» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe http://www.fringeblog.com The fringe is where the real resides, where substance and style are made one. Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:44:17 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Cocoa Krispies and Haircuts http://www.fringeblog.com/2005/10/cocoa-krispies-and-haircuts/ http://www.fringeblog.com/2005/10/cocoa-krispies-and-haircuts/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2005 21:45:02 +0000 jelewis8 http://www.fringeblog.com/2005/10/cocoa-krispies-and-haircuts/ You haven’t lived if you haven’t eat Cocoa Krispies for breakfast. No, wait, what I mean to say is, if you want to live, don’t eat Cocoa Krispies for breakfast. Or any other meal, for that matter. This is clearly a cereal marketed toward the part of a kid’s brain that has no intention of ever living right. It consists of tiny puffs of rice-based cereal (so not eligible for Communion food) dipped in a chocolate-like substance. It however does not have the pleasing taste of chocolate, rather the equivalent of a sickening dread you get when you are being stalked by an unseen, omnipotent killer (I could say cereal killer, but that might be going too far). If any of you has ever been stalked by a killer, you know exactly what I mean.
Los Angeles is currently experiencing another spate of round-the-clock hotness. One problem with moving to a new location is you’re never sure if the weather you’re experiencing is the norm or an anomoly. Even if it’s an anomoly, it might be a normal anomoly, and if you want total confusion, you can consider that the weather is neither normal nor an anomoly, but the onset of a new weather pattern paradigm. Then everyone’s screwed, and we can all blame Bush for not signing Kyoto.
In general, moving to a new town means having to establish new routines, new places to frequent, new schedules. I have happily found a coffee shop that, despite its lack of wifi, is quite good, and I go there often to wake up in the morning. One thing I haven’t found is a hair cuttery. This is quite a frightening ordeal, going into an untested hair place. You never know if you’re going to come out looking like your stylist was a psychotic lawn care professional or not. The most you can hope for is not to be disappointed. You will almost never come out of a new place thinking, “That was the most amazing experience of my life.” Then again, not everyone has access to Hollywood’s finest.
So I have yet to get a haircut, despite that I am back on my short hair kick. I like short hair, I like not having to deal with the intricacies of hair combing and knot untangling and shedding. I think I look better with short hair. But with no haircut, I’m fearful every morning. I wake up and look in the mirror and think about the possibility of immediate removal with a surgical, military strike. But no, I haven’t lost every brain cell.
I apologize for my lack of updates. I have a review of A History of Violence half-finished, and another short story I’ve been wanting to start writing. I have no excuse. Please forgive me, and come again tomorrow. I promise I won’t be slack.

]]> http://www.fringeblog.com/2005/10/cocoa-krispies-and-haircuts/feed/ 4 Also from HonestReporting: What if http://www.fringeblog.com/2003/07/also-from-honestreporting-what-if/ http://www.fringeblog.com/2003/07/also-from-honestreporting-what-if/#comments Fri, 25 Jul 2003 10:07:02 +0000 jelewis8 http://www.fringeblog.com/2003/07/also-from-honestreporting-what-if/ Also from HonestReporting: What if Israel suddenly called Bush the “head of the snake”, or refered to America as a “putrid swamp”? Wouldn’t the media outcry be instantaneous and fierce? Yet those very things were spoken by the Palestinian Authority’s Deputy Foreign Minister Adli Sadeq on June 3. The first I heard about this was from HonestReporting.
Take this political cartoon, from a newspaper in Qatar:
Arab States in the Middle

This isn’t an aberration. It’s standard fare for the Arab world.
Extremism doesn’t describe these prevailing attitude. After all, extremism is limited to the few. Extremism is the norm in the Middle-East.
What’s more dismaying is the apathetic response (or lack of response) from the American media. Only in America can you get 16 words hyped into oblivion, yet ignore blatant hatred being spewed from the mouths of media darlings like Arafat and Abbas. Nor are Arab inconsistencies pointed out. Try this on for size: The so-called Roadmap for Peace consists in part of the removal of Arafat from PA leadership. July 17 edition of the Jerusalem Times stated that Abbas and Arafat had settled their differences with a deal that gives Arafat control over two important portions of the leadership of PA: negotiations with Israel and head of the PA security committee. Or this: The Roadmap requires PA leadership to “arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.” Except that Abbas stated on July 22, “Cracking down on Hamas, Jihad and the Palestinian organizations is not an option at all.” Sound like a slight conflict of interest? There’s more.
Even though Palestinian prisoner release is not part of the peace process, several news sources, including Reuters and the Washington Post, persist in including it as a tenet of the peace process.
Thanks to E Pluribus Unum for the info.

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