little ms. "sweet and innocent."

Monday, May 28, 2001
Holy. Crap.
God. Politicians sometimes.

Monday, May 28, 2001
TV small towns are bloody weird.
Nice to see they're following the trend of real life small towns. Frankly, I'm waiting for someone to set a show in Davis- the new "Davis Rules", if you will- because this show has quirky out the ass.
"According to Mike Fitch's article in the August 10, 1995 Sacramento News & Review, Davis has an undeserved reputation for weirdness. He cites many of the issues that I discuss in Sections 2.4.3.* along with Councilwoman Julie Partansky's "historic potholes" and the proposed toad tunnels in the Pole Line freeway overpass (currently under construction) as unfair media spins that made mundane local issues seem newsworthy. Fitch claims that Davis "really isn't that weird."
I have to disagree with Fitch: Davis is *extremely* weird. Even Fitch admits that Davis is eccentric, which is simply a polite word for describing weird people and weird communities (speaking as someone who is described as eccentric by some of my closest friends). Davis is unique, in ways that are difficult for most outsiders to comprehend (even those from other weird communities), and that's not necessarily a bad thing."

Monday, May 28, 2001
Joyce Millman rocks.
Excellent commentary on West Wing, X-Files and Buffy season finales.

Monday, May 28, 2001
The octopus
This link's just for the hell of it: My outdoor sculpture class project, the aforementioned octopus, is done and photographed. Though hard to see, given the use of wire and the weedy site. Oh well.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
The Every Graduation Speech
In honor of Boring Graduation Season, and my own upcoming graduations (I have TWO ceremonies to sit through!!!), here's a speech for ya from Will Durst.

Graduations are so boring anyway. I've been to at least 11 by now, and will be done with 13 by the end of June. The eleventh was this one I covered, and as you'll notice, the most exciting moment was when the speaker stripped down to- another robe. The chancellor was relieved that he didn't do what this one did.

On another semi-similar topic, here's fashion designers’ final exams. I attempted a class like that last quarter and it nearly killed me.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
The other weblogger in Davis...
as far as I know. Hi John!

Saturday, May 26, 2001
Virgin Attends 'Rocky Horror Picture Show,' Lives To Tell the Tale
As the above writer did, I also er, lost my RPHS virginity last night (to the Under Sedation cast, which I was partly responsible for bringing here), though my devirgining was slightly more raunchy than hers (about 50 people doing a masturbation dance). Fortunately, I was not called on to play Weakest Link, orgasm like a cartoon character or hump another person as others (including a friend of mine who did the last two!) were. For those curious, the show will be replayed on the radio here tonight, and probably rerun or something.

In honor of the evening, here's a link for you on the subculture of the RHPS. "I wanted to prove to my mother that Rocky wasn't a complete waste of my time if I could manage to turn it into a college degree.
The flexible norms permit behaviors that would, in the mainstream world, cause an actor to be labeled a freak or, in some cases, get arrested. Sarah, who performs in the Midwest, feels that she is more sexual and aggressive while at RHPS, while Kristine points out that what is considered racy in the mainstream world, “dressing in PVC, latex, and fetish shoes, wielding a whip on my closest friends,..and screaming obscenities while simulating sex acts,” is actually pretty reserved within the context of RHPS."

Saturday, May 26, 2001
Dead characters "live on" TV still.
Including Buffy, who currently is rotting in her grave, and yet will be back alive in the fall. Um, yeah. Total mistake for the series, I think. You don't bury a character and leave her to rot for months and THEN bring her back, come on. Even on sci-fi that's lame.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
You knew I had to gloat over the Jeffords thing a bit, didn't you?
"Over the last generation, zealous conservatives have systematically purged their party of dissidents -- representatives of a moderate strain of reform Republicanism running from Abraham Lincoln to Nelson Rockefeller.
"This is just further disintegration of an all-inclusive Republican Party to a conservative party," says former U.S. Sen. and former Republican Lowell Weicker of Connecticut." Yup, that's why I quit them.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
Working on microbicides to prevent STD's.
Good luck, 'cause we need this.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
Chucking the Chung King
This guy wrote a VERY bragging e-mail about he was such a sexual stud, which eventually made it around the forwards to his bosses... who then canned his ass.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
Eating at a restaurant for the blind
Sounds like an interesting experience, though knowing how I freak out in pitch-black dark I don't think I should go.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
Find a superhero name
Such as The Distinguished Nuclear Weasel! or The Renowned Fatal Lackey!

Saturday, May 26, 2001
The truth about CPR is very depressing.
And I can't believe this family was watching a Magnum rerun after someone just died, either.

Saturday, May 26, 2001
You think this guy's bored of writing celebrity profiles?
Okay, so this guy gets assigned to write about Stipe. However, for whatever insane reason, he decides to write these thorougly ridiculous and thorougly fictional behavioral bits into the piece, presumably to liven it up 'cause it's so damn dull. Having read the piece in the actual mag, I was so bored I didn't even care to go to their site and find out which bits weren't real. I don't envy him his job, since I think one of the ickiest things to do in journalism is trying to interview celebrities. I miss how Sassy did celebrity profiles, with no holds barred and saying if the celebrity was a moron or not. While my favorites for insultingness are not online, here's a couple that can tell the truth:

Tiffani-Amber: "I ask if she wants to attend a real, actual college. "Yeah. I'd like to major in English literature,: she says enthusiastically. I ask who her favorite English writer is. "Oh, Maya Angelou!" she bellows. "She is great," I say, nodding my head, "but she's from St. Louis." Tiffani is silent. "I know, but I'm just trying to think of somebody," she sniffs. I press on. She says she likes a lot of Shakespeare's lesser-known works. Like what? "Like Hamlet," she proclaims excitedly. Oh, I hadn't heard of that one."

Kennedy: "The next day I entered the Sassy offices in deep conflict. How could I dis Kennedy now that I liked her? I avoided Christina all day, but then she finally called me at my desk. "You're fired," she said. "I will not allow a positive profile of Kennedy in this magazine. Did you ask why she's a Republican? Mary Ann, you're so naive! What's your angle?"

"YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE ME LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT, ARE YOU?" she asked. I just laughed."

Saturday, May 26, 2001
The Stress Test
I'm shocked that I only have a stress percentage of 12%. Though this is amusing: "Your Stress Test answers indicate that to reduce your stress level even further you should eliminate at least one of the following from your life immediately:
Mom or Dad, you choose.
consciousness."

