APOLOGIES RELATED TO AUTISM FUNDRAISERS ARE ALMOST NEVER FUNNY

The Belly Up Tavern, a live music venue that I pass during my daily commute to work, recently promoted an upcoming autism-related fundraiser that will feature performances by the band Slightly Stoopid.

Unfortunately, since Slightly Stoopid is a relatively obscure band, the person who designed the ad for the event (see above) misled many to believe that the name of the autism fundraiser is called "Slightly Stoopid." Oops.

To their credit, at least the organizers passed on the chance to invite the band Retarded to co-headline the show.

Of course, this confusion engendered the following inevitable and tasty damage-control email, which defies the usual rule that apologies related to brain disorders are never funny:

"The Belly Up offers their sincerest apologies for any misunderstanding about the April 15th charitable fundraiser for Autistic Children email. The band that is playing for this charitable event is called Slightly Stoopid, spelled with two 'oo's. It was never our intent nor the intent of Autism Tree Project to suggest that the name of the event is called Slightly Stoopid."

I might have to print out that mea culpa and put it in my scrapbook.

I would only replace it if I were to one day get the following apology email:

"The Belly Up offers their sincerest apologies for any misunderstanding about the 'Stop The Violence' Memorial for the Convalescent Home Murder Victims.

The band that is playing for this charitable event is called The Killers, which has no connection to the people who murdered the victims.

Also, MC Ghostface Killah, spelled with an 'ah', does not endorse the homicide of the elderly by spraying bullets into their ghostly faces.

It was never our intent to suggest that the name of the event is called 'Support The Killers, Cheer on Da Lench Mob, and C-Murder.'"

--Junichi

ONE BIRD PROTECTED BY THE CONSTITUTION

Not Walking The Line

One federal district court judge just ruled that the act of flipping off a police officer is protected speech under the First Amendment.

As your legal counsel, however, I must advise you that just because you have a constitutional right to flip off a police officer does not mean that it is a good idea to exercise that right.

--Junichi

NEWS FLASH: BERKELEY IS THE HYBRID CAPITAL OF AMERICA

Surprisingly, this Prius is not owned by a poor Republican in Bakersfield.

According to a new study by the UCLA Institute of the Environment, there is a strong correlation between cities with strong pro-environmental voting records and ownership of hybrid vehicles. Also, the study reveals that if a person voted for a Green Party candidate, the more likely that he or she owns a hybrid.

Finally, we have a breakthrough to begin to understand why Hybrid ownership in Berkeley is more than seven times higher than that of California's statewide average. I hope I live to see this mystery solved.

*

In other academic research news, I am looking for someone to fund several studies of mine that seek to prove the high correlation between the following:

Possible Positive Correlation Between Two Phenomena
The college football team that a person supports	The fact that the person attended that college
Number of local shops that sell boba drinks	Percentage of local population that is of Asian ancestry
Amount of ammunition purchased	Number of guns owned
Number of times a person has attended a NASCAR event	Number of times a person has avoided a gay pride parade
Percentage of music collection that involves the Counting Crows	Likelihood of being a douchebag

--Junichi

QUESTION OF THE WEEK #141

Southwestsiiiide!

This Week's Question:

Does the flight attendant in the above video make you more or less likely to fly Southwest Airlines?

--Junichi

GREETINGS FROM CARLSBAD. WISH YOU WERE HERE.

The year is 2009.

A Chevron gas station in Carlsbad sells this postcard (and very few others).

I buy it.

It is awesome.

--Junichi

WED, MARCH 18TH: PUBLIC STEPS

This is going to be held at Cal State Long Beach...

--O.W.

OH, LIGHTEN UP

Ah, global irony: even in an era where tanning has become more vogue than ever in the U.S., with the light-skinned going to great lengths to become browner, elsewhere in the world, especially Asia, the trend has been to become lighter.

PRI's The World has a good radio segment about the skin whitening craze in Asia, with the stunning statistic that 50% of women in Taiwan purchase skin whitening products and elsewhere in Asia, rates of 40% are not unusual. As the piece points out in nations such as Japan, the preference for lighter skin taps into centuries-old cultural biases but that certainly doesn't also discount the impact of a global media where Whiteness has long been a beauty norm as well.

I'm curious to see what some of long-term implications of this trend may be, for example, how it might impact the prevalence of skin disease/damage in these societies with the wholesale abandonment of the protections afforded melanin.

--O.W.

THIS IS CREEPY

... and real.

--Junichi

COME LICK WITH US!

Ah, it's been rather quiet around here now that Junichi's busy learning how to be a new dad (hold tight dude! It gets better! After, um, a year...) and me, uh, just being my normal, infrequent-posting-unless-during-presidential-elections-or-major-disasters (and sometimes, the two helpfully merge into one).

To be frank, Junichi and I had spoken a few weeks back about the dire need for us to find some new bloggin' blood for our site and while we hadn't put a formal call out yet, now seems as good a time as any: if you're seriously interested in becoming the third Poplicker (and isn't that an attractive title?), drop us a line.

We're looking for someone sharp, smart, with an interest in, of course, politics as well as popular culture. You don't have to be AZN and definitely don't have to be a man (in fact, we'd really like the third Muskateer to be a woman, just like in Slumdog!)

Benefits include...absolutely nothing except for joining a team that knows more about the Dixie Chicks and Latin boogaloo than any other two Asian American guys out there. At least, I think we do. Maybe not.

--O.W.