Peter W. Knox

New Jobless Claims Hit Four-Year Low -- Daily Intel

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:24:48 -0500

New Jobless Claims Hit Four-Year Low -- Daily Intel:

New claims for unemployment benefits dropped by 13,000 to 348,000 last week, the fourth drop in five weeks and the lowest number of claims in nearly four years, according to the Labor Department. And at the same time, hiring is up: The economy added a net 243,000 job in January, the most in nine months, bringing the average gain over three months to 201,000, dropping the unemployment rate down to 8.3 percent.

How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day | TPM2012

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:20:37 -0500

How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day | TPM2012:

So there you have it: modern women being told by Republicans that they’re not qualified to talk about their own sexual health, are dressed like “whores” and probably need birth control because they’re so slutty. And this is just in one day.

balltillifall: It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:03:52 -0500

balltillifall:

It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that’s not for purposes of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can’t you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure. And that’s certainly a part of it — and it’s an important part of it, don’t get me wrong — but there’s a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.

-Rick Santorum

Ordinarily it wouldn’t even be worth my time to get upset by what Rick Santorum says, but considering that quite a few Republicans deem him fit to be the leader of the free world, I feel that it’s incumbent upon myself to help point out how batshit crazy he is.

I feel like every week the man manages to come out with something even more vile and divisive than the week before, but I think that his recent uneducated ramblings on birth control really take the cake.

For some reason older, white males in the Republican party have recently taken issue with birth control, even though the overwhelming majority of women in America (including Catholics) have used it and deemed it ok, something the Supreme Court agrees with and chose to protect.

Now Santorum is coming out and saying that sex for anything other than pro-creation is “counter to how things are supposed to be”, suggesting that sex with contraceptives is immoral and “libertine”.

Santorum’s fundamental (not to mention irresponsible) misunderstanding of science, sex and morality makes my head want to explode. We aren’t supposed to use birth control, condoms or have sex for anything other than pro-creation? Does he have any idea what century he’s living in? Does he have no conception of STD’s and how easily millions of deaths can be prevented every year? Does he have the slightest idea of how birth control even works? Does he really not know that sex is natural and in no way shameful and that it’s an important part of healthy relationships? I honestly feel bad for Santorum’s wife. By his math he’s only had sex with her 8 times in the 22 years they’ve been married.

Rick Santorum and other oblivious white, conservative males like him need to butt out of issues they don’t have the slightest idea about or right to be meddling with in the first place such as women’s healthcare and private sexual behavior. Hopefully after Rick Santorum loses this year’s election he will disappear back into the skewed, Dark Ages world he came from, leaving the rest of us to have as much safe, consensual, responsible, non-procreative and enjoyable sex as we want with whoever we want.

Letting Dean’s response stand here because I’m too angry/flabbergasted to formulate one myself.

thegreg:derbygirl:triumphofintellectandromance:thegoatjustatethem...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 11:01:37 -0500

thegreg:derbygirl:triumphofintellectandromance:thegoatjustatethemoney:undergr0undkingz:

tyleroakley:

Before you defend Chris Brown, let alone support him, read the police report of what happened between him and Rihanna in 2009.

I honestly had no idea. Rihanna was smart and lucky and Chris Brown is a monster. Can’t imagine this.

lauraemily: kateoplis: Repurposed phone booth library in NYC...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 10:58:43 -0500

lauraemily:

kateoplis:

Repurposed phone booth library in NYC by architect John Locke

yes. please.

This I like.

Less Than Jake crowd at Brooklyn Bowl, Feb 16, 2012

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:04:00 -0500

Less Than Jake crowd at Brooklyn Bowl, Feb 16, 2012

My kind of place serves every Brooklyn Beer on draft. Love...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:12:12 -0500

My kind of place serves every Brooklyn Beer on draft. Love @BrooklynBowl for this reason. (I got the Blast, it’s special).

nedhepburn: Order now. I have written two books, and you can...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:18:18 -0500

nedhepburn:

Order now.

I have written two books, and you can order them now. They’re printed in Moleskine type journals and look amazing; also, handmade in Brooklyn. Very big thanks to Amanda White and everyone at 8-Bit for making this happen. Please reblog and spread the word!
With love,

N

Congrats Ned!

Coming to Terms | The Point Magazine Franzen, Wallace and the...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:00:14 -0500

Coming to Terms | The Point Magazine

Franzen, Wallace and the Question of Realism

(well, this seems to have been written with me in mind)

Congressional Birth Control Hearing Involves Exactly Zero People...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:46:00 -0500

Congressional Birth Control Hearing Involves Exactly Zero People Who Have a Uterus

Today on Capitol Hill, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform assembled a panel to discuss the birth control mandate in President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Specifically, whether or not requiring insurers to cover birth control violates religious freedom of people who don’t believe in science. The committee, chaired by a male, consisted of eight men who felt personally persecuted by the requirement. And that’s about the least depressing aspect of the whole circus.

