What were they smoking?  Spartans, I mean.  In the second half of the game, starting with a nine point lead against UConn, the Michigan State Spartans proceeded to commit fouls, miss easy shots, and stumble into each other like junkies.  I was cheering for the Spartans even though I grew up in Ann Arbor.  We used to call MSU "Moo U," because it was once an agricultural college.

Moo U lost by six points.  In past years, after MSU lost, there were riots in East Lansing where cars were overturned and windows shattered.  Watch for the news.

And the Wolverines?  Maybe my friends were right about the Moo U Spartans, but I knew we could count on the University of Michigan Wolverines to keep things sorted.  They played their bracket game against Kentucky that same Sunday.

We saw both games live and streamed in a site named http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness-live.  Thrilling.  As expected, the Wolverines were well trained scholar-athletes, clever ball handlers, and not necessarily champing at the possibility of joining the NBA.  The Kentucky Wildcats, in contrast, were all, or mostly, freshmen of unnatural height.  I assume the giant sophomore players had already advanced to millionaire status.  Who could blame them?

But the gigantic Kentucky freshmen managed quite well without sophomores, thank you.  They got most of the rebounds and prevented the Michigan players who got inside from going in the direction up.  And yet the Wolverines matched their efforts very well.  Stauskas, the Michigan guard, dazzled Kentucky with a series of bullet-like one-handed passes.  With one minute to go (did I say thrilling?), he had brought the score to a 72-72 tie.

In the last seconds, Harrison, one of those enormous Kentucky guys, took three steps backwards from ouside the key and sank a swisher.  It looked so implausible.  He must have been sixty feet away.  And that's how it ended.

Sigh.

 
What is this tranny doing in my miracle whip?

The TV commercial offers no explanation for this drag queen.  Apparently (s)he is just there, just using some sandwich spread.  WTF, did I miss a decade or two in our cultural progression?  Did the liberals finally win?  Those bastards.  I should have listened to Fox News.

The pitch is simply "deviled eggs -- you got enough devil?"  And if that's not weird enough --

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My Mom is a Prostitute

In this hulu TV sitcom, Blue is a mother with a nice house and family who secretly works as an escort.  And sometimes not so secretly.  You might call it a twenty-first century Mother Knows Best.  Maybe, er, Mother Blows Best.  She has a vagabond lesbian sister and a son in high school with the usual coming-of-age issues. The series debuted in Youtube.

Cast: Julia Stiles as Blue, Uriah Shelton, Kathleen Quinlan

 

What is this world coming to?
Seriously, somebody please explain it to me.  Something something the children.

 
Can you see the hyperlinks on your own Xanga page?  Of course you can.  This is a link.  They're a different color to the page background.  But what if you set your links to the same color as your background?  They're invisible, it is a design flaw, and you ought to correct it.

Even so, the link does not disappear completely.  Every link has three colors -- unvisited, visited, and active.  "Active" is the color that shows when you click it or move your mouse over it.

Normally the link would be nearly invisible:

But the active highlight color appears when you mouseover it:

 

Correcting the Design Flaw:

From your dashboard select Appearance. 
When you see the dropdown menu, select Customize. 
From the Xanga Theme menu select Text and Links. 
Now select Link Color and make your desired change.  It is pretty easy.

 

Correcting the Cognitive Flaw:

Let's say you want to prove that someone never wrote about cats.  You are on a mission, you feel it very strongly, and you want evidence.  Without reading his entire blog of more than two hundred posts, you believe you can read a random sample of his writing.  You look at five posts and find no cats.  This is your proof.  How reliable is your proof?

If we set PopulationSize= 200, SampleSize= 5, PopulationSuccess= 2, SampleSuccess= 0, the probability that you are right is 0.0494975, or about one in twenty.  The distribution we're using is the hypergeometric, as calculated in my probability web site.  And -- was the sample randomly selected?  Not even close.

 
We are living in a land of shattered dreams, or at least, it seems that way.  Paul Simon wrote a haunting song on this theme at the time of the Watergate impeachment hearings, at the time of our retreat from Vietnam.  But really, it could be the theme of today.  Every era has its own uncertain hour.

The lyrics are poetic, the melody elegant.  Although Paul Simon's voice is quite good, I wanted to find a female vocalist to deliver the plaintive high chord changes.  It happens that Ann Wilson (Heart) does this very well.

Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I’m all right, I’m all right
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Oh, but it’s all right, it’s all right
We've lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road
We’re traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
And I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

Oh, we come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hour
And sing an American tune
Oh, it’s all right, it’s all right
It’s all right, it’s all right
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all I’m trying to get some rest

An American Tune, 1973: Words and Music by Paul Simon

(I noticed there is a glitch in the mixing of this otherwise fine performance.  The strings join Ann's voice after a couple of choruses, and this is satisfying.  But later an organ is overdubbed, and it is out of tune or maybe out of sync.  I am sorry.  It couldn't be helped.)

