The most brilliant fundraising scheme EVER.
This is really, really a fantastic idea:

"Several Planned Parenthood locations across the country have hit upon a clever way to profit from the throngs of protesters who picket abortion clinics -- a fundraising drive in which the clinic receives a donation for each picketer who shows up. Under the Pledge-a-Picket program, as described in a recent article in the Planned Parenthood newsletter, supporters pledge small amounts -- a quarter to a dollar -- per anti-choice protester. 'It's like sponsoring a runner in a charity marathon,' the newsletter says. Despite the small pledges, the money adds up for the clinics because 'the picketers never go away.'

The idea is that the Pledge-a-Picket program creates a 'no-win' situation (or is it 'no-choice'?) for the protesters: Their presence actually benefits the very organization they're protesting. The Planned Parenthood clinic in Waco, Texas, has hung a sign outside that constantly updates how much money it has raised under the program, so picketers can see that their efforts are backfiring. In the last two years, the protesters have helped the clinic raise more than $18,000, which the clinic has spent on an assistance fund for low-income women in the community. "

Pro-choice jujitsu [via Salon]
- posted by liz @ 12/23/2004 10:02:00 AM 0 comments

 
Censored Portrait of US President George W. Bush on NY Billboard


"NEW YORK.- A portrait of US President George W. Bush using monkeys to form his image by artist Chris Savido is projected on a billboard with an added 'Censored in NY' banner, 22 December, 2004, near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel in New York. 'Bush Monkeys', a small acrylic on canvas, was banned from a New York art show last week as managers of the Chelsea Market public space closed down the 60-piece group show after seeing the painting. Anonymous doners had paid for the picture to be posed on a giant digital billboard and the original will be auctioned on eBay, with proceeds donated to parents of US soldiers trying to supply them with body armor in Iraq."

Artdaily.com - The First Art Newspaper on the Net
- posted by liz @ 12/23/2004 09:57:00 AM 0 comments

 
The Surrealist Compliment of the day:
"The Green Paint on the Walls Clouds my Thoughts of Flying Planks of Wood, Much Like the Elephant Impaled on the Hood of a Lincoln Town Car. Blood Covers One, Paint the Other, and Love Covers You. "

just keep refreshing the page...

The Surrealist Compliment Generator
- posted by liz @ 12/22/2004 03:23:00 PM 0 comments

 
Gmail - I love it.
My friend just got his very first Gmail account, thanks in no small part (I'd like to believe) to my incessant rhapsodizing about the wonder that is Gmail. His new email address is not, however, hugecock69@gmail.com. He informed me that it was already taken. Just thought I'd put that out there.
- posted by liz @ 12/20/2004 02:46:00 PM 0 comments

 
Yeah, now HERE'S your moment of Zen...
Courtesy of Gawker: "You can count the number of articles in which Bonnie Fuller and Eric Alterman are both quoted on one hand. But, then, there are few subjects for which the world (minus Tucker Carlson) are unanimous: Jon Stewart is awesome. So, so awesome!
The fake news anchor, best selling author, and co-star of the underrated Playing By Heart, can add another award to his overstuffed shelf: 'I Want Media' 'Media Person of the Year 2004.' "

who needs puppies when there's Jon Stewart?

- posted by liz @ 12/20/2004 09:32:00 AM 0 comments

 
Heh. This made my day:
Low Culture's "Exclusive Excerpt from the New Osama bin Laden Tape"

If it is not too unseemly for a man of my wealth and abundant religious and intellectual gifts to complain, I must say that the hardest part of being on the run in the mountains of Tora Bora is how often I miss my favorite infidel television program, The O.C.
Why are you laughing? Who says that a righteous man, a man who seeks to break the back of the American Satan, cannot enjoy a few laughs once in a while, a little eye candy? I work 24 hours a day to destroy America and the secularist lambs that follow it like, well, like lambs. Can I not take one hour a week to bask in the comforting Southern California glow of The O.C.? Can I not spend a little Osama time in the land of perpetual summer time?

low culture
- posted by liz @ 12/17/2004 10:25:00 AM 0 comments

 
my favorite person of the year:
(out of Rolling Stone's people of the year....)




- posted by liz @ 12/16/2004 01:59:00 PM 0 comments

 
Obsession of the day: BOOKFORUM | dec/jan 2005


Michael Gibbons makes me want to be a writer who writes about writers. Anyone who has never attempted it needs to get their hands on a copy of Saurraute's Tropisms and have a go at it. Now. It's beautiful, simple, brilliant, necessary. See? Look here:

"The daring on display in everything she wrote, her cerebral rigor as both novelist and playwright, and the crystalline austerity of her prose style collectively imparted the forbidding aura of a remote, trenchant intelligence"

and this:

"Though she's characteristically vague about the specifics, there's no reason to doubt that she began writing Tropisms under the sway of genuine feeling. But the assurance and nearly Olympian sangfroid of the prose reveal such emotion submitted to a meticulous process of metamorphosis."

Sounds good, right? It is. And it is so different from anything you've ever read before. And it will make you look cool and sound cool, when you can make casual references to your personal affinity for the nouveau roman....which is the most important part, no?

