Category: The Dish

Htet Zaw, 35, a Burmese journalist who was an activist and a dissident writer during last month’s pro-democracy protests poses in a safe house October 30, 2007 in Mae Sot, Thailand. Htet Zaw was on the run and eventually made it over the border three weeks ago to Thailand without getting arrested. Around 100 Burmese monks protested yesterday in Pakokku, south of Mandalay, Myanmar for the first time since the violent military crack down last month that killed at least 10 people. By Paula Bronstein/Getty Images.

Craigslist has a classic rant about fellow travelers on the NYC subway (hat tip: Slate). Money quote:

I have compiled a list – a spilling of my mental Rolodex of the people I share the subway with on a daily basis. These are the monsters I can’t get used to and won’t accept. They annoy the ever-loving piss out of me. Thing is, I never see these hooligans all at once, but I do see one at least once a day. – Lady that fans herself with a piece of paper in the train car with broken a/c: Look lady, the air is hot. Not just your air but everyone’s air. We are all breathing in each other’s nasty hot breath and germs and here you go creating a gust of hot wind. This does not cool you down and it is especially fucking annoying when the car happens to be stuck that day, all is silent and we are forced to listen to the flip flopping of your paper up and down as you breath in and out deeply. So fucking ridiculous.

– Chinese guy with yellow nails and a bag of chicken feet: Dude, I’m not even kidding, you are nasty as hell. No one likes a set of long man-nails near them EVER and here you are wrapping those daggers around the center subway pole nearly slicing innocent bystanders as the plastic bag of chicken feet sways near your legs. Oh yes, and what are you going to do with those chicken feet anyway? Take advantage of us poor unknowing customers by grinding them up to use as filler in the next batch of HAPPY FAMILY from the local Jade Garden? I mean Jesus.

It’s so good I’ve posted the entire rant after the jump. It made me feel better just reading it. So if you’re having a rough day at the office: enjoy.

OK, I have been riding the subway every day for a lot of years. When you start riding, it doesn’t take a much time to see all sorts of characters. At first, these people sightings might be somewhat shocking or even funny, but you begin to grow used to the pants less, toothless, yelling, drunk, cracked out, stinky, sweaty, and perverted characters that ride the subway. They really don’t bother you much; in fact I welcome a little cameo from these guys once in a while. After all, it is part of our city culture.

That said I have compiled a list – a spilling of my mental Rolodex of the people I share the subway with on a daily basis. These are the monsters I can’t get used to and won’t accept. They annoy the ever-loving piss out of me. Thing is, I never see these hooligans all at once, but I do see one at least once a day.

– Lady that fans herself with a piece of paper in the train car with broken a/c: Look lady, the air is hot. Not just your air but everyone’s air. We are all breathing in each other’s nasty hot breath and germs and here you go creating a gust of hot wind. This does not cool you down and it is especially fucking annoying when the car happens to be stuck that day, all is silent and we are forced to listen to the flip flopping of your paper up and down as you breath in and out deeply. So fucking ridiculous.

– Chinese guy with yellow nails and a bag of chicken feet: Dude, I’m not even kidding, you are nasty as hell. No one likes a set of long man-nails near them EVER and here you are wrapping those daggers around the center subway pole nearly slicing innocent bystanders as the plastic bag of chicken feet sways near your legs. Oh yes, and what are you going to do with those chicken feet anyway? Take advantage of us poor unknowing customers by grinding them up to use as filler in the next batch of HAPPY FAMILY from the local Jade Garden? I mean Jesus.

– Asshole with the sunglasses on: OK, there is no sunshine on the subway. This is not the L train pal. You sit there with your black as night shades on clearly staring at people for as long as you please. That’s just wrong. Your probably staring at the lady’s tits who is standing above you or even undressing some poor middle schooler with your eyes. Not only are you taking ample amounts of time to fanaticize about unsuspecting riders, but you look like an idiot doing it. This is especially worse when you also chew gum with an open mouth like a friggin’ cow. You are drawing attention to yourself now and I can tell by the direction of your neck muscles that you were staring at me! Lady on the 8:30 F train Monday morning – you know who you are!

– Jerk that leans over you to look at the subway map: OK, your ball sac is 2 inches from my face. You don’t care do you? Even though you’ve traumatized me and I lean back in my seat to shy far far away from your jewels, you lean in closer to get a better look at where to transfer from the E to the D train! Yuk man, have some manners. This is worse when you are sleeping with your head in your hands and wake to find a pants slacks covered man bulge in your grill.

