September 9, 2014
"brilliant, sardonic, and contemptuous of most of mankind"
Fay started with gimmicks like everyone else, wearing baggy pants, squirting seltzer, delivering straight lines for a comedian that circled him on roller skates - and he hated it. After humiliating himself onstage for two years, Fay decided to use the same persona he had offstage. No props, no costumes, no partner, he took to the stage wearing a well-tailored tuxedo and told jokes alone. It was so unconventional that The New York Times frowned: "“Fay needs a good straight man, as before, to feed his eccentric comedy." There was initial resistance to a man just standing and talking, but Fay's success would transform stand-up as an artform. Fellow comedians saw Fay succeed and they abandoned their props and emulated his style. Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Bob Hope and Jack Paar all cited him as an influence. Fay became one of the most influential stand-up comics of all time.Frank Fay: The Fascist Stand-Up Comic by Kliph Nesteroff (for WFMU's Beware of the Blog) [more inside]
He was also comedy's most notorious racist. In January 1946, several months after Germany had been defeated, a rally of ten thousand white supremacists gathered at Madison Square Garden. They delivered speeches in support of Franco, Mussolini and their fallen hero Adolf Hitler. They promised that the defeat of Germany would not go unpunished. The podium was beneath a banner that saluted their guest of honor. The event was called "The Friends of Frank Fay."
Missouri abortion waiting period bill: a veto override is imminent
Republican legislators in Missouri are pushing to expand abortion restrictions in the state. A bill mandating a 72-hour waiting period, vetoed by Governor Jay Nixon in July, is likely to become law on Wednesday in a special legislative session. [more inside]
Statistics say driving while black is real
The Justice Department statistics, based on the Police-Public Contact Survey, show that "relatively more black drivers (12.8%) than white (9.8%) and Hispanic (10.4%) drivers were pulled over in a traffic stop during their most recent contact with police." Or, to frame it another way: A black driver is about 31 percent more likely to be pulled over than a white driver, or about 23 percent more likely than a Hispanic driver. "Driving while black" is, indeed, a measurable phenomenon.The Washington Post's Christopher Ingraham looks at the recently released statistics about traffic stops and whether people are pulled over for driving while black.
Measure of the Sierra Madre
China's Island Factory
New islands are being made in the disputed South China Sea by the might of the Chinese state. But a group of marooned Filipinos on a rusting wreck is trying to stand in the way.
New islands are being made in the disputed South China Sea by the might of the Chinese state. But a group of marooned Filipinos on a rusting wreck is trying to stand in the way.
The Cost of Becoming White
"The cost of becoming white is hard to measure. It is ethical rather than material. By passively accepting the privileges of whiteness, Asian-Americans become complicit in America’s present system of hierarchy, a system in which the nation’s institutions inflict ongoing injustices on a racial underclass. Highly paid Asian-American Google employees do not bear more responsibility to combat racial injustice than similarly positioned white people, but they don’t bear less either. Silence and inaction on the part of those receiving privilege only makes it harder for those who are not so lucky to change the status quo." The Complicity Cost of Racial Inclusion.
Memorable cars of Hollywood
You may not agree with this list of memorable cars of Hollywood, but it sure is fun scrolling through it.
Get Ready for Net Neutrality Day 2014
The skills gap is a myth
The "skills gap" is a myth. So why does it persist?
"...by blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate. Of course, that may be another reason corporate executives like the myth so much.
So we need to kill this zombie, if we can, and stop making excuses for an economy that punishes workers." [more inside]
Star Trek in Widescreen
"I was able to create these shots by waiting for the camera to pan and then I stitched the separate shots together. The result is pretty epic. It reminds me of the classic science fiction movies of the 50’s and 60’s. Suddenly the show has a 'Forbidden Planet' vibe." [via]
Very, very, very low graphical settings
Skyrim optimized for a netbook changes the look of the game to something completely strange and different. [more inside]
It seems this genet is making a habit of riding large herbivores.
A genet in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park in South Africa has been photographed by camera traps for several weeks running, riding around on the backs of cape buffalo and rhinoceros . Researchers agree: this is weird! (via.) [more inside]
Invisible gorillas in the mist.
A different kind of standardized testing. Why the debate over ISO 29119, the proposed international standard for software testing, might matter to you. [more inside]
A Modern Pandora's Box
With genetic testing, I gave my parents the gift of divorce I found out I don't have any genetic predisposition to any kind of cancer, which was a great relief to me. But I also discovered through the 23andMe close relative finder program that I have a half brother, Thomas.
The End Of An Era
Today Apple announced the latest iteration(s) of the iPhone - an embiggened iPhone 6 and the positively titanic iPhone 6 Plus, as well as the long-rumored Apple Watch. But perhaps the biggest news went under the radar - the company's iconic iPod (lately rebranded the iPod Classic), which famously reversed the company's years of decline and launched the era of digital music, has finally been put out to pasture.
