Steve Jobs Quotes (from Coed.com)

 1. When you’re a carpenter making a beautiful chest of drawers, you’re not going to use a piece of plywood on the back, even though it faces the wall and nobody will ever see it. You’ll know it’s there, so you’re going to use a beautiful piece of wood on the back. For you to sleep well at night, the aesthetic, the quality, has to be carried all the way through.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]

2. “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. [Wired, February 1996]

3. “I think it’s brought the world a lot closer together, and will continue to do that. There are downsides to everything; there are unintended consequences to everything. The most corrosive piece of technology that I’ve ever seen is called television — but then, again, television, at its best, is magnificent.” [Rolling Stone, Dec. 3, 2003]

4. “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” [Stanford commencement speech, June 2005]

5. Things don’t have to change the world to be important.” [Wired, February 1996]

6. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” [BusinessWeek, May 25, 1998

7, “We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.” [On Mac OS X, Fortune, Jan. 24, 2000]

8. “I wish him the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.” [On Bill Gates, The New York Times, Jan. 12, 1997]

 And here’s the link to the original, since I stole this verbatim without doing any research at all!

>HOW TO: Run a Global Charity Event From Your Laptop

>

source

via Mashable! by Zachary Sniderman on 2/9/11

On a Thursday in early February, Amanda Rose was sorting through non-profit applications from around the globe and setting up calls with her equally international team in a massive effort to organize Twestival Local, an international “Twitter festival” that uses social media for social good by connecting communities on a single day to support local causes. The next day, Rose came down with flu-like symptoms and spent most of the day trying to recover — not just her health, but also lost time.
Began in 2009, the next Twestival event is scheduled for March 24. Its success, however, is tied to Rose: “I can’t be sick for a week,” Rose said. “It would just put me back too much.”
Twestival tries to leverage online tools to create offline change. The event takes place on a single day and alternates between Global, where communities help one cause, and Local, where those communities pair up with local charities and non-profits. This year, local volunteers will select a charity with a social media presence and throw an event to raise funds and awareness.
For two years, Rose did much of the work: reviewing submissions, spreading the word, vetting charities, coordinating press and follow-ups. This year is the first that Rose has been able to bring in staff to help her sort through the rapidly expanding charity event.
Considering the global scale — more than 125 cities are holding events from Doha to Tunisia to Rochester, NY — it’s easy to imagine that Rose’s phone bill must be terrifying. Thanks to social media, though, it’s actually pretty reasonable. Twestival is possible because of a suite of online tools, a little missed sleep, and an enthusiastic team of global do-gooders. Read on for a behind-the-scenes look at how it all happens.

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Social Media Tools

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How do you manage a team of 20 people spread across different countries and multiple time zones? Rose has assembled a paperless “office” (picture at right) and relies heavily on Skype and Huddle to both set up group calls and make changes to key documents. Skype may not be “new tech,” but recent improvements in call quality and the ability to easily create conference calls regardless of geographic region have made it an invaluable resource for the Twestival team. Skype is also a great way to drastically cut the costs of the festival by eliminating hefty international phone bills.
Cloud computing has helped centralize Twestival’s planning process and make documents available to the entire team. Huddle, which costs $15 per month/per person, is a project management application that operates much like Google docs. Rose said that Huddle offered its service to Twestival for a substantial discount, though, so for those on a tight budget or a gigantic team, Google docs offers comparable, though slightly less comprehensive, services.
You’re probably familiar with how Twitter works, but Rose and her team have made it a key component not just of the final event but of the planning stages. The global team regularly uses Twitter to send @replies or direct messages to local event organizers. Unlike e-mail, Twitter is a chattier, informal way to communicate — a huge benefit when the global team needs to quickly befriend, plan, or problem solve with organizers who may come from different cultural backgrounds.
By regularly using Twitter to interact, Rose and the team are also training local organizers to become more comfortable with using social media to communicate and promote.

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Systems

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Twestival prides itself on being about the community, but Rose needed to institute some organizational hierarchy to have any chance at success. Rose leads a group of four managers that oversee key aspects like volunteers and digital communications. This group then works with 15 regional managers in charge of areas like the “Middle East,” “Canada,” and “Nordic Region.” These regional managers are responsible for talking to the local volunteers that actually host the events.
Despite their official-sounding titles, most of the “managers” are simply enthusiasts with applicable expertise. A journalist and teacher, Aleksandra Tsekhmistrenko is the regional manager for Russia. Tsekhmistrenko got involved with Twestival to help boost the profile of charities in Russia. “Project Manager” Gaëlle Callnin got involved with Twestival two years ago. “The charity at the time was to provide lightly worn kids shoes for kids in Africa,” Callnin said. “I have three kids, so I gave something like 20 pairs of shoes and I was just really, really impressed.” Next year, Callnin, the chief marketing officer at a Denver-based translation company, offered her firm’s services pro bono to help translate Twestival’s site and materials.
Despite being a Twestival vet, Callnin hasn’t met a single person on the global team. “But even just now I’m working with one of the volunteers in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “We’re going back and forth in Twitter and DMs, and I’m starting to get to know him and see him on Foursquare.”

