
From the
printout of my EKG, he said that he was 95 percent certain where the arrhythmia
originated – in the passageway wall between my left atrium and left ventricle,
the upper and lower heart chambers. He was at least that certain that he could
correct it, and that the fix would be permanent.
Which is how I came to be at the Norfolk Heart Hospital at
dawn on a recent morning. When I was escorted into a room to prep for surgery,
a nurse instructed me to strip naked, put on one of those hospital gowns that
provide full moon shots from behind, and lie on the bed. A second nurse came
in, and the two inserted an IV in each arm for the anesthesiologist.
There are terrible tattoos, and then there's this
The second nurse sat down alongside the bed. She pulled out
a small razor and said it was time to shave me. She wadded up the gown around
the package, exposing my upper leg, and began to shave.
Me: This is why you got into nursing, isn’t it? Saving
lives, shaving groins.
Nurse: I love shaving. You see my name is Lorrie. That’s
short for Lorena.
Laughter all around.
Me: Yeah, but she didn’t shave, she chopped. I hope you’re
better than that.
Nurse: Oh, I am, honey.
Thus began an exchange among the three of us about Lorena
Bobbitt, her motives and whether she did any jail time for her butchery on
hubby John.
Properly shaved, they wheeled me into an operating room. The
anesthesiologist quickly ran through what he was going to do and asked if I
understood. I said sure, but it was all kind of an anxious blur at that point.
I said to him: Anesthesiologists throw the best parties, don’t they? He said,
of course, but not for the reasons you might think.
I scooted from the gurney onto the operating table and
apologized in advance for any flatulence or other discharges during the
procedure.
Anesthesiologist: What, did you eat beans yesterday? That
wasn’t very considerate.
Me: No, not at all. Had a normal meal last night. But I’m a
57-year-old guy and there’s no telling what I might expel when I’m unconscious.
Just letting you know.
Shortly thereafter, boom, I was out. I awoke a couple hours
later, a little groggy, but intact. My throat was the most uncomfortable part.
They intubated me in the O.R., in order to snake a camera down my throat and
check my heart for clots or other abnormalities before the procedure. My throat
was pretty raw for a day and I sounded like the Men’s Wearhouse guy, George
Zimmer (“You’re going to like the way your heart beats, I guarantee it.”).
I had to lay still for the next couple of hours, while
nurses monitored vital signs and made sure my groin didn’t bleed. The doc told
my wife shortly afterward that the procedure had gone even more smoothly than
he anticipated and came to the recovery room and told me the same thing, just
before he was scheduled to perform another ablation. During my original
consultation, he said that he’d done almost 1,000 of them.
A few days later, I’m pretty much back to normal. I am
grateful and blessed beyond words. An itchy groin reminds me that amid the
conflict and nastiness and general dumbassery to which we are routinely exposed,
there are smart, talented people who perform the extraordinary on a daily
basis.
an allegory about the corrupting influence of money,
an examination of the things that bring people together and tear them apart,
a John Grisham-style legal thriller, only about government contracting (scorcher!), and
an homage to Thorstein Veblen, the 20th Century sociologist who coined the phrase 'conspicuous consumption'
all of which combine in a heady cocktail of whimsy (the protagonist talks frequently to a squirrel, and drives it around town in a particularly psychedelic set piece), intrigue, romance, and neuroses -- the latter a product of familial upbringings that rival the most bizarre and/or disturbing in literary memory...I won't ruin the ending (mostly because I haven't actually read the book), but suffice to say that it's a bit nuts - 9 acorns out of 10.
(A tip of the furry cap to baconbaking for bringing this delightful story to our attention.)
On the tenth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me:
Ten (give or take) inches of girth
Nine internet moments of levity
Eight Tribey moments
Seven books for reading
6.9 Non Sequiturs
Six All-Star Nods
Five podcasts for listening
Four posts zman meant to write but never did
Three French Hens
Two in-state rivalries
And a dork with a split personality
Like many American marriages, the union of James Sicilia and Tia Loya ended in divorce in 1997. The two split the assets of their corporation, Superhawk Novelty Company. While divvying up their assets, Tia got one copy of each of the molds used to make their products and the advertising images used to sell them. When I hear "novelty company" I think of firms like Johnson Smith, premiere purveyors of whoopie cushions and x-ray glasses. Superhawk, however, peddled sex toys.
After the divorce, Tia started her own company (TSX Toys, whose website proudly touts "TSX Toys created the first realistic horse dildo in the US and the first whale penis toy in the world!") as did James (CA-WA Corp.). Both sell sex toys, natch. And if you've read any of my posts before, you can see where this is going. Tia eventually sued James for making knock-off versions of her sex toys ... I should say of her copyrighted sex toys.
In a nutshell (pun?), Tia asserted that James (and another company, 665 Inc., at James' request) reverse-engineered molds from her toys, after obliterating the copyright information from the toys. She also asserted trade dress infringement and a few other grievances. Here's the most preposterous, unexpected, inappropriate infringement chart I've ever seen, taken directly from the parties' joint statement of the case:
Two girth posts in a row? Yes!