Giving is a Crime in San Antonio
In 2011 the City of San Antonio passed an ordinance outlawing panhandling at "ATMs, banks, parking garages, charitable contribution meters, parking meters/pay stations, bus stops, outdoor dining areas, and marked crosswalks". Police Chief William McManus now wants to ticket those who give to panhandlers. Nate Schlueter of Austin's Mobile Loaves and Fishes said that "if San Antonio does this ordinance they'll essentially become the cruelest city in America".
“Some people feed you with love.”
We've Lost One Of The Great Fantasy Writers: R.I.P. Graham Joyce
"Graham Joyce was a monumental writer in the fantasy genre. His humane, intense writing was like a masterclass in how to put story first, and he knew how to write people, with all our blind spots and our hopeful mistakes. He died today of lymphatic cancer, and it's a huge loss to fantasy literature."[more inside]
Squeak squeak squeak squeak...
Stop Train 349
On the evening of Wednesday, November 22, 1961, a US Army "Duty Train" left Berlin for West Germany, traveling through Soviet-occupied East Germany, when a young East German, in a bid to escape, jumped aboard the train when it slowed for a curve, and was let aboard. The incident was eventually dramatized as a film called Stop Train 349, or Incident at Marienborn.
Lock up your wives!
To Find the Hand of Franklin Reaching For the Beaufort Sea
One of the Franklin Expedition ships has been found. The Franklin Expedition set off to find the fabled Northwest Passage in 1845. [more inside]
Cut square and stamped with a proper stamp of the happy union and baked
"Nowadays, we tend to eat biscuits with beverages like tea and coffee. But in the past they were an important element of the dessert course and were dipped into sweet wine." - Food History Jottings (previously) on the strange world of Regency biscuits. (Cookies to you US types.)
Because you aren't being you
A lot of women out there are afraid of being something. The template for us is pretty clear: We are meant to have clean skin, a pleasant demeanor, and a nice rack. I'm not speaking up against nice racks, Lord knows. But there are lots of ladies around me, everywhere I go, who hesitate to say what they're thinking and feeling. They go with the flow, they never make waves. And eventually, they don't even seem to know what makes them who they are. They live to serve. They read the books that other people are reading. They say the pleasant things that other people are saying. They never put their needs first, unless it indirectly serves someone else — a manicure, some highlights. They make sure everyone around them is 100 percent satisfied. Like grocery-store managers. Like customer service reps. Like masseuses who also give free happy endings. Ask Polly on "Why Don’t the Men I Date Ever Truly Love Me?"
"Huh. I'll be danged."
"I didn't know that that's what they ate." Heron vs gopher. With commentary.
Look Closer
A lot of the world’s most powerful people look like Lester Burnham: white, male, middle-aged, well off, and bored to death. There are Lester Burnhams in public office, in the Supreme Court, at billion dollar corporations, at record labels and movie studios. These people in power aren’t happy, and this movie gives them what must be a very comforting message: let go of your responsibility, but not your power. Don’t worry about what the world will look like after you die. You’ll be happy if you help yourself — not the people who need you.Fifteen Years Later, 'American Beauty' is Just a Bad, Pretty Movie
the difference between men and women in just one word: freedom
Malka Moma
Malka Moma or Young Maiden is a Bulgarian folk song, here sung by Neli Andreeva with the Philip Koutev choir. (SLYT) [more inside]
Down The Rabbit-Hole
For the very first time, the sales of one million sex toys and 45,000 of their reviews have been analysed to reveal what we do in our most intimate and uninhibited moments. Research by Jon Millward, who also brought us Deep Inside. (Previously) [All links NSFW]
High-quality role playing, guys.
Out of Context D&D Quotes (Not all quotes guaranteed to be out of context or from D&D)
Young people 'feel they have nothing to live for'
As many as three quarters of a million young people in the UK may feel that they have nothing to live for, a study for the Prince's Trust charity claims.
The trust says almost a third of long-term unemployed young people have contemplated taking their own lives.
Urgent action must be taken to prevent the young jobless becoming the young hopeless, it says.
The government commented that it was doing "everything possible" to help young people find work. [via BBC]
It's a duck-blur
A long litany of small misdemeanours
Drunk online shopping regrets. Guardian writers share their stories of accidental bulk buys and bargains that didn’t seem so wise the morning after. [more inside]
One of the most important fights in the history of boxing
On December 10, 1810, in a muddy field around 25 miles from London, a fight took place that was so dramatic, controversial, and ferocious that it continues to haunt the imagination of boxing more than 200 years later.A long-form article in Grantland tells the story of freed American slave and boxer Tom Molineaux in England of the early 19th century.
Dem■n
160 pages into his webcomic "Demon", Jason Shiga (previously on MetaFilter*)
declares its intent - to "subvert the superhero genre", with a protagonist who is apparently quite immortal... which he doesn't realize until after a few suicide attempts (trigger warning: repetitive suicide including one later on that's rather obscene). But it's really much more complicated than that. And "superhero"? More like "supervillain". Just don't expect crazy costumes and other such tropes, we are doing some serious subverting. The story starts here. (Updated every weekday) [more inside]
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