Racist-ass hardcore band to play the First Unitarian Church next weekend

One Life Crew, a hardcore band from Cleveland, is scheduled to play the First Unitarian Church on the 6th.

The First Unitarian Church and Rev. Nate Walker should know better. An all-welcoming stance that is tolerant of diverse views shouldn't include, you know, homophobia and racial hate. It's not "censorship" to refuse to rent the space to them. By the same token, it's not an opportunity to "create a civic process that will get us all talking about racism and homophobia." When people disagree with One Life Crew's message, the group's leader goes beats them up (incident starts about 1:38).

Anyway everybody knows that venues are for tools -- real hardcore bands play basements in South Philly.

Bloggers with more money than sense

The Unclutterer blog often suffers from the same problem that the Real Simple magazine does: promoting expensive solutions to problems that are actually really easy and potentially cheap to solve. Real Simple tends to simply direct readers to The Container Store (whereas thrift stores, yard sales, downsizing, and no-cost home-hack solutions are always cheaper). Unclutterer's authors tend to relate their own individual stories of how certain products have revolutionized their lives. These posts can be fun to read, but sometimes one of the authors will come up with a real doozy.

Case in point: the $350 cat litter box.

We know the idea of a litter box costing over $300 might seem outrageous to some, but [REDACTED FOR RIDICULOUSNESS. There is no non-laughable way to qualify the outrageousness of paying $350 for a cat litter box].

The Litter Robot "simplifies" your life by using electricity to terrify your cat into using the bathroom sink insteadsift the cat litter and deposit clumped and solid waste into a receptacle, which you empty every few days and clean out and sanitize every so often.

Unclutterer has posted about it just recently because now it's new! And Improved! You see, now you can get a skylight accessory for it.

Most of the time I really like the Unclutterer blog. They post inspiring photos of clean, streamlined workspaces; confessional stories, especially by former messy person Erin Doland, the woman who started the blog; organizational tips and solutions; and links to interesting websites and resources, like professional organizer certificate programs. But like Real Simple, which also tends to offer "advice" like spending thousands of dollars on custom-designed closet systems, sometimes Unclutterer loses sight of an important principle. When you seek to simplify your life, you also have to seek to simplify your economic situation. But it is not "simplifying" and "uncluttering" to work for $350 and then spend that money on an automatic cat litter machine.

Unclutterer, for its part, has reiterated that it never intended to be a blog about frugal living. Its stated purpose is to be a blog "about getting and staying organized." I think, though, that it's hard to get your budget organized if you think that $350 is a justifiable expense for dealing with cat litter.

Off the top of my head I can think of 2 ways to deal with the problem of stinky cat litter. You can get rid of the cat, for one. For another, you can man up and change the cat litter more often, you pansy. Like doing the dishes or weeding the garden, the more often you deal with the cat litter, the less of a chore it is. Added bonus: your home looks and smells as though a grown-up lives in it, not some yuppie asshole who has more money than sense and has $350 just lying around to spend on pet accessories.

Profoundness: on marriage again

Maybe the reason that I'm uninterested in the California supreme court decision upholding Prop 8 is because I'm so completely single right now -- and for the foreseeable future -- that any question of marriage just seems personally irrelevant.

And distasteful, really, even if it were relevant.

I don't mind my neighborhood, except when the visitors (literally) piss on it

I really don't mind living just off South Street. Yes, the Duck tours go by with a scary frequency from April to Thanksgiving. (Our bedrooms are in the back.) Yes, there are hordes of tourists, teens, suburbanites, and general knuckleheads around all the time, especially when it's warm. (It's lovely to hit my coffeeshop at 7:15 or run my errands well before noon, even if all the trash isn't yet picked up from the sidewalks, because South Street is E-M-P-T-Y then.) Yes, it's well on its way to becoming a boardwalk, not a real destination neighborhood for arts and culture. (But it's nice that the McDonald's is gone.)

But you know what bothers me the most about living off South Street? That assholes think that it's perfectly acceptable to walk up the side street below my deck in the back and take a piss on the corner of the building next door.

