I’m never going to be able to move and/or have children
I really love living in the New York metro area, but it’s so expensive here. I have lived in much cheaper places and loved it (Montreal, how I miss thee!), but this is always going to be my home. I would love to be able to live somewhere else for a while, not only to give my wallet a bit of a break, but also because I like to experience new people and places. The South seems like a worthwhile region to consider, since it’s cheap and I have a lot of relatives there, but it’s stories like this one that make me believe that maybe I’m better off staying here and paying the Northeast Premium.
Why would a middle school arrange the student elections so that only students of certain races can hold office? What student government positions are available to those children who are neither white nor black? How could anybody think that this would be okay? This is why people still find it okay to make jokes about Mississippi.
As somebody on Gawker pointed out, it’s good to see that the school practices what it preaches (scroll down)…
This is not what people mean when they talk about “family togetherness”
It’s not a good idea for parents to get arrested at the same police checkpoint that ensnared their teenaged child. I’m pretty sure that this will never be included in one of those “family fun times” brochure.
Any idiot with Microsoft Word and five minutes can make a poster
For Pete’s sake
Silly senators. The Supreme Court justice nomination process generally goes better when the substance of your criticism is about the person being confirmed. Jeez.
Because I’m so big on apologies
Joe Barton would like to apologize. Since, you know, the GOP made him apologize for the apology that he issued to BP.
Remember kids: pandering will only get you so far.
Friend abuse or alcohol abuse? It’s too close to call…
I haven’t had a Smirnoff Ice since the early 2000′s. I’d feel ashamed to admit that, but I’m sure that at some point we’ve all drunk something that we’d just as soon forget. In my defense, I was young and stupid, and SI looked really cool after you threw in a Skittle or two.
But I’m wondering what excuse people have now for this Icing thing I read about on Gothamist. (I really want to make a “young people” joke, but I’m pretty sure that most Gothamist people are my contemporaries.) The New York Times regards it as a form of viral marketing, which it certainly could be, but why would you do this? Smirnoff Ice stuff is vile. Its color-changing properties are the beginning and end of its awesomeness. My advice for summer get-togethers: save your friendships and buy some better alcohol (which you should still not force one another to consume).
Some things should just go without saying
It’s never a good idea to tattoo a toddler, especially if that toddler isn’t even your child.
You were born in Puerto Rico. Your existence is invalid.
“Y is a fact, [so] your x is invalid,” is only funny when y = something silly and x = your argument. Then we’re talking about the meme most likely to crack me up. Infinitely less hilarious is when y = you were born in Puerto Rico and x = your birth certificate. Then we’re talking about millions of people being utterly screwed.
The problem is that Puerto Rican birth certificates are somehow extra ripe for being spoofed, forged, and otherwise used for nefarious purposes. The US State Department and Department of Homeland Security estimate that around 40% of forged US passports were obtained using birth certificates from Puerto Rico. That’s obviously a very serious and scary thing. The government’s solution, though, seems particularly ham-fisted: they’re simply going to invalidate any Puerto Rican birth certificate issued before July 1, 2010.
From my reading of the article, it seems that a large part of the problem is the way that birth certificates are passed along to and for in Puerto Rican society. From the end of the article:
Only 45,622 children were born in Puerto Rico in 2008, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. But more than 860,000 certified copies of birth certificates were issued by the Puerto Rican Office of Vital Statistics the same year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
That is an insane discrepancy between people born and birth certificate copies issued. Over the course of a lifetime, so many people in Puerto Rico request extra copies of their own and their children’s birth certificates, and really have no idea where the extras are now. Of course unscrupulous people are using Puerto Rican birth certificates; well-meaning citizens have made things easy for them by having so many extra copies of real birth certificates floating around. If that doesn’t change, will the goverment’s new measures make any difference in the long run?
Let it go, you lost
Dear Bob McDonnell,
If you would stop bending over backwards to commemorate a violent, racist legacy that has been tirelessly whitewashed (yeah, I said it) and romanticized, you wouldn’t have to apologize for omitting any related mention of slavery.
You’re welcome.
**
I googled Confederacy links to include in this post, but many of them made me want to vomit, weep, or perhaps vomit while weeping, so I’ll just skip those today.
Please help keep me in books and yarn* – Permanent for now
I know that this isn’t about me at all, but I feel that a little selfishness is allowed, as I will be directly affected if Governor Christie’s proposed budget is passed. As it stands, this budget would cut 74% of New Jersey library funding. By any accounting, that is an insane amount of money, even though the $10 million in library programs cut from the Governor’s budget represents little more than $1 per person in state funds.
What you can do:
- Become a NJ library champion
- Become a BCCLS (Bergen County) library champion
- Contact your legislators online (scroll down)
- Send a letter to your legislators Related: Find out who your legislators are
- Who doesn’t like a good rally? Join the May 6 rally for libraries in sexy Trenton, NJ
- Join the “Save New Jersey Libraries” Facebook Group. This is one of the most visible and least useful ways to support something, so make sure you do at least one or two of the other things, as well.
* Those are my vices, although I will admit that they’re not nearly as exciting as hookers and blow.