I wouldn’t let these guys determine my haircut, much less what’s really at stake here.

"I know nothing about basketball. I only know when Jeremy puts the ball in the basket he has done a..."

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:43:03 -0500

“I know nothing about basketball. I only know when Jeremy puts the ball in the basket he has done a good thing.”

- Jeremy Lin’s Grandmother Watches, Along With Taiwan - NYTimes.com

A Taiwanese treasure. This is adorable.

bacon chocolate chip cookie recipe | pete bakes! This is my old...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 15:42:22 -0500

bacon chocolate chip cookie recipe | pete bakes!

This is my old friend (who introduced me to Less Than Jake), and his baking blog.

Less Than Jake - Automatic - Live (by AbsolutePunknet) Back in...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:41:00 -0500

Less Than Jake - Automatic - Live (by AbsolutePunknet)

Back in 1997, my friend played a CD for me in my basement when we were hanging out and I heard this song, Automatic, by a band called Less Than Jake (I would later learn Jake was the name of a bandmember’s dog which he felt received preferential treatment to him by his family).

I would go on to buy everything by LTJ I could get my hands on and then see them play Warped Tour (in Camden NJ’s parking lots) every summer for the next several years. When I went to college I’d still make the drive to Philly (the Troc!) or DC (930 Club) or Baltimore to see them play each year.

They would be the first band I’d check out in New York when I moved here the summer of 2006. Such was the thrill of them playing Webster Hall when I was living only 2 blocks away that I showed up late to their set and almost missed the show.

Since then I’ve caught the now 20 year old act several times in the city. They play Brooklyn Bowl tonight and I’ll be there too. Can’t wait.

(via “Cherry” Photocall - 62nd Berlinale...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:52:24 -0500

(via “Cherry” Photocall - 62nd Berlinale International Film Festival - Pictures - Zimbio)

If you're a fan of both brutal honesty in non-fiction, and DFW, I think you owe it to yourself to pick of one of Mary Karr's books.

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:57:51 -0500

That is true. They’re on my list.

lessthanjake: If you are coming to one of the TWO shows at the...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:54:00 -0500

lessthanjake:

If you are coming to one of the TWO shows at the Brooklyn Bowl you can get one of the limited Edition LTJ Bowling Shirts! Only 50 made and ONLY available at the Brooklyn bowl shows. http://www.lessthanjaketix.com

Oh shit, that’s awesome. Hope I get one tonight. (It’ll go well with the Mighty Mighty Bosstones bowling shirt I got at Warped Tour in bright orange 12 years ago).

On devastating reads and the latest I've found...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:33:00 -0500

Yesterday’s announcement that the anonymous Rumpus advice columnist Sugar (to read Sugar is to love Sugar) was a writer named Cheryl Strayed, brought me to read for the first time some of her writing published under her true byline.

“The Love Of My Life” published in The Sun Magazine (2002), a beautiful personal perfect essay that starts with the line:

THE FIRST TIME I cheated on my husband, my mother had been dead for exactly one week.

and a 4,500 word excerpt from her forthcoming (six figure deal) memoir Wild published in Vogue, Into the Woods, which would make anyone preorder that sure-to-be-amazing story.

And it all got me thinking about what I love to read. I’ve always found nothing more compelling than: brutally open and honest and true nonfiction first person literary personal memoir/essays. Bonus points if you’re male, coming of age, and writing about New York.

Likewise, they’ve mostly been male writers: Jonathan Ames, David Sedaris, Augusten Burroughs, Hunter S. Thompson, David Foster Wallace, John Jeremiah Sullivan, etc. but stand-out women like Zadie Smith, Sloane Crosby, and now Cheryl Strayed have started to balance out my list, because nothing has been more devastatingly personal, honest, open, self-aware, seedy, well-written, selfish, and true than “The Love Of My Life” that I’ve read recently. It’s got everything to rope you in (death, drugs, sex, drama) but it’s the self-awareness that keeps you there. Read it.

The Colbert Report Mysteriously Suspends Production

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 10:52:07 -0500

The Colbert Report Mysteriously Suspends Production:

Let’s hope he’s ok and this comes back soon.

Book Publishing [What People Think I Do / What I Really Do...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 09:54:35 -0500

Book Publishing [What People Think I Do / What I Really Do meme]

by quirkbooks

noraleah: “What is the secret to love? A secret is a secret and...

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 16:06:11 -0500

noraleah:

“What is the secret to love? A secret is a secret and I don’t reveal my secrets!”

—Ykov Shapirshteyn, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

From a photo series of New York couples who have been together for 50 years or more (via Cup of Jo).