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Trust

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At the top of the pyramid is Rose, a soft-spoken Canadian with an international background and penchant for charity. Speaking from her family’s home in Cambridge, Ontario, Rose explained over the phone that trust was the most important part of Twestival. That mentality has led her to turn down sponsorship and overt branding. Local events can’t use any money from ticket sales to help fund the event itself: 100% goes to the partnered local charity (all of which are personally vetted by Rose). Companies are allowed to host events, but their brand must take a back seat to the local cause they’re supporting. Rose isn’t trying to limit participation, she’s trying to curtail corporations from using her event for the wrong reasons.
With hundreds of events in 125+ countries, Rose can’t possibly monitor every dollar and every event taking place. Even the regional managers can be spread thin with the volume of events and local charities they need to manage. “When you put that trust out, that’s almost the payment, that’s the ‘salary’ that people are making on this,” said Cian O’Donovan, Twestival’s digital communications manager based in Ireland. “I guess what I’m saying is, trust is [Twestival's] currency.” O’Donovan is currently building out a keyword matrix for hashtags so that each event can maximize their spread across social media. He’s also putting together “How-To” videos to help with fundraising, promotion, and best practices.

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Challenges

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Holding a global event for charity with a short staff and budget requires accepting some limitations. You have to know what you can’t control and who you can trust to take care of it for you. These factors include cultural differences and regional situations. Rose explained that the volunteers from Doha were some of the most active with a total of 50. But learning more about the community, she realized that she would need more than one community leader. “You really have to get up on the knowledge if that person is respected by the community,” Rose said. She uses LinkedIn and Twitter profiles to get a glimpse of these leaders and gauge how well they can connect with their communities through social media.
These micro-decisions dominate Rose’s day, spent mostly on her computer either managing requests (an event blog isn’t working, a volunteer needs help designing a logo) or attending to more serious concerns, like finding out a British charity wasn’t actually registered in the UK.
Of course, the hardest challenge is creating a global community of enthusiastic volunteers managed by a team you can trust. That takes time, and there are unfortunately no shortcuts. Rose was able to build her current team thanks to two years of running Twestival largely by herself. She’s also made sure to show, as best she can, how the money raised is being used. Every year, Twestival releases a feedback video like the one above featuring Miriam’s Kitchen, a DC-based homeless services agency. The videos go a long way toward promoting the festival and its charities, and showing participants how their money went to use.

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Conclusion

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Planning for this year’s Twestival is far from over, with more than a month before the 24th officially hits. In the mean time, Rose and her team will be busy managing minor flare-ups, stoking volunteer enthusiasm, prepping support materials and troubleshooting problems, technical and otherwise.
After Twestival, Rose plans to shut herself off from tech for a few weeks to decompress before — potentially — launching into Twestival Global 2012. She remains amusedly committed to the cause: “All they’re doing is throwing an event and getting drunk, but really the only way you can change things is with small steps, and to do that with enthusiasm.”

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More Social Good Resources from Mashable:

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- Why the Web Is Useless in Developing Countries – And How to Fix It
- 5 Facebook Giving Campaign Success Stories
- 4 Innovative Social Good Campaigns for Education
- How Online Classrooms Are Helping Haiti Rebuild Its Education System
- 5 Creative Social Good Campaigns for the Holiday Season

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, CostinT
More About: Amanda Rose, charity, global, non-profit, social good, social media, twestival, twitter

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http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/%7Eah/f/9m6h8omben53fuj7ghgrctkjc8/300/250?ca=1&fh=280#http%3A%2F%2Fmashable.com%2F2011%2F02%2F09%2Ftwestival-behind-the-scenes%2F

Up Next For Auction: A 22 year old’s virginity

(ed. note:  this story is old.  this girl is no longer a virgin.  she may no longer be a girl for all i know. but the following post from the street carnage website is timeless. i thought i’d share it with you. Enjoy!)

source

Yo BN

u bidding on this shit?

White virgin homeslice – up to $250K so far – but u still betta use buy-now nigga imma swipe yo ass last second son- no reserve!!

-snip-

Russ

My man–

Your ebay terminology is all over the place. It’s rusty, Russ; You sound like my mother-in-law. Getcha shit straight son, witchya John McCain ass, talkin bout how you use the Google and shit.

