But really, I have no choice right now. I want to back up a minute before I really get into this. I have to use amibiguous pronouns because there are just no words. None. So I’m going to use quite a few.

I hate ex-journalist, female memoir/fiction writers that aren’t Laurie Notaro (though, I won’t get into her first novel). She’s the only funny one.

Jenniferweiner.com

And she’s funny because she hates everyone.  But mostly, I hate book covers of little models in weird clothing  or of twinkle toes at the end of a messy bed, leftover from a one night stand.

I hate novels and memoirs about overcoming the obstacles of being a female in the male-driven world of professional careers, or the vapid next door neighbor-jock who won’t admit to his friends that he loves you.

Fluff. I hate fluff.

Jennifer Weiner is a fluff writer (you can read her adorable pink blog, A Moment of Jen. Yes, you are invited to tea time. Feel girly and great!), a cheerleader of bad journalism and a poster gal-pal of bad, very bad novels. But setting that aside, nothing could prepare me for the absolute and total stupidity (and I very rarely use this word in publication) of her letter to none other than media giant, Brian Tierney.

(Intro Journalism 1001, Temple University: 1. Journalism is a business 2. The internet is changing everything.)

The Inky has been laying off dozens of its staff so it’s really not much of a surprise that its in dire need of a bailout. But that is not how Weiner sees ethical  journalism! Tierney’s bailout is a breech in the code of journalistic ethics. She begins her letter to Tierney,  

… I was shocked to learn that, under your leadership, the region’s two newspapers, the Inquirer and the Daily News, are seeking a $10 million bailout from the state government.

As anyone who’s ever worked for, subscribed to, or glanced at a newspaper can affirm, this is not how journalism is supposed to work.

Newspapers are not publicly-funded institutions, nor are they charities. They are watchdogs, not lapdogs; afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. They should not take money from the people and institutions they are supposed to be reporting on, lest those people and institutions expect favorable coverage in return for their cash.

This is not really anything new in the media world. As if the media needed a bailout to highlight the fact that it’s a puppet to the government. I hate to burst your bubble curly-Q, but the magical Fourth Estate has long forgotten its textbook roles.

Of course a woman of her publishing knowledge would know a better way to handle this situation!

What if a consortium of Philadelphia writers and ex-Philadelphia Inquirer staffers turned novelists and non-fiction writers banded together to sponsor the paper’s book coverage?

I can’t speak for John Grogan, Steve Lopez, Buzz Bissinger et al. But personally, I’m always looking for a pretty quote to decorate my paperbacks. Maybe they, are, too! (“GROGAN’S DEAD DAD: JUST AS MOVING AS GROGAN’S DEAD DOG.” Or “FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: THE BEST TV SHOW YOU AREN’T WATCHING IS BASED ON THE BEST BOOK YOU MAY NOT HAVE READ.” Or “CERTAIN GIRLS: PINKEST BOOK IMAGINABLE – AND WE MEAN THAT IN A GOOD WAY!”)

Authors need coverage.

The Inquirer needs money.

Give authors “pretty [quotes]” and save your newspaper? It’s like High School Musical for million dollar corporations. It’s kind of like kissing. You come closer, and I give you a kiss!

DUH! WHY DIDN’T HE THINK OF THAT?
Oh wait. He did. He just reached into a bigger pocket.

She then moves on to explain to Tierney how his Lifestyle section should

Jenniferwiener.com

read–what books to review, who to review, what kind of literature is acceptable (“No more considerations of gross-out memoirs by middle-aged male journalists detailing their debauchery, drug buys, masturbatory predilections or intestinal outrages.”), etc.

Instead, this should be replaced with contemporary women’s fiction! Frankly, I would not enter Weiner into this category. I would really like Bitch Magazineto interfere here and tell this woman she’s not smart enough to speak on the behaf of the rest of female writers.

I’m not sure if the tone of the letter is supposed to sound like she’s poking fun at herself or if she really is, so, maybe, I misunderstood. Maybe this is just a Jessica Simpson thing where she pretends to be stupid to make money.

