Just spent a fine hour reminiscing with Jon about our dear alma mater, Stutts University.

I
remember thinking I might spend my entire sophomore year wandering the
hallowed halls (and hollowed walls) of beloved Harriman.  Fortunately, it was only a week,
and thanks to a small vent in what I later learned was the south wall,
there was a supply of fresh air.

It’s not on my resume anymore,
but at one point I was head mimeographer for Look Out, the campus
juggling journal, in the years before we realized our limitations and
became the Dropping Things from a Great Height Society.  How I miss
those days.  We made some fabulous loud noises.

Unfortunately, one of our old schoolmates has just written a bitter diatribe against beloved Stutt.

Under no circumstances should you click that link.  None.

60 Minutes last night.  Bush muzzling scientists when the science contradicts his worldview. (The link also leads to the video if you missed it.  Worth a look.)

Not much different from the handling of pre-war intelligence, incidentally.

On a related note, good thoughts to the folks in Queensland who just got Katrinaed.  I don’t know anybody there myself, but we’ve got enough Aussie readers that somebody might have family.  My best wishes to you.

I live in a neighborhood with lots of Iranian immigrants,
so I’ve developed a mental habit of assigning anything that
seems odd to my Ohio-kid eyes to some custom I don’t yet fully
understand.

This is how it’s possible to be an elevator with two
people carrying goldfish in plastic bags, and simply think to yourself,
amused and curious, “oh — must be something for New Year’s.”

Yep.  First day of spring.  As I understand it, this is sort of like American New Year’s Day and Thanksgiving rolled into one.  Lots of family and food and hope for the coming year.

So, since I
know of at least a few people originally from Iran who visit this site: eid-eh shoma mubarak, wa sad saal be in saalha.  I hope you
party like it’s 1385.

Busy times in puduland.  A few plugs:

Scott Bateman, a terrific cartoonist friend, has a new magazine/chapbook/buncha damn words called Unruly.  I just got it in the mail, and it’s a dark riot.  I’ve chipped in a bit, and you’ll also find stuff from Scott, Paul Scheer, and a bunch of other wicked fun folks.

Proud to be a Liberal, a new collection from Ig Publishing, features rabble-rousing essays from Eric Altermann, Will Durst, Ted Rall, Tom Tomorrow, Matt Iglesias, and a bunch of others.  I’m in there somewhere, too.

I just wrote a forward to Revelations, a collection of the six-issue series from Dark Horse Comics.  It’s a pretty cool book, so it was easy to praise.

Incidentally, the long-threatened original comic series now has an artist attached whom I really like.  So that’s finally about to go forward. 

Also, the book I’ve been working on has passed the copyediting stage and will be published in the fall.  More on that coming.  Way more.  The first blurbs are in, and I’m happy to say that so far, it appears not to suck much.

Finally — and I am not making this up — I have been asked by professors at Harvard and Cornell to contribute the “Historiography: African American” entry in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of African Thought, to be published by Routledge in 2008.

How this happened I have no idea.  I assume it is a case of mistaken identity, but they contacted me through this very website.  This is fabulous.  I don’t even know what “historiography” means.  How they came to think I am African — much less whether I can be accused of “thought” — I have no idea.  I will have to find a way to break the news to Harvard and Cornell.

Oh, and Tom Tomorrow’s new book (there he is again) is on the right.  I still guest-blog over at TMW,
and I was a huge fan for years before I was lucky enough to become a
friend and then (I still think this is cool as hell) the voice of
Sparky the penguin.  Book is good.  You will enjoy.

Plug-O-Rama concluded.

From deviantArt.com.