Current Events

Really, How Hard Is Pimping?

I think need to watch the movie Hustle and Flow, because there must be something about this pimping business that I’m missing. ‘Cause now that it won an Oscar, I keep hearing the song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” and I’m wondering what’s so difficult about it.

See, because my understanding of the pimping profession is this: you get some women. You send them out to have sex. They do all the work. When they come back, you smack them around until they give you all the money. Lather, rinse, repeat. Occasionally, if they don’t give you the money, you get your ho hooked on crack, so they have to keep coming back to you, until eventually they die. Lather, rinse, repeat. Then you put some rims on your car, and get a fuzzy hat. That’s pretty much what I took away from that documentary they did a few years back called “American Pimp.”

Occupational Hazard Chart
Occupational Hazard Chart

What’s hard about that? Maybe it’s tiring being a souless, evil, morally bankrupt waste of space who should have been aborted before birth — but really that just puts you in the same class at George Bush and Pat Robertson, and they seem to get up in the morning just fine.

I can see if someone wrote a song about “It’s Hard Out Here for the Hos.” ‘Cause that is hard. You go out and have sex with skanky, ugly men, get money, go home, get smacked around, get your money taken, find out you have a STD, have sex with more men, get knocked up, have your kids taken away because you’re out having sex with men, get addicted to crack, and eventually die of AIDS. That’s hard. Why not write a rap song about that?

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How to Run A Country

Shamelessly stolen from the comments section at Taking Down Words:

On his trip to Great Britain, George Bush had a meeting with Queen Elizabeth. He asked her, “How does one manage to run a country so smoothly?”
“That`s easy,” she replied, “You surround yourself with intelligent ministers and advisors.”
“But how can I tell whether they are intelligent or not?” he inquired.
“You ask them a riddle,” she replied, and with that she pressed a button and said, “Would you please send Tony Blair in.”
When Blair arrived, the Queen said, “I have a riddle for you to answer for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child?”
Blair replied, “That’s easy. The child was me.”
“Very good,” said the Queen, “You may go, now.”
So President Bush went back to Washington and called in Karl Rove. He said to him, “I have a riddle for you, and the answer is very important. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was this child?”
Rove replied, “Yes, it is clearly very important that we determine the answer, as no child must be left behind. Can I deliberate on this for a while?” “Yes,” said Bush, “I’ll give you four hours to come up with the answer.”
So Rove went and called a meeting of the White House Staff, and asked them the riddle. But after much discussion and many suggestions, none of them had a satisfactory answer. So he was quite upset, not knowing what he would tell the President.
As Rove was walking back to the Oval Office, he saw former Secretary of State Colin Powell approaching him. So he said, “Mr. Secretary, can you answer this riddle for me. Your parents had a child and it was not your sister and it was not your brother. Who was the child?”
“That’s easy,” said Powell, “The child was me.”
“Oh thank you,” said Rove, “You may just have saved me my job!”
So Rove went in to the Oval Office and said to President Bush, “I think I know the answer to your riddle. The child was Colin Powell!”
“No, you idiot!” shouted Bush, “The child was Tony Blair!”

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Credit Card company issues card on torn-up application

Rob Cockerham has been conducting fun experiments for years on his site Cockeyed.com, and I’ve linked to more that a few that were great. Here’s one that’s great and disturbing at the same time…
Rob wondered if a credit card company would accept an application that had been torn up into tiny pieces, and also issued to a different address than where the app had been sent. Of course you would hope that they would balk at that — but nope. They issued him a card. Read the whole experiment; it’s worth the information.
I’m glad I bought that pricy, sturdy cross-cut shredder now. I killed two cheap shredders I had previously, so I finally ponied up the money for a real one.

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Outword Bound Bookstore seeks horse, sheep for Brokeback Mountain video release party

Yup, Outword Bound Bookstore (at 625 North East Street downtown, near Massachusetts avenue) is planning a party for the video release of the film Brokeback Mountain. Here’s an appeal they sent out for some help with the party planning:

We are planning a Brokeback DVD release party for April 3 starting at 9PM. (Call or stop by the store to reserve your copy! 317-951-9100.) So, in order to have an interesting party, we are looking for someone who would let us borrow a horse and a couple of sheep. We also need to find someone(s) who knows how to lasso, willing to let Tammara borrow their rope.

Heck, that sounds like an interesting party. I’d stop by to see what happens. I’m curious to see what Tammara’s going to do with the rope.

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The Soulforce Equality Riders Arrested at Falwell’s “Liberty” University

I mentioned the planned Equality Rides a few weeks ago — modeled after the student “Freedom Riders” of the 1960s who travelled around to centers of intolerance and bigotry, these students are traveling to Universities and military institutions that ban LGBT students. Yesterday, 20 equality ride students were arrested at Jerry Fallwell’s “Liberty” University.

LYNCHBURG, Va. – More than 20 gay rights activists were arrested on trespassing charges Friday as they tried to step onto the campus of Liberty University, the school founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Many of the activists were part of Soulforce, a group on its first stop of a nationwide “Equality Ride” tour to promote gay rights at the nation’s conservative Christian universities and military academies.

Invoking the memory of the civil rights movement, Soulforce member Jacob Reitan said: “We want to come to the school today to say, ‘learn from history.'”
“We have a right to be here, because this school teaches that being gay is being sick and sinful,” said Reitan, co-director of Equality Ride. “We have a right to question and to show how we are children of God.”

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Indianapolis Police are big drama queens about uniform design

According to today’s IndyStar, the newly merged IPD has arrived at a badge design, but is still deciding on what color their new uniforms will be.

Members of a merger subcommittee endorsed a proposed patch design Friday and indicated they are close to agreeing on a new badge for the combined Indianapolis Police and Marion County Sheriff’s departments. Whether the new uniforms will be blue or black, however, is still undecided. The color issue remains a hot topic.
“Officers look at this uniform as a symbol of what they once dreamed of wearing one day,” said Sheriff’s Department Col. John Layton, the subcommittee’s chairman. “They tested and trained for that right all while knowing that they could, if necessary, pay for that right with their lives.”

More drama than even gay men engage in while picking out their wardrobes. I’m sure no matter what color they pick, they’ll look just fabulous.

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e-mail – a tool for good, and for evil

Every once it a while, you get an e-mail that’s so shocking that it could either destroy your soul, or make you a completely better person.
Recently I got blind carbon-copied on an exchange a friend of mine had with “respected activist” Marla Randolph Stevens, a former resident of Indiana and former “political activist” here in the state. If you don’t know her and aren’t politically active on the gay community in Indiana, you won’t care about this at all, so don’t bother clicking through the continued link. But if you do know her, you’ll find the following e-mail enlightening, to say the least. My favorite part is the subject line “Unsolicited and probably unappreciated.” Oh, it’s appreciated more than you’ll ever know, my dear.

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Consumer Reports Study on Hybrid Cars

Stephanie has crunched these numbers in the past and reached basically the same conclusion, although she’d still love to own a Prius. What it really comes down to is that you buy a hybrid because you care about new technologies and the environment rather than just saving money on gas. For those who prioritize value, however, exploring options like these used cars in Montclair offers an affordable way to drive something efficient without the higher cost of a new hybrid. If you’re looking for a high-quality unit with a competitive rate, check out the used cars in San Diego.

Consumer Reports Sizes Up Hybrid Costs
Savings at Pump Don’t Offset Higher Purchase Price
For consumers who believe that gas/electric hybrid vehicles will save them money, the picture hasn’t been so clear. Hybrid vehicles are more fuel efficient and produce lower emissions than conventional gasoline-only vehicles.
Most current models of hybrids also score well in Consumer Reports’ testing and are highly rated in CR’s annual reliability and owner satisfaction surveys. But do hybrid vehicles really hold the potential to save the consumer money over the long haul?
To find the answer, Consumer Reports looked at all of the major ownership costs and financial benefits of six different hybrid vehicles — a mix of sedans and sport-utility vehicles (SUVs).
In Consumer Reports’ analysis, none of the six hybrids tested recovered its price premium in the first five years and 75,000 miles of ownership. In fact, the extra ownership costs over five years for those vehicles ranged from $3,700 to $13,300.
Even when the analysis was extended to a period of 10 years and 150,000 miles, it was not possible to recover the price premium for a hybrid vehicle.

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