If so, kudos, sisterfriend. Fooled a couple book deals and whoever reads them (oh, and Princeton?).

And just like Weiner thought she’d never reach out to Brian Tierney, I didn’t I would either. Hopefully someone has already warned him of the pedicure-bribe headed his way. So until I decide to start writing personal letters to Brian Tierney instructing him on how to run a newspaper, don’t speak for me.

Tapes N Tapes

OUT, 6:30p.m.)
Feb.23, Kungfu Necktie: Pomegrantes with Mecury Radio Theater and Western Dresses ($8, 8p.m. + 21 and up)
Feb.28, Johnny Brendas: Tapes N Tapes with Wilde Light ($13, 9p.m. + 21 and up)

The TLA:
Feb.27,: Miller Lite presents Ben Kweller with The Watson Twins and Jones Street Station ($20 adv./$23 doors, 8p.m.)

Aversion.com

The Electric Factory:
Feb.14.: Ben Folds with Minature Tigers ($35, 8:30p.m.)

Palin takes on Ashley Judd’s ‘extreme fringe group’
Posted: 12:57 PM ET
From CNN Political Producer Peter Hamby

Ashley Judd appears in an environmental ad campaign for the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

(CNN) – Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s support for aerial wolf-hunting has sparked a heated cross-country war of words between the governor and an environmental ad campaign fronted by the actress Ashley Judd, with Palin calling the organization funding the ads an “extreme fringe group.”

The squabble began Tuesday when the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund unveiled a campaign called “Eye on Palin,” targeting the governor for what they call her “extreme anti-conservation policies.”

The group is highlighting “Palin’s championing of the brutal and unnecessary aerial killing of wolves and other carnivores” — a controversial practice allowed by permit in Alaska since 2003, with the goal of protecting populations of moose and caribou.

CNN.com, Feb. 4
The media will just not get over its breakup with Sarah Palin. Either way, one more female to photoshop into bikini pictures! I suppose this time she won’t be holding a gun. Too bad.

In the midst of all this “paying taxes” and “new President” hogwash, we must always make room for Palin.

What else would we fill content voids with?

Warwick.ac.uk

Montgomery Co:

I live in a nice suburb. It’s nice. The people don’t really say hello when you walk by, or talk to you if you’re waiting at the same bus station, but they, for the most part, mind their own business.

I also live in a suburb that was lined with McCain-Palin lawn signs (and that’s really none of my business), save for a few houses. This suburb doesn’t pay particular mind to national politics on a regular basis, tending to focus on local committee members and officials.  It’s a pretty common suburb.

I recently started reading my local newspaper again, though I take much of what it says with a grain of salt; I started reading it because I was curious. Since I moved back from the city, I’ve been largely detached from the community I lived in, mostly because I largely resented it. But I don’t like feeling like I don’t understand anything that’s going on.

So I started reading.

And then I remembered why I stopped,

My fear is that many young voters, in an effort to prove that they are not racist, came out for the first time and voted for the first black president because it would prove how progressive and open-minded they are.

Cover of The New Yorker Magazine

Karen McCafferty of West Point is a sore loser. It’s been awhile, Karen. It’s time to start the political healing process! While I understand that you are disappointed at your loss, there’s no need to blame it on the mindless youth.

McCafferty’s editorial to the Reporter outlines how marketing stole from underneath the brainless, thoughtless, young liberals  the election. What she fails to realize is that marketing is not a party line and if you think the Republican Party is not beginning to utilize these same marketing technologies, you’re kidding yourself.

We are all, obviously, subject to marketing. It’s everywhere and there’s no escaping it. McCafferty is so utterly and clearly affected by marketing. Her reasons resonate the same McCarthy lines of McCain-Palin speech writers and campaign advertisers.

I’m subject to marketing, of course. I’m an ex-journalism major. A white, liberal, female. But I got over the race thing pretty quickly.