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Note to all readers:
For those who never read the NAQ (see side of page) and/or have never noticed this phenomenon, I do go back and update sections when I find more articles on them. In the last few days, I have found a TON of new articles for a lot of the old stuff I posted to within the last week. It seems like most of the stories with legs have new details added to them today, so I'd recommend scrolling farther down than just today's stuff to find out more.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Boyfriend Roadshow
Get him appraised!

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
The return of The Spot
Or at least, the archives of it are coming back online. I was a fan of it when it existed, and while I wasn't one of the people posting on the site at the time (lived with parents who wouldn't have let me stay online all THAT long at the time), I did work on the Spotfans site when it was operational and currently work on its offshoot, the Elgonquin Round Table (name my idea- electronic Algonquin). So perhaps I'm biased, but it's nice to have it all back.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Review of Middle School Physical Science Texts
This is why kids are so stupid at science, folks.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Smart man quits TV news for print.
I can't stand watching TV news these days (nor can my boss). They do 15 seconds of anything useful, it's all stupid, and you wait for 50 minutes for them to tell you what you want to hear that's actual news. Here's an insider's view on how REALLY superficial it is.

"Instead of pursuing meaningful stories, television news has sunk to new lows in superficiality. A few months ago, KXLY hired a new consultant- a fashion and makeup expert. She was a delightful woman who told me I'm a summer. Hey, now I can wear pink with confidence. But why would a news station spend $10,000 on a makeup expert shortly after eviscerating its investigative unit?
Just take a look at the news being promoted during the May ratings period. Raindrop therapy. Curing pain with hypnosis. Look good in a bathing suit in just four weeks. I can't wait for the segment on binge and purge.
And when it comes time to deliver news, the lawyers and ad reps make the decisions.
I hope to continue doing some TV news. But I dont think its the best place for courageous and truthful journalists right now, if I may be so presumptuous as to suggest that I belong in such company."

Here's more on him here.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Quints can't get scholarships for college?!?
Man, is this ever a tough break or what? I pity these people. Though I am surprised the parents didn't force them all to go to the one school offering them free tuition if they all went there together. I'm sure my parents would have if they'd had quints, and it's a hard offer to pass up. Nice parents.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Knight's Tale
"I've scoured the web, read the books, searched high and low, but have been completely unable to find one report of a large crowd in the Middle Ages bursting into a chorus of Queen's "We Will Rock You."
What we have here is a concept flick. Mr. Big Shot Director says "I know! Let's depict the culture of jousting and compare it to the sporting events of our time! The crowds will chant the same, cheer the same, and sing the same music!!! I'm brilliant!!!"
No, you're not.
And we haven't even begun to discuss the very un-14th Century-like costumes, hair-styles and what have you. It's as if Mr. Big Shot Director wanted to throw as much as possible between you and your enjoyment of the film. Suspension of disbelief? Forget it. For this movie, you need a suspension of reality that borders on the heroic."

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Chastity belts a "sick way" to ensure fidelity

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Peep Obscene Version of Romeo and Juliet
I love it.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Women wanna go topless too.
I pretty much agree with them. Either nobody can take their shirt off in public or everybody can, or at least let the women strip down to bras without a big hullabaloo. I know, I know (and having tried attending a few nudist events I know damn well I can't go out nude without people swarming around, so this probably wouldn't apply to me anyway...sigh) women have it more conspicuous, but when you're out in 100 degree heat and you have to stay clothed while the guys strip down...WAAAAAH. Then again, given that I'm stuck in this crappy outdoor sculpture class where I have to work in the hottest part of the school in the afternoons all week long and it's been at least 100 here for days, I'm really unhappy about this subject in general and perhaps taking it personally.

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Bleah. Bigoted parents SUCK.
The San Ramon parents are losing their minds at the very idea that gay tolerance might come up at school, and could give less of a damn about anything else there. And can you BELIEVE this quote? "One overwrought mother of a high school student even told the board that she was worried her child would face "reverse discrimination" in school because she does not believe that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle." Oh yeah, we're all really worried about that.

This bunch of parents is even worse. People like this is why I tend to really hate Christianity these days. I know there are Christians who aren't like this (and ironically, some of them are bi. One got kicked out of church entirely for that.), but these are the people who speak out about their hatred. And they disgust me.

"Whose society isn't ready to accept it? The kids who voted her in? Or the parents, who will stand shocked and amazed that their kids aren't as terrified of gays as they are?
The only "chaos" I see going on here is parents being forced by their kids to acknowledge what the kids already know- society doesn't come unraveled just because gays and lesbians are allowed to be a part of it."

Here's some letters to the editor: "I know it is difficult to embrace things that are unexplainable, or out of the ordinary. But to make comments that exude hate, even when you justify your hate by saying you would gladly help them change in a loving way - isn't that an oxymoron? Are we talking about conditional love here? Isn't that what Jesus didn't want?"

Tuesday, May 22, 2001
Oh, joy. Now parents can stalk their children at school.
You know, stories like the shootings and the longer school years and the forced volunteering make me extremely glad I'm not in high school these days and got out just in time. But MAN, this might be the worst I've ever seen. I did a story one time on parents with preschoolers viewing their kids at school via webcam, and that's fine. But THIS? Good God, it's creepy.

"In one instance, he said, parents suspected that their middle-school child wasn't eating a healthy lunch. Using the program, they found out that the child was buying fruit juice and ice cream every day.
They asked administrators to block their kid from buying juice and ice cream. Now, whenever the child shows up at the register, the computer tells the lunch lady: no juice, no ice cream." (What's the matter with juice?!)
"Nevertheless, most of the system's benefits are for teachers and parents, who, according to some, already have all the control they need.
"It would just be another thing to stress us out," said Nicholas Anderson, a 15-year-old sophomore. "We don't need to be afraid of every step we take while we're at school."

But unfortunately, that's EXACTLY WHAT THE PARENTS WANT NOW. Anything so "no more shootings." They WANT us to be afraid, afraid, afraid, and have their thumbs on us at every single moment. However, I can say after years of experience of being the perfect good girl who obeyed everything the parents said that this does NOT help once you're trying to make it on your own at college. It really isn't the best thing for your children's future. Not that ANYONE will listen to me on this though.

"Brittany's father, John, says he knows kids might feel that way, but thinks it's good for them.
"Brittany's a pretty good kid, but there are certainly times I wish I could keep better track of her," he said. "I think the more we can control our kids, the better off in the long run they'll be." Oh, you are SO wrong.

Sunday, May 20, 2001
The Kaycee scandal
Note: Most of this section has been updated and links changed as of 5/22. The above link has been changed to the Kaycee Nicole FAQ site, and thus I've deleted the summary of the case I already printed here, as the above is better.

"Instead of hugging each other over the death of a 19 year old girl, we are consoling each other over the death of a belief."

