Somewhere in the world right now...

 

...a toilet is blowing up with no one on it.

 

So much for the Lethal Weapon ticket.

 

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/06/06/edwards-again-rules-out-vp-job/

 

Just an Odd Thing I Noticed

Cult author Chuck Palahniuk

 

 

looks an awful lot like Steve Carell.

 

 

I'm just imagining what The Office would be like if Palahniuk was involved.  Some unsavory activities involving the shredder would be going on, no doubt.  A stapler would most likely be found in someone's orifice at some point.  And almost certainly, someone would wind up with paper cuts on their genitals.

 

Anyway, Happy Friday!

 

Ladies and Gentlemen...

Presenting your newest internet phenomenon...

the Obama fist bump.

By the end of the week, we'll be buried to our eyeballs in fist bump remixes.


UPDATE: Presenting the whitest thing I've ever seen. Whiter than a Bachman-Turner Overdrive reunion show. Whiter than a Friends marathon. Whiter even than West Virginia. (OK, maybe not that white but still pretty honked out.)

A 2-minute explanation of the Obama fist bump, courtesy of CNN.

One Man Can Make a Difference

The man at the far right of the picture is my friend, Kevin Froner.  You wouldn't know it to look at him but he's a hell of a dancer.*  He's also such a great Risk player, it's surprising that he hasn't been snatched up by some Pentagon think-tank, Last Starfighter-style. 

 

Kevin also happens to be a teacher at Manhattan Hunter Science High School in New York City.  As long as I've known him, he's always been full of solutions that are so simple and so practical, you can't believe no one else had thought of them before.  Or at least put them into action.  These days, he's putting a solution to a pretty important issue into effect.

 

He wants every eligible high school student in New York City to register to vote.  When I say every, I mean every single one.  Considering that most 18-year-olds register to vote when they apply for a driver's license, city kids who will likely never need to drive a car in their lives don't necessarily have that same chance.  Kevin wants to change all that by giving them, as well as any other pre-emptively disenfranchised kids out there, a variety of options so that it's difficult for them to not register to vote.

 

I'd get into more detail but it would spoil the link to the story on Kevin and his students (pictured above) in today's NY Daily News.

 

My wife used to work in TV news and once, in a rare moment of foolish optimism on my part, I suggested that she pitch an idea to her show called "Why Should I Care?"  Sometimes, people don't care about what's going on outside their little bubble but - if they were given, in no uncertain terms, a reason that succinctly explains why they should care about a certain news story that might not otherwise appeal to them - they might be more inclined to pay attention to it.  Needless to say, she didn't use it.  She would have been laughed out of the daily pitch meeting. 

 

Maybe that concept doesn't work well for TV news ratings but it certainly could here.  By getting these kids to register to vote, statistically, they'll be more inclined to take an active interest in what's going on in their country and not just hide behind the lame excuse that they can't make a difference.  I think it's a great idea.  And so simple that I can't believe no one thought of it sooner.  Vintage Kevin.

 

So if you or someone you know is a New York City student and would like to register to vote, go to their site, Youth Vote Project, and print out the registration sheet.  And regardless of who or where you are, go to the site and sign the petition to instate a nationwide voter registration day in order to get more high school students across the United States to register.

 

 

 

 

 

* - To any students of Mr. Froner's that might have stumbled upon this while googling his name or something:  don't even bother to ask him about the dancing.  He'll never crack.  Never.