Snark Dump, Vol I

So for the past forever I have been doing the thing where I skim through Google Reader or Twitter (omg follow me) racking up tabs like cigarette butts during finals season intending to a) read and b) write about them at some point in my rapidly shortening life, and never doing either, so I'm trying out a new and largely despised genre: link-dumping. It's rightly despised in every case except mine, because I actually do subscribe to every single blog on the internet and read more interesting things than you do, so suck it up and enjoy.

EVIL LAUGH: UR DOIN IT WRONG

But then it is Crazy Mickey we're dealing with here.

DOLEFUL GERMAN PROVERBS AS A WAY OF KNOWING

"Wehe dem Kind, das beim Kuß auf die Stirn salzig schmekt, er ist verhext und muss bald sterbe," translated is "Woe is the child who tastes salty from a kiss on the brow, for he is cursed, and soon must die," referring to a common cystic fibrosis symptom, salty tasting skin. This saying predates serious medical documentation of CF by well over a hundred years.

CONSISTENCY IS THE HOBGOBLIN OF EXPATRIATE JOURNALISM

Two headlines published in the St Petersburg Times on the same day (22 Feb 2011):

"EXPATS, FOREIGN QUALIFICATIONS STILL IN DEMAND"

"FOREIGN WORKERS NOT WELCOME"

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT ALL THE CHURCH APP MADNESS HAD DIED DOWN

The Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America to the rescue!

"The app—available free of charge in the App Store and on iTunes—incorporates a wide range of features, including daily scripture readings, photo and video galleries, Armenian spiritual and folk music, a calendar of events, a directory of Diocesan parishes, a prayer request function, and much more. Log on to post a comment, share an image with friends, or read the latest news from the Eastern Diocese."

A VERY MERRY UNBIRTHDAY TO ME

Monday was Rare Disease Day. Do not celebrate by looking at photos of quinsy on the internet. Definitely do not celebrate by watching videos of tonsillectomies on Youtube, and for the love of all that is good and pure in this world do not look at photos of recovering tonsillectomy patients either (you're lucky I love you all so much; the photos I've been taking of my own throat to monitor recovery/figure out when I can smoke again are much more detailed and graphic than anything I've found online).

YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS LIKE IT'S A THING

Promoting "depression awareness" by wearing capes in April. In related news, I've actually been promoting lupus awareness by accessorizing like a gypsy for the past six years.

DICHOTOMY: NIETZSCHE/CHARLIE SHEEN

WENDELL BERRY'S LETTERBOX IS CLOGGED WITH ANONYMOUS LOVE LETTERS FROM THOM YORKE

"I heard that fucking Radiohead record and I just go, 'What?!'... Them writing a song about a fucking tree? Give me a fucking break! A thousand year old tree? Go fuck yourself! You'd have thought he'd have written a song about a modern tree or one that was planted last week. You know what I mean?" 

- Liam Gallagher of Oasis

THIS, YOU CALL PROGRESS?

This is a Camel billboard in 1941 that continuously produced five-foot-wide smoke rings:

This is a 1964 version:

In 2010, this is all that remains:

"WHY IS EVERYTHING TERRIBLE ALL THE TIME?" "BECAUSE WE'RE CONSERVATIVES."

Catholic anarchist Monsignor Ivan Illich is deliciously sharp-tongued in this 1968 speech "To Hell with Good Intentions" delivered at the Conference on Inter-American Student Projects. Would that we might listen to such realist wet-blanketry today (says the girl who briefly considered applying to the Peace Corps hoping for placement in Armenia or Bulgaria).

"And finally, in Latin America the Alliance for Progress has been quite successful in increasing the number of people who could not be better off - meaning the tiny, middle-class elites - and has created ideal conditions for military dictatorships. The dictators were formerly at the service of the plantation owners, but now they protect the new industrial complexes. And finally, you come to help the underdog accept his destiny within this process!

All you will do in a Mexican village is create disorder. At best, you can try to convince Mexican girls that they should marry a young man who is self-made, rich, a consumer, and as disrespectful of tradition as one of you. At worst, in your "community development" spirit you might create just enough problems to get someone shot after your vacation ends...

If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those to whom you speak. And you will know when you fail. If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are so linguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you....

I am here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce exercising the power which being an American gives you. I am here to entreat you to freely, consciously and humbly give up the legal right you have to impose your benevolence on Mexico. I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and your incapacity to do the 'good' which you intended to do."

BUT WAIT, THERE WAS NO TOM WAITS IN THIS POST

WRONG: As of February 24th, "Tom is currently in the studio working on his next album." It's worth holding on for a few more months after all.