"The harm is in the duping."

From what I understand, someone posted an essay on how to fake life and death on the Internet, thinking of the Kaycee site (which has since been taken down). The next day, she posted the results of her investigation. And others found things like this: "at some point after Kaycee's "death", someone went through her journal and removed all references to sending get well presents, her Amazon.com list, her PayPal donation page, and changed the text and prices of her merchandise on her Cafepress site to no profit so that there is absolutely no appearance of fraud- as it is a fraud to solicit gifts and donations under false pretenses."

I'm posting the site host's final words here in their entirety because I don't think he'll leave them up, and they explain some things.
"Monday, May 21, 2001 i read my blog from last night. i don't know how i wrote that, considering the shock to my system. i had to go back and revise that.
i didn't sleep much. and today i don't know what to believe. i don't know what is real. how can i be sure of the truth of any of this?
i sincerely believed there were two people i spoke with on the telephone. if it was only one, then someone is one hell of an actress.
i have pulled all references from my blog and my site. i will take down debbie's page today. despite requests, i will not be putting those pages back up, ever again. i refuse to support this horrible lie a moment longer.
like many, i have the same questions? who did i speak with on the phone? who did i chat with in AIM? where did my gifts go? whose handwriting is on the letter i received? who sent me that autographed hat? is what debbie told me on the phone last night the truth, or yet another fabrication?
she apologised to me. i guess i could choose not to believe her. for now i accept her apology. i thought i knew her, but now i understand i have no idea who she really is. why she chose to do this i probably will never know. i am as confused as everyone else. i know she exists, and i think she needs help.
all i know for certain is that i opened my heart, and for a year i gave of my time, money, energy, and emotional resources to help someone else, and in the end i was burned for it.

Sunday, May 20, 2001
the end of the whole mess
when halcyon started citizen x a little over a year ago, i was among its very first members. about two weeks later, i met someone in my chat room. her name was kaycee. over time she became a good friend. we conversed often by telephone and via aol instant messenger (AIM). she was open, caring and effervescent. she was very easy to love.
the people who know me understand that once i get to know someone, when there is mutual affection and the walls have come down, i am not shy about declaring my feelings. this makes me vulnerable, true. but at the same time i decided the risks were worth it. in my view the world today is critically short of that kind of love and honesty. kaycee was someone i believed in. when she told me she had leukemia and was in remission, i was happy to know she had beaten it. a couple months later when she told it had come back, she was genuinely scared.
of course i was concerned. by then i had spent time with her on the phone and nearly every day in AIM or in citizen x. she also shared this information with halcyon, who had known her far longer from his days with college club.
when i discussed it with him, he suggested we help her set up a blog using blogger. i thought it was a great idea. i volunteered my time to design her site, take care of the set up at blogger, and host it on my own server. why? because i cared about her and i wanted to make sure she would always be able to get her message out.
i never had any reason to doubt her. why would i? i had her name, her home address, her phone number. she'd been quoted in the new york times. she had other sites up with her pictures all over them. other articles had been written about her.
this was in august, 2000. i suggested that debbie should also have a blog where she could express herself as she dealt with everything that happened.
there was a long spell in the hospital where i was unable to make direct contact with kaycee. her blogs were emailed to me, whereupon i edited for readability on the web, fixed spelling errors and grammar. but the content i always left alone.
some time after, kaycee once again got access to the web. from that point onward, nearly every single day, we spoke. often for hours at a time. she shared photos of herself that very few others have seen. we talked about her life and her fears, her dreams, her hopes.
when things happened to her in the hospital that were traumatic and she wasn't able to communicate, i spoke with debbie, several times by phone and most often via AIM. again, i had no reason to doubt what was happening.
i simply updated the blogs and asked for prayer. that's what i do when people i care about need help. i won't apologise for that.
when kaycee went into remission again and finally left the hospital i was overjoyed. i truly felt she was going to survive this disease. when she later confessed that she was dying i was very upset. we had several long discussions about her feelings. i resigned myself to calling for support, as really that was all i could do. by then i knew that many people read her blog and cared about her.
when debbie called me to tell me kaycee had died of an aneurysm, i was shocked. i had spoken with her just hours before. debbie's sorrow was real. this much i know. her voice conveyed to me the intense pain i felt when my father passed away.
immediately i was faced with the task of breaking the awful news. i was numb. i placed the announcements in my blog, kaycee's and debbie's blog. i called halcyon personally because i knew he'd been close to her and i did not want him to find out third party.
many, many people were very saddened to hear the news. there was a genuine outpouring of grief and love. even people who didn't know her felt touched by her words. and why not? i think anyone with a feeling heart took away something positive from reading her blog and her poetry.
imagine how i felt a few days later when fingers were pointed and accusations were made that kaycee was not a real person. that the blogs were a fiction, perpetrated by her or someone else. the finger was even pointed at me.
imagine how i felt a few days later when fingers were pointed and accusations were made that kaycee was not a real person. that the blogs were a fiction, perpetrated by her or someone else. the finger was even pointed at me.
naturally i was angry. i felt that the memory of someone i had loved was being tainted. i was terribly worried about the effect this would have on debbie and her family. of course i wanted to protect them.
i resolved that i would not answer these accusations as i simply refused to believe they could be true. the people i spoke to felt real. i never had any evidence to the contrary.
today, debbie emailed me her blog. i was tremendously stunned when i read it. i urged her to call me on the phone. she did. i asked a lot of questions. she confessed the truth of her motivations to me. she confessed her guilt.
so now, i am forced to attempt to set the record straight as much as i can:
as far as i know, there was a girl who had leukemia. no, her name was not kaycee, though i think she used that nickname. i think this was the girl i knew.
as far as i know, there was no conspiracy. debbie said she has told me the truth. she says it was she who is totally responsible. was another person involved with her? i have no idea.
i cannot tell you who kaycee really was, or who her real family is, because i don't know.
all of the so-called investigations that have gone on up until today regarding date-stamps, meta-tags, writing styles, regional spellings, photoshopped images, funeral arrangements, etc., in an attempt to prove collusion are ludicrous. the blogs either were posted by kaycee or debbie, or they arrived in my mailbox, and i posted them. simple as that.
all the photos around the web of the girl who called herself kaycee are the same person, as far as i can tell.
no one ever asked for money. never once was there a request for funds, gifts, or anything like that. i know, because i control the sites 100%.
about the only thing ever asked for were christmas cards. in fact, they were adamant that they would not accept money. i know gifts were sent, because i sent them as well.
the cafepress account was set up by me for them, since it was i who designed the shirt and mug. and yes, everything was always sold at cost. there was never an attempt for profit. had there been, i would have advised against it.
the post office box in newton was real, though it was closed some time ago.
while debbie has admitted to writing the blogs as an amalgam of three people whom she loved who all suffered from various forms cancer, she told me that the stories told in the blogs are real. they happened to these people. this is perhaps why they were so moving to so many. almost everyone i know has lost someone they love because of cancer.
yes, the bulk of the blog was supposedly about kaycee.
yes, audra lea actually bought kaycee a domain name. kaycee decided not to use it, so nothing was ever done. no, audra lea is not kaycee and is not at all involved.
yes, i did my best to protect kaycee and her family's privacy. when someone happens to be beautiful, they can become a target.
to the best of my knowledge, kelli swenson is not kaycee.
kaycee's last name is not swenson. she used debbie's surname as a measure of protection, as there had been previous online and real life problems she wanted not to re-occur. that was the story i was told. the truth of it is anyone's guess.
because i care about people, i was taken in. call me a fool, call me gullible.
debbie told me she did this out of a misguided attempt to tell the stories of people she loved. this was not a scam. this was not a malicious attempt to manipulate or hurt people.
she regrets her mistake. she asked me to forgive her. i have. she said i have every right to hate her. i do not. i still care about her. whoever she really is, she is in dire need of help.
the fact is, i would never have gotten to really know kaycee otherwise. obviously i did not know the whole truth, but remember i spent almost a year getting to know her. the person i knew as kaycee was a warm, generous, caring and sensitive individual. as far as i know, she was real. she helped me as much as i helped her. i came away a better person because of my friendship with her.
and somehow, i believe she has died. i don't know if i will ever be certain of that.
today those blogs will come down. i am not bitter. i hold no grudge against debbie. what's done is done, and i can't change that.
my only regret is that kaycee, if she indeed was real, is no longer living. that's really the bottom line, isn't it?"

