Yesterday I did my third Ironman and Ms. Otherwise participated in her second.

This time it was Panama City Beach, which has a reputation as an “easy” Ironman, easy being a relative term of course. Full story »

Teresa Milbrodt is earning a good bit of acclaim lately, and her new short story collection, Bearded Women: Stories, should only amplify her reputation. Fiction Editor Dr. Jim Booth will have a review of the book in the coming days, and in the meantime we were able to persuade the gracious but extremely busy Milbrodt to field a few questions.

Scholars & Rogues: Bearded Women presents the reader with such a wonderful menagerie of freaks – there’s a gorgon, a set of conjoined twins, a giantess, a three-legged man, a woman with a parasitic twin, a woman with four ears, a Cyclops, women with beards, and the list goes on. I know this is a wide-open question, but can you explain for our readers where all these characters came from?

Milbrodt: I have always been fascinated by people who look different or those who don’t fit in. Full story »

I suspect Frank Miller’s new graphic novel, Holy Terror, is supposed to be gritty and profound meditation on the evils of terrorism, set in a superhero milieu. “Holy Terror chronicles [the] desperate and brutal quest of a hero as he is forced to run down an army of murderous zealots in order to stop a crime against humanity,” the back cover says.

But coming ten years after 9/11, the book lacks any urgency and offers nothing new to ponder. Terrorist commit terrorism and, weeks later, people are still terrified. At the end, a wide-eyed character realizes one middle-of-the-sleepless-night, “No wonder we call it terror.”

It’s not the faux profundity that bothered me so much, though. No, it’s that Miller, one of the godfathers of the modern comic book, has cobbled together what might be the most derivative thing he has ever created.

Full story »

On the occasion of the world’s population reaching seven billion, William Ryerson,  founder and president of Population Media Center and chairman of the Population Institute, told Alanna Shaikh at UN Dispatch:

The first earth day was largely about population growth, then it became taboo. Part of why it become taboo was human rights violations committed by India and China [in the name of population control presumably -- Ed.], and partly was because of Ronald Reagan, who said that population growth was a good thing. He was influenced by Julian Simon, who said [in his book The Ultimate Resource and elsewhere -- Ed.] there was no limit to how many people the planet could support. Full story »

A busted alarm clock, a major accident on the highway, and a slow eighty-something taxi driver all worked against me this morning. Together they made me miss my flight by thirty minutes; the time in the cab was filled with curse words, and finally acceptance. When I got to the airport my only comfort was that I didn’t arrive at the Shanghai airport early enough to see the damn plane take off without me. What I got instead was a courteous, “Sorry sir, but you have missed your flight.”

The pretty clerk, surprisingly, spoke almost perfect English – though she hadn’t mastered contractions yet. With a smile as shiny as plastic she continued, “The next several flights are all full as well. If you would like, I could put you on standby. We would place you on the next seat that becomes available on any of the upcoming flights to Los Angles.”

I listened intently while imagining her naked. My face didn’t change though, and I was as expressionless as I was when I walked through check in. I sighed deeply as my thoughts switched from the last time I actually held a woman, to the depressing possibility of me sleeping in an airport waiting for some other idiot to miss their flight. Full story »

Andy Rooney is dead.

When Kurt Cobain died in 1994 Rooney launched perhaps his most infamous rant. From the Wikipedia summary:

“I’d love to relieve the pain you’re going through by switching my age for yours.” In addition, he asked “What would all these young people be doing if they had real problems like a Depression, World War II or Vietnam?” and commented that “If [Cobain] applied the same brain to his music that he applied to his drug-infested life, it’s reasonable to think that his music may not have made much sense either.”

I swore then that on the day Rooney died there’d be a party at my house where we’d dance on the grave of the hateful bastard just as he had Cobain’s.

That Rooney apologized the following week doesn’t really matter to me. Full story »

When we were putting S&R together in 2007 I hunted down Gavin Chait and begged him to join us. He’s one of the smartest guys I know, a relentless, good faith thinker and someone you can count on to hit you with a perspective you hadn’t thought about. He wrote our very first post and also penned at least one of our absolute very best posts.

We don’t always agree, though. (Which is good – how boring would it be if we did?) In a recent post, Gavin addressed the topic of the latest Discworld novel in a post entitled “Terry Pratchett and the redemption of the Orcs.” If you review the post and the comment thread you’ll see that I take Gavin to task for misrepresenting Pratchett. Gavin’s reply (@2) neatly gets to his overarching point: Full story »

by Robert S. Becker

Scene: The Oval Office
Time:  Daily briefing with senior staff
Speaker: The President, perplexed, pacing, nodding

Let’s talk politics today and re-election, no holds barred.  I arrive here every morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, flush with my perpetual audacity of hope, but lately my dander is up.  Maybe no one could preside over this fragmented country.  But to hover at 40% approval — with our wave of legislative triumphs second in modern times to LBJ — and under greater duress?  Who’d predict a year out our re-election would be in doubt – especially against this gang of has-beens, misfits, clowns, losers and wannabes?  If I didn’t have my formidable self-esteem, I’d feel insulted [smiles, boyishly]. Full story »

OK, what’s wrong with the following paragraph (from this story):

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will take steps to remove 20 rodent control products from the marketplace because they contain toxic chemicals.

