This Tom the Dancing Bug comic was printed on January 6, 2006:

Until just yesterday I could find this comic nowhere online, though Ruben Bolling's later comics were posted. I finally found it on Slate. Is the topic too controversial for the uComics site, where it should be posted at http://www.ucomics.com/tomthedancingbug/2006/01/07/? Conspiracy! Anyway, I loved it so much when I saw it back in January that I feel it necessary to post.

The last time I saw the Clarks was in December 2004. They've played several times in the area since, but each time I've been busy with something or other. They're playing the 9:30 Club this weekend but, of course, I'll be away (in Boston). Mighty frustrating.

I'll post some more about my trips when I return from Boston and get some other things settled.

All right, it was fun when I had only two comment spams, but this is getting out of control. About ten new comments came in last night. And of course this happens when I'm about to leave for two weeks, so I won't be able to remedy the problem. Oh well, faithful readers, you can put up with the messages, which appear to show up only on a couple select posts. Maybe I can be happy that the comment spammer is wasting bandwidth on a site that has maybe three readers.

So, today I got two comments authored by one of those robot spammers. Is this a sign that my blog has hit the big time, or is it a sign that some spammer thinks that I'm pitiful enough to be excited about comments that I'll subsequently buy all the junk to which he links? What a great day: get into graduate school, watch "The Bicycle Thief," pack for China trip, get comment spam. I'm not sure event was the most exciting!

Heh, I was sweating while I called the graduate advisor at Berkeley to find out that...I was accepted into the school's Demography MA program. Woohoo! I'm really so excited. I had given myself a 30% chance of getting in, so I'm incredibly pleased.

I plan no posts for the following two weeks while I'm in China. When I return I should have more information about graduate school, and of course about my China adventure. February is shaping up to be a fantastic month.

This BBC article is absolutely amazing. Read it. Here are the first couple paragraphs to entice you:

Kenya's government is outraged by an offer of food aid from a New Zealand dog food manufacturer to help the 4m people hit by drought.

But Christine Drummond told the BBC she could assure Kenyans that the nutritional supplement she was offering was "definitely not dog food".

It is "a high-powered food full of nutrients. It tastes yummy," she said.

"It was during the next four years after his return from Rome that Gregory Martin's brilliant talents and scholarship found full scope in a work destined to be of far-reaching and permanent utility...." Hmmm, I just returned from Rome in November. Will my next four years be as excellent as the 16th century's Gregory Martin's?

Plagiarizing isn't cool, but so few people read this blog that for this post I don't mind stealing other people's posts in full. Two funny religious posts from this week, first a post from Kevin Drum and then a post from Wonkette.

SECULAR MEDIA WATCH....Newsweek interviewed Jerry Falwell about the Liberty University debate team recently and made a wee transcription error:

Correction: In the original version of this report, NEWSWEEK misquoted Falwell as referring to "assault ministry." In fact, Falwell was referring to "a salt ministry"—a reference to Matthew 5:13, where Jesus says "Ye are the salt of the earth." We regret the error.

That's some good bulletin board material for the Brent Bozell crowd. I guess Newsweek's copy desk needs to bone up on its Bible.

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Last week, controversy erupted after Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), in an interview with Jeff Sharlet of Rolling Stone, made the following remarks:

“You look at the social impact of the countries that have engaged in homosexual marriage.” He shakes his head in sorrow, thinking of Sweden, which Christian conservatives believe has been made by “social engineering” into an outer ring of hell. “You’ll know ‘em by their fruits,” Brownback says. He pauses, and an awkward silence fills the room. He was citing scripture — Matthew 7:16 — but he just called gay Swedes “fruits.”

The Human Rights Campaign promptly fired off a letter to Senator Brownback, requesting an explanation and apology. Today the Senator issued the following clarification:

“When quoting Matthew 7:16, ‘Ye shall know them by their fruits,’ I was in no way referring to sexual orientation. While this biblical passage was pertinent to our overall conversation about faith and deeds, it apparently led the writer to believe I was making a joke; I was not and would never do so with such a personal and sensitive issue.”

In other words: Sometimes a banana is just a banana.

Yesterday I finished reading Pamela Paul's "Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families." I thought that the book was going to be a great treatise on the many varieties of pornography along with psychological reasoning about why certain men like certain kinds of porn. Unfortunately, the book is mostly a bunch of anecdotes from men who are into porn way more than anyone I know.

"Pornified" raises some great issues, but Paul is overly preachy towards the end of the book. I believe that pornography is a free speech issue, so Paul's declaration that porn is anti-progressive turned me off. She implies that all women in pornography are hurt or exploited in its production. Maybe a solution is, instead of banning it, to enforce more progressive policies for sex workers (better wages, better health care, waiting periods before initial production, etc.). Anyway, a fun fact:

Television pornography also pays off big in the travel industry for chains such as Holiday Inn, Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton, and Sheraton. Given that half of all hotel guests order pornographic pay-per-view movies, the industry is hot for porn. Such films on pay-per-view comprise 80 percent of in-room entertainment revenue and 70 percent of total in-room revenue.

I'm pretty amazed by that statistic. Half of all guests! Who are these people? Whenever I try to operate those hotel menu remotes, it is difficult enough to find the television show or movie I want, let alone find the adult menu and purchase a porn video. I always figured that people were too embarrassed to purchase adult videos anyway, even if the purchase comes on the bill in code words (which of course fool no one). A sample anecdote from the book:

Zach doesn't even like to go to the trouble of downloading video images; it takes up too much bandwidth and isn't worth the effort. Generally, he prefers Playboy-style images rather than hardcore raunch. "I've come across things I really don't like, some of it disturbing. Japanese anime often has rape scenes in it, like tentacle rape [a Japanese specialty that shows women being raped by monsters with numerous tentacles]," Zach says. "I saw a picture of a guy holding his ass half a foot open. It surprises me that people can get off on this stuff."

A significant problem with the book is that Paul assumes that all or most men are surfing the Internet for the raunchiest material available. She advances the notion that once you've delved into the porn world it's a constant search for the next hardest thing. That is, you start looking at Playboy spreads and then you're looking at pictures of sex and then you're looking at anal sex videos and then you're looking at rape porn and then you're looking at bestiality and then you're insisting that you be able to ejaculate all over your partner's chest. I'm not sure that it works that way for most people.

If Paul interviewed me, I would say that I've seen some pretty nasty stuff on the Internet, but I rarely sought it out. A friend would send a link to something and I would unwittingly check it out. Some friends would disguise the link so that I thought I was going to a Pearl Jam site or something similar.

Regarding the "guy holding his ass half a foot open": I'm not sure that anyone gets off on that picture. Anyone who has been using the Internet for a decent number of years has seen the picture to which Zach refers. It's a shock site. It's an Internet meme. Having seen the picture doesn't mean that I'm now sexually depraved or am spending hours online looking for child porn or whatever. What if it's just a crazy joke and nothing more?

Anyway, if you aren't sure to what I'm referring, research Goatse at Wikipedia, or visit the Tribute to Goatse.cx. Both sites are work friendly, but most links on the page certainly aren't!

C'mon...ejaculating on your partner's chest is not the final step...it's like Step 2...well before anal.

Comment by: SKates | Thursday, February 2, 2006 at 1:26 pm