I'm posting the "mother's" final words, now mirrored on another site, just in case those go offline too.
"Her name was not Kaycee and she was not my daughter, but I loved her as if she had been. And I grieve her loss.
The blog was about the lives of three people who suffered, one with breast cancer, one with leukemia, and one with Liver cancer. Each were strong, vibrant, and loving individuals. Each were real. Each died much too soon.
I am to blame for wanting to tell their stories. I am to blame for weaving the lives of all three together. I chose to share their voices as one rather than three separately. I wrote their thoughts, their humorous sides, their struggles, their fears.
If you knew each of them do not for a minute doubt you knew the real person. It is only within these blogs that I tried to convey their silent voices.
I alone bear the shame for what I have done, but it was not done for any reason other than sharing the love for life they gave to those they loved.
I would like to clear up some falsehoods that have been spread around: there was never a paypal account, there was never an amazon wish list, if donations were made they were not made to me or any other person, if anyone asked you to contribute to a trip, or a fund of any kind it did not derive from this blog.
Randy (bwg) only posted what I sent to be posted, so I am the only person who is to blame.
If you sent something it was passed on to the appropriate family.
My intentions were good, but that does not begin to excuse me for what I have done. My only desire was to share their triumphs and tragedies in a way that showed their strength, the strength of their families. Those were not false. What they went through was real, I felt a great need to tell the stories of three courageous people who wanted nothing but to be well and live happily into their prime.
What I did was wrong and I apologise for it. I regret any pain I caused but I do not regret putting their thoughts out to be read.
There were more and deeper parts to their lives, I did them a grave disservice.
I carry the shame for my actions. The last thing I would like to say is I'm sorry.
The real *Kaycee* is the true author to her poetry. It was her nickname and she was the last of the truly beautiful who those of you read grew to love.
I was not her birth mother but I loved her with all my heart."

I wasn't a regular reader of Kaycee. I'd peeked in on the weblog from time to time because I read Easily Amused and from time to time she'd put a link like "Pray for Kaycee!" or (about her impending death) "I'm so sorry, Kaycee!", so I'd be curious.

While the idea behind the thing was admirable, I found it sad to think that a girl battling cancer umpteen times probably wouldn't live beyond her twenties even if she beat it in a year or so (why is it that people who get cancer at a young age and beat it seem to have it recur in their 20's? How sad.) so that sucked.

And in general, it was so damn cheery all the time. I'm not a perky person (bad enough dealing with my mom who is, you know), so I wasn't all that into it. And I will admit that I was baffled as to how bloody cheery she was 98% of the time. How the hell do you maintain THAT without some despair or bad feelings or grief or something ever coming up? I have a eventually-terminal situation going on at home with my dad, and he sure as hell ain't cheery about it.

And (this is so petty, I know), the name Kaycee got on my nerves big time. I don't like names that end in ee. That is too cutesee nauseating for even the Queen of Cute me (or so the ex would say). My ex-roommate has a cat named Jaycee that she got pre-named by the SPCA, and I couldn't stand her silly name, even though she was a nice cat. When you realize that her name is practically KC and the Sunshine Band, or Kaycee is the Sunshine Girl in this case, I'm surprised nobody figured it out from there.

So in general the whole perky happy shiny thing wore on me and I didn't read much. I wasn't a regular watching this "live" Lurlene McDaniel soap. I wasn't emotionally involved with the whole thing, though I did feel sad to hear that she was (a) terminal after finally beating the cancer and finally (b) dead like a week later (I think.)

"I think back in earnest now, and readily admit that I was a party to my own duping. I mean, come on, I have seen more than one person amble on through the stages that lead to death. I've even written about some in this forum. Not one --let me repeat for the record, NOT FUCKING ONE-- met 90% of the moments with grace and dignity and good humor and an oh-so-sparkly attitude. So I allowed myself to be tricked even though I have lived it and actually know better, because it made for good copy. A story is supposed to make you feel, right? Everyone needs a good heroine once in a while, don't they?...even if, like me, they usually ABHOR the gushy, idealized, romancey-type hoo-hah??"

"I had visited her site a few times, and while the story seemed sad, it also didn't seem real, probably because I had been reading this guy's detailed story of his own fight with leukemia and bone marrow transplant. Side by side, it is pretty obvious which one is the true story, and which is not - one of these people has leukemia, and one of these people has what my husband likes to call Beautiful People Disease - you know, where they contract a life threatening illness which apparently causes them to become more and more beautiful, serene and wise, until they suddenly die a lovely and painless death. Mostly you see Beautiful People disease in popular movies and soap operas. But I kept quiet. After all, Kaycee had such ardent fans, and nobody wanted to hear anything the least bit critical about her."

He's got it right about Beautiful People disease here.

