This blog exists to amalgamate personal sentiments and information with general satirical tomfoolery. Often, details are placed in posts that are obviously fictitious. The staff leaves readers to infer what is true and what is not true. We are, after all, inveterate jokers, to the point where we are now using first person plural, a stylistic vice that we genuinely hate and previously derided. You see, it is possible to advocate evil for a moment.

Most readers are capable of making the distinction. We respect the readers to use their noggins and click upon the links presented, and to confirm the information. We trust our readers to know when we are being truthful and when we are pulling your leg. Sometimes, we do both simultaneously. And we encourage our readers to respond with equally silly responses or, in the case of arguments, counterpoints, additional angles, or exposes of the issues.

To all who like to play, the lawn is watered every day. If this is not your cup of tea, then you’re not alone. Might I recommend instead the upcoming Starsky and Hutch, an upcoming film which looks to be the most straightforward intellectual achievement of the year?

There will be no further disclaimers. But I do intend to boycott Mars.

It was a cool idea, a fresh kind of quid pro quo for Bookslut. Bring in a journalist, one who had bashed the blogosphere, onto a book blog, and see if she could blog without referencing her peers.

Well, it turns out that in a little over a day, Jennifer Howard doesn’t practice what she preaches. And not only that, but her colleagues at the Washington Post don’t have the gonads to state their names! Whereas we folks here in the blogosphere stand by our words. Sometimes we’re anonymous. But we’re always the same people, not some “anonymous blogger” in the wings.

From March 1, 2004, Entry 1: “Now I can spend the rest of the morning trying to figure out why review outlets like the WaPo have to sign confidentiality agreements…”

From March 1, 2004, Entry 2: “And the Post (that’s DC, not New York) ran this on Saturday.”

From March 1, 2004, Entry 3: No mention of the Post, but a callout to the Complete Review.

From March 1, 2004, Entry 4: “Followup comment from a WaPo colleague.”

From March 1, 2004, Entry 5: “That same WaPo colleague.” and “my 18-month-old daughter.” What’s up with the shameful personal details? Fer shame!

From March 2, 2004, Entry 1: Link to Washington Post article.

From March 2, 2004, Entry 2: The first post that doesn’t involve the Washington Post or a link to another blog.

In other words, out of seven entries, Jennifer Howard has linked or mentioned the Post six times. Or a Linkwhore Ratio of 85%!

Now, by contrast, let’s take a look at the blogs that Ms. Howard attacked in her article on the days she mentioned.

TMFTML, October 30: 8 entries, 1 post referencing Old Hag and Whatevs, 1 post referencing Maud. Linkwhore Ratio: 25%

Maud Newton, November 6: 5 entries, 1 post referencing Old Hag, 1 post referencing Literary Saloon. Linkwhore Ratio: 40%

Moorish Girl, November 7: 4 entries, 1 post referencing Maud and the Old Hag. Linkwhore Ratio: 25%

Old Hag, November 7: 3 entries, 3 entries referencing other bloggers and 1 that day going out of its way for a shoutout. Linkwhore Ratio: 100%

Okay, so Howard may have a point. But then everyone in the blogosphere knows that the Hag rolls around with everyone. So she doesn’t count.

But we can’t discount the fact that Ms. Howard has greatly outperformed the other ratios. And whereas the other bloggers linked to several people in their posts, Ms. Howard has continuously linked to a single source! What’s more, she has not only continously linked to a major newspaper (i.e., the Establishment), but she has failed completely to link to the exciting up-and-comers (like, The Syntax of Things or At Large, to name just two). She has linked to merely one. Furthermore, as my colleague Mark has noted, the erstwhile über-book info source has become dangerously contaminated with Buffy and Oscar references.

Maybe that’s the point. In the newspaper world, everybody gets to be a hypocrite.

Today is Dr. Seuss’s 100th birthday. As usual, the NEA is hosting its Read Across America program. It is your duty to inform at least one child today that there were never any movies called The Grinch and The Cat in the Hat, and introduce the kid to the wonderful world of Theodor Geisel.

Today is also Super Tuesday. Be sure to vote if you live in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island or Vermont.

If you live in Texas, today is Texas Independence Day, Texas Flag Day, Sam Houston Day, and Texas is the Center of the World Day. Don’t go to work. Please. You get the day off.

Today in Literature: D.H. Lawrence died in 1930. His last words: “I think it’s time for the morphine.”

Tom Clancy has decided to move back to Maryland. “Really. New York scares the shit out of me,” said Clancy. “I need total isolation to develop crackpot conspiracies. My libertarian-minded readers are counting on me.”

In two weeks, the New Zealand Prize in Modern Letters will be chosen. The shortlist includes William Brandt, Geoff Cush, Kate Camp, and Glenn Colquhoun. Oddly enough, the judging panel doesn’t include a single New Zealander. They’re all Yanks.

Ian Rankin gets a big profile in The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. One thing I didn’t realize was that 10% of all books sold in the UK in 2002 were written by Rankin.

There’s a big campaign to save the French language afoot. Maurice Druon, novelist, historian and elder statesman of the Academie Francaise, is urging the French to be snootier, ruder, and merciless in their use of grammar. It is also worth noting that Druon, who is 85, has not laughed once since the 1970s.

Edward Jones: Get canned from your job, write a National Book Critics Award nominated book?

Myrna Blyth, former editor of Ladies’ Home Journal and currently burning bridges with a new expose, says, “No one is going to keep me from a Cobb salad at Michael’s.” But will Michael’s keep the Cobb salad away from Blyth? Touche!

From The Germatriculator, links at random:

The Olive Press: 51% Evil.
Maud Newton: 50% Evil.
Return of the Reluctant: 42% Evil.
Pullquote: 41% Evil.
The Elegant Variation: 40% Evil.
Wood S Lot: 39% Evil.
About Last Night: 37% Evil.
The Fold Drop: 37% Evil.
Golden Rule Jones: 35% Evil.
Old Hag: 34% Evil.
Gawker: 34% Evil.
Uncle Grambo: 34% Evil
The Literary Saloon: 33% Evil.
Low Culture: 30% Evil.
Wonkette: 28% Evil.
Book Ninja: 25% Evil.
Beatrice: 24% Evil.
Book Slut: 22% Evil.
Sarah Weinman: Page too long. 100% Evil?
Moorish Girl: Page too long. 100% Evil?
TMFTML: Page too long. 100% Evil?
Chicha: Timeout. 75% Evil?

(via Six Different Ways)

M&M/MARS
Attn.: Consumer Affairs
800 High Street
Hackettstown, NJ 07840

Re: Why I Will Never Buy A Package of M&Ms Again

To Whom It May Concern:

Last night, while watching the Oscars, I experienced one of the most disrespectful and horrid television commercials of my life. The commercial was put out by your company and featured animated versions of your product entering a tableau from The Wizard of Oz – specifically, during the famous closing scene in which Judy Garland is waking up from her trip to Oz, only to realize that her family was representatives in her dream, and that, in fact, there was no place like home.

But instead of seeing her family, Judy Garland now wakes up to talking versions of your candies, and she reacts with delight. That you have violated the awe and wonder of the original scene, failing to respect its wonderful riffs on home and family, transforming it into a shameful sell for your product, and that you have seen fit to air this during a time block that is supposed to celebrate movies, demonstrates to me that not only is your company rapacious and shameless in its self-promotion, but that it has become a company I will now boycott with disgust.

Since you have seen fit to defecate upon a work of art, you have lost my business for life in the same manner that Hoover did years ago when they created a commercial in which Fred Astaire danced with a vacuum cleaner. I will avoid M&Ms, Mars bars, Milky Way bars, Snickers bars, Twix bars. If I ever own a pet, I will likewise eschew Pedigree, Cesar, Whiskas, Sheba, Kitekat, Trill, Aquarian and Winergy. No Uncle Ben’s rice for me. No Dolmio or Suzi-Wan, not that I would ever eat that crap anyway. And certainly no Klix or Flavia to drink.

Since your company cannot respect one of the most popular movies in the most popular medium of our time, I will neither respect nor endorse any of your products. I will encourage all of my friends to do likewise (at least three of them have agreed to boycott your company upon learning about the commercial this afternoon). I will also post this letter publicly on my website, so that others can recognize your company’s evils and refuse to give your company so much as a dime.

It’s probably a wise choice anyway, seeing as how your company hasn’t created a single good thing for the human body. But, oh, how you could have profited from my silly midnight munchies, or even the Halloween candy I buy for the kids each year, if only you had actually thought before destroying the poignancy of a really kickass movie.

Very truly yours,

Edward Champion

Just when you thought it was safe to return to the op-ed battlefield comes Michael Medved. Medved, thankfully reduced to fulminating on the Salem Radio Network, claims that “the source of Jew hatred today is Islamic extremism and secular Leftism — not Christianity.”

WebMonkey, one of the finest HTML/CSS/JavaScript tutorial sites on the Net, is no more. A MeFi thread makes reference to a tarball file making the rounds on BitTorrent servers. For anyone interested in upping their skillz, it might behoove them to find it before Lycos/Wired takes down the site. In the meantime, the real question is whether or not A List Apart can pick up the slack.

Just because the New York Times has a no-blogging policy, that doesn’t mean you bring it with you to the New York Magazine editorship. As Gawker reports, Liz Spiers is no more. If she’s replaced by Naomi Wolf digging up twenty year old skeletons on a weekly basis, then we’re in serious trouble.

[UPDATE: Rumors of Ms. Spiers’ demise are greatly exaggerated.]

A woman ages and you just gotta love her smile. (via Chicha)