Last I checked, the entire point of rat poison was that you were trying to kill rats with “toxic chemicals.”

Reading the rest of the article it becomes clear that the EPA is removing the rat poisons from the market because they’re deemed unsafe to people in comparison to other products that are safe(r). In other words, the issue isn’t that the rat poisons contain toxic chemicals, but rather that the toxic chemicals are too easily accessed by people, especially children.

I don’t know who was responsible for that lede, whether it was the piece’s author or the editor, but that individual either didn’t know the necessary science or was in way too constrained, in terms of time or words, to write an accurate lede.

“He who spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes.” (Proverbs 13:24)

“Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell.” (Proverbs 23:13-14)

By now, you’ve probably heard about the video of Texas judge William Adams beating his disabled, then-16 year-old daughter, Hillary, with a belt. You may even have seen the video. If not, a caution: it’s every bit as disturbing as reports would lead you to believe. We’re not used to seeing this kind of domestic brutality on YouTube, especially when it’s punctuated by lines like ”lay down or I’ll spank you in your fucking face.”

I initially ignored this story. I heard the headlines, made the same assumptions as a lot of people probably did and moved along. But today the story hooked me back in when I saw that Adams, in the process of blaming the victim (she only released the tape because he was cutting her off and taking away her Mercedes, he says), suggesting that the footage looked “worse than it was.” Full story »

Painting on Papyrus

 The blue feathered ibis
	is a symbol of immortality;
the crescent-shaped lotus flowers,
	symbols of immortality;
even the goggle-eyed asp
	who sheds his skin,
		symbol
			of immortality.

Full story »

Twitter.com/LeeCamp

So Twitter is abuzz with the news that the Port of Oakland has been shut down; major news sites are either ignoring the act or standing with reports from earlier in the day that the port is operating. That makes it sound like the general strike, focusing on the port, has been a failure. But then there’s this:

The Port of Oakland was chosen as the protest site because the International Longshore and Warehouse Union has a rare contract clause that allows workers to honor certain community picket lines. If workers arriving for a 7 p.m. shift decide not to cross the line, a shutdown could result. LA Times

So i suppose that neither sort of report is true, or even knowable yet.
There are also reports of wildcat strikes inside the port, but those may well be work related. It’s possible that the longshoremen will walk out when the Occupy protesters form their picket line outside the port. Full story »

To live in North Dakota you must like driving. You must value a landscape where there is never much between you and the horizon. The four of us grew up here so space is second nature. We are accustomed to towns such as Lost Point—six hundred people, a grocery store, a gas station, a bank, and a motel with one of those big orange flashing emergency road signs out front that no one uses because there are no road emergencies. The motel is full for two weeks every summer due to traffic to and from the Badlands and Montana rodeos. Fifteen or so years ago when we were still in high school we dreamed summer romances with young men from exotic places like Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, but we got sensible jobs at the bank and married people from here because everyone does. Full story »

by Hannah Frantz

Since my return from Uganda, I’ve had some time to reflect upon a lot about my travels here in Africa. I was thinking it might be useful if I came up with a sort of “advice column” blog just this once in case anyone is hoping to travel to East Africa at any point in the future.

First, I call this “My list of practical things that you should bring.”

1. Mosquito nets are a must-have. If you think you will not be bitten while you are asleep you are terribly mistaken, no matter how much mosquito repellent you use. And on that note, do take malaria pills. I recommend Malerone because I haven’t had any issues with it thus far, and some of the other ones come with concerns such as making people psychotic and causing crazy dreams. Even if you plan to sleep under a net still take the pills because the mosquitoes will find you! I have slept under a net in a bed coated with bug spray with all of the windows closed and I still woke up with bites. Full story »

Some time back I called Tim Tebow a “faith-based” quarterback. In that article I took on a prominent sports commentator who had lost all perspective and tried to address the ways in which the questions of religion and quarterbacking ability were getting all twisted up around the second-year Denver Broncos QB.

Since that post, some things have changed and others haven’t. The main thing that has changed is that, after an underwhelming first few games, the Doncs have made Tebow the starter. Which is good. First off, Kyle Orton may be a much better quarterback, but he was playing like hell. Full story »

You’re no doubt familiar with the notion that nuclear weapon states will be loath to give up their nuclear weapons — and those that seek them their aspirations — since Moammar Gaddafi forfeited his nuclear-weapons program. Choosing to go deterrent-free, he ended up regime-free as well.

At the Atlantic, Mira Rapp-Hooper and Kenneth N. Waltz weighed in on this.

No doubt understanding that his regime and his own survival are under constant threat, Kim [Jong-il] has been quite unwilling to disarm. The last two decades have provided him with numerous cautionary tales of dictatorships defeated — the Iraqi army was trounce-ed in 1991, NATO triumphed over Milosevic in 1999, and the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. And just this March, as NATO operations in Libya began, a North Korean spokesperson announced the lesson that Kim’s regime had learned: “It has been shown to the corners of the earth that Libya’s giving up its nuclear arms. … was used as an invasion tactic to disarm the country.” … The Dear Leader has probably learned through careful observation that the only true security guarantee for a fragile autocracy … may be a nuclear arsenal.  Full story »