What McCafferty is rationalizing is one of the last remaining ugly tokens of American racism. It’s indirect and not even intentional. By saying that young kids were afraid of not voting for President Obama because they didn’t want to face being called a racists affirms that you still differentiate yourself from a black man–excuse me, a black President.

You also affirm, through this logic, that white people are governed by white guilt, another little trinket of American racism.

It’s time to cut your losses and start looking towards how you can better your own future, your business, and perhaps your own political party. While I’m sure that your logic never intended to be racist, it is. And it’s not because President Obama is black; it’s because you made it matter.

Really, I would rather not be categorized as someone who is easily duped by marketing just because I’m under the age of thirty. I’m a media junkie. I spend my time studying it. I can make my own decisions to accept or decline what any advertisement has to say.

Exoduspodcasts.com

I suppose religious zealots finally realized that sex sells… that or they were tired of their teenagers still getting pregnant and thereafter having to turn them into  some kind of social  neomartyrs. Sex in Christ, this precious gem I stumbled across, outlines, according to the authors, the stipulations of “Christian” sex.

The homepage explains the reasons for having anal sex before marriage, proclaiming that it preserves a woman’s “pure, unsullied maidenhead.”

It even makes a case for masterbation, fisting, and Christian pornography!

Although the website covers things like threesomes and bondage/BSDM (“… a wife who is submissive to her husband is offering a great spiritual gift and is doing a great service to herself and her husband” ), here are some real gemstones about Christian sexuality, most unsurprisingly are mostly concerning male pleasure and female preservation.

On anal sex:

In fact, many Biblical passages allude to the act of anal sex between men and women. Lamentations 2:10 describes how “The virgins of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground,” indicating how a virginal maidens should position themselves to receive anal sex. Another suggestive scripture tells of a woman’s pride in her “valley” (referring to her buttocks and the cleft between them) and entices her lover to ejaculate against her backside: “How boastful you are about the valleys! O backsliding daughter who trusts in her treasures, {saying,} ‘ Who will come against me?’ (Jeremiah 49:4) And in the Song of Songs, the lover urges his mate to allow him to enter her from behind: “Draw me after you, let us make haste.” (Song of Solomon, 1:4)

… anal sex allows both partners to save the most intimate and powerful sexual act, that of face-to-face vaginal intercourse, for their mates in marriage. This type of sexual relationship represents the most powerful union between a man and a woman, and so it rightfully should be reserved for one’s life partner. Fortunately, you can engage in anal sex prior to marriage and still be able to share the deeper, more meaningful act of consecrated love through vaginal intercourse with your wedded spouse

On Fellatio and swallowing:

This scriptural passage has traditionally been used as an injunction against masturbation. However, upon closer reading, it becomes apparent that this scenario has nothing to do with masturbation at all. Onan was not masturbating; he was copulating with his brother’s wife (and there was a good reason for that, in God’s plan). His sin was pulling out (coitus interruptus) and ejaculating on the ground rather than into the woman. He did so in order to avoid impregnating her. However, he could have easily avoided God’s wrath (and the penalty of death),

LiberalDebutante.com

by simply having the woman fellate him and then swallow his semen. This would have kept him from impregnating her, as well as completely prevented the spilling of seed that was an offense in God’s eyes.

The extreme case of Onan aside, how bad is it in general to spill semen? The Old Testament ranks it with other acts of uncleanliness that meet with God’s disapproval: And if any man’s seed of copulation go out from him, then he shall wash all his flesh in water, and be unclean until the even. 17 And every garment, and every skin, whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be washed with water, and be unclean until the even. (Leviticus 15:16-17) Getting ejaculate on oneself or one’s clothing results in uncleanness that requires extensive reparations and atonement. Obviously one simple way to prevent the spillage of semen is to have your partner perform fellatio and swallow the emission. In fact, in light of these scriptures, performing fellatio to completion and then spitting out the resulting emission seems almost unthinkable.

