Philadelphia: assault over urine bet, condom-filled acorns, I hate Tom Corbett and his ways, vengeance rap

BREAKING NEWS:  Dude who beat up another dude over a bet regarding the presence of a bottle of urine in the dude's car. Beat-up dude was in hospital four days.  Beating dude now going to jail (ABC).

ALSO:  Judicial complaint filed against judge who brought unwrapped-condom-filled acorns to his bench and then handed them out as, I guess, sort of a romantic gesture?  No, really, that's about the grossest creepiest thing ever.  Also the link to the ABC news story has a picture of acorns with unwrapped condoms spilling out like sofa stuffing. 

Philly teachers and parents are freaking out over the 3,000 layoff notices that went out to teachers in the Philly school district.  Mayor Nutter is up in Harrisburg begging for money so that our city can educate its youth.  Yeah, I'm sure Gov. Corbett will get right on that. (CBS)

There was a big anti-Marcellus Shale-fracking rally in the state capitol -- only the activists were divided because some wanted to ban fracking on the grounds that the process will poison your water and kill you and everything you treasure, while others were in favor of taxing the companies for the privilege of poisoning the water and killing all of God's creatures (Politics PA).

PA is losing federal unemployment benefits, so the unemployed here are in desperate need of state unemployment funds.  But they're fucking around with it in the capitol, so some unemployed may face a period of zero income (Poconos Record).

Rap Master Maurice will make up a vengeance rap for ya.  It only costs seventeen bucks.  He'll then phone up the object of your ire and RAP YOUR WRATH (he'll also do a friendly rap for a few more bucks -- it's harder to rhyme the love, yo).  Here is an excerpt from his '08 anti-McCain rap:

NOW THIS JOHN MCCAIN SEE HE'S A LUNATIC
HIS DOME IS LIKE A MILKSHAKE YOU SEE HIS HEAD IS THICK
HE WANTS TO KEEP THE USA IN IRAQ
THAT'S ABOUT AS HEALTHY AS A DOUBLE BIG MAC
I'D RATHER CAST MY VOTE FOR MAYOR MCCHEESE
AT LEAST HE DOESN'T HATE THE VIETNAMESE 


Oh Rap Master Maurice, how I love thee, and thus I sing your praises, even tho I ain't sure you're in Philly. (via DailyCandy Philadelphia)

Books: The New Yorker's fear of vaginas, addiction to romance novels, tweeting Ulysses (why not)

The Awl  has put together a list of first appearances of profanity in The New Yorker.  'Slut' was used in 1974 but the super-duper dirty word VAGINA didn't appear until 1995. Fact.  Make of that what you will. (via Metafilter)

Some stupid psychologist on some stupid Christian website has opined that she is seeing a growing number of women "clinically addicted" to romance novels.  It's the careful usage of 'clinically' that cracks me up.  Anyways, this stirred up the twittersphere, with #romancekills trending big time and one author (Jason Pinter) claiming that King George VI's stutter was caused by remembering sex scenes on the page (The Guardian).

From of the department of No, I'm not really sure why, either:  This Bloomsday, a 'volunteer army' will tweet Joyce's Ulysses.  The whole thing. 140 characters at a time.  Fucking book nerds, man, I don't know.  (WritersWrite)

The National Academies Press is now offering its catalog (4000 titles science science science) as free downloads (Metafilter). More online goodness:  Next fall, Centre Pompidou in France will create the world's largest internet-accessible collection of modern art.  (TeleRead)

PA: alligators, drunken biking, God Hates Tom Corbett, Mafia, Rendell v. Fox, Santorums

Animal news: They found a three-foot long alligator in Bethlehem.  (ABC)

Transit news: In a test of driving knowledge, PA drivers ranked 26th amongst the states, which could be better, but is certainly better than NJ drivers, who ranked a lowly 48th -- a recent improvement from 50th.  But be warned: Turns out if you drive your bike drunkenly into a cop car in Philly, you may be arrested for BUI. (CBS)

God Hates Corbett news: Proof maybe that we've broken the planet, or that maybe God is really angry at Corbett's budget:  PA got hit with tornadoes (not as destructive as the ones that hit MO, tho). (Delawareonline.com)   Even better, Northern Philly got hit with an earthquake, albeit a very small one.