Some classical music fans believe the melody is taken from this Beethoven string quartet.  The attribution seems something of a stretch to me.  See what you think.

 
Vladimir Putin is a giant dick.  I think everybody knows this.  He stinks of corruption, repression, and intolerance.  It is amazing how regularly he nevertheless represents himself as the last defender of democracy.

I've blogged about Putin before.  Anyone who disagrees with him is routinely beaten, jailed, bugged, or disappeared by the secret police, or, if the secret police wants to avoid embarrassment, by the Cossacks.  Cossacks!  They were filmed horse-whipping the Pussy Riot band.

Clearly Putin deserves to be ridiculed.  I made a couple of cartoons.

There are plenty of other satires on the net.  This is a float from the Rose Monday Carnival in Germany.  KRIM is the German word for Crimea.

In my search I came across this wonderful Putin cartoon series, Vladimir Putin Action Comics.  [ LINK ]  There are dozens of cartoon panels, some political, some stupid, and some bizarre.  Some of them construct a fictitious Putin persona with his own intrinsic logic (click to expand).  Enjoy.

 
Remember those days when the Fourth Amendment protected us from unreasonable searches and seizures?  They are finished.  In the twenty-first century, the cops can anal-probe you as they please.  That is the reality of the post-9-11 world.  This story scared me shitless when I heard it on NPR Saturday morning.  Kiss your Fourth Amendment rights good-bye.

(Source) "Jane Doe" is a 54-year old US citizen who was crossing into the US at the Juarez/El Paso border when a Customs dog alerted the agents to her.  This prompted the federal agents pat her down.  "The agents ran their fingers over her genitalia and checked inside of her pants," said Doe's attorney, Laura Schauer Ives, of the ACLU.  "She was asked to undress.  She was asked to squat, and the agents peered into her cavities with flashlights and pressed their fingers into her genitalia."

The federal agents never found drugs, so they transported her to the University Medical Center of El Paso for further invasive medical procedures.  She was handcuffed and given laxatives to induce a bowl movement where, the attorney said, "there was no evidence of contraband or criminal activity.  She was then subjected to a cavity search, both rectal and vaginal, and finally she was given a CT scan."

We do not know why the hospital's medical staff agreed to continue such a degrading, pointless procedure.  The federal agents never bothered to secure a search warrant, and the woman never gave any consent to these procedures.  On top of that, while doctors were examining the most intimate areas of her body, doors in the exam room were open and law enforcement officers were freely walking around and looking in.

"Like lots of victims of sexual assault, she wonders what she did to bring this upon herself and we have assured her that she did nothing and there is no justification," Schauer Ives said.  The documents filed in court state, Doe was "physically, mentally and emotionally injured.  Her labia, vaginal opening and anus were left raw and sore and she felt violated, demeaned and powerless."  The document also notes that Jane Doe has not been able to be physically intimate with her husband.

Jane Doe refused to sign a consent form for these procedures.  In turn, the University Medical Center of El Paso billed Doe $5,000 for the unwanted procedures.

Do you find this shocking?  Think again.  The government, especially state troopers in Texas, have been probing and finger-banging citizens for years.  At this point in the twenty-first century it appears that no rectum is safe.

Texas State Trooper Accused of Using One Glove to Conduct a 'Roadside Body Cavity Search' on Two Women
12/19/12 12:15pm

38-year-old Angel Dobbs and her niece Ashley, 24, were pulled over in July by state trooper David Farrell for allegedly tossing cigarette butts out of their car window.  Farrell suspected the two might have been smoking marijuana, but a search of the car revealed nothing, and Angel passed a roadside sobriety test.  Still, Farrell felt the women were acting "weird," so he called over female trooper Kelley Helleson, and asked her to conduct a body cavity search on the women.

Angel claims that, during the search, Helleson irritated her anal cyst, which caused her "severe and continuing pain and discomfort."  Both complainants also say Helleson never bothered to change latex gloves, and used the same one in both searches.

A lawsuit brought by Angel Dobbs states that "this intrusive cavity search occurred on the side of a public freeway illuminated by lights from the police vehicle in full view of the passing public.  Moreover, this roadside body cavity search was done without her consent."  Angel says the search left her "overwhelmed with emotion and a feeling of helplessness," and made her feel "violated."

This link contains a video of the roadside stop.  It will blow your mind.

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Finally, there was this guy in New Mexico who ran a stop sign.  Serious violation!  He was subjected to three enemas, an x-ray, and a colonoscopy where a camera was inserted in private areas.  He sued.  He won. [ LINK ]

My favorite half-mad cartoonist is Robert Osborn, author of The Vulgarians.  Click to view the PDF file.  The book describes the decline in American values from the noble founding ideals to the materialism of the latter half of the 20th century.  Osborn was one of the great illustrative satirists who, like Ralph Steadman, could portray grand ideas in economical brush strokes.  You might be able to find the book on Amazon.  The Vulgarians (1960) is still great after all these decades.

