it just goes to show

let your employees do what they're good at, and you'll get good results.

disgusting

Jeffrey Jones pleads no contest to child porn charge. i especially like this part:

"I'm sorry that this incident was allowed to occur. Such an event has never happened before and it will never happen again," Jones said outside court. The 56-year-old actor also appeared in the films "Beetlejuice" and "Sleepy Hollow."

(emphasis mine)

yeah, that's right, Jeff. you didn't do anything. it just occurred. because "it was allowed to". by whom, exactly, Mr. Jones? yeah, that's right. by you, you fucking perv.

pfui.

discomfort

i went to drop off one dvd and rent another this evening from Sheila, my friendly neighborhood video lady. i was in line behind a couple of black guys. ordinarily i wouldn't make a point of mentioning that, but it's relevant to the story. see, the guys were hassling Sheila. their tone was joking, but she seemed really uncomfortable and i couldn't help feeling like they were trying to make her uncomfortable. first they were asking "how long till the black man gets killed in this movie?" she laughed, and did her usual schtick of pointing out movies coming out soon. so they complained that those movies were all about white people. again, the tone was joking, but she quickly pointed out some other movie with a black leading man. "it's an urban movie," she said. one of the guys pounced on that. "why you be tellin' me about some urban movie? you think that's the only thing the black folks like?"

at this point, since they'd already paid for their videos, she reached past them to take the DVD case i was holding and get the DVD for me. the guys started joking with me, something about chick flicks. i said "why are you telling me about some chick flick? you think that's the only thing women like?" they thought that was pretty funny. so when Sheila handed over my video and said "you can keep this one till Thursday," and they said "why she gets to keep that till Thursday?" i said the only thing i could possibly say at that point:

"because i'm white."

there was a slight pause before they started laughing. Sheila said, "good one, Meredith!" and i serenely sailed out of the video store with a smile on my face.

i have always, always wanted to respond like that when a black person was doing the whole "i can make racial jokes because i'm black, but you can't because you're white" routine. but i'd never had the courage to do it before.

and i still don't think any of it was very funny.