The worst newspaper columnist, ever

My friend Scott is absolutely correct: Mark Morford, of the San Francisco Chronicle, is the worst newspaper columnist in the history of the typeset word. San Francisco, you have my condolences.

Scott pointed out Ma-Mo's most recent bombastic screed as a key example of this columnist's general tendency toward spittle-flecked incoherence, and I have this to say. Mark Morford, you are a pox on journalism (not to mention, liberals). I present you with the following study questions about today's column, in the hope that you will take a hard look at addressing your rhetorical disability, for the sake of your fellow San Franciscans.

1) First things first: there is no such thing as a fuzzy beach ball.

2) "As soon as people begin realizing there's more to this brief little slice of existence than hate and war and the constant drumbeat of fear, there's always resistance" hints at broad, eye-rolling cliche. Consider revising.

3) "Authority" is not capitalized, even if you think It Imparts Meaning to do so.

4) It is possibly weak journalism to acknowledge that your strained comparison of "Brokeback Mountain" to the Alito nomination in no way resonates with any living human, and yet to continue, bulldozerlike, with the comparison. You might take this up with your editor, who curiously overlooked it in this piece.

5) What is "deep, curious sighing"?

6) Based on your description of bigotry and intolerance as having a knobby little head, I am sort of picturing Dobby, the House Elf, from Harry Potter book 2. Am I getting warm?

7) Do you really, no, --really-- think that Samuel Alito's true career aspirations are "to do everything in his power to keep America's spiritual, humanitarian and sexual progress locked in the ironclad box of anti-women, anti-gay, power-uber-alles conservative thinking"? Let's get out a picture of Alito and take a good look. Right. Take a long look at the picture. Hmm. Could you possibly be overstating your case?

8) Is it possible that you have some weird mixed religious metaphor going on with the bit about the gasping and the ropes? Sort through some Wikipedia summaries of the major world religions and get back to me with specifics. It sounds like some sort of S&M sect of Catholicism to me as it stands, which may confuse a few people.

9) I tried to picture Dick Cheney "beating his chest and screaming his resistance as the mystics and the masters" but the image wouldn't come. I just kept seeing King Kong. Perhaps a King Kong with a neocon spiritual death wish, but King Kong all the same. I am concerned that your affection for Hollywood imagery may be having a deleterious effect on your powers of description?

When you are done with the study questions, please put your pen down and never pick it up, ever again.

Knit one, purl two

How do grandmas do this sh*@? It really hurts your hands, and you have to hold it right up to your eyes to see what you are doing. I have 20/20 vision, plus I'm sitting under a billion watt flood lamp from Pottery Barn that you could use to light a surgery table, and I'm still squinting .5 inches from every stitch.

Plus it's really hard. I had to read three books and a web site how-to video catalog to figure out how to get this far. Just look at this modest scrap. Three books and a web site, people.

Knitting is not for the feeble-minded. Next time you say "so easy my grandma could do it," know that you are fooling yourself.

PS: Put your name in now for your custom iPod sock.

And after all, you're my Wonderwall

I kind of want to buy this after hearing it on the muzak sound system this morning at the dentist. You'd never think Paul Anka, geriatric crooner (possibly) known by those over 35 for musty, tiki-torch hi-fi hits like "(You're) Having My Baby" and "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" could really crank out a pretty snappy version of "Wonderwall" (beats the crap out of Ryan Adams' humorless, dirge-like cover) but indeed he pulls it off. These old bastards can sometimes surprise you be it Johnny Cash with "Hurt" or Tom Jones with "Kiss" (did I just compare those songs? Yes I think I did) when they bust out with some newfangled cover song to appeal to all the kids, er, graying 30-somethings who were a little too green to appreciate them the first time around.

Anyway, check out Paul's cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Just when you think you can't enjoy that song ever again in any way, there you are in the dentist's chair, with the dentist poking your gums and muttering hatefully about your wisdom teeth through his mask, and you find yourself tapping your foot.

"An apple that has done its duty"

When you live in Washington state, you are required to take apples a little more seriously than you might in other locations.

Let's admit right off that apples are most people's least favorite fruit: kind of messy, a little laborious, somewhat unrewarding. Favored fruits tend to be more lunch-friendly and portion sized: your cherries, your grapes. When the average person eats an apple, he or she mostly feels that the main net benefit was erasing a few cigarettes or a large bag of fries, because as everyone knows, apples have health cache.

Here in Washington state, it is not patriotic to dismiss this warhorse crop as merely a Ctrl+Z for your otherwise unsavory dietary choices. We here in Washington are required to like apples. We are required to interact with them in uptown, nonstandard ways, like putting them on our salads. We are required to have opinions on apple varieties. What, you thought there were only two kinds of apples, that gross red one with the skin like a cheap leather wallet, and the sour green one that goes in pies? Think again. I suggest you spend some time educating yourself on this topic if you ever plan on residing in the Northwest. If you are at a loss, just tell people that you love Honeycrisp apples. They are the Arcade Fire of apple varieties this season, and you will be rewarded with knowing nods.

The entire point of this pre-apple-amble was to set the stage for me to link to an article about the fall of the Red Delicious. All my life, I have wondered why this staple lunchbox companion is in fact, mushy and tough-skinned. I would venture to accuse this ubiquitous, lobed menace of turning many a youngster against apples for life.

Now I know why it sucks so much. For the love of god, people, eat fujis instead.

Letterman vs. O'Reilly

This is highly amusing.