I interrupt my busy busy week to bring you this little tidbit about Shithead:

WHO THE FUCK STANDS IN FRONT OF A RENOIR FOR A PICTURE YOU UNCULTURED MORON?

I laugh, though, because I know better.

I get these little bursts of vertigo when I read crack for the heart articles or watch the videos now.

But I probably did before, too.

Kenneth Starr today asked for the supreme court to make an "exception" to the First Amendment and allow school officials (in this case a principal) the authority to punish a student for promoting "anti-drug" messages:

This from the Wall Street Journal:
"Kenneth Starr asked the Supreme Court to carve out an exception to the First Amendment, allowing school authorities to suppress student speech if they think it undermines official antidrug messages."

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?

Maybe Ken Starr is in a tough position, having to defend a case he doesn't believe to be true or viable - hey, everyone's job sucks sometimes, and he might be having one of those times right now. On the other hand, he has advanced one of the most fascist ideas I can think of right now to the nation's highest court. I can go on and on about how this opens up cans and cans of worms, but I am just going to say that perhaps for the sake of the philosophy of American law, and your own sullied reputation, Kenneth, you should have sat down and shut up and never proposed such an offensive, ignorant idea.

You had the right to, though, and that makes all the difference.

I am pretty sure there are a few people out there who would bid a dear sum for the chance to deliver castration with fishing line to a certain special prime minister. I think I am one of them. I am gently reminded how much I hate the Japanese government and modern Japanese culture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/world/asia/08japan.html?hp

I'm actually enraged.

So, as my cellphone finds itself a little more disoriented than normal and also has decided to deliver calls without the clarity of its usual, younger self, I have reached the point of perhaps (and not for a little while, at least), getting a new cellphone. Really, for most people this is a simple task which does not require philosophical waxing, but that is most people, and this is me.

My problem is: I find the Blackberry pearl inexplicably attractive and the functions of the Blackberry 8800 incredibly attractive while at the same time abhoring the corporate whore cachet of both of them. I do not "want" a Blackberry. I want *some* of the things it can do, but none of the things it stands for, namely being leashed to the office which provided you with it. I do not want a Blackberry in the way most people around here want one. I want a way to check my email when I can't get to it (and ONLY when I can't get to it and SHOULD be getting to it): not in the middle of dinner, not in the middle of meetings, not while I should be doing things like spending quality time with friends and such. I want a way to program the odd alert into my phone so I don't forget to do something without obsessively checking my overflowing agenda. I maybe even want a way to send text messages on my cellphone with a little more ease than hacking away at teensy numbers with my thumbs (so instead I can hack away at teensy letter buttons with my thumbs...). I still want a phone that I can turn off during work hours (because it's illegal, where I am, and no, I don't drive a taxi), and one that I can talk normally on without looking like I'm holding a phonebook up to my head. In short, I want sort of a blackberry somewhat, without wanting the "I'm a real banker's bitch" look.

And then I remember the days when I used to cart the Nokia brick around and then I realize that maybe a phone doesn't need to do anything but phone people.