More Metafilter comments:
spiritVW: "All I wonder is: Would the outpouring of support for a balding 45 year old male accountant fighting cancer have been as great as that for a cheerful, poetry-spouting, pretty 19 year woman fighting cancer?"

solistrato: "My feeling reading the blog was similar: This is how someone would write a blog like this. The daily struggles. The mundane details. The occasional crisis. The tears, the laughter, the life. All ending under the most tragic of circumstances: she beats the cancer, yet dies anyway. And all told through this inspirational writing style that makes Kaycee look like the most noble soul on the planet. Of course we would believe it, because we wanted to believe it, because this is how we think stories really happen. Roll credits and wait for the accolades to come in."

"i asked jeff last night how much of this might be projection. see, "kaycee" is whoever you want her to be. she's your vision of the afterschool special, of the girl-warrior-cancer patient, she's your everything, she's whatever you want her to be. and if you were someone who communicated with her, you were communicating too with a projection of yourself."

Late last year, there were some posts to the living colours blog stating that KC was close to death. There were days and days of extreme fever and losses of blood, seizures, and I'm fairly certain I went through the grieving process back then, on two or three occasions.
Last week, the post was made here and I felt another wave of depression and grieving. I also felt relief that I no longer had to worry about KC, that I didn't have to dread going to her blog to hear the inevitable bad news. The nine months or so of worrying could finally come to an end.
A tiny part of me wishes it were a hoax. That tiny part wishes this were all a hoax so that the real-world result isn't that someone died. Part of me hopes this is a complete fake; not so I can feel manipulated or used, but so I can feel some relief that no one actually died. That there wasn't a 19 year old I was enjoying reading that suffered a shortened life, unfair pain, and is now dead." -mathowie

I'm kinda glad this is a hoax, for the same reasons as mathowie. Though in all honesty I'm not sure that nobody died, given how "Debbie" claims to have based part of her Kaycee character on some actual Kaycee with leukemia that was out there and used some of her writings. She isn't exactly the most credible source now to believe on this though, huh? So we'll probably never know if a Kaycee really existed, but I think you can assume that people didn't really get to know "Kaycee", whoever she was in real life, from this fictional hybrid girl.

I think "Debbie" must be some sick person, or at least have some kind of medical mental problem. To go around leading people on into caring about someone that wasn't real deliberately for at least two years, accepting their presents (though I'm not sure on anything else) and throwing them around on an emotional roller coaster is pretty cruel to me. While I don't think she was outright doing this to make money off of the whole thing, she did accept gifts people sent, so that sounds like she could possibly be prosecuted for that at least. To put it bluntly, her motivation for doing this is really screwy.

"I read Debbie's post and her half hearted apology and don't want to hear any more from her. It seemed to me that she still felt justified some how because the stories she was trying to tell were so worthwhile.
Debbie - next time, tell the truth - the real stories would have been just as valuable as the composite, more so, because now many many people will only remember the deception." -ilanah

She's right about that. Who's going to think about this story now without the freaky ending? It makes me wonder if others are lying. If the infamous Tom Mandel story on the WELL was true (okay, probably- they have that real name policy there) and things like that. I'm sort of used to hearing about this crap on Everquest (and in fact, would expect it there given the nature of the game), but two years of this stuff plus even going to the point of doing phone calls seems really off. Not that I go around necessarily believing that everyone I read on the Web is totally real- unless you know them in person you can't be totally sure, and that's the whole risk you take for meeting people who don't live by you. But it does make people think more cynically about things. And maybe that's good.

And as for what "Debbie" should have done, I agree with the poster below.

"What would have been a good idea "Debbie" would have been to give these three people you claim the story was created from, and give them their own platform. Make them a In Memory of Webiste. Tell their stories. It is deeply disturbing to find out a person people cared about and loved was created out of 3 or more people.
You have made a friggin Frankenstein. Chosen the parts you wanted out of ill people and created one packaged perky blonde with bottomless optimism. While Debbie walked down the up and downs road. One day Kacyee is in remission, one day she sick and so it goes on and on, as she weaves a tapestry of stories into one digital person.
And now, oh yes, we *believe* you Debbie. You are the soul of integrity." -justagirl

Here's a list of links of the Kaycee-related sites. And another. And for those who never read "Kaycee", her archives, final words and Debbie's weblog are back online (not at the original site). As for the financial benefits of the Kaycee scam, just look at this page to see what booty the mother and "daughter" got. A gold necklace with DIAMONDS??? Holy crap.

Sunday, May 20, 2001
Well, what do ya know.
The Clinton staff did NOT vandalize the White House after all. Other than the W keys things, of course.

Sunday, May 20, 2001
The weirdest soap EVER.
I haven't watched this show, but it sounds frightening. And it's all too appropriate that the plots are written by the guy who came up with the most insane plots I've ever seen or heard of on the soaps.

Sunday, May 20, 2001
This is why you shouldn't forward everything you see.
"This is now the story of my life," she said, defeat in her tone. "I can't wait until it's over. I may have to die first."

Sunday, May 20, 2001
Oh. Yuck. Can you believe this?
"One of the hottest theater tickets in town is an off-off Broadway, neo-Brechtian musical called "Urinetown," about a global ecological disaster exploited by a corrupt corporate pay toilet monopoly.
The premise of "Urinetown" is that a global drought has compelled the government to outlaw private toilets. A big corporation called UGC (for UrineGoodCompany) has stepped in to, er, fill the void by operating a chain of numbered "public amenities" as a private monopoly, maintaining its profit margin and stock price by charging increasingly excessive fees.
Hopperesque and Hogarthian wretches, who include the wise-beyond-her-years Little Sally, played in brilliant fashion by Chicago actress Spencer Kayden of Neo-Futurist Company fame, eventually rise up in revolt.
They do so in mordant, madcap and altogether revolting fashion, with musical numbers that seem to borrow from "The Three Penny Opera," "Les Miz," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," Frank Capra movies and the Coen Brothers' "Oh Brother Where Art Thou?" while giving each a uniquely outrageous stamp and twist. My own favorite, serving as a motto for our consumer-as-corporate-victim era, is called, "Don't Be the Bunny."
And there is not one but a series of most unhappy endings."

Sunday, May 20, 2001
Woman bites off potential rapist's testicles, leaving him sterile
Is it evil of me to say that I'm delighted with this news? Because as far as I'm concerned, I would prefer that sexual offenders get at least chemically castrated or something similar before being released into the world. Otherwise they're probably going to go do it again. Except for Mr. Balless, that is!