How do these sex toys rise to the level of protected intellectual property? The real nub (pun!) of the issue is summarized thusly in the complaint:
20. The known products at issue in the action concern TSX’s penis extensions and penis girth expander products. TSX’s penis extensions are hollow sheaths that fit over the penis to add both girth and length. They vary in texture, from being smooth to ribbed and contoured. TSX’s penis girth expanders make the penis thicker, instead of longer, adding to the circumference of the penis, and are open at the end.
21. In particular, TSX penis extensions and girth expander products have a unique “scrotum strap,” which is a band that wraps around the scrotum. The “scrotum strap” also has TSX’s signature “square-like” tab at the base. TSX hired a well-known sculptor, Christopher Pardell, to design and create the original dildo mold with TSX’s unique “scrotum strap” and signature square tab. The signature square tab contains TSX’s copyright management information. Significant time and resources were expended by Plaintiff to develop and create this mold. This one-of-a-kind mold was
copyrighted by TSX over 14 years ago as a three-dimensional sculpture, Title: “Standing Tall,” Copyright Registration No. VA 1-062-363, Registration Date: October 6, 2000 (See Exhibit A). Plaintiff is the exclusive owner of this federal copyright registration.
Aha! It's all about the scrotum strap and its signature square tab! Unfamiliar? Here's an image.
And here's some information on the aforementioned sculptor ChristopherPardell. Neat!
The trial started earlier this week. The judge dismissed the trade dress and confusion of origin causes of action, and dismissed the entire case against 665. But the copyright issue soldiers on for the jury to consider and for the parties to brief. Which should be a hoot.
Anyway, if you've ever wondered why cases move so slowly and what's clogging the federal judicial system, now you know. Girth.
Been a long Tuesday for TR: a 12.5 hour workday that started with me leaving the house to 8 degree weather at 5:30 AM, all kinds of work stuff that was annoying to me (and is totally irrelevant to you), and a frenzied rush to the train home amid subway delays (the Shuttle train, no less!).
Anyhoo, as I prepared to deboard my train at my station at 8:10 PM, I got this text from my wife:
"(Boy #2) is starting to act up. I asked him what book he wanted to read and he said the 'my penis is fat' book. So that's where we're at. I didn't yell but told him I was going to tell you. He seemed scared."
Welcome home, husband! There is nothing resembling dinner around, and you need to explain to a 6 y/o boy that, regardless of his genital attributes: 1) there is no readily available literature on the topic, 2) he should not be requesting a book of that ilk in the first place, least of all to his mother, and 3) last but not least (as it regards my son), when you respond to your mother with a comment like that, my boy, things will end badly for you.
There was some denial, some stern lecturing, some tears, some children's shows wiped from the DVR, some hugging and then some apologizing from the little guy.
And then I had some suboptimal dinner. And then I went on the internet. Turns out there doesn't appear to be any pertinent literature on that topic available on amazon.com.
Stacey serves up another clever song quiz this week on The Test, and while I struggle, our special guest (Whitney!) fares a bit better. You'll need to identify the title and artist of each track, and then use this information to figure out the overarching theme. Sound easy? You've got another thing coming.
Warning: no Cunningham in this episode. Also, no Bon Jovi, no Billy Joel, and no Indigo Girls. But plenty of hip, and a little bit of hop. You dig? As a bonus, Stacey plugs ORF Rock. Cross-promotion!
Women's college basketball is played in quarters rather than halves
People get really exercised by differences of opinion about the Star Wars canon
I'm capable of reading more than half of a book before realizing that I've already read it once before
My procrastination skills are even more advanced than I thought they were
I have a very high tolerance for beginner ukelele, and my daughter has a very low tolerance for me saying "Lukulele, I am your Father"
Armed white right-wing loons have a higher life expectancy than 12 year-old black boys with toy guns
Sorry about that last one. Didn't mean to get all political up in here.
The first one, though, came to my attention when I saw that W&M's women's hoops program just knocked off two-time defending CAA champs JMU. I had it somewhere in the back of my head that the Tribe ladies were just about as bad historically as their male counterparts, so the win over the Dukes struck me as a bit of a surprise.
That's an understatement.
W&M's women's squad is off to 10-2 start, with wins over Clemson and ODU. The Lady Tribesters are undefeated outside of Richmond, falling only to VCU and the University of Richmond. This, from a team that hasn't had a winning season since 2007-8. And that hasn't had a start this good since, well, ever, if we're talking about Division I ladies hoops.
The 1977-8 Tribe women jumped out to a 10-1 start on their way to third place in something called the VFISW. But success has been much harder to come by in recent years. Even though last season's team got close with a harbinger 15-16 mark, W&M hasn't had a winning record since 2006-7. The Tribe hadn't beaten JMU since 2009-10, losing by 40 twice in the past two seasons.
5'9" Junior guard Marlena Tremba paces Coach Ed Swanson's team with 14.5 points and nearly four assists per game. 5'10" junior forward and Honolulu native Alex Masaquel gets 12.3 points and 8.5 boards each outing, and 6'4" sophomore center Abby Rendle scores 11.1 points and grabs 6.9 rebounds while blocking more than three shots each game.
There's something in the air in Williamsburg, a hoops-borne infection. There's a long way to go, but #1bid4wmtribe may have more meaning than we've known.
We're gonna write the entire first week of this new year off to alcohol and gastrointestinal discomfort, combined with dreadful football. We'll do better soon.
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