Now, as for your actual facetious question: Nga Plz. I dont have money to watch a deflowering let alone spend money on deflowering a real-live virgin, even one a them cheap-ass Thai ones with the handcuffs and the crying.

Ohmygawd look what a shfatza does. Jenny, did I warn you? The financial constriction is the only thing keeping the shfatz from popping a white hookercherry!

Ma, stop; I didn’t say that. You won’t like the real answer either though, so best be gettin ya ass back to Tumble Brook in time for 2′oclock bridge. Mind my ripple.

Now, my real answer is this: Money completely aside, I still wouldn’t do it. The fact is, I have taken an oath to the woman I married, and the mother of my chhaaa ahaahaha ahahahaha ahhahaha sorry couldn’t even finish that sentence with a straight face.

Money completely aside, I still wouldn’t do it for the following reason: As someone who REGULARLY REQUIRES pr0n featuring girls between the ages of 18-22 (heretofore referred to as “TEENS”) in order to achieve and maintain an erection, I’m certainly no stranger to the benefits of supple, nubile breasts – bright, unfoccussed eyes – strawberry lip balm – and sick fucking gooky back-tatoos.

However, as far as ACTUAL VIRGINS go, it can only ever be a fantasy. How the fuck do I know? Alright smartass:

When I was a hot african american chocolate diggable planets stud with big gay pants – back in about 1997 – and when my kids were still safely tucked away in my ballsac – I lived in Berkeley fucking California and pwned the planet. Every girl in the world wanted to fuck me. I used to ride the BART to work every day and pass little notes to hot white chicks. With this system, I had a LITERAL FUCKING conversion rate record of about 50% – I’m saying that 50% of the notes I handed out led to me having some kind of orgasm. (hand/blow/foot job, vaggy/anal sex) Believe it: I made fucking ricky roma look like jack lemmon. I was a fucking closer.

Anyway, one time I gave my number to this little white girl. God sunny jesus she was a peach. Little snowboarder wannabe, all tiny, blond, summer before college, little plastic bracelets and hello kitty watch, god damn I’m gettin a semi just thinkin about her. She was so perfectly ripe and pure – having a nigger’s phone number even HANDED to her probably made her father, WHEREVER he was at that moment, sit up in horror like obi won on Alderon’s 9/11.

She called me. She had LITERALLY turned 18 in the days between my handing her the number and us hooking up. Good thing because believe it or not, even in those crazy days, I would NEVER hook it with anyone under 18 – something about being a black man – if she freaked and blew the whistle once she saw my giant eel, I’d still be in prison making the 4-legged black monster with rapists and tax-evaders.

Anyway, she called. I had her over to my little shitty place, and cooked her an Itallian meal. Made her feel like a grownup. Check this out baby: I’m allowed to use the stove! We had a fantastic Papardelle with Crayfish, Artichoke hearts and Lemon Basil motzerell, and she washed it down with my semen. She blew me and I shot it VERY FUCKING HARD down her throat. She tried to swallow it all but couldn’t. It was literally everyone’s billion-year fantasy come true. It was perfect, and I should have called it quits right there.

Instead, she started to fall in love with me. (who wouldn’t, right ma?) She said, “I’m a virgin, and I need you to be the one.”

I said “NO no no no no no no no no no Katie; you’re a nice girl. Go to college, get a boyfriend, have him be the one. You don’t want me to be the one – trust me – I’m a dick, I’m not down for a relationship, I’m just having fun with you, yaknow? You’re going away to college, and either way, trust me I’ve done this before– you’re gonna start hating me within 3 weeks from this moment. I do not want you to think of me for the rest of your life and be like “I shouldn’t have lost it to that asshole” etc.”

Of course, this insane, unprecedented honesty only made her want to fuck me 1000x more.

I turned her down, but it was easy then, because she had just sucked the poison thought-chemical out of my balls like a frontways vanilla enema. Before long though, that shit recharged, and this tiny 18 year old white girl was beggin me to fuck her every night; What I’m gonna do?

So one weekend, her parents were away in Tahoe. She invited me to her house up in the Berkeley Hills– She was a rich girl. Amazing 15 room oak mansion overlooking the whole bay area. We went into her room, and she goes to her little one-piece frye electronics stereo and literally puts on George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex.” She was a TEEN.

We had to take the stuffed animals off of her bed. It was the fantasy. Please god let my daughter grow up to be a big hairy dyke.

We kissed, I went down on her, made her cum hard, and then slowly tried to enter her. I got about as far as half of the purple head.

OWFUCK OWOWOWOWOWOWOW STOP! OW STOP ok?