Update: Someone else calls this story the "feel-good story of the year." "If it happened more often, maybe we'd have fewer sexual predators.
But temper your elation by imagining the horror of the victim. "That she would do such a thing indicates the level of fear she was experiencing," said Polly Poskin, executive director of the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault. "This story is a reminder of how terrifying rape truly is."
Castration has been a punishment for rapists and adulterers throughout much of history. Its symbolic value is supported by European studies that show recidivism rates for sex offenders drop dramatically when they are castrated and the source of the male hormone is removed. The U.S. Supreme Court has said involuntary surgical castration is unconstitutional, yet debates flare up periodically in various states about voluntary castration and involuntary, reversible chemical "castration" as alternatives to imprisonment for sex offenders."

I cannot BELIEVE he's discussing the idea of giving a rapist hormone therapy though!!!!!!!

Friday, May 18, 2001
Another one of them blog articles.

Friday, May 18, 2001
Achieving practical time travel?
I find it sweet that this guy was inspired by his dad's death and the idea of going back in time to warn him to take better care of himself.

"Mallett's circle of light won't allow anyone to travel back beyond the point where time first formed a closed loop. So it will be impossible to go back to a time before it was set up. "A later person could only travel back to the time when the machine is turned on," Mallett says. This may explain why we have never been overrun by visitors from the future. It also means that although Mallett might change the Universe, he won't ever achieve his childhood dream. Mallet's father will remain forever beyond his reach."

Friday, May 18, 2001
And the winner of the Worst Boyfriend of the Week Award is...
Brendan Lemon, editor of Out.com, for taking a private discussion with his closeted ballplayer boyfriend (who sounds fearful of admitting the truth) and slapping it up on the Internet. He doesn't approve of the closetness, and gee, it makes it so hard on Brendan to have to deal with it, and it's not all THAT big a deal to have your fans turn on you for being gay, after all, so he's ahem hinting more strongly that his boyfriend come out. While he claims that he'd never out the guy, he does give clues as to the guy's identity, which of course have started a lot of speculation as to who the boyfriend is. Frankly, I hope the sour Lemon gets his ass dumped. The vaguely blackmaily starfucky attitude in this disgusts me.

Lemon now claims that his boyfriend approved of the letter, but going only on what he's quoted on- "Before this was published he told me, ‘your job is to write well and to provoke thought, my job is to hit and pitch like one of the best in the league."- it doesn't exactly sound like he commented On That Letter, does it?

Meanwhile, the out ballplayer Lemon cited in the letter is not happy to read this, and says that he's asking his boyfriend to commit "professional suicide."

Update: A good comment on the issue: "He claims he "would never out him." What he has done might be worse. The column exacerbates the notion that being gay is something to be gossiped about. And, it tells every closeted gay man in America to go even deeper into the closet because, if you tell the wrong person you're gay, you never know what media maelstrom will brew.
The Out Magazine's Editor's column this month looks more like a bad issue of The National Enquirer than a reputable publication. His entire column is one of the more self-centered rants that I have read, showing a complete lack of understanding and compassion. For his own benefit, he has started a guessing game across the country as everyone wonders, "who's this baseball player the editor from Out Magazine is sleeping with?" The story has legs, having been picked up by print and broadcast outlets around the nation. I cringe at the thought that, with this article, Lemon has caused a great deal of pain for the player in question.
Lemon has tried to stave off some of the criticism in the last day, saying that this player knew about the article before he wrote it. That doesn't change the fact that he has reduced this guy's potential coming out into a marketing opportunity for his own magazine and turned it into a gossip section story in the New York Post. And how is any reader supposed to know, from the initial column, that the player knew about it? He certainly did not allude to it. If he had originally written what he's been saying the past few days it would have been a far more effective column. We shouldn't have to wait for a further explanation in Page Six of the Post or Newsday.
To me, coming out is a life-changing decision that takes a lot of time to get used to for anyone, especially someone in sports, often dubbed as "the last closet." That decision is not something to be taken lightly, and is not something for the editor of a national magazine to decide for someone else, no matter how much "easier" it might make the editor's life.
Lemon also mentions Billy Bean in his article. Bean was a major league ballplayer for several years and, in 1999, came out of the closet after retiring from baseball. Bean told Johnette Howard of Newsday: ``"I think it's easy to say those things when you're the editor of a gay and lesbian magazine. But if I were that ballplayer, I'd have cold sweats right now.''
Apparently, Lemon doesn't believe Bean when he says, "I knew my career would end and I would experience total rejection [if I came out]." Or Brad Ausmus, an all-star catcher for the Detroit Tigers and former teammate of Bean, who has said, "If he had been openly gay, it would have been very difficult for him to play." But, then again, self-righteousness doesn't care what the experts have to say."

Bean says: "I agree the world is becoming a little more tolerant," Bean added, "but [Lemon] has to understand baseball, the mentality of baseball fans, the cultural differences of the people thrown together, and how that player has to produce and play. I mean, the game is hard enough, let alone having to deal with that.
Being a gay male athlete is still the strongest taboo in sports, especially big-time male team sports. While women jocks routinely are presumed to be lesbians, there's an equally laughable but nonetheless rampant denial going on that any male athletes could be gay, let alone gay and starring as someone's cleanup hitter or rifle-armed quarterback. But they are, of course.
Big-time sports being what they are, and sometimes that means a place where men make a lucrative living even after being exposed as bigoted, drug-using, gun-toting, wife-beating incorrigibles," (off-topic remark: a sportswriter at work said the other day there should be a daily column dedicated to the sports criminals) "it says a lot about how deep homophobia runs that being a mid-career gay male athlete is still arguably the most explosive or "dangerous" thing you can be."

Update: Reading this letters page fills in some new things, such as that Lemon already has an official boyfriend and not only "feels like the other woman", but has made the ballplayer into "the other man."

Here's yet another article:"A media circus would promptly set up at the guy's locker. The entire team would be distracted, either by its own homophobia or by the media circus. And, as Lemon himself points out, there would undoubtedly be death threats.
"Let's be realistic, he'd have to worry about someone taking a shot at him - - literally taking a shot at him," Lemon said in our interview last week. "I still am amazed, I think it's a miracle, that Jackie Robinson wasn't shot by some lunatic." What. A. DICK!!!!!!!!!!!

And meanwhile, the repercussions of this thing continue: "Fox Sports Net talk-show host Jim Rome also penned a column, in which he said: ''Let me tell you exactly what's happening in clubhouses all over baseball right now. Guys are taping this article to teammates' lockers with a note attached, `We know he is talking about you.'''
''I completely respect the decision of my friend and any other person to be in the closet if it's too hard for their career,'' said Lemon." Um, no, obviously you don't. :P

These two guys say it wouldn't be easy.

