News you Really Don't Expect to See

From ThinkProgress: Pentagon University Elects First Openly Gay Student President

For the first time, a Defense Department university has elected an openly gay student council president.

The student body of Uniformed Services University (USU), which includes uniformed personnel in the armed forces, this week voted for Patrick High to represent graduate students at the school. High served nine years in the Illinois Army National Guard and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at USU.

His election “is just the latest in a series of signs that those serving in our armed forces are ready to welcome openly gay colleagues,” said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

CD, Baby

Air Guitar

I'm off to work in a minute; read-throughs start today. Book goes to press on the 6th of September. Two weeks of snappy people (me included) ahead. Okay.

On the 20th or thereabouts, Christine and I are flying to San Francisco—then to Sydney. Damn. All I want is a long beach and to see wild kangaroos. That's all I'm asking.

Things I noticed...

Hey Joe, where you going with that primary in your hand.

"They have sound all over them..." New Dylan sounds like old Dylan.

Mexican fishermen ate raw catch, prayed, played air guitar

Kangaroos get the pill. (See you in September!)

The tents now cover a 12-kilometer (7.5 - mile) stretch of Paseo de la Reforma...

Things That Deserve a "War on…"

This is the kind of thing that should scare the hell out of everybody:

Even though the average American has more years of education than when Miller began his surveys 20 years ago, the percentage of people in the country who accept the idea of evolution has declined from 45 in 1985 to 40 in 2005.

Can we get a "War on Stupid" now?

The Other Twins

"Two fully functional penes is unheard of even in medical literature. In the more common form of diphallus, one organ is rudimentary," the newspaper quoted a surgeon as saying.

You're probably thinking the same thing I thought: the plural of "penis" is "penes"? Who knew? All these years it's "penises". Boy, have I got a lot of correcting to do.

Bottomfeeders To The People

You can hear songs from my CD Bottomfeeders at Pure Volume, or over at PodSafe, or at the now ubiquitous to the point of annoying MySpace. Recommended track: I Can't Wait to Do a Tracheotomy. A love song.

Then, because you have a deep appreciation for artists whose works expresses feelings so fundamental that you blah blah fucking blah.

You can buy Bottomfeeders at CDBaby for $12.97. They're a good company, lots of great music over there, and they're very good to us musicians.

THE AMAZING PLAYERS ON THE CD:

Tom Freeman: producer, engineer; drums, other percussion (Freeman Sound Studio, Ashland)

Jeff Addicott, Karl Mansfield, and Peter Falbo: bass

Theresa McCoy: percussion

Bob Evonuik: dobro, vocals

Frank Sullivan: pedal steel (Sullivan Recording, Talent, Or.)

Brent Norton: electric guitar, vocals

Dennis Freese: woodwinds, vocals

Paul Jenny: trumpet, vocals

Emy Phelps: vocals

Sean McCoy: engineer (Oregon Sound, Medford, Oregon)

Little Thom: acoustic guitar, vocals

Bat Boy

I want to do learn how to do this.

Fourteen-year-old Ben Underwood of Sacramento, Calif., is one of the few people known to use echolocation as a primary means of navigating the world on land. There's not even a hint of light reaching his brain. His eyes are artificial, but his brain has adapted to allow him to appraise his environment. He makes a "clicking" sound to communicate with objects and people around him.

Crunchtime

Deep in deadline mania here and will be until the first week of September. Ouch. I'll be putting up small bits of strange news in the meantime.

Like this:

MUMBAI, India - A new restaurant in India’s financial hub, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas, has infuriated the country’s small Jewish community.

Hitler’s Cross, which opened last week, serves up a wide range of continental fare and a big helping of controversy, thanks to a name the owners say they chose to stand out among hundreds of Mumbai eateries.

“We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people’s minds,” owner Punit Shablok told Reuters.

Pulp Non-Fiction

Holy crap somebody made the 9/11 Commsion Report into a comic book.