– Ghostfarter: OK, I know it may be hard to hold it, but if you had diarrhea this morning of course your farts are going to reek! I mean the train is crowded with little ventilation yet you subject us to the rotten remnants of your ass-meal. This is inconsiderate and nasty! Hey if one clipped out, OK – it’s happened to the best of us but you try to move around a bit and circulate. Don’t just stand there and poof out stinker after stinker while you read your paper! I’m talking about the well-dressed guy in the suit or the one hot chic on the train, it was probably you!

– Asshole with the book bag: If your bag more than 3 inches off of your back for god’s sakes put it in front of you toward the floor! This is common knowledge!! I can’t tell you how many times some retard with a book bag extending 3 feet tall off his back has decided to turn around and talk to his friend or bend down to tie his shoe and clock me one without knowing the difference. Yeah, that was me who bumped you on purpose. I hate you!

– Lady that hugs the pole on a crowded train: Are you fucking blind!?? There are other people riding the train with you jerk but yet you proceed to make sweet love to the silver pole. Can we maybe hold on for a second TOO so we don’t break and ankle??!!! Then, when we ask you to move you PRETEND you don’t speak English. Real nice. Why don’t you walk to work with a broomstick and hug that you shitbag.

– Nail Clipping Fool: This means you regular business guy with no regard or oblivious Asian lady. Jesus Christ, does anyone have manners?? DO NOT CLIP YOUR NAILS ON THE SUBWAY! I should be making signs for god’s sakes! Not only are we subjected to the resonating sound of your clipping but your nail shrapnel is flying every which way and hitting men, women and children. This is by far the most disgusting thing ever. I’d like to take a free shot at your gut while fellow train riders hold you up.

A hilarious tale of warring wedding chapels in Las Vegas. Money quote:

Reese also noted two fights that were documented in court files — one in which a Garden of Love employee was convicted of battery for kicking a rival chapel worker in the head, and another in which Craig Luell and two others allegedly tussled at the courthouse with a competitor.

"This is all Garden of Love," Jerbic said. "Beating people, threatening people, using tactics no other chapel uses. You don’t hear chapel vs. chapel. It’s chapel vs. Garden of Love."

If this isn’t a reality TV series waiting to happen, what is?

(Hat tip: Crazy Monk.)

Lay off them, argues Chad Orzel:

Is it a good thing that only 52% of Maryland’s black male athletes graduate? No. But the real tragedy is that only 54% of Maryland’s black male students graduate. We should fix that problem first– by improving public education so that students from poor and minority backgrouds come to college with the tools they need to succeed– and see if the athletic graduation rates don’t take care of themselves.

But it’s easy to write self-righteous editorials blasting high-profile sports programs for their academic failings, while fixing the class and race problems of American education will cost real money, and require actual work. And nobody wants that.

(Hat tip: Insidehighered.)

Some home-truths from a maternal blogger with a son in uniform. (Hat tip: Mudville Gazette.)

A trend that has gone too far? Gordon Beauchamp thinks so:

We live amid a veritable tsunami of apology. The Catholic Church, which, of course, has much to apologize for, has, of late, offered _mea culpas_ to Galileo, the Jews, the gypsies, Jan Hus, whom it burned at the stake in 1415, even to Constantinople (now Istanbul) for its sacking 800 years ago by the knights of the Fourth Crusade, an event for which the late John Paul II expressed “deep regret.” No wonder that a group in England, claiming descent from the medieval Knights Templars, is asking the Vatican to apologize for the violent suppression of the order and for torturing to death its Grand Master Jacques de Molay in 1314, an apology timed to commemorate the 700th anniversary of that fell deed. In America, the National Council of Churches apologized to Native Americans for Europeans’ discovering their continent and appropriating their land (but did not return any church’s specific holdings to any specific tribe). The United Church of Canada followed suit, officially apologizing to Canada’s native peoples for wrongs inflicted by the church; the native peoples, however, officially rejected the apology…

Facing history — that Gorgon’s head — dead on is never easy, and at times it is almost unbearable. The clearest lesson that it teaches is that grim one: _Homo homini lupus_. Still it chastens, tempers, rigorously instructs, is essential. The more we know of it, the better.

But, please. No more apologies.

(Thanks to 3QuarksDaily and Aaron.)

The Illinois senator makes all the right enemies. There really is a resistance on the left to even thinking about social security’s long-term vulnerability.

And easy-going Christians are a critical part of it:

The 2006 Gallup Halloween poll found 12% of Christians (versus only 3% of non-Christians) citing personal objections to the holiday on religious grounds. But despite this, Christians were no less likely than non-Christians to say they usually pass out candy (65% vs. 62%) or to say they usually decorate their homes for Halloween (44% each). Similarly, this year’s survey finds virtually no difference between the percentages of Christians and non-Christians saying they are buying Halloween candy or decorations.

Arnold Kling tackles Kevin Drum.

Feminists can have a hard time celebrating anything, it seems.