Sunday, July 6, 2008

I would not be surprised if someone put this forth in all seriousness

Watermelons have Viagra-like effects:
A slice of cool, fresh watermelon is a juicy way to top off a Fourth of July cookout and one that researchers say has effects similar to Viagra _ but don't necessarily expect it to keep the fireworks going all night long.

Watermelons contain an ingredient called citrulline that can trigger production of a compound that helps relax the body's blood vessels, similar to what happens when a man takes Viagra, said scientists in Texas, one of the nation's top producers of the seedless variety.

Found in the flesh and rind of watermelons, citrulline reacts with the body's enzymes when consumed in large quantities and is changed into arginine, an amino acid that benefits the heart and the circulatory and immune systems.

"Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it," said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. "Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects."

So now we know the truth: blacks are sex maniacs because of all the watermelon they eat. It's all coming together.
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Friday, July 4, 2008

Friday Dead Racist Blogging: Why Won't Jesse Helms Just Hurry Up and Die? Edition

Alternate title: Ding Dong the Witch is Dead Edition.

I was planning on posting something else for today's DRB (well, actually, I was planning on just saying "fuck it" and shutting the blog down). But with the news of Jesse Helms' passing, I feel obligated to post, as have so many others (and there's a big round-up here).

I was unprepared for this development, so I'm basically just cribbing the same quotes as on all those pages, and some earlier stuff, too. So here goes:
While working on the primary campaign against Frank Porter Graham, Helms helped create an ad that read, "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man.

Wikipedia summation of the portion of the FAIR article citing the Charlotte News and Observer article "To Mold a Nation - Part 1", 26 August 2001.
Here are some of Jesse's more fair-minded quotes:

On homosexuals: "degenerate, morally sick wretches."

On blacks: "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."

On black civil-rights activists: "communists and sex perverts."

His record on race is, in fact, a step below deplorable. In his 1990 U.S. Senatorial campaign, in which he ran against a black man named Harvey Gantt, he eagerly used the politics of race to his advantage.

Helms' campaign ran this television ad: On the screen a pair of white hands appears. The hands crumple up a rejected job application while a voice-over intones, "You needed that job ... but they had to give it to a minority."

"Prehistoric Republicans bid adieu", Daily Nebraskan, 10 September 2001
Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced.

New York Times Magazine, 8 February 1981
She's a damn lesbian. I am not going to put a lesbian in a position like that [assistant secretary at the Department of Housing and Urban Development]. If you want to call me a bigot, fine.

Part of that can be found in this MSNBC article.
I was a senior when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. Roughly 2,000 of us joined a vigil on the quad for several days. The vigil was an instrument of our grieving and a voice for racial justice on Duke's campus. Higher wages and union recognition for the non-academic employees—cooks, food-servers, maids, and janitors, most of whom were black—became the focal issue. We sat peacefully and largely silent day and night, studying for finals, listening to Dr. King's speeches and singing "We Shall Overcome" every hour. To this day I count it as a major event in my spiritual formation.

Jesse Helms came on the television and said that all of the students sitting on the quad at Duke should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to "marry a Negro" (Duke students were practically all white in those days). Unless the student's parents approved of that prospect, Helms advised, he or she should go back to class. We all took the words as vindication for our cause.

From this article.

And this is just skimming the surface; that man had a lot more hate he shared with the world.
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Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Don't ask why I posted this; I don't know either.

[The scene is the inside of a house, in a living room. It's a cold winter night, and snow falls softly outside the window. A solitary figure, GRIEVING MAN, sits slumped in a chair, staring at a frame.

A knock at the door disturbs him, and as he moves towards the door he sets the frame down on a table, next to a bottle of Coke. The camera pauses to let us see the frame, holding a picture of JEAN, and the Coke.

GRIEVING MAN opens the door to reveal ZOMBIE JEAN. It's clearly the same woman as in the picture, but her movements are stiff and sluggish; her head remains stuck at an angle; her skin has a grayish, dead hue. When GRIEVING MAN sees her, he is aghast, and quickly begins sobbing in joy]

GRIEVING MAN: Oh my god... Jean? I thought I'd lost you...! The car crash--how did you--?