Ok! Let’s stop – seriously Katie – this is a shitty idea, let’s stop, ok?

no, no no – we have to keep going, I can do this.

omfg. ok. I wished at that moment that I was cleaning toilets at a Burger King.

I put it in up to about 3/4 of the head.

OH FUCK NO OWWWW OWWWWW blognigger it kills stop i have to stop.

ok ok ok – let’s stop – lets just

ok, try again…

what the FUCK??

…and so on and so on. It fucking KILLED her, it took literally 20 minutes until I was inside of her, with me begging her to let me stop, and her pleading with me to keep going, like I was sawing off her leg to free her from a bear trap while a train was coming. IT KILLS; keep going!!!

I could feel her tearing, and she was yelling, and I just remember thinking about TEEN pr0n and being like – what a load of cockin BULLSHIT. This isn’t sexy, this SUCKS. Burger King shitters; Bring it.

After about 30 mins of broken, stop-and-go surgical torture – finally all at once, it got reeeally easy to go in and out of her – she started almost laughing with excitement because she was finally really having sex – and it was extremely slippery and wet – soaking wet! Everything soaked…and so slippery…and finally I came.

We rolled over and we looked at each other and she was smiling. I looked down. We were both COVERED in fucking blood like we were OJ and Nicole. She looked like Carrie. I literally almost puked, DRENCHED in her blood in 1997 in the san francisco bay area.

It took months to recover and start peeping teen pr0ns again son – I was on the MILFs hiatus for sure – oh snap that’s how I got introduced to that 30-something genre in the first place. Teens were on STRIKE kid. And I’ll never be truly over it. Some gave all, all gave
some; part of me died that night. Like the holocaust, Ma; never again.

See that – one man gathers what another man spills, Russ. I’d rather clean BK toilets, and this nigga payin 250 grand for it. $250,000?? When was the bid placed tho? I wonder if that nigga still have two-fiddy to blow after the wall street hubub? Can he retract that shit Rusty? Retracto-bid, Russ? Oh well, not your problem. Natalie, specify payment_type=paypal in the item description; You don’t wanna wake up bleeding and find out you just traded your Hyman for Lehman stock.

Well, when guys pay for virgins – whether it’s $250,000 or $500 for the economy package, one thing is for sure: they haven’t fucked a virgin since high-school. They’re paying for the fantasy, but they’re in for a shock when they experience the tearing bleeding reality.

Oh wait, forgot something: unless they’re psychotic sadists who are totally into Natalie’s pain, and want to torture this poor girl and get off on the girl’s tears and want to jack-off to her screams for the rest of their lives. Well, Natalie, here’s hoping it’s the former; Fingers crossed!

On 90th anniversary of women’s suffrage, a look at Wisconsin women who played a big role in suffrage movement

(ed. note:  women still suffer in 90% of the world.  where’s their movement?)

source

By Elizabeth Galewski, August 26, 2010

Ninety years ago, on Aug. 26, 1920, women won the right to vote, and Wisconsin has the proud honor of being the first state to have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment.

Photographs from that era show suffragists in floor-length, ruffled dresses sporting sashes that say, “Votes for Women!” Often they stood with mouths open and fingers upraised.

The Wisconsin Women’s Suffrage Association was founded in 1869, and that year, the state legislature gave women the right to run for seats on local school boards. Fifteen years later, Wisconsin women won the right to vote in those school board elections.

Led by such stalwarts of equality as Meta Berger, Olympia Brown, Carrie Chapman Catt, Marion Dudley, Jesse Jack Hooper, Ada James, Belle Case La Follette and Theodora Winton Youmans, Wisconsin suffragists pushed for the right to vote in all elections.

After losing a statewide referendum for women’s suffrage in 1912 by a margin of 2 to 1, they were not deterred. Instead, the fought even harder.

But along the way, they faced the most blatant discrimination.

The Wisconsin Historical Society has a poster from Watertown in 1912 with the word “DANGER!” in huge capital letters, followed by this: “Women’s Suffrage Would Double the Irresponsible Vote. It is a MENACE to the Home, Men’s Employment and to All Businesses.”

What was it like to live in their world, a world where women couldn’t vote?

How did it feel to be called “unwomanly” just because you wanted to count when tallies were being taken?

How much did it hurt to be called “unnatural” just because you wanted to cast a ballot?

The struggle for suffrage spanned 70 years. It was sometimes bitter, pitting woman against man, woman against woman, and even suffragist against suffragist. Advocates for the cause gave their time, their energy, and their fortunes. Some went to jail. Many died before the battle was won.

What if they had not given of themselves so bravely and freely? After all, there are countries on this planet where women