“When you swim in the sea and an eel bites your knee, that’s a moray.”
–Spider Robinson

Yep, it’s gonna be that kind of day.

The Rumpus’s favorite US Senator, Bernie Sanders (I-Awesome), took to the floor of the Senate yesterday for 8 1/2 hours to talk about taxes, primarily.

So, December.

So you’re starting a PAC and you need a name for it, something bland and generic and completely de-emphasizing your plan to replace all the caffeinated coffee in the world with decaf, you evil bastard. Here’s a name generator for you.

Hard to believe that it’s only been eleven months since shopping season for last Christmas ended. It goes by so fast.

It doesn’t take much to make the terrorist watch list in Pennsylvania these days, it seems.

Do you have an extra seventy grand laying around?

If my life is ever made into a movie, I want it aired on SyFy, & I want some sort of combination animal involved, like a sharktopus, only cooler. And I should be a cyborg.

Christopher Hayes reviews Ralph Nader’s novel.

Yesterday, we mentioned the trouble with for-profit education. Now, take a look at the economics of for-profit education. Short version–profits will be down for now.

Keith Wilson at We Who Are About to Die makes a very good point about Yale University’s modern poetry classes, given their press’s publication of The Anthology of Rap (which apparently has some transcription problems).

This gets my vote as headline of the week. And it might be good advice if you’re looking to boost voter turnout. Maybe we could offer these as premiums.

Are you a naturally-born woman between 18-27, a registered voter, never been married or photographed nude, can handle a firearm and want to be in a beauty pageant?

Just finished mid-term week here at Casa Letter-Spears, so it seems quite appropriate to begin with the five stages of grading.

Indeed, Mr. Fish. Indeed.

Bill Morris at The Millions takes on the novelist version of the one-hit wonder.

Are you watching the animations the RSA is putting out?

So we’re into the baseball post-season now, and most of the Rumpus folk live in a city with a team still involved. Last game I attended in San Francisco, Barry Bonds hit his 700th home run, so I guess I’ve got a rooting interest in the team as well.

In south Florida, all conversations eventually turn to traffic and bad drivers. In the past, everyone blamed the elderly. Now we blame mobile phones, but I think the truth is that human beings are just too easily distracted to be trusted with the operation of cars.

Today’s blogging comes to you courtesy of the grading I’m escaping from.

Scott Horton at Harper’s points to a study of prosecutorial misconduct in the Justice Department put together by USA Today (really?) which will shake whatever faith you had left in the idea of the federal justice system.

Sometimes I wish I had a second computer just to grade my students’ papers with, so I could accidentally drop that computer into the toilet.

Do you know who Ines Sainz is? If you’re an NFL fan, you do, even if you don’t recognize her name.

I’m starting to believe that there is nothing in this world more likely to destroy one’s schedule than Netflix Streaming.

Quick question about Park 51. Almost everyone objecting to it says the owners have the right to build there, and that there’s no legal way to force a move.

First meeting of the term turned into drinking and eating and eating and drinking and a long headachey ride home. That’s what I call a good start.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Mississippi still has some work to do on race relations.

Is it Saturday already? My last week of vacation/first week of work went by a little quickly.

How did medieval folks protect their DVDs?

I haven’t written anything on the stories coming out of the Virginia Quarterly Review because I don’t know any of the people there and don’t know any of the facts of the situation.

I have one cat who carries around a catnip-filled mouse in her mouth and quacks. I have another who barks. The other two make regular appearances on my Facebook page. Yeah. I’m one of those people.

Jordan Carr of The Awl takes a tour of the neighborhood surrounding the “GROUND ZERO TERROR MOSQUE,” aka, the Cordoba House.

It’s a Saturday morning, the World Cup is on, and I’m done with students for the next 7 weeks. Let’s read.

And let’s start with Jacob Lambert at The Millions talking about the Wu-Tang Clan. They are, as you might have heard, nothing to fuck with.

I got my hangover out of the way Friday morning, so I should be chipper. Of course, I have a metric ton of grading to do for the end of my summer class, so maybe not.

Surprisingly interesting story on the history of well-done meat in America.

Late start this morning. I’d like to take a moment to thank all the Belgian beer that made this late start possible.

In the event you’re having trouble finding enough to read online, you can always check out Michelle Orange’s new Tumblr.

It’s been a good week on The Rumpus. I’ll try to keep it going.

Dear Prescott Arizona. Fuck you.

Daniel Sinker brings an old book back to life. The book? 2010: Living in the Future.

How much will self-publishing affect the publishing world?

Morning, everyone.

Today’s winner for the “no kidding?” headline: “Groin-Punching is Unhealthy,” though one presumes this refers more to the punchee than the puncher.

Jacob Lambert on the wonder of Tetris.

Graduate tries to sell his degree on Ebay.

Picked up a brand new MacBook yesterday morning. Let’s see how it handles.

Joshua Baldwin goes to Chinatown and finds some interesting things on the menu.

To no one’s surprise, the Texas State Board of Education shows it should be renamed the Texas State Board of Conservative Ideology.

I’m learning how to make books this afternoon–sew them by hand and all that. No telling where that may lead. In the meantime, here’s some non-tree reading for you.

To all college administrators worried about grade inflation: caving in to the gun lobby and allowing concealed carry on campus is probably the worst thing you can do.

Good morning. Let’s see what the tubes have for us today.

Over at Harper’s, Mr. Fish adds to the Arizona immigration debate.

Mother Jones explores the world of H-2A guest worker programs and calls them “a new kind of indentured servitude.” It’s hard to argue with what they describe.

Back to the regular Saturday grind. We’ll have some oil spill and Arizona asininity for you later in the day, but I think we should start off the morning with some lighter fare.

And by lighter fare, I of course mean word-nerdery.

Morning, everyone. I was up late last night catching “Death at a Funeral.” Go see it. Trust me on this.

Make sure you watch the slide-show on this piece about embarrassing tampon-ad clichés. That’s where all the funny is.

Do you search online for coupons before you make a purchase?

I’m pushing these back a bit in order to give some time at the top to our Rumpus Original Poems lineup for National Poetry Month. It has nothing to do with camping out overnight at an Apple Store. I don’t have the room on my credit card to do that anyway.

Is it Saturday already? Holy crap.

Humboldt county farmers are planning for the future after legalization of marijuana, including the possibility of tasting rooms.

Want to make your video gaming experience even more realistic? How about a vest which simulates the impact of a punch?

I have to admit, I was curious as to what the sarcasm mark would look like, but I’d never use it. Rather keep everyone guessing.

Chaucer tweets the South by Southwest Festival.

Some film folks for tell The Guardian about their favorite scenes from film.

Well, it’s been a hell of a Spring Break for me, and there’s still a couple of days of it left. Let’s get to it.

If you’re about to go on Spring Break and you can afford to come to Florida (and we’d love to have you–we the state, that is), beware of driving in the Keys.

Since the Oscars have killed what little integrity they had by doubling the field for Best Picture, why shouldn’t they add a category for best cameo appearance? Stan Lee makes the case for it, though I’m a little disappointed he didn’t use his star turn from Mallrats.