ZOMBIE JEAN: [eyes flickering past GRIEVING MAN to the Coke on the table, moaning in zombie fashion] Coookkkeee....

GRIEVING MAN: [ushering ZOMBIE JEAN into the house] Oh, yes! Of course! Come in. [ZOMBIE JEAN begins chugging the Coke, while GRIEVING MAN rambles and weeps uncontrollably] I've missed you so much. I can't believe you're still here; I could've sworn the doctors said you were DOA. Maybe I'll sue them, what do you think, dear? Oh god, it doesn't matter, now that you're here, now that you're back. [ZOMBIE JEAN finishes the Coke, turning the bottle upside down to verify that there's not a single drop left, and her eyes turn towards GRIEVING MAN] Everything's going to be all right now!

[CUT to the outside of the house, the snow still dusting the lawn and the house. We can see GRIEVING MAN and ZOMBIE JEAN's silhouettes through a lit window, with ZOMBIE JEAN advancing on GRIEVING MAN. GRIEVING MAN's voice is low and muffled, just a background noise, since we're outside the house now]

GRIEVING MAN: [suddenly unsure] Jean? What're you...?

[The silhouettes move past the window, as Coke's logo appears on the screen, over the roof of the house, and the NARRATOR speaks in a voice-over, reading the words on the screen]

NARRATOR: Coke!

GRIEVING MAN: [panicking, shrieking, though still a muffled background noise] Oh god, no! Jean! Stop!

[What can only be blood splashes the inside of the living room window, as the next line of text appears under the Coke logo on the screen, and the NARRATOR reads those lines, too]

NARRATOR: We'll bring your loved ones back from the dead.




[The scene is a warm spring day, outside in a park. People are walking their dogs, or taking a stroll, or sitting on the benches feeding the birds, or some--like HEALTHY MAN--are jogging down the track. The camera follows HEALTHY MAN as he goes on his route, leaving the park and jogging down the sidewalk, occasionally jogging in place when he gets caught at a light.

The scene cuts to the inside of HEALTHY MAN's apartment, staring at the inside of his door, which soon opens as HEALTHY MAN enters. The camera follows him as he strides over to his refrigerator and picks out a nondescript bottle]

HEALTHY MAN: Ahh... nothing like vegetable juice after a good morning's jog!

[HEALTHY MAN tilts his head back to drink, raising the bottle to his lips slowly. The liquid is about to reach his lips, when suddenly the camera cuts to his door as it is broken down and three HIRED GOONS charge into his apartment]

HEALTHY MAN: Hey, what the--? Who the hell are you? What are you doing?

[The HIRED GOONS don't speak. Instead, the first one to reach HEALTHY MAN snatches the bottle of vegetable juice from his hand and smashes it over his head.]

HEALTHY MAN: AAAH! Oh god! Oh my god, what the fuck did you do that for? Ahh! I need to go to the hospital!

[HEALTHY MAN begins to stagger away, towards the phone, but instead HIRED GOON 1 and HIRED GOON 2 ambush him and begin beating on him, and he cries out in pain at each of their blows. The camera cuts to HIRED GOON 3, who opens the fridge and takes out the rest of HEALTHY MAN's vegetable juice, then pours it down the sink. The muffled sounds of HEALTHY MAN's cries ensure us that his beating is still taking place.

Finally, the camera cuts to a clear tabletop as HIRED GOON 3 slams a bottle of Coke onto the surface. The bottle remains in focus as HIRED GOON 3 retreats into the background of the camera, joining HIRED GOON 1 and HIRED GOON 2. The three HIRED GOONS continue to kick HEALTHY MAN, who is now curled into a fetal position; the ongoing beating is out of focus as the camera focuses on the bottle of Coke]

NARRATOR: [voice-over] Coke: don't make us come down there.




Now I just need to figure out who to pitch these to.
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