• For the record, I spent part of last Friday morning, Sept. 12, shrink-wrapping pallets of Christmas decorations. They’re not out on the sales floor yet — unlike at this Hobby Lobby near Albany — but we’re getting ready. Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think retail Christmas should start until after the Cubs have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.
• Why aren’t more leaders in the white community talking about the serious problem of white-on-white criminality?
• The young-Earth creationist Discovery Institute says it does “research,” but no one really knows what they mean by that. A closer look at the background of their promotional videos shows whiteboards filled with argle-bargle formulas and Elton John lyrics. You know, science.
• I suppose it’s good that Marriott is now leaving envelopes to remind/encourage guests to tip the hotel chains’ housekeepers. I think it’d be better if Marriott ensured its housekeeping staff earned a living wage regardless of whether or not they get tipped.
• Speaking of tipping, this is pretty shady behavior for a star athlete. I realize the bar for human decency from running backs has been lowered lately, so this barely registers as an NFL scandal. But still, 20 cents on a $62 restaurant bill is bad behavior.
• If this actual news story were, instead, the TV Guide summary of the pilot episode of a new SyFy original series, I would totally watch that show. This could be the start of a terrific science fiction story, or fantasy story, or horror story, or …
• Rabbi Rachel Barenblat: “Anyway, the big idea of this essay is that fanworks function like midrash, both in terms of the narrative moves they make and in terms of their community-building function. Ultimately I argue that when we think of fanworks in this way, we open up new understandings of both fanworks and the fans who create them …”
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