Area crime news:  I don't like violence, but nonetheless I feel a perverse pride when I think about the fact that La Cosa Nostra is doing a'ight in Philly, as per a recent set of federal charges against 13 alleged members of the gang. One of the mob guys is known as Bent Finger Louie.  Unrelatedly, a Pleasant Valley kid was given a summons for disorderly conduct charges because he acted up in class. (Pocono Record)

Random PA Politics:  Former Gov. Ed Rendell does humanity a solid and denounces Fox News (PoliticsPA) Miley Cyrus instructs her Twitter followers to not shop at Urban Outfitters because of the company's support of Rick Santorum, presidential candidate and homophobe. (Inquirer).  A man raided the district office of P.A. U.S. Rep.  Jim Gerlach and tried to make off with the office's ten-gallon fully-stocked fish tank.  Problem is, guy dropped the fish tank and it broke and fish and turtles and crabs and shit.  I guess go ahead and put this in the crime and animal news sections, too.

Books: Unfortunate gullibility; literary scams; Green Book and E.E. Cummings

If laughing at gullible people is your thing, as is mine, I present (via Metafilter), a blog devoted to those on Facebook who flip out over what they believe are real stories in The Onion.


Writer Beware warns us of the scam that is PublishAmerica, a so-called literary agency that purports to rep your work -- if you fork over a bunch of cash.  Don't do it.


Random book news:  The New York Times does a seemingly-thorough run-down on what exactly is in Qaddafi's Green Book, and oh boy how the rebels would like to tear every copy of that sucker up because they've been force-fed this crap from day zero.  And hey, totally different, but still interesting:  A previously-unknown E.E. Cummings poem was discovered.


Blog bonus:  A video of a dreaming kitten and its mother.  Watch it, and you will lose all anger and resentments of the parched earth of your cynical soul (Metafilter).

Philadelphia: Public schools are just so screwed; Street as indie Mayor; Santorum more embarrassing than any sex by-product

Ah, the awful horror of next year's education budget:  Philly is planning to eliminate 13 schools for at-risk students and cut funding for remedial disciplinary programs in half. (Inquirer) Sometimes I think that if Philly exploded, killing every man, woman, and child in a one hundred mile radius, a smile of delight would cross Tom Corbett's face.   A Daily News editorial notes that the Philly school district's clout is limited, given that the district is about as "popular as a bed bug infestation."  Cripes. 

This is apparently some kind of biggish deal:  Former Dem Mayor John Street is considering an independent run against Dem Mayor Nutter. (WHYY)

Former PA senator and current GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum found a way to embarrass himself without the help of Dan Savage:  Talking about John McCain's ignorance of torture.  (Politics PA)  This is all in the post-Bin Laden-death--did-torture-help debate; McCain says no (hello integrity!) Santorum was all yeah torture is hella cool u don't understand. You know, ever since the '08 campaign I've lost most of the respect I had for McCain, but the dude can't raise his arms over his head because he was, you know, tortured and shit.

Books: Roth/Booker Prize Controversy; ebooks, our new overlords; MFA YES NO; Lewis Black on writing

Re:  The awarding of the Man Booker International Prize to Philip Roth. The Economist is all meh about the controversy, generally supports the decision, and notes that the judge who quit in protest had published a book by a former Mrs. Roth about how horrible her marriage to Roth was.  But that same judge claims that Roth's work, in its totality, I guess, is equivalent to having the author sitting on one's face.  Which is really not a sexy image at all.

Maybe appropriate given that the world is going to end in a few:  More e-books sold by Amazon and another publisher than printed books.

Re: The big debate over whether MFA Creative Writing Programs are worthwhile:  Laura Miller of Salon weighs in on this fight between the London Review of Books (MFAs bad) and the Los Angeles Review of Books (MFAs good).  Given that I have an MFA, I choose to live in the world where having this degree is actually a thing that is good, and also in this world I have limitless vanilla lattes and a big house.

Uhhh Lewis Black rants about how hard it is to write a book.  What can I say, I have X-files on in the background and it's distracting.

Philadelphia: Gov. Corbett more disturbing than giant snake; SEPTA warns of the end times

A Pennsylvania funeral was disrupted by the unexpected appearance of a six-foot snake.  (DelcoTimes)

An Inquirer editorial called Gov. Corbett's vision of state education "Orwellian," with public school students acting as proles.  Gov. Corbett suggested that public universities make up for the yawning abyss in school budgets he created by leasing university lands to gas drillers for fracking purposes.  (Pennsylvania Progressive) Perhaps what Corbett hopes that the fracking on these lands will kill off all the faculty and students, thus neatly eliminating the problem of those people and their book-learnin'.  Because, for reals, if Corbett wasn't about that shit?  Why isn't he trying to fill the state budget with a little tax on the people who are preparing to break Pennsylvania good and proper (i.e., the companies drilling for gas).  (Inquirer)

Thankfully, we don't have to worry about it for too long, for as SEPTA tells us, THE END IS FUCKING NIGH.   Holy crap, isn't SEPTA a bit worried that some fragile folks would be disturbed by this?  (Philebrity)