Saturday afternoon, while I was trying to enjoy an iced whisky and water and some low-brow science fiction on my deck in the back, I heard the familiar splashing sound and winced. Most of the time it's way late at night, when the kids who live on the street are in bed. This, though, was about 4:30 in the afternoon. What an asshole. So I set my drink down, marked my place in the book, and leaned out over my railing. "Hey! That's nice, real nice. That's great," I said. The offender looked at me stupidly from behind his mirrored sunglasses -- before he'd begun, he couldn't have seen me -- and got away a little more quickly, it seemed, than he'd planned.

Two thoughts come to mind. First, actually I'm ambivalent about it, when men decide to piss on the corner of that building. On the one hand, the neighbor who lives there is a pain in the ass, really. She puts broken glass in the area around the street tree at her front door so that people don't let their dogs around it. Broken glass, instead of, oh, I don't know, maybe a fence? Or paving bricks? Or a sign that says "Curb yer dog"? And I saw her get in a fight one time with one of the unlicensed contractors she hires to work on her place, and she locked him out with his tools inside the building. "That's my livelihood!" the guy yelled for several minutes, along with some choice curses, before she let him back in. She's nuts. But on the other hand, as I said, right across the way is a family with kids. Their kids and mine don't need to see that nonsense, and nobody needs to smell it when we have a heatwave. Well, maybe the crazy neighbor does.

Second thought that comes to mind: you know what I need? I need a motion-activated camera trained on that corner, so I can start posting the assholes' pictures.

Ridge on Rush

Here's a new pool: How long before Tom Ridge apologizes to Rush Limbaugh for calling him "shrill," "divisive," and "offen[sive]"?

KING: You've used those terms, "need to be less shrill, less judgmental." Who's being shrill? Who's being judgmental?

RIDGE: Well, I think a lot of our commentators are being shrill. I mean, I don't disagree...

KING; Rush?

RIDGE: Yes, I -- listen, Rush Limbaugh has an audience of 20 million people. A lot of people listen, daily, to him and live by very word. But words mean things, and how you use words is very important.

KING: I want to be clear, though. You think Rush is among those being too judgmental, too shrill?

RIDGE: Well, I think -- I think Rush -- Rush articulates his point of views in ways that offend very many. It's a matter of -- matter of language and a matter of how you use words. And it does get the base all fired up, and he's got strong following. But, personally, if he would listen to me -- and I doubt if he would -- the notion is, express yourselves, but let's respect others' opinions. And let's not be divisive.

Let's lead our party based on some principles that have been very much a part of who we are for decades, and let's be less shrill, in terms of -- and, particularly, not attack other individuals. Let's attack their ideas. Let's explain, in a rational, thoughtful, responsible and reasonable way why our ideas and our approach are more acceptable, why they should be more acceptable to the average citizen.

How long before Limbaugh tells him to go be a Democrat?

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: Why the hell does Safari keep crashing so much lately? It used to be more stable than Firefox on my Mac, and now they've switched in dependability.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

Monday art house: An Engineer's Guide to Cats

As usual, something that's made the rounds already, but that I've only recently found:

That's Glomarization, J.D., thank you

It's been 3 real fun years of hard work, but I'm about due for a vacation:

Neat: Franklin Square station to re-open

Now that PATCO will be re-opening Franklin Square station, maybe SEPTA will re-open the now-ghostly Spring Garden station on the Broad-Ridge Spur.

Via Atrios.

On Pepsi with cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup

Pepsi Throwback tastes like what I remember RC Cola tasting like when I was a kid.

The Inky hires more columnists

Brendan jokes that the Inky has hired Michael Vick to write a regular column about pets. Who's next?

Ira Einhorn on corpse storage. (I think "on dating" would have made for a funnier joke, myself.)

Former mayor W. Wilson Goode on fire safety.

Former mayor Frank Rizzo on race relations.

David Duke on race relations.

Glen Beck on immigration policy.

Rush Limbaugh on the War on Drugs.

Somali pirates on the UCC and various topics in international law.

Others?

"The look"

A few nights ago, I got "the look" again. The look, that is, that a man gets on his face when he starts to feel the horror of his own impending mortality, upon learning that the woman he's speaking with is divorced, has a child, and is approaching 40.

It's both more tiresome and less amusing than watching a man struggle with a madonna/whore complex. The easiest way to spot that one is when a man says, "You don't look like a mom." Which is not exactly a compliment -- really, think about it -- though probably it's usually intended as one.

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: the Hubble Space Telescope is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

Tuesday: judges, city controller, city D.A. primary, and ballot questions

Philadelphians: don't forget to vote tomorrow. Races include the primary for District Attorney (Seth Williams), statewide judges, city judges (Dan Anders, Dawn Segal), city controller (Brett Mandel), and Philadelphia Home Rule Charter ballot questions (yes and yes).

Oh, and the Philadelphia chapter of the National Lawyers Guild has produced a Progressive Voters' Guide to Candidates for Judge and District Attorney candidates (PDF), summarizing NLG members' opinions.

"[D]irectly in the shoulder"

Dig some aerial news video of a car and foot chase leading to arrest. If I'm not mistaken this is from TV station local to Los Angeles.

Question that comes to my mind: why does the TV news man say that the cop kicked the guy "directly in the shoulder"? Does the video look to anybody else that way? Is it not perfectly clear that the cop ran up and simply clocked that man on the crown of his head? What reason at all is there for stating otherwise?

Friday jukebox: "QU33N," I guess

"Bohemian Rhapsody" done with obsolete computer hardware:

Real math on the unemployment rate

The total number of Americans who are not working full-time but ought to be is actually about 22 million, or 15.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That 8.9% figure you heard this morning doesn't count those who have quit looking, the underemployed, and a couple of other categories.

"I live for truth and find that I am damned!"

Whoa -- did the Above the Law blog just compare John Yoo to Jesus Christ?

Maybe Yoo should be in prison. Maybe he shouldn't. But I'm almost positive he's got the right to say whatever he wants. And if somebody wants to publish it, I'm pretty sure that is okay too. John Yoo's Sunday column is not going to destroy America, it's not going to make our children grow up to be torturers.

I see no reason. I find no evil. This man is harmless, so why does he upset you?
He's just misguided. Thinks he's important. But to keep you vultures happy I shall flog him.

Wow, and it's not even Easter.

Do not do a Google image search for "mountain dew mouth"

How much sugar did you drink today?

Although I don't see the dentist very often -- going through law school without dental insurance will do that to a person -- my teeth are in very good shape. The major factors for that good fortune are that I've inherited strong teeth, I've always had fluoridated tap water, I had a reasonably good diet when I was a young child in the 1970s, and I saw the dentist regularly until my 20s. But probably more importantly, I also don't eat a lot of sugar or refined grains, so the bacteria that cause plaque and gingivitis and stuff don't have anything to feed on in my mouth. I mean, I know people in their early 20s who have had multiple root canals. Multiple! My wisdom teeth had to be pulled when they got rotten from lack of care, but other than that I've never had any problem more dire than cavities in my molars. Get this, though: one thing my root-canalled pals have in common is that they drink sweetened coffee or Mountain Dew, almost continually throughout the day. Ugh. It's a perfect growth medium for those bacteria.

Do yourself a favor and do not do a Google image search for "mountain dew mouth."

I almost never drink soda, and I prefer beer or wine to a sweet-as-candy cocktail. I don't sweeten my tea. When I'm asked how I take my coffee, I always joke, "Black and bitter, like my soul." I guess I'm not really joking. In any event, I think I'll take a break now and go floss. And count my 32 (minus 4) blessings.

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic, the Anne Bonny defense: in Laos, an English national may have escaped the death penalty for trafficking drugs because Laotian law, like 18th century English piracy law [1], prohibits executing pregnant women. Would you trade the death penalty for pregnancy, childbirth, and then life in Laotian prison?

Or, if that question is too cerebral for you, I submit: the "Head O' State" (NSFW), which, I confess, has left me completely speechless.

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

---

[1] Sara Lorimer, BOOTY: GIRL PIRATES ON THE HIGH SEAS 53 (2002).

Dr. Boli explains Chinese astrology for you

Dr. Boli explains the cockroach in Chinese astrology:

Enemies are the Ox, the Dragon, the Lion, the Snake, the Marmoset, the Spotted Phalanger, the Peccary, the Gnu, the Ocelot, the Tapir, the Squirrel, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

When baby is left in the car

The human brain . . . is a magnificent but jury-rigged device in which newer and more sophisticated structures sit atop a junk heap of prototype brains still used by lower species. At the top of the device are the smartest and most nimble parts: the prefrontal cortex, which thinks and analyzes, and the hippocampus, which makes and holds on to our immediate memories. At the bottom is the basal ganglia, nearly identical to the brains of lizards, controlling voluntary but barely conscious actions.

[I]n situations involving familiar, routine motor skills, the human animal presses the basal ganglia into service as a sort of auxiliary autopilot. When our prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are planning our day on the way to work, the ignorant but efficient basal ganglia is operating the car; that's why you'll sometimes find yourself having driven from point A to point B without a clear recollection of the route you took, the turns you made or the scenery you saw.

And that's why an otherwise loving, doting, responsible, and conscientious parent may accidentally leave her child in the car all day, to die of hyperthermia. It's also why such a parent should not be charged with a crime when that happens: what's happening in your brain is no different from a day when your morning routine is interrupted, and so you forget to grab your cell phone.

Of course, the consequences are different. But since even the risk of that unspeakable consequence can't make your brain remember to take the baby out of the car, we shouldn't waste police and judicial resources prosecuting a parent who's had this horrible thing happen to them. It's physiologically unintentional.

The most plausible explanation I've heard is that, since cars are made with front airbags now (as opposed to the olden days, when kids rode on a mattress laid over the backseat for the 13-hour drive to Grandma's), kids are supposed to be put in the back. Carseats and boosters seats, too. Worse, babies are supposed to be put facing backwards. You can't even see the top of baby's head in the rear-view mirror when you've put baby back there in the safest position possible. Think of it as a malevolent alignment of the planets when your morning routine has been interrupted, and then baby falls asleep during the ride, and you've unknowingly flipped the bit in your brain that says "baby is at daycare" to "on."

I couldn't have written about these kinds of cases just a few years ago. When this topic came up during our Crim Law class when I was a 1L, I almost had to leave the lecture hall.

Today! Free! at the Spruce Hill May Fair!

The Dill Pickles, "everyone's favorite old-timey pals," play fiddle tunes at the Spruce Hill May Fair at 2:00 p.m.

The May Fair is a free annual neighborhood festival in Clark Park, at 43rd and Baltimore in West Philly. Take any of the Green Line trolleys (except for the 10) to get there from Center City.

As for the Dill Pickles, they're:

. . . two Narbs and a carpetbagger [and one of 'em blogs], playing fiddle tunes and jug band stomps better suited to the Great Depression than our Shiny New World of the Fut. . . Oh wait? You say it feels like Black Thursday all over again? Well then we’ll fit right in. And so will you: we’re gonna party like it’s 1929 (except now the booze is legal).

It's not a conspiracy; it's evangelical Christian capitalism

Only 4 in 10 teenage mothers finish high school; less than 2% of girls who have babies under 18 will finish college by the time they are 30; just waiting until 20 or 21 increases the odds fourfold. Two thirds of families of young unwed mothers are poor. When pregnant teens do marry, they are 50% more likely to get divorced than those who marry without being pregnant.

Bristol [Palin]'s main message as she stepped out this week was only partially about abstinence. It was more about parenthood: that it is hard, and exhausting, and bittersweet to hold your blessed child in your arms and wonder at him, while knowing that your friends are at the movies, and your term paper is due, and everything that was supposed to be normal right now is hovering just out of your reach. "I'm just here to tell teens this is a really hard job," Bristol told Matt Lauer. "It's not like an accessory on your hip. It's hard work."

Look, the Religious Right knows which side its bread is buttered on. The fewer young women finish high school and go on to college and graduate or professional school, the fewer women total are in positions of management, corporate boards, judicial benches, and higher education. By the same token, the more you tell people that abstinence is the best way to prevent teen pregnancy, while knowing all the time that there are piles of research to the contrary (2007 President Bush Administration PDF), the more teens are going to get pregnant.

It's not a conspiracy. It's Religious Right capitalism keeping its women out of higher education, higher socioeconomic class, and power.

How "fetal personhood" laws hurt all pregnant women

"Fetal personhood" laws hurt all pregnant women, not just women who want to terminate a pregnancy. This video, by NAPW, profiles several women, all "vehemently" against abortion, who found out the hard way that fetal personhood is an anti-woman, anti-family, anti-civil right way to reduce the number of abortions in this country:



Supporters of fetal personhood seek to ascribe the exact same number and quality of human rights to fetuses as to the women who carry them. This notion is incompatible with both a woman's right to equal protection in American justice and also, frankly, with basic biology. Fetal personhood bills should be vigorously opposed in every state legislature they show up in.

SEPTA regional rail train burns down a house?

What's the torts case where the train generated some sparks on the tracks, and the sparks ignited a pile of hay, and the fire spread from the hay to a field, and the fire eventually burned down a house at some distance from the tracks, some time after the train passed by?

Yeah, that one.

Today's to-do list

- Get up at the crack of ass in the morning

- Take daughter to school

- Use up the last of this academic year's free copying services at the school library to prepare incorporation papers for a 501(c)(3) educational organization related to promoting local filmmaking

- Desperately attempt to find a date for tonight's show down the street

- Put "finish writing last papers for law school" on another day's to-do list

- Pick up daughter from school

- Feed daughter, make daughter bathe, put daughter to bed; greet babysitter, show babysitter dinner, the DVD player, and the liquor cabinet

- Go out to the show down the street

Now that Chrysler and Fiat have made an "alliance"

Now that Chrysler and Fiat have announced their "global strategic alliance," I feel that I can now safely confess that I've always wanted one of these:

Beep-beep.

That is, I'll happily drive a little Fiat 500 around town if a Citroën 2CV is unavailable. Would you believe, a few nights ago I saw an old 2CV down on Washington Ave, about to turn left onto Columbus Ave? Complete with Euro-yellow headlights. Too funny!

Driberally tonight

Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).

This week's topic: PhillyCarShare: did you quit last week when they got rid of the free plan and join ZipCar instead? If so, will you be keeping your ZipCar membership when PhillyCarShare folds, ZipCar then has a monopoly, and ZipCar (being a for-profit company) promptly jacks up its prices to something even more obscene than $15/month?

"Come for the beer, stay for the check"

It's not that I hate driving

It's not that I hate driving. In fact, I like it a lot.

No, I don't like driving down I-95 through Chester and through the Blue Route "weave area" on a warm Saturday evening after everybody's been cooped up all winter long, and cars and buses and SUVs are crammed in one on top of the other, and everybody's doing 70 mph except for the young guy zipping by who must be doing a cool 98 mph on his way to . . . Claymont?

What I do like is returning to Philly at 1:45 a.m., and the stretch past the airport is empty and looks post-apocalyptic, and I've found some goofy trance nonsense on the radio, and I can cruise at an effortless, unhurried 80 mph, and it brings to mind riding halfway up the New Jersey Turnpike with my high-school boyfriend in his mom's station wagon with some equally ridiculous Art of Noise on the tape deck, and then feeling really grateful that that was 20-odd years ago and I don't have to be a teenager ever again, but still nostalgic for the solidness and the 350 V8 engines in the kinds of cars I drove 20-odd years ago.

My neighborhood is probably more walkable than yours

"Walk Score" has done the math and it turns out that I live in the 22d most walkable neighborhood in the U.S., which they've designated as Center City East, Philadelphia. While the top-25 end of the list there is heavily weighted toward neighborhoods in New York City, I'd wager that it's roughly one billion times cheaper to live in my little neck of the woods than to try to find an equivalent there.

Center City East beat Atrios's Wharton-Hawthorne-Bella Vista, which turns up at 113. Must be because of those bullets he has to dodge all the time while he's enjoying coffee and croissants on his deck.

At work

Nothing beats "renting" a table at the coffeeshop around the corner for a couple of hours and writing up a business plan.