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Here’s a really funny documentary short I saw last night as part of the AFF done by David Moore of Eyekiss films. Check it out, you will laugh, and if you don’t, it’s definitely your problem. Music by The Georgia Fireflies.

The Agrifolk Art Movement:

Then continue with part 2 and part 3.

Why you should check your email frequently.

“A gunman is loose on campus. Stay in buildings until further notice. Stay away from all windows.”

I don’t know if the university was to blame, but the first email came out 2 hrs after the first shooting. Of course, I don’t think they knew they had a rampage at that point.

I have been notified of many things via email: births, deaths, all sorts of variants of good and bad news, but never that I was being pursued by a gunman. How many students do you think thought it was spam? Can you image some of the SMS messages that were sent back and forth between them?

Perhaps registering students cell phone numbers to send out SMS messages in case of emergencies would be slightly more direct in the event of emergencies.

Update: boing boing talks about the SMS notification possibility here, obviously following my lead. Although it may not accomplish much I do think it’s a step in the right direction, and not at all difficult to implement. The world needs more real time!

The lingering question I have is how could Cho, a lousy playwright and stalker, who had done time in a mental institution, have bought a gun so easily? You would think ‘mental institution’ might flag a background check?!?

I’m all for studies and research and anything in general that makes sense where there formerly was none, or tosses some long standing, ill-begotten misconception out of the window, but I find all this happiness research stuff kind of silly. Um, The World Database of Happiness…are you kidding me? Now I’m a big fan of the InterWebs, and the varied geekness you may find on said webs, including dorky databases, but I really hope they were being ironic with that name. I doubt it however, because the website is so horrifyingly 1996 that the author wouldn’t have- wait a minute….the whole thing is a great big giant ironical culture jam! Perhaps the Yes Men are behind it.

But seriously, isn’t it fucking obvious safe to assume that people will be relatively happier with more wealth, with more health, with more freedom, with more leisure time, but that these things in and of themselves do not guarantee “happiness?” Didn’t we learn this boring lesson over and over again in all those bad novels that we had to read in high school? What more is there to say? And I’m suspicious about these psychological polls because they are fallible and people are also fallible (and they lie, conscious or not!), so let’s stick to measuring things that make sense, like blood pressure. I know this: the smiley checkout lady at CVS will be happier than I will ever be, and good for her. But I don’t envy her line of work, or to be honest, even her smileyness. That’s right, I’m Scrooge, bitch!

Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Valentino Achak Deng, Sudanese refugee and subject of Egger’s new quasi-fictional biography What is the What?, spoke tonight at the Margaret Mitchell house. It was one of those typical writerly events, free cheese with $10 admission, annoying introductions (what for?), no drum solos, minor technical difficulties. Dave didn’t speak much about his writing as most of the time was spent interviewing the affable Valentino who spoke about the tragedy and fortune that led him to the US. Interestingly enough, the aspect that moved me the most wasn’t so much the genocide tragedy (which, like all of them, are so awful they are difficult to even process) but Valentino’s emphasis on the fact that he did not suffer, that he escaped the suffering, and that those who didn’t escape are the ones who suffered. Now that, is fucking human. Survivor guilt was palpable, paralleled with the first-world status guilt of the audience, most of whom were not refugees, and whose lives nowhere approached this level of tragedy. Whose most taxing dilemmas stem from having too many choices to contemplate. How we labor over freedom, if we have the luxury.

Here at manunderstress global media watchdog sports center, we object to all forms of cultural Nanny Statism, most especially trendy authoritarian legislation designed to keep us from getting fat, having too much fun, or just being as stupid as we want to be. We think nannies are better kept out of government.

In Georgia, our very own Governator, one of them deep-fried Southern “Conservative” types, wants less government, if less means more, and more means Jesus.

Two years later, some Georgians say the governor has done an about-face. Perdue recently signaled his opposition to a bill that would allow voters to decide whether to allow Sunday beer and wine sales in stores. He remarked that the Sunday prohibition teaches Georgians “time management” by forcing them to purchase alcohol earlier in the week.

Ah, I see…so it’s actually a government sponsored “time management” program. Clever, Big Government Sonny, clever indeed.

Statewide, 68 percent of Georgians polled in January wanted the chance to vote on the question. In middle Georgia, support dropped to 45 percent.

Hmm, 68%? So democracy is where then?

Someone is screaming sell-out, by defacing street art in NY. But is it cool? Is it art when you destroy art? Hmmm…I’m thinking of a brigade of nihilist dadas…interesting.

In recent years, some of these young artists have been embraced by galleries, museums and collectors, and there are those who fear that the practice might become perceived primarily as an avenue to greater recognition.

The pasted screeds that appeared with the splatters seem to stem from such concerns. They are headlined “Avant-Garde: Advance Scouts for Capital” or “Art: The Excrement of Action.” Statements at the bottom of the pages warn that the paste used to affix them has been mixed with shards of glass.

I like the manifesto aspect of it, that much I’ll admit. Because manifestos and secret messages are cool. I don’t know about raining on someone’s parade though…isn’t that what cops do? My guess is that this art vandal is a embittered cop who always dreamed of being an artist, but never had the chops to make it.

An alternative to destroying art would be to simply poop near it. Duh.

Yesterday, browsing through the philosophy section in a bookstore, I noticed some peculiar titles: Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale, The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer , and The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless. I knew that these pop-culture philosophy hybrid instructional books had become more popular since The Matrix, but I had no idea to what extent. The undead book struck me as particularly interesting with the following question posited on the back:

“Are vampires more morally responsible than zombies?”

Zombies have long been a favorite in Philosophy of Mind courses, pawns in the great debate between dualism and physicalism. I’ve always been a big fan of Zombies and Vampires, despite any alleged philosophical import they have. They’re just cool.

“Zombie Walks,” are all the rage nowadays. I propose that in retaliation for Boston’s hysterically retarded overreaction to Turner’s guerrilla marketing campaign, a massive zombie walk take place through Boston immediately. Let’s show those bitches “terror.”

Chuck Norris, perhaps the biggest GOP celebrity-clown since Ted Nugent, filled in for Hannity on Fox News the other night. Could it be that Fox is forsaking all appearances of responsible journalism for self-parodying performance art? The joke could be on us.

All I can say about Chuck’s website is that all websites are better with audio welcome messages, right?

You know those sneakers that the little kids have that have plastic wheels hidden in them? And why don’t they make those for adults? After all, I’m still the guy that exits the grocery store riding my shopping cart like a chariot through the parking lot.

Finally watched Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s uber-satire of a dumb-as-rocks devolved human civilization 500 years in the future. I had been warned that the movie wasn’t that great, so had low expectations. Quite the opposite story of Children of Men, which carried the burden of so much critical acclaim you almost had to be disappointed within the first 10 minutes. Not for everyone, the ideas in Idiocracy are really what carry the film, but not always their execution. But some of the details just killed me: the world waters it’s crops with Brawndo (a sports drink), Brawndo has purchased the FDA by this time, Fuddruckers has been renamed ButtFuckers (there is a very resonant low-brow scatology to this film), the president is a former pro-wrestler and porn star, the greeters at Costco say, “Welcome to Costco. I love you.” And of course their portrayal of Fox News (probably why the film got the marketing shaft):