Market Report: Vegans up, Texans and Albertans way, way down

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NosferatuForget the market for virgins; the hottest new opportunity is the market for vegans! Because of breaking news in the Guardian that Mad Cow Disease has been transmitted through tainted human blood products, the body-juice of a vegan is now far more valuable than the potentially-deadly, germ-soupy gore of a carnivore. Per pint, vegans are now worth several times as much as meat-eaters on the open market, to say nothing of the back alleys of Whitechapel and the farther reaches of Transylvania.

Hmmm, some of my clean-living friends had better watch their backs. The next time someone squeezes you in a crowded bar, maybe he's just trying to see how juicy you are. Try not to squish, okay?

The government has been forced to warn 14 Jack the Medical Laboratory Techniciancountries that patients are in danger of developing the human form of mad cow disease as a result of contaminated British blood products sold abroad.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that patients in Brazil and Turkey are most at risk from the products, although it is too early to know how many, if any, foreign patients may develop the incurable variant CJD, as it takes many years to appear…

The contaminated blood products were exported in the 1990s…Health authorities then had to re-examine blood products sent abroad by the state-owned company Bio Products Laboratory (BPL)…

Working Out Your Own Salvation With Xena: Warrior Princess Or, The Renewing of Ego Ideals in Syndication

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Whodathunk a scholarly paper on Xena: Warrior Princess Xena is watching. And that bitch will cut you!existed? But, knowing that as you now do, is it any surprise it's written by a raving Xeniac?

Author's Note: Watching Xena religiously has helped to keep me relatively sane over the past four years while I have been working towards my Ph.D. in Religion and Personality at Vanderbilt. This paper started life as a term paper on the first season episode TIES THAT BIND (20/120) for a course on Freud and religion in 1996. It was radically condensed and reorganized last Fall (with the help of this fine, on-line publication) in order to be included in a panel on "Women and Religion in Popular Culture" at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion on November 21, 1998. Prof. Sheila Briggs did not present her paper on "Xena Crucified: Christology and Post-Colonial Theory" until two days later, so I had the unexpected pleasure of delivering the first Xena research paper at the A.A.R. Since I was writing for Xenite and non-Xenite members of the academy, please forgive those portions that seem to be preaching to the converted, or belaboring the obvious.

Okay, now, to a certain extent I understand the desire to, upon realizing just how many hours you've wasted watching cartoon T&A Sapphic dramady, get something out of it, if only a scholarly paper for Vanderbilt. When I had cancer I'd watch Hercules four times a day, but then the chemo I was on was so strong that, by the time the last episode came on I'd have forgotten I'd seen it at 10 that morning, and enjoyed it all over again in a happy, chemically-induced stupor.

But there's fans and then there's fans. Behold, the horror that is Working Out Your Own Salvation With Xena: Warrior Princess Or, The Renewing of Ego Ideals in Syndication

Introduction (01-05)
A Trojan Horse Opera (06-13)
The Iliad and Theodicy (14-19)
Xena, the Bezerker (20-29)
If You Killed Your Friends and Family, Who Would Bring You Casseroles? (30-31)
Humanizing the Enemy (32-38)
Working Out Your Own Salvation (39-41)
Notes
Bibliography
Biography

Xena Sees You; Xena Sees All!

Hack Attack: Stephen Harper Eats Babies!

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Well, no real surprise there. Except that it's the work of a hacker; somebody busted into the computers controlling the the largest transit system in North America and got a little…creative. At least, there's no objective proof he's telling the truth. Yet.

Stephen! Harper! Eats! Babies!

PSA: “Sloppy Seconds With Opal Mehta” Fake Writing Contest

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Via Gawker. Ruth Shalit, Old Skool Cut 'n Paster!

Inspired by the need for quality plagiarism, the Morning News announces its “Sloppy Seconds With Opal Mehta” contest. This is not for the recreational copy-cat: using no less than five different books, your entry must total 750 words, none of which are your own. You may not plagiarize single words, but actual phrases, sentences, or passages, and all your material must be cited.

To remind them that this was “the moment ethics in writing died,” winners will have their story published on TMN and will receive a TMN mug, t-shirt, and a $500,000 two-book deal.

Steal This Book, and That Book, and That Book [TMN]

Classical Criticism: Football Edition

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The OdysseyThere are some few things in this world that remind me of the late Hunter S. Thompson. There are very few things indeed in this world that remind me both of Hunter S. Thompson and Homer's Odyssey. There is only ONE thing in this world that reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson, Homer's Odyssey, and that 300-pound bundle of muscle, fat, tattoos and leather who got on the bus and sat his wide, Harley-ridin' ass down beside my English professor, who happened to be reading The Iliad at the time and expecting the worst from his new seatmate, poked a chubby, dirty finger into my prof's Penguin paperback and chuckled, "Da Iliad! I love dat book! Rumble in Troy! Ah, man, war's all about chicks, eh? Fuckin' chicks, man."

This is that thing.

Carroll apologizes to Poseidon with burnt offering, three flocks of cattle, Reggie Bush shaped golden idol
May 1st, 2006

Los Angeles, Calif. – Taking his cue from Homer's Odyssey, University of Southern California head football coach Pete Carroll attempted to appease the legendary anger of Poseidon with an offer of burnt lamb, approximately seventy heads of cattle and an 8 ft. high statue of USC running back Reggie Bush made entirely from gold…

Few critics, however, are willing to predict what will happen even if Poseidon is satisfied.

"I am of the opinion that Carroll will eventually succeed in metaphorically returning home and triumphing over adversary," Addison said. "Much like [Alfred Lord] Tennyson's Ulysses, I see in him a man whose passion for life and exploration will never allow him full rest – and though he may now appear to be 'an idle king' he will inevitably seek to 'sail beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars' by recruiting a class of twenty Scout and Rivals rated five star players. It seems obvious even to these British eyes that [Carroll] is a man determined 'to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.'"

"Then again, much like Odysseus, he could opt to shoot everyone who so much as looked at Penelope the wrong way. I would probably expect a mixture of 'one equal temper of heroic hearts' and good old fashioned fairly indiscriminate slaying."

Homer...standup