So in addition to reading parts of Elliot Rodger's "manifesto," I've watched a handful of his YouTube videos and read a bunch of articles and editorials on the dude's background and the tragic events of last Friday (Mashable has a really thorough piece that includes a detailed look at Rodger's personality, a timeline of events, and numerous video links and manifesto excerpts)... and I can't help wishing that I'd had the opportunity to talk to him before he did what he did. Granted, it probably wouldn't have made a difference -- he probably would've called me weak (and stabbed me to death if I'd been one of his roommates) and, for my part, I probably would've found him weird and creepy as heck -- but still.

Someone needed to tell Rodger that not having a girlfriend doesn't diminish a guy's worth as a man or as a human being. Someone needed to tell him that everyone has problems, and that those dudes walking around with beautiful blond girls on their arms didn't necessarily have "better" lives than his because of that fact. Someone really needed to tell him that, at any age, there are way worse things than being a virgin (like being a murderer). Those ideas might seem obvious to many of us, but -- despite Rodger's apparent belief in the superiority of his own intellect -- they clearly failed to take root in his mind. Unfortunately, that's not terribly surprising: while those ideas might seem obvious to many of us, they're not terribly well represented in public discourse and popular media, either.

So like most of the random articles I read these days, this one was posted by someone on Facebook. I'm kinda not sure what to think of it, though I suppose it's not terribly surprising. Here, have a look:

Addicting Info: Republican Uses Noah's Ark Myth To 'Disprove' Man Made Climate Change

Yep.

Though I will say that the author of that article didn't impress me with her so-called takedown of Barton:

"Barton says that the Great Flood is an example of Climate Change, when in fact the Bible states that the earth was flooded to rid the earth of sin. ... So in other words the Great Flood was not a change in climate at all but God’s wrath brought upon all of the sinners and his intention was to cleanse the earth and start anew."

It could totally be both, though; the author is confusing God's intent with His potential mechanism of action. The torrential rains that caused the Flood (in one account) could have been a byproduct of God-made climate change -- which God engineered because He was super pissed at humanity and wanted to wipe the slate clean. There's no necessary contradiction there.

(I suppose one could make the argument that the change in climate that caused the Flood was more sudden -- and thus doesn't count as climate change proper -- but the rain that lasted for forty days and forty nights could have been the exclamation point at the end of a climate-changey sentence God started writing decades earlier.)

So I raaaarely comment on stuff like this (and I'm totally late on this in terms of blogosphere Hollywood gossip), but after having the tab open for days I've finally finished reading Joe Eszterhas's nine-page letter to Mel Gibson.

IT IS INSANE. And also kinda full of shit. I mean, Mel probably did do a lot of that stuff -- while he denies the truth of "the great majority of the facts as well as the statements and actions attributed to [him]" in his response to Eszterhas, those actions would be in keeping with Mel's personality as demonstrated in the past. But it just seems like bullshit that Eszterhas wrote this as a private communication to Mel with no intention of having it read by outside sources. (more...)

It's recently occurred to me that, while I often feel like I'm not doing enough writing, I actually do quite a lot of it! I spend a lot of time browsing and posting at length on various forums, and I frequently leave not insubstantial comments on web articles and blog posts that I read... to say nothing of all of the stuff that I throw out on Facebook and the like. Having realized this, I'm going to stop posting to these places so much and instead post what I would have written here and on Scary-Crayon -- which will hopefully let me keep better track of my writing while adding to the content on my own sites.

To that end, I'm going to kick off by reposting some of the stuff I added to a Facebook discussion last week, since I thought it was pretty hilarious. (more...)

She will be missed. (more...)