Not so springy

It is snowing outside. It's April 10 and it's snowing.

Musings on prophets

It's been a week of death remembrances. Last Friday, April 4, was the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. 63 years ago today Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed. Both were 39 when they were murdered. Both pushed their fellow human beings, often their fellow Christians, to higher standards yet knew that they, too, were flawed.

It was messages like the below that got both into trouble. Bonhoeffer -- fighting for peace, human rights and the overthrow of Hitler; King -- fighting first for civil rights and then to eliminate poverty and end the Vietnam war. We love the prophets when they're speaking truth to others. When they speak truth to us we kill them.

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, from a sermon on II Cor. 12:9

Product recall

Do you have any pot pies at home? You need to listen to this.


Hungry FDA Official Orders Massive Pot Pie Recall

Coolicious!

Idealist is like candy! Designers post things like this dog bone phone . You can vote "yes" or "no." I want this phone. Mostly because the ad has a Sophie dog.

Via Technomarketer on Twitter.

Substitute "Sophie" and it's right on

I hope this Mutts comic will be available as a print. Substitute "Sophie" and it's exactly how I feel.

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Tears of joy, Wayans is back

I've been mourning the loss of In Living Color since it stopped running in the mid '90s. It was the funniest show on television, past or present. Period. You'd laugh while feeling like you were a really bad person by laughing and then laugh harder.

Ad Age ran a story on Damon Wayans' new site, Way Out TV. Ah, the return of the biting, no-one-is-safe humor. Brilliant!

Warning: the sketches may offend.

:`)
blotting my tears of joy

Where did this put-down come from?

I really like using the put-down, "commie pinko spy." Although it has much less oomph than in the past. Any idea where it comes from? I checked Wikipedia and Google. Nada, nichts, zip.

Groovy bandages

You can buy these on Fred Flare. I love them.

I knew it!

From this week's The Onion.

Study: 93% Of People Talked About Once They Leave Room

LOGAN, UT—According to an alarming new study published Monday in the American Journal Of Sociology, the vast majority of Americans are critically discussed after leaving a room occupied by two or more additional people.

The groundbreaking research contradicts decades of previous inquiries into the area, including dozens of informal surveys in which respondents adamantly denied ever having talked behind others' backs. More

Ah, passive aggressiveness. Such fun. I swear, Minnesota has got to be passive aggressive capital of the world.

New tattoo ideas!

Kelsey told me about this story. Father and son forehead tattoos! One says, "Get-R-Done," and the other says, "Pyscho." Check it out. The son also has words tattooed on his eyelids.

Via BoingBoing (from The Smoking Gun).

**The Smoking Gun has a RSS feed!

R.E.M. -- a great way to start a Monday

R.E.M.'s full concert at SXSW is at www.npr.org/music. An hour and a half of listening pleasure. Includes songs from their upcoming CD, Accelerate.

I've seen them in concert twice. Each time, brilliant.

Not about basketball

Interesting this is. Via Seth Godin's blog.

Fun words that start with the letter G

Disclaimer: These are violent and/or mean. I'm generally nice and a pacifist. But I talk big.

• Gut -- slang for stomach; e.g., "I'd like to punch you in the gut."
• Gob -- slang for mouth; e.g., "Shut your gob."
• Git -- slang for incompetent person; e.g., "Pull over for that ambulance you stupid git."
  

Sign offs

I love the way that John Hodgman ends his blog posts on Good Evening -- "That is all."

In some of my personal e-mails I've taken to signing off with "Over and out."

More boo on Bush

From a recent monologue on A Prairie Home Companion:

Moral disapproval is a powerful stimulant to many people. The president is reponsible for the longevity for many, many Americans.

Dreary day brightened

It's snowing today. Argh. Spring teased us for a few days. Oh well, at least the new snow is covering up the dirty snow.

I found A Beautiful Revolution blog via a blog that linked to a blog that linked to another blog. The perfect site to offset the it's-still-winter blues. Warning. Some of the drawings aren't G rated.

I couldn't resist the coin purse

I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts with the Rigtenzins on Sunday. There is currently a great Arts of Japan exhibit. The kimonos are gorgeous. I could stare at them for hours. The Design Concepts exhibit was very fun but entirely too small. I love that kind of stuff.

On the way out we stopped in the museum shop. I couldn't resist this coin purse. Boston Terriers ueber Alles!

Just plain cool

Advertising Age now runs a weekly video run down of the best work on Creativity-Online.com. It's a beautiful thing.

See this week's ads and a top 5 commentary. My personal favorite is this Thai ad.

Movie reviews

Three kiss-of-death phrases in movie advertisements.

1. A romp!
2. The feel-good hit of the [insert name of season here]
3. Phrases with ellipsis, e.g., "Taut thriller ... superior ..."; "Romantic farce ... giddy comic exuberance ... "
   

Russian Monday Morning

A couple of laughs from Russia.

This joke is going around Russia:
Vladimir Putin and Russia's new president, Dimitry Medvedev, are at a restaurant. The waitperson comes to the table and asks Putin what he would like. "A steak." The wait person says, "And the vegetable?" Putin says, "He'll have a steak, too."

And, caught on a cell phone video,
A tank stops at a liquor store to buy vodka. Then the tank crashes into a house. (This one is also sad.)