Friday, May 18, 2001
Oh God, yet another cliffhanger, this one on West Wing
I was totally blown away and impressed by the President's diatribe at God complete with cigarette butt on the floor of the cathedral. The Latin part, by the way, is translated by ABC as: "Am I really to believe that these are that acts of a loving God? A just God? A wise God? To hell with your punishments. I was your servant here on Earth. And I spread your word and I did your work. To hell with your punishments. To hell with you." I wish they'd captioned that for those who don't know Latin, because that was important.

However, as this article says, that cliffhanger was NOT necessary in the slightest. That was just irritating. Okay, sure, you can figure out what he's going to do, but why couldn't they just admit it? Jesus H. Christ.

Update (besides adding the above link for the network translation, which I'd lost): Here's another translation from a priest of what he said.

Friday, May 18, 2001
At what cost are we entertained?
The dude makes some good points.

Friday, May 18, 2001
What happens when you call Miss Cleo
For one thing, you don't talk to Miss Cleo. Are you at all surprised?

Friday, May 18, 2001
An interview with Tom, the guy chasing his goo girl.
Tom is the guy who's looking for a girl he MADE UP. I won't repeat the whole thing, but damn, this is disturbing.

Lo: (asking the question all of the Internet has been wondering about) "She's cute, but she definitely doesn't have the best teeth. Since you have the means, why not give her a virtual cosmetic makeover?
Tom: Well, why make the perfect girl? That's too simple to do. I wanted just your everyday, wholesome girl.
Lo: Have you been tempted to create any others?
Tom: Nope. I'm fixed on her.
Lo: Even if you can't find her after several years?
Tom: No, actually, I've gone ten months now without sex, so I can hold out as long as it takes."

After Lo brings up the idea of Tom perhaps meeting a non-lookalike that he lives by and dating her, which he rejects, look what he does:

"Tom: Well, how close are you to that picture?
Lo: Not very.
Tom: Not very? Well, what do you look like?
Lo: Um, yeah, you know, it's hard to put into words, but not like that. Why?
Tom: Oh, I was just wondering, you seem to be a nice girl, that's all."

And it gets worse.

"Tom: Well, I can train 'em. I can train 'em the way I want to train 'em.
Lo: What?! What do you mean? Can you elaborate on that?
Tom: I can train a person the way I want 'em. I get 'em . . . You women do it all the time, you fall in love with a man and you always change him. So I feel if I fall in love with a girl I can change her, too. Train her the way I want her.
Lo: You don't find that a little bit retro or old-fashioned?
Tom: No.
Lo: What happens if you meet this woman and she looks exactly like the image, but personality-wise she is completely the opposite of what you expected and hoped for, and on top of that, is strong-willed, independent, stubborn and refuses to be "trained," as you said.
Tom: Well, I will try my best to make it work, and if it doesn't, well, then the search goes on. It's that simple.
Lo: If she had certain requirements for her ideal mate and you didn't meet all of them, would you be willing to be trained?
Tom: Sure. Why not."

Friday, May 18, 2001
The truth about your shrinking newspaper.
Here's Dave Barry's version of this as well. Here's what cutesy language you should use to discuss cutting the paper size, and a made-up memo of cutesy language to discuss being fired with.
"Use these terms sparingly when discussing staff and content cuts:
gutted
broomed
escorted from the building
tissue issue
neutered
beholden
dropping trou' for advertisers
butt-monkey of out-of-state interests
Use these positive words to discuss the new newspaper experience:
corporate-friendly
nonconfrontational
destaffified
price-enhanced
content ameliorated
skippability
earnings-rific
GREAT phrase to remember: "Our new approach pleases Wall Street!"

Friday, May 18, 2001
Meet Kristin...
the Queen of Revenge. In a happy followup to the original story, Kristin said today that they had used the dye bottle and refilled with with water, and she found a big can of Easy off and a purple sponge on their laundry table. Then there was a big screaming fight...she didn't think they'd learn from this though.

Friday, May 18, 2001
Swapping genders in online games
"Men find they must constantly brush off unwanted advances, and their female characters are not taken as seriously. But they also find it easier to chat with other players and escape the relentless competition among male characters.
The story is the same for women who play men to avoid cheesy pick-up lines. They discover that moving among predominantly male groups involves participating in constant one-upmanship. And as their male characters move up the ranks, they fear losing the respect of other players if their true gender is discovered.
For instance, "if you're a female character, just something as innocent as smiling might get read wrong." And if a male character tries to help a female character, it's assumed he wants something. Often, he does.
Gold confesses that he has another female character--this one in "EverQuest"--whom he declines to name because no one knows she is played by a man. His character is a longtime member of a "guild," a band of players who agree to play together.
Many of his band would be upset, explained Gold, who spends about 35 hours each week playing "EverQuest" and "Ultima Online." "They'd feel they couldn't trust me anymore. I'd be ostracized. These are guys who think they're worldly, and it scares them to think that there are women they're interested in who may actually be guys."
The deception cuts both ways. Louise, a 44-year-old Sacramento house painter who declined to give her last name, plays a male character and is the leader of her "EverQuest" guild. She said she fears that if the members of her guild were to discover not only her gender but her age, she would lose their respect.
"Some of them are teenage boys," Louise said. "I don't think they'd take it too well. There's a belief that women can't be aggressive. But that's not true at all. I love to be aggressive. It gives me a real adrenaline rush."
Often, players who gender-swap online are reluctant to talk about their reasons.
"It's not something you would talk about or be proud of," said Pavel Curtis, who developed a well-known text-based online community called LambdaMOO when he was a researcher at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center. "Society doesn't see it as a healthy form of experimentation. At best, it's seen as duplicitous. At worst, it's sick and perverted."
Such strongly held views underscore how important gender identity is to people--even online, where physical appearances are not supposed to matter.
"We tailor our actions based on who we think we're talking to," said Amy Bruckman, assistant professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech in Atlanta. "Because these factors shape our interactions, we're often uncomfortable when we don't know these cues on age, race and gender."
As a result, much effort goes into spotting fakes. The clues cited by players are telling indications of how people perceive gender. Bruckman recalled a time when she tried to pass as a male character but was instantly pegged as an impostor. How? "It was just my style of speaking. I used long sentences with lots of adjectives, which is seen as stereotypic of females," Bruckman said.
"Everybody, it seems, needs to know," Koster said. "It's like a void that needs to be filled, and it's deeply ingrained in our culture. There's this notion that the Internet will give us this utopia where gender, age and race don't matter. The idea that we'll all be disembodied floating lights just ain't gonna happen."

Friday, May 18, 2001
If you flame, you get burned
"I am the guy that the Christian Coalition, and probably a healthy portion of my classmates, believe would be unfairly protected by a bullying law. I am the guy whom their consciences demand that they belittle and deride.