While this website and many other emerging programs in progressive churches are continuing to encourage a brand of Christian Sexuality, let us not forget sex is a seriously dirty sin, whoremongers.

“Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.”

The dictionary meaning of the word “fornication” means any unlawful sexual intercourse including adultery. In the Bible the Greek definition of the word “fornication” means to commit illicit sexual intercourse

-Bible.com

“If there’s someone out there who votes for the candidate who Twitters more, then we need to take away his voter-registration card,” says Michael Palmer, who headed the new media operations for the McCain-Palin campaign. – The Wall Street Journal

Racewire.org

Naturally, the Republican party is just about scrambling over what they’re doing wrong, especially since their number one scapegoat plan was already outed long before it came to be. And aside from the eight years of Dubb, they couldn’t really find much else except for technology.

The tech gap Republicans are facing is a pretty natural thing. President Obama virtually (haha!) stole the election from underneath McCain one text/Tweet away. So when it came time to pick an RNC chairman, gun ownership only preceded the active number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, says the Wall Street Journal.

Getty Images

Incumbent RNC chairman, Mike Duncan told conservative radio talk-head Hugh Hewitt he does not Twitter, admitting that he finds Twitter distracting. All in all, however, the incumbent Mr. Duncan enjoys the use of not one, but two, BlackBerrys and a Kindle (eBook reader)–both of which appear age neutral. It is not so absurd to see someone with a BlackBerry than it is to see an older man with his face buried in one.

Many Republican vets see this tech gap as merely a distraction over the things paramount to the Party. Michael Palmer (see quotation above), a head new media operative in the McCain-Palin organization, explains this tech gap failure y noting the kind of technology being used. Yes, their supporters use the internet. But, alas, no, their supporters do not spend time on Facebook and believes that anyone who chooses to support a candidate because of their social networking numbers should probably not vote.

Why not? Given, I understand what he means. It’s seemingly unintelligent, rather base, actually. In reality, though, that statement is rather base and unintelligent. As a new media operative, I would’ve expected him to understand the good old fashion words of Marshall McLuhan: The Medium is the Message.

What does not matter is the exact number. But the number matters. The number means something. It means that an effort was made to connect beyond what was expected (i.e., television, newspapers). It means that someone is, at the very least, attempting to relate on some kind of level with the constituents who do largely utilize technology.

Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times

In the GOP’s defense, many of their support do not use the same social networking tools that allowed President Obama (too bad they’re taking his BlackBerry away) to remain connected to voters so naturally, the GOP was unable to utilize these same tools. However, if it was closer looked at, perhaps they would notice they were putting they money in the wrong places. I can’t count on the hairs on my hard how many concerned Mother blogs I’ve come across in the past year.

Citizens and Obama supporters will be disappointed to hear that the same connectivity which they mostly enjoyed from Sen. Obama will be largely put to rest while he remains in Office. Much speculation concerning President Obama becoming the first emailing President has been hushed by his administration due to security threats (& subpoenas).

Ain’t that the shit.

Strudelwahoo.com

1. “Is the troll a person or a figurine?”
       I find that the answer to this is naturally more important than
       anything dealing with the actual encounter.

2. “Happy Holidays, and more importantly, blow me.”
        This is mostly funny and noteworthy because the author is a relative
        and the recipient is a homophobic H&M employee who, obviously,
        knows and cares so much about politics that they still work at H&M.

3. “I wanted to buy you a drink but you nursed your glass of wine all evening.”
     I don’t know if I can be attracted to people who are not up to my
    drinking ability.

4. “Now I don’t feel bad about being treated like a glorified stranger by you.”
     I don’t know that someone can actually be a glorified stranger. I also
     don’t think that anyone would feel salty after reading this, douche.

5. “…get back to me when you’re single, or at least when you’re not an inconsiderate jerk.”
     Because cheating is totally not inconsiderate. You’re 100% right.

Cartoon by Mikhaela B. Reid

Suburbs- Proof that abstinence-only in rich suburban schools doesn’t work.
1. ” Vagina! Vagina! Vagina!”
     Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!

