Commonplace Book

The subhead to the article Mean Girl by David Talbot of Salon.com reads "Sarah Palin has a way of using ‘old boys’ — then dumping them when they become inconvenient". As I read the article, it called to mind the song Good Night and Thank You from Evita.

Now understand, I am not for one single moment suggesting that Governor Palin has been trading sexual favors for advancement. (No. Seriously. Not at all. Ewww. Ick.) However, other parallels do spring to mind. And so now I’m thinking: isn’t it time for a remake of Evita? Sarah Palin as Evita, of course, John McCain as Colonel Peron, and Barack Obama can play Che.

Think they can spare time from their busy campaign schedules for rehearsals?

IMDB reported today that Paris Hilton is working with Stan Lee to create a superhero based on Hilton. One can only hope that this isn’t true. Just in case Stan Lee really is that hard up for money, though, everyone send him $1, okay?

Italy’s food fraud police seizes fake ham? But… I didn’t even know that Italy had "food fraud police". Nonetheless, I sleep better at night knowing that we’re being kept safe from counterfeit prosciutto.

But are there French food fraud police protecting us from bogus Brie? I may not be able to sleep tonight…

Apropos of absolutely nothing at all, I ran across this on McSweeneys Internet Tendency, and I thought it was too good not to share.

I loved this article, from Inside Higher Ed, although I think it’s more broadly applicable than the author suggests.

What really cracks me up about it, though, are the complaints in the comments. Complaints that this must have been a slow submissions day at Inside Higher Ed; complaints that the article reinforces black stereotypes; complaints that the article should have been prefaced with a warning that it contains objectionable language (because the title isn’t a giveaway?). Talk about reinforcing stereotypes, stereotypes about humorless academics, that is!