BOOKFORUM | dec/jan 2005
- posted by liz @ 12/15/2004 01:13:00 PM 0 comments

 
Hm. In theory. Sort of like....communism?
Michael Ignatieff writes in this weekend's NYT Magazine:

...the recent sight of tens of thousands of people out in the freezing streets of Kiev, night after night, reminded jaded democrats everywhere that democracy is the one political system that says to every individual: you matter and your vote matters. So bad leaders can't treat democrats like fools and expect to get away with it.

But then the best short paragraph ever (which I am posting so that I can personally refer to it over and OVER):

The president's faith that God is on the side of freedom and democracy may be one reason that he has been so casual about detail and was so astoundingly assured in claiming ''mission accomplished'' in Iraq when the mission had barely begun. Another question mark over the administration's commitment to democracy abroad is its attitude toward democracy at home. Democracy is something more than red-state majority rule. The democratic faith also requires respect for the judiciary, deference to constitutional separation of powers, decent respect for the opinions of mankind, not to mention democratically ratified treaty law like the Geneva Conventions and, last but not least, the humility that goes with knowing that you serve the people, not a providential design that only you and other true believers can understand.

Democratic Providentialism [NYT]
- posted by liz @ 12/12/2004 11:16:00 PM 0 comments

 
See? I'm not the only one who wants to bone Spitzer.
And Maccers explains the weird attraction better than I did...

"I don't know why I love him but I do. I can't help getting more than a little worked up about our Mr Spitzer. In a carnal way. More so than I ever could about Clinton. He's not as cute or as chrasmatic or as likeable but there is something that man that sucks me in. I've actually met him, once, very briefly, and he's not the kind of guy that can guess the colour of your knickers just by looking into your eyes. It's not that. And there is more than a hint of sexual perversion about him. "
- posted by liz @ 12/09/2004 05:35:00 PM 0 comments

 
Reason #643 to move to Canada, or "Why Canada is still smarter than the U.S."
"Canada's Supreme Court ruled that the federal government can proceed with a plan to legalize same-sex marriage, saying the rights of gays and lesbians to formalize their bonds is protected by the constitution.

``Canada is a pluralistic society,'' the Supreme Court said in the ruling, which was released in Ottawa. ``Marriage from the perspective of the state is a civil institution.'' "

Bloomberg.com: Canada
- posted by liz @ 12/09/2004 11:35:00 AM 0 comments

 
OH MY GOD onmygodohmygodohmyojgd;mgmlsd;,
Curbed has this to say (and let me tell you, my whole goddamn day has been made),"Jelly Doughnut Phenomenon Sweeps Lower East Side--Brace yourself: the biggest issue of the day is jelly doughnuts. We're not talking Krispy Kreme (dude, so played) but rather a special crop of square jelly doughnuts made only this time of year by Doughnut Plant, a bakery deep on the Lower East Side. Charting the Doughnut Plant jelly doughnut meme:"

AND THEN, if the mere statement wasn't enough, this OTHER blog-person goes an posts a freaking amAZIng photo, that makes me want to cry, and then take a cab down to the doughnut plant, as I've just decided, there's really no choice in the matter-- THIS WILL BE MY LUNCH (ahem, you'll probably have to scroll down for the gigantic photo):



Is that not the most appetizing thing you have EVER seen in your entire life? And when you get doughnuts at The Doughnut Plant, THEY ARE WARM. THEY ARE FRESH. I. am. DYING right now. Fucking dying. I love jelly doughnuts more than well, nearly everything. I LOVE them. I'm telling you, it's not just a crush. And though, I have a longstanding relationship with the Dunkin' Donuts jelly-filled munchkin, I'm willing to cheat. And this affair is going to be so, so very worth it...
- posted by liz @ 12/08/2004 01:41:00 PM 1 comments

 
NY Mag asks Thelma Golden to Spend $84,727.50


Thelma Golden is one of my role models. Ok, so it's more like an icon/worship thing. Sue me. She is brilliant, gorgeous, curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, and most importantly, a fellow Smithie. Oh, and classy too:

"I resist the temptation to curate my apartment. I can't live with art: I'd spend too much time tweaking it. I'm constantly making exhibitions in my head. What I would buy is a fabulous sheared mink J. Mendel coat ($19,500) to make the New York winter bearable, and an Eric Gaskins evening dress ($2,500)."

How Would Thelma Golden Spend $84,727.50?
- posted by liz @ 12/07/2004 03:10:00 PM 0 comments

 
Politics interesting again for the first time in over a month!
"Spitzer, the 45-year-old Harvard Law School-educated son of a millionaire New York City developer, already has the backing of a host of top New York Democrats, including former Gov. Mario Cuomo and state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
The announcement comes just two days before the Spitzer 2006 campaign committee stages a $1,000-a-person fund-raising lunch in Manhattan with actress Renee Zellweger aimed at raising more than $2 million to add to the $5.5 million it already has.
Last year, Spitzer was named one of New York magazine's '50 Sexiest New Yorkers.' "

Spitzer is hot.

ABC News: Spitzer to Run for Governor in New York
- posted by liz @ 12/07/2004 11:41:00 AM 0 comments

 
I, on the other hand, am a non-practicing lesbian.
tomayto tomahto... these methodists suck.

"The Rev. Irene Elizabeth Stroud was ordered to surrender her ministerial license Thursday for 'engaging in practices declared by the United Methodist Church to be incompatible with Christian teachings' because she is a practicing lesbian."

United Methodists defrock lesbian minister - (United Press International)
- posted by liz @ 12/03/2004 05:51:00 PM 1 comments