2. “Does that mean you want some P in your V[?]“
    Why wouldn’t it, ambiguous question asker?

3. “I new a squirrel once that called me pookie. I hail from montco. what kind of squirrel am i? “
     I’m going to ignore the absolutely horrific use of language in this
    and say this is a D.A.R.E program subliminal message.

4.  “I really wanted to know what book you were reading.”
    I agree. People are typically less interesting than the books they read.
   From now on I’m going to post Missed Connections for things that people
   carry with them.

5. “i am wondering if there could be a female who is interested in lending me a hand literally. “
     This guy is literal.

CreativeWorkFund.org

Kitundu.com

HOW IT WORKS: Phonoharps amplify the vibrations of the strings via the stylus. He has created fourteen atheistically gorgeous versions of the instrument. They are made from record players and rely on the machine’s sensitivity to vibrations.

Google.com

Last year when I was standing in the Starlight Ballroom for a Ted Leo show, they announced an open invitation to an anarchist bookstore party. I shrugged off the idea, calling it off as ridiculous and  strangely pretentious. It stirs up the same kind of mixed antagonistic feelings that I hear when people talk about vintage clothing and indie vinyl stores. It makes me think of cut-off jeans and green militant cyclists. Something about the way that these things are said, implying some sort of special detachment from mainstream society really pisses me off–as if the action, even the thought, of going to non-corporate store made someone more of something (smarter, faster, better) than I was.
But more and more often I find myself searching elsewhere in the overly saturated world of published literature. Borders and Barnes and Nobles are starting to exhaust their resources of multi-cultural, romantic authors. It seems as if the offerings (excluding non-fiction specialty books) are growing slim. The subjects have been reduced to biracial or class-mixed romantic struggles, disabled “fictional” memoirs about overcoming mainstream society, and dryly humorous pop culture rants that venture a few hundred pages without ever presenting a clear theme other than to point out our own ridiculousness.
The only safe options are already established writers. I’m left with a thin selection of Hemingway novels I haven’t read yet, Kerouac or if I’m feeling

FantasticFiction.co.uk

risky, some several selective chapters from half a dozen Czech or Russian writers. It’s that,  WWII biographies, anything by Jodi Picolt or Nicholas Sparks, poorly written girl series about rich people, or anything stamped with Oprah’s book club logo.
It also seems that books are now the backdrop to whatever chain coffee joint is installed into one of the main entrances. As a coffee junkie this shouldn’t bother me, but it does. It appears to me like the making of a super Walmart of fabricated intellect. Marketers are kicked back watching the American bookstore goer so easily convinced to spend five dollars more on the bookstore. Five for the coffee, fifteen for the book makes for a twenty dollar book. We go into bookstores to buy a book.

With these realizations I also realized that there is a reason there is some kind of holier-than-thou stigma to the word independent, mostly it’s because it is. So I recently began searching them, finding the titles that I actually found interesting for fair prices, finding books that aren’t just some showy parchment covered novella but contain real knowledge and story.

List of Independent Philly Bookstores
Joseph Fox Book Shop (1724 Sansom St)
House of Our Own (3920 Spruce St)
Giovanni’s Room (345 S 12th St, Gay and Lesbian)
Hibberd’s Books (1306 Walnut St, Art and Poetry)

I’ve floated into a couple of bookstores thus far, finding them to contain more titles. Mostly, they do not sacrifice quantity for a convenient appearance, though, many of the stores that I’ve walked into are relatively organized and neat.

With eyes as wide as the gap between awesome and shitty.

I wanted rain and got sunshine….what a pity.

So continue your search for the fourth house of a three house row.

It is as fruitless as trying to scare a Kansas scarecrow,

Or trying to live black in a mansion owned by Jim Crow.

So here I am; a urban dweller at last; with a view of a skyline so vast.

I must come to my senses of jump off this roof fast.

Photograph by Matt Dinan and Zac McGroarty