 

"We somehow believe that we are advancing the American Dream"

"The key to all is the smile...wide, youthful, brilliant...and everything is GOOD & GLAD day after endless day, hour after hour, page after page, program after program..."

"The fat and the fatuous are INTERCHANGEABLE"

"We founder in a pudge fudge"

"and NO one need look at harsh REALITY with its complete logic and power, its pain and distress...."

Oh, no, not reality!!  I recommend that you browse the book on-line: The Vulgarians

Delicious.  Eat it with cream cheese.  Eat it all day.

Don't even think about the price.  It is worth it.  For what would a life be worth without dark pump?

What is pumpernickel?
There is no pumpernickel grain.  Pumpernickel bread is a heavy rye bread made with coarsely ground rye flour and whole rye berries.  At one time it was disdained as peasant fare, but largely during the 20th century, it became, er, gentrified.

Etymology
"Pumpern" was a New High German word similar in meaning to the English "fart" (so chosen because, like the word "achoo," it imitated the sound it described), and "Nickel" was a form of the name Nicholas, an appellation commonly associated with a goblin or devil (e.g., "Old Nick" is a familiar name for Satan).  Hence, pumpernickel is the "devil's fart," a reference to the bread's indigestible qualities and the effect it produced on those who ate it.

History
"At school the young Napoleon was driven by an ambition to become a soldier.  In the mornings when he left home his mother would give him dainty sandwiches for his lunch.  But Napoleon wanted to eat only the tough, crusty black bread that soldiers ate, so to the first soldier he met he gave his sandwiches in exchange for a crust of black bread."

That's what I'm talking about.  Napoleon got it right.  While winning the battle of Friedland, he was hungry and asked for bread and Chambertin wine; "But I choose," said he, "to have the common bread of the country." And as he was standing in front of a mill he insisted that it should be brought to him at once.  The people of the house hesitated, because the common bread of the Russian peasantry is made of bad rye-flour, full of long straws, and in all respects detestable.  He however petulantly insisted upon having it, saying, "It is what the soldiers eat." Then with his pearly teeth he bit a piece of black bread that we should have rejected.  But when the soldiers learnt that their chief had eaten of their bread, and found it good, who among them would have dared to complain?

Agriculture began with beans about 9,000 b.p.  Beans were the first crop ever cultivated.  Pythagoras, the ancient philosopher-mathematician, believed they were harmful.

The poet Callimachus once said, "Keep your hands from beans, a painful food, and as Pythagoras enjoined, I too urge.”

His fellow poet, Empedocles, concurred: “Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans.”

Saint Epiphanus: “Pythagoras the Samian, son of Mnesarchos, said that the monad is god, and that nothing has been brought into being apart from this.  He was wont to say that wise men ought not to sacrifice animals to the gods, nor yet to eat what had life, or beans, nor to drink wine.”

Pythagoras is a mysterious fellow.  He left us no writings to be quoted.

This is from History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, First Published 1945, Page 31

Pythagoras is one of the most interesting and puzzling men in history.  Not only are the traditions concerning him an almost inextricable mixture of truth and falsehood, but even in their barest and least disputable form they present us with a very curious psychology.  He may be described, briefly, as a combination of Einstein and Mrs. Eddy.  He founded a religion, of which the main tenets were the transmigration of souls and the sinfulness of eating beans.  His religion was embodied in a religious order, which, here and there, acquired control of the State and established a rule of the saints.  But the unregenerate hankered after beans, and sooner or later rebelled.

Some of the rules of the Pythagorean order were:

To abstain from beans.
Not to pick up what has fallen.
Not to touch a white cock.
Not to break bread.
Not to step over a crossbar.
Not to stir the fire with iron.
Not to eat from a whole loaf.
Not to pluck a garland.
Not to sit on a quart measure.
Not to eat the heart.
Not to walk on highways.
Not to let swallows share one's roof.
When the pot is taken off the fire, not to leave the mark of it in the ashes, but to stir them together.
Do not look in a mirror beside a light.
When you rise from the bedclothes, roll them together and smooth out the impress of the body.

All these precepts belong to primitive tabu-conceptions.

If you grew up in the Detroit area, you knew the Soupy Sales TV show.  @Adamswomanback advised me to write about him.  In grade school we used to run home at lunch time to watch it.  Soupy liked to tell corny jokes to Pookie and Black Tooth, usually accompanied by a Motown sound track.  We knew that sooner or later someone was going to get hit in the face with a pie.

Soupy tells the story that he once asked Frank Sinatra to be on the show.  Sinatra, a big fan, said he would do it only on the condition that Soupy hit him in the face with a pie.  A classic skit.

 

Another wonderful kid's show was Pee Wee's Playhouse.  Well, it looked like a kid's show.  I wonder if kids actually watched it.  I am sure its main audience was stoners.

 

Years later I became aware of surrealistic Japanese TV shows like this.  I can't help thinking it was inspired by Pee Wee's show: