This prank is what I call culture jamming. I wish I still lived in California; I’d take him up on this.
Category: General
By the People, For the People is one of my favorite Library of Congress collections. 
(I promise not to do this sort of thing very often. It’s been a whimsical weekend.)
Al Sharpton is a demagogue of a fairly virulent sort, and I have little sympathy for him. However, the news that his offices burned down this morning is potentially very disturbing. According to Susannah of cut on the bias, it was a two alarm fire, which means it’s more than a cigarette in a trash can. It took out his civil rights group HQ and his presidential campaign HQ.
Five bucks says someone gets histrionic about this before all the facts are in. Ten bucks says the histronics get in the way of examining the facts.
Apparently Robin Laws will soon be writing Iron Man. Yes, as in the Marvel Comics Iron Man. Tony Stark. Buh!
For those of us not versed in roleplaying games, Robin Laws has been an influential figure in the industry for the last decade or so. He contributed to the classic RPG Over the Edge, which found its inspiration in William S. Burroughs and David Lynch, an entirely new source of ideas for the roleplaying community. He went on to write GURPS Fantasy II, which kicked the normal fantasy RPG tropes in the balls and then went off to get drunk by itself on cheap tequila. With Feng Shui, he abruptly shed the “weird non-commercial designer” tag and demonstrated his ability to write sound mechanics that actively support a game’s genre. Since then he’s worked on Star Trek, various White Wolf games, and whatever else caught his interest.
I look forward to his foray into the world of comics.
Edit: minor correction. Apparently he’s a five issue fill-in writer, and no permanent writer has been announced. Still!
Virginia Heinlein passed away yesterday; thanks to Kevin Drum for the news. I’m saddened.
The Peking Duck is a weblog written by an American ex-pat in Bejing. Really good stuff, very daring and brave. It’s now on my blogroll. (Via Scripting News.)
Cory Doctorow’s new book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, is now available. Both in a dead tree version and as pixels; the latter is licensed under a Creative Commons license. Check it out, buy the dead tree version, read it online, glory in the freedom of information. I’ll no doubt be reviewing this later.
The
Cloudtravel (via Ernie the Attorney) is exactly the sort of site I dig. It’s a one man show, written by Chris Cloud (and what a great name for a traveller), that serves as a travel guide to places he’s been. A real personal style, good information, and plenty of opinions. He says he needs more substance; I say he’s already given us quite a bit. I wish I’d been able to read this before my first trip to New Orleans. Similar stuff here, from one of the canniest travellers I know.