argenteena

That Argentina, my friends, the country in Catholic/Christian-saturated South America and a fucking bank, symbol of capitalism and greed. Amazing.

via boingboing

We haughty United States citizens ought to hang our heads. This is the image of "America" I want representing me.

not guilty, your honor, by reason of t-shirt declaration

This via boingboing.net:

Man in "I [Heart] My Marriage" t-shirt arrested for domestic battery

Posted by David Pescovitz, March 20, 2009 8:59 PM | permalink

This gentleman was arrested on Monday for attempting to strangle his wife. Bradley Gellert, of Apollo Beach, Florida, was indeed wearing the "I [heart] My Marriage" t-shirt at the time of the arrest. From WTSP:

The arrest report says that the couple were arguing over drugs, and during the fight at their home, Gellert screamed in his wife's face, threw things, grabbed her neck and strangled her, and knocked her to the ground.


What's not to love about the irony of this story? Those I [heart] My Wife/Husband or I [heart] My Marriage or I [heart] My Filipino Mail Order Bride are already disturbing. If we are married and feel we have to assure the world in general that we love our spouse...well, it's just creepy public grandstanding.

Let's say I saw someone sporting a I [heart] My Newborn t-shirt. I would be tempted to run up to the parent and ask, "as opposed to...what? I am lukewarm about my infant? I loathe my baby?" Seriously, if you don't love your newborn then your t-shirt is not going to make it better. If you do love your newborn then plastering it across your tits seems to assume that the t-shirt reading public is extremely dull-witted and needs it spelled out that you do have warm parental feelings. Be that as it may, I don't think these t-shirt wearers have ironic sociological commentary in mind when they don their warm-fuzzy shirts.

Finally, I feel not a little umbrage at the opening line:

"This gentleman was arrested on Monday for attempting to strangle his wife."

I reject most notions of "ladies" and "gentlemen" in any culture but I'm pretty sure that attempting to strangle your wife puts you just outside the definition of being a gentleman.

back door to sci-fi

I have never been much of a sci-fi fan. For whatever reason, my introduction to most sci-fi left me rather meh.

Over the past few months, I have had boingboing.net on my ever-evolving Google Reader. I love the gadgetry and weird found on the internet and I am not unique in that respect. BoingBoing has an amazing following.

One of the editors, Cory Doctorow, is a science fiction writer (among other categories for which he is well-known). Well, it's become a private game with me to find something fascinating on that site and see how often the person posting or writing the entry is Cory Doctorow. The answer is: a hell of a lot.

So, it doesn't surprise me that he brought this* to the collective attention of internet viewers:

Between this and too much else to list, I may become a fan of sci-fi yet. Or at least C.D.'s work. (Not to mention John Pilger's work.) This video is stunning. Wikileaks is critical.

Uncharacteristic as it feels, I am more aware of the danger of posting ideas than I've ever been before. Truth is not only some pure hue on spectrum of information, it is also murky and dangerous. I am struck by Pilger's comments about Pol Pot, Rwandan genocide numbers and the difference between the assumption of 100% media/journalistic propoganda by citizens of fascist dictatorships and U.S. viewers' more naive expectations.

* John Pilger's speech was filmed in Chicago at Socialism 2007: Socialism for the 21st Century by Paul Hubbard. June 16, 2007