This 1950’s comic book advertisement is pretty much my life after May 1, 1999, the day I first took the accordion out on the streets:
I’m pretty sure that “no cost” promise is akin to the old “9 albums for a penny” offer from Columbia House. It doesn’t matter — the accordion is a worthwhile investment!
Thanks to Natalie Brahan for the find!
Kill nine people in an attempt to start a race war but you’re white and hungry? That’s okay, we’ll get you some Burger King. That’s what the #CrimingWhileWhite hashtag is for!
#CrimingWhileWhite means that when your story gets featured in the news, you’re written up more sympathetically as white a killer of nine than a black savior of one:
This is the problem with the American media. Stay woke. pic.twitter.com/q1uWgcocLV
— Rashad Alaiyan (@rashadalaiyan) June 21, 2015
If you’re white, the media looks for your graduation photo. If not, they look for your most gangsta one:
This makes the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown so powerful. It's sad that some people have taken it to another level. pic.twitter.com/oZnLDRRDhN
— Super Sayian 4 (@SvmmieArnold) August 11, 2014
Walking while brown? That’s a ground-slammin’:
Here’s Mr. Patel recovering in the hospital after the incident: 
In case you were wondering, the trial of Eric Parker, former (thankfully) police officer, was delayed for a few months because a crucial witness is out of state until September. Carry your loaded AR-15 while white through an airport, largely to be a dick about it? You’ll get some reasonable questioning, and you’ll live to complain about it: 
I strongly recommend not doing this if you’re any other color:
Not even with a pellet gun: 
Crime is cuter when you’re white:
Awww. Aren’t white criminals just adorable? #CrimingWhileWhite pic.twitter.com/9ihypSeDfc
— JRehling (@JRehling) January 16, 2015
What does a mall cop do when an angry racist white guy threatens a bunch of pro-Palestine marchers and a black guy who’s just trying to get to his destination? Hey, why tell you when I can show you?
Raymond Wilford — he’s the black guy — took a defensive stance, but never threw a punch.
Ah, good, a mall cop! Now we’ll see some justice served.
You go, Paul Blart!
Wait, what?
Oh, sheeeeeeeit.
Here’s video shot by Alex Garland:
The shirtless white guy was never apprehended or even identified. Stuart Hind, the mall cop who maced the wrong guy got off with no charges. And Raymond Wilford will just have to deal with it.
I don’t think the cops would’ve offered Dajerria Becton — she’s the 15-year-old girl who got thrown to the ground and pinned there by (thankfully) ex-police officer Eric Casebolt at the now-infamous pool party in McKinney, Texas — some Burger King? I have my doubts.
You white kids go have your fun #CrimingWhileWhite. I’m going to go brush up on the advice in the videos below…
An ultralight pilot had to cut his flight short when he found that his flying club’s cat mascot had stowed away in the wing. It’s all captured in the video above, titled Remove Cat Before Flight.
The flight starts out as expected: smooth takeoff and a climb to altitude…
…and that’s when a little head appears in the hollow space inside the ultralight’s left wing:
The cat moves closer to the cabin…
…and that’s when the pilot discovers that he has a stowaway.
He quickly comes in for a landing…
…hops out of his seat…
…reaches to extract the cat…
…but it turns out that the cat is quite capable of freeing himself.
The caption for the video reads: “Pour info le chat va très bien, il continue avec application son rôle de mascotte du club”, which translates as “FYI, that cat’s fine, he remains the club’s mascot.”
I inherited a lot of Dad’s qualities. He loved to speak in public, work the room, tell jokes and stories, and hold court. He was driven to set things right and make things better. He loved helping people. And most of all, he loved putting the “Asian” in “Rabelaisian”. He was Dr. Guillermo O’Hara de Villa, Jr., he was my Dad, and I owe what I am to him. He passed away in 2006, but he’s still with us in spirit.
Happy father’s day, Dad.
I don’t have this problem with rice, because I measure that stuff.
Christopher Lee’s many villain roles: Count Dooku and Saruman (top row), and Scaramanga and Lord Summerisle from The Wicker Man (bottow row).
R.I.P. Christopher Lee, wonderfully evil movie villain, who recently died at the age of 93. You younger folks know him as Count Dooku from Star Wars: The Lesser Trilogy and Saruman from the Lord of the Rings films (he’s the only LOTR cast member to have actually met Tolkien), but he’s been a movie villain for far longer. He played characters like Dracula and Fu Manchu long before the age of CGI, and you should check him out as a superfluously-nippled Bond villain Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (which was referenced in the Kamp Krusty Simpsons episode) and virgin-sacrificing pagan in The Wicker Man, which he considered to be his best film.
In tribute to him, here’s the scene from The Wicker Man where we get introduced to Lee’s character, Lord Summerisle:
Happy National Iced Tea Day! We’ve had hot tea for centuries, but we had to wait for readily-available ice — first provided by ice harvesters, and later via refrigeration — for iced tea to become a popular summer drink. Whether you enjoy it as actual tea poured over ice or as “sweet tea” as we call it down here (actually sugar water with just enough tea to give it a brown color), today’s its day. I’m going to celebrate as I hunker down with some of the real stuff over client work at my local tea shop, Kaleisia, later this afternoon.
As you enjoy an iced tea, be sure to check out this NPR piece: As American as Iced Tea: A Brief, Sometimes Boozy, History.