The materialist’s vertigo

Via Zach Weiner.

“Hons Dons”

(Some language NSFW.) I’m sure many of my friends in grad school or adjunct professorship hell wish it were this easy:

Crossover fanfiction and the founding of Western civilization

How to ruin same-sex marriages: A modest proposal

Stephen Colbert is due for another Emmy. Jesus. This might be his best sketch since Truthiness.

Fellowship of the Seventh Light debates allowing female telepathic vision-clerics

Via America’s Finest News Source:

“It is the Singular Essence’s will that our holy prophet Raymond was male, as were the initial Six Believers whom he entrusted with the Inward Knowledge,” read a statement issued Monday by the group’s governing body, the Acolyte Council. “Therefore we cannot condone any trans-dimensional communications, tomorrow-visions, or human or animal castrations performed by a woman.”

The harsh decree was reportedly directed toward Seventh Light members who see the ordination of women as the only way to manage the cult’s current shortage of telepathic-vision clerics, a problem that has grown in recent years as more clerics are defrocked for engaging in sex with underage disciples who have not yet undergone the ceremonial Rite of Public Deflowering.

“Simply put, the telepathic-vision clergy is spread too thin,” said Mary Rho, 39, whose views on the issue have resulted in her expulsion from the group’s compound. “Their time is consumed by minor administrative issues, such as overseeing the daily distribution of catheters or tallying the week’s offerings in the blood troughs, leaving them with almost no time to monitor AM radio for signs of the prophesied wormhole.”

“At this point,” Rho added, “I don’t see how the Council can afford to turn away any clerical aspirant—man or woman—who’s willing to undergo the mandatory blinding.”

Because I have no other excuse to post this all year

…I’m posting it today. Happy 4th.

Mitch, sub species aeternitas

Via America’s Finest News Source:

The process of evolution, through which single-celled organisms slowly developed over billions of years into exponentially more sophisticated forms of life, has inexplicably culminated in local Albuquerque resident Mitch Szabo, leading evolutionary biologists reported Monday.According to baffled sources within the scientific community, the exact same mechanisms responsible for some of nature’s most spectacularly ingenious adaptations have apparently also produced a 35-year-old office assistant who has only worn pants that actually fit him a total of five times in his adult life.

“The identical processes that have given us the remarkable camouflage of the stick insect and the magnificent plumage of the bird-of-paradise have, it would seem, also given us a man who cannot scramble an egg,” University of Pennsylvania biologist Ann Goldwyn-Ross said. “Despite evolution’s emphasis on the inheritance and replication of advantageous traits, a man walks among us today who sweats profusely in any temperature and went to see Anger Management in theaters twice.”

…

Indeed, scientists said Mitch is perplexing on multiple fronts. For instance, in studying his weird, asymmetrical gait, researchers have been unable to discern any particular locomotive advantage he has over the more effective and less stigmatizing forms of self-propulsion exhibited by other bipeds. Researchers have also failed to determine how the development of the nuanced communication system of language, itself a product of humanity’s unique capacity for abstract thought, ultimately led to Mitch’s strong preference for the term “exsqueeze me” over “excuse me.”

Dan Savage’s Wild Kingdom

By McSweeney’s, a parody.  

In which I am favorably disposed to the Nordic nations

I.

Today, I saw The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first non-Bergman Swedish film I’ve ever seen:

A cleverly and meticulously detailed mystery film that makes us care as much–maybe more–about the investigator as the crime itself. Based novel Män som hatar kvinnor by Steig Larsson. Though useful as a character illustration, a subplot concerning a brutal rapist probation officer contributed nothing to the advacement of the plot. As a self-contained narrative, it is one of the most graphic and pathetic depictions of sexual violence I’ve seen on film, and concludes with morally ambiguous catharsis. But the protagonist to suffer through the abuses, the punkish hacker Lisabeth Salander (played by a haunting Noomi Rapace), was wounded before its occurrence, and only reflects on her original domestic horrors at any length later in the film. (Besides one poigniant silence in response to a question about her photographic memory, the parole officer subplot is not alluded to again after its neat if bloody conclusion.)However, director Niels Arden Oplev and stars Rapace and Michael Nyqvist  work so well together establishing Atmosphere and Circumstance, they were able to pass off an increasingly meladramatic plot as entirely believable–and chilling, and nuanced. B+

II. Today, I also heard about The Best Party, and its recent electoral success:

A party that calls itself “the Best” has won local elections in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik. The Best Party, founded by comedian Jon Gnarr, secured 34.7% of the vote, ahead of the Independence Party’s 33.6%. Its campaign video featured candidates singing to the tune of Tina Turner’s “Simply The Best”. Key pledges included “sustainable transparency”, free towels at all swimming pools and a new polar bear for the city zoo. The party also called for a Disneyland at the airport and a “drug-free parliament” by 2020…The Best Party was only established six months ago. Its victory means it will hold six seats on the 15-member city council.

It’s like Colbert actually winning a primary!

A note

I would say, “congratulations to everyone who got degrees yesterday!”, but I would be included in that “everyone [who got degrees yesterday],” and I don’t believe in self-congratulation. So instead, here’s Lindsay Lohan’s advice to graduates (Subscribe to Sarah Benincasa.):