Now I realize that sometimes there is nothing as scary and un-Christian as Christians pursuing their Christian agenda. Poor Mr. S. could be crushed like a bug by those performing "God's will." If an organization whose stated purpose is "locate, educate and activate Christians for effective social, political and spiritual action" is prepared to fight for the right to condemn homosexuality at school, even to a disruptive point, Florence and every homo sinner and gay student have got to be prepared to hide."

Frightening.

Friday, May 18, 2001
"P. Diddy" was a joke.
Right, like you needed more names? What are you, Eminem?

Friday, May 18, 2001
The Velvet Vulva
Man. I can't imagine dragging this thing out in public.

Friday, May 18, 2001
More on the disturbing gastric bypass surgery series

Friday, May 18, 2001
Introducing Towel Day
On the 25th, carry a towel around in Douglas Adams's honor. And now there's an Arthur Dent asteroid.

Friday, May 18, 2001
Now that's an insult
"Regina: Commie.
Sarah: Cradle-robber.
Regina: Captain Lou!
Sarah: Simon on 7th Heaven!
Regina: DEAD BUILDING!
Sarah: CHRISTIAN TEEN!
Regina: Wow. That's cold.
Sarah: Don't back me into a corner, shorty."

Friday, May 18, 2001
Take This Bing And Shove It
I first read this odd column, in which a Sopranos fan (as they all seem to be on Slate) was absolutely swooning over this one silly line and decided that it should be passed on across the world.

"Perhaps the most lasting will be a phrase introduced in Episode 34: "He disrespected the Bing." The moment Chatterbox heard it, he felt certain he was witnessing the birth of a powerful new cliché...A scan of news databases and Web search engines reveals that the conceit has not yet broken out."

To explain what the hell this means to those who don't watch it (actually, I don't either because I don't watch TV enough to justify paying for cable), the mob meets in this strip club called the "Bada Bing," and one guy decided to off his stripper girlfriend in the parking lot. Tony then told Ralphie (the killer) that he disrespected the place. Later on Ralphie is forced to apologize, but since he refuses to apologize for killing a stripper, he apologized by saying "I disrespected the Bing." Which leaves non-Soprano watching me thinking (a) that's a LAME apology and (b) How the HECK could a strange phrase like that work its way into the American lexicon of stupid phrases, finding a place between "Where's the beef", "The tribe has spoken," and "You ARE the weakest link"? Mr. Chatterbox doesn't even really know how to work it into conversation, but takes a guess that it means you plead guilty to a lesser offense. " If I borrow your car and then total it, I disrespect the Bing if all I say afterwards is that I'm sorry I didn't get it back to you as quickly as I'd promised." In all honesty, I think he's stretching it. Besides, every time I read the line I think he's dissing on Chandler.

So I read this thing, thought the aforementioned thoughts, decided to not link to it and moved on. However, to my surprise the guy brought it up again to attempt to give a "progress report" on its infiltration into culture. So far, um, it's not going too far, even if Mr. Chatterbox keeps slipping it in whereever he can like the Survivor producers mention Dew, Doritos and Azteks. Actually what he reminds me of more than that is when I read The Fountainhead and there's a short section about this lame book called The Gallant Gallstone. The paper's owner gets quite ticky when he finds that certain people are slipping references to the book into the paper whenever they can, especially 'cause it sounds so dumb.

"These findings lead Chatterbox to the following preliminary conclusions:
1) For the few who have used the phrase "disrespecting the Bing" thus far, its appeal seems mainly that it shows you watch The Sopranos and that you appreciate the phrase's comic absurdism: In reality, you can't "disrespect" a strip club, which is what the Bing, or "Bada Bing," happens to be.
2) Thus far, nobody except Chatterbox is using the phrase to mean "plead guilty to a lesser offense in order to dodge responsibility for a bigger one."

Sorry, Mr. Chatterbox, but "all your base" it ain't becoming.

Update: here he goes again.

Friday, May 18, 2001
The French have a new twist on reality TV, all right.
"The cast members, originally six men and five women, are isolated in a loft in a Paris suburb, where—monitored 24/seven by an all-intrusive surveillance arsenal of 26 cameras and 50 mikes—they are encouraged to get it on. Various activities have been scripted in to stimulate romantic action, most of which could be charitably called dumb (sporting condoms on noses). Over the 10 episodes the residents are winnowed down by viewer-voting to one couple. The winning "lovers" get a half-million dollar house, as long as they stay together a required six months (sex is optional)." You'll sure never see THAT in America.  

Friday, May 18, 2001
More Evan Chan mystery stuff

Friday, May 18, 2001
The governor gives birth to twins
Meanwhile, another comments on being a fishbowl mother.

"The fact is that there may never be a convenient time for a woman with a political career to take, say, three years off to bear and raise children. If one is to rise to a high office, one needs to start early. And it may be that the reason we see so few women (and so few mothers) in high office is because the previous generation of women didn't dare to take the same risk of a highly public scolding."

Update: I liked this take on it: "When Jane Swift gave birth to twin daughters last week, so soon after becoming acting governor of Massachusetts, I felt the same odd mix of fear and pride that I experienced when Al Gore nominated Joseph Lieberman as his running mate. Swift's pregnancy and childbirth have made her for women what Lieberman's Orthodox observance made him for Jews- a public symbol of the kind of beyond-a-doubt difference that many of us try to mask or minimize. What's more quintessentially female than attending your inauguration in third-trimester maternity clothes, or presiding over state meetings by speakerphone from your hospital room because your obstetrician put you on bed rest?
Just as Lieberman's practice of Jewish law made some people confront difficult questions about how far society should go to accommodate religious differences, Swift's pregnancy and new motherhood are provoking debate about how much accommodation gender differences merit. Most politically prominent women such as Madeleine Albright, Christine Todd Whitman and Dianne Feinstein present the neatly tailored, unencumbered picture of an older woman who chose not to have children, or whose children are safely grown."

Friday, May 18, 2001
The Decline in Fashion Photography: An argument in pictures
"The products of these trends have three things in common. First, they’re ugly. Beauty has not been highly valued in the art world in general for the past few decades, and even in much of the fashion world.”

Speaking as someone who has to cut up fashion magazines a few times a quarter for homework purposes (including this weekend), this woman is so right. Fashion pictures these days are usually boring, useless, stupid, nasty, skanky, vomitous and of course, completely anorexic.

"If photographers and editors really cared about the role of women in society, they would use models above the age of 20, who look like they could complete a sentence."

Friday, May 18, 2001
Memoirs of a Spoiler Queen
(the latest column) can now be found here.