The NRA Supports San Franciscans

The National Rifle Association loves San Franciscans.
That’s why, as soon as Scalia’s poisoned pen dripped the last of its ichor onto his majority decision in the 5-4 “right to bear arms” case that’s overturned Washington D.C.’s 30-year ban on handguns, the NRA filed lawsuits on behalf of poor people in San Francisco and Chicago and [...]

How Major Robert Saved Widgets

Disclaimer: The following is a completely made up and fictitious story about certain completely fabricated persons who only exist in imagination and could never exist in any sort of complete sense in the Real World. Any similarity to living or dead persons, institutions or aboriginal gaming operations is completely fictional. And made up.
i. in which [...]

A Thought On Our Blighted Age

Who’d have thought that basic decency, horse sense and balls would all be in such short supply …

And all at the SAME TIME?
Zeitgeist? Gesundheit!
Courage.

Tales from the Sufis, or Why I am Lazy

The Sufis predate Islam. Beyond that, you’re left with your own prejudices and ignorances. But hey. You have an internet connection! Educate yourself. Here’s the first story.
I have been a misfit since childhood. I knew that no one understood me, not even my father. He once said, “You are not a madman, fit to be [...]

Write Right

The best single essay on writing in the English language (or, rather, the American language) is the hilarious Mark Twain essay on the literary “offenses” of James Fenimore Cooper. In an age when everyone fancies themselves an internet writer — a/k/a a “blogger” — it seems fitting to reprint it here. Enjoy.

‘There have been daring [...]

Mark Twain on Death

Since George Carlin had just won the Mark Twain Prize from the John F. Kennedy Center at the time of his demise, it seems appropriate to serve up a Twain essay on the subject. — HW

The Art of Inhumation
by Mark Twain
About the same time, I encountered a man in the street, whom I [...]

The Latest KuKluxagram™

I’ll be with our torrid and tempestuous tale of tantalizing and tittilating torpor and taxonomy in a Texas terabyte … or, a terasecond.

but first, just so’s you know, about the FISA bill:

The George Carlin Obituary Obituary

Friends, Romans, Countrymen, I come not to praise George Carlin obituaries, but to bury them.
Take a look at all the words gushing forth, ill-considered, hastily tossed together, desperate to beat deadlines.

Deadlines. There’s a howler for you.

Howler of the Day

Is it my imagination, or does this graphic suggest that the donkey is about to um, er, MOUNT the elephant?

Who’s your daddy!?
This odd illustration cometh from The Telegraph (UK), from which ALSO cometh a howlarious Bush apologia conflating Bush’s unpopularity with Harry S. Truman’s at the end of his term in a classic ‘All men [...]

Equal Thyme (and Sage Parsley)

I was going to Scarborough Fair, except it was the Los Angeles Federal Court Building and it wasn’t fair.

click for the larger version (with bonus joke)
A producer I knew from my time as an editor of two Los Angeles Arab-American community newspapers (The News Circle and MidEast Business Exchange) had called to ask if I’d [...]

A Mysterious Response

A Belated response to this post was received in the wee hours of the afternoon, Wednesday:
29 July 2007…9:09 am
Wingnut Smear on Columbia Journalism Review