The Reading Rainbow has been cancelled.

After 26 years.

Twenty-six.

“I think reading is part of the birthright of the human being,” LeVar Burton said in a 2003 interview. “It’s just such an integral part of the human experience — that connection with the written word.”

I would post an actual press release, but it has too many words and I can’t find the motivation to read it.

If only there was a t.v. show on to get me excited about reading…

Fuck you Bush administration¹ you never cease to stick it to us, do you?

1. “The show’s run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show’s broadcast rights.

   Grant says the funding crunch is partially to blame, but the decision to end Reading Rainbow can also be traced to a shift in the philosophy of educational television programming. The change started with the Department of Education under the Bush administration, he explains, which wanted to see a much heavier focus on the basic tools of reading — like phonics and spelling.”

A good seven years or so back, my summer vacations had nothing but the dismal repetition of factory work day in and day out. Without the cash there’d be no next semester at UWO. During one of those summers, hearing about everyone’s plans and trips really bummed me out. As much as I wanted to hit the road and experience something else, it just wasn’t in the cards. That was until an ad for the Wizard World Chicago Comic Con caught my eye.

A three day pop culture extravaganza that my mind wasn’t ready for. Ever since I had started collection comics going to one of these large cons had been something I could only dream of doing. Since none of my friends were interested, I took a bus down alone and had a blast.

Where else could you witness two grown men in full Storm Trooper costumes arguing over who’s was more authentic and therefore worthy to march in Storm Trooper gathering outside the convention center that afternoon?

Where else could you see extremely over and under weight men in ill-fitting superhero duds prancing around to meet their idols be it comic creator or members of the insane Clown Posse?

Many years later, I still go, and one of the biggest changes—the number of fangirls have increased dramatically. Years before Heroes and the onslaught of successful comic book movies widened the comic book buying population, the comic con attendees objectify any woman without shame or discretion that showed up. Between the insane costumes, the desperate air of sexual frustration, and of course the comics,  Comic Con’s an entertainment spectacle and self esteem builder that can’t be missed.

Embedded below nerds after my own heart, who make comic cons worth going to because ease dropping on their conversations make my day.

Is it really better late than never?

On Friday, Late Night with David Letterman will have Bill Hicks’ mom on to pay tribute to her late son. They will air Hicks’ twelfth and final appearance on Letterman, which was censored after it had been pre-approved and taped before a studio audience.

The set, which had Pro-Choice among other socially and pop culturally relevant jokes, created a perceived conflict with CBS’ advertisers.

Five months later Hicks died of pancreatic cancer and by all accounts was still pissed at Letterman and CBS.

February will mark the fifteenth anniversary of Bill Hicks’ death and as much as a lot of his material has maintained relevant, it’s hard to understand why Late Night has decided to dredge up something that they have always maintained an elusive distance from addressing.

Guess we’ll see.

• Get it while you can “The Recently Deflowered Girl” (1965) illustrated by Edward Gorey. The full page scans are quite nice and the only way a lady may learn the proper etiquette following various occasions of being deflowered without her credit card taking a hit. (via Bookslut)

• Under the Influence: Beastie Boys Artwork

• As it turns out, the F.B.I. didn’t find George Carlin that interesting after all. 
• Samuel Beckett fans look here and rejoice. It may not be DVD quality but, it’s better than no Beckett. 
• Jay-Z + Radiohead = Jaydiohead. Not quite as infectious as The Grey Album, but still fun. Gotta wonder though, there’s a lot of people bringing more creative sounds to Jay-Z albums than Jigga himself as of late. 

Downhill skiing is a winter sport that you won’t catch me doing. There’s too many bones to be irreparably shattered and too much potential impaling.
Now, I have this to add to my worries:

From the Smoking Gun:

Man left dangling upside down, pantsless after Vail lift mishap

JANUARY 6—In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado’s ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning. The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail’s Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift’s fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair’s botched boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair. The images on page four and five were taken by Marty Odom (who can be reached at martyodm@gmail.com if you’re interested in licensing the photos). In a statement released this afternoon, Vail Resorts, which operates the ski area, reported that the skier was not injured after being “suspended for approximately seven minutes.” The press release did not explain how the mishap occurred, only that “the man was caught on the chair.”

“I know that they’re killing my people, but isn’t the writing pretty?”

May you achieve all your goals.

The inventors of Viagra just took one step closer to a Nobel Peace Prize.

From the Washington Post:

“The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.

Four blue pills. Viagra.”

The usual bribes of choice—cash and weapons—aren’t always the best options, Afghanistan veterans say. Guns too often fall into the wrong hands, they say, and showy gifts such as money, jewelry and cars tend to draw unwanted attention.

“If you give an asset $1,000, he’ll go out and buy the shiniest junk he can find, and it will be apparent that he has suddenly come into a lot of money from someone,” said Jamie Smith, a veteran of CIA covert operations in Afghanistan and now chief executive of SCG International, a private security and intelligence company. “Even if he doesn’t get killed, he becomes ineffective as an informant because everyone knows where he got it.”

The key, Smith said, is to find a way to meet the informant’s personal needs in a way that keeps him firmly on your side but leaves little or no visible trace.

“You’re trying to bridge a gap between people living in the 18th century and people coming in from the 21st century,” Smith said, “so you look for those common things in the form of material aid that motivate people everywhere.”

“Take one of these. You’ll love it,” the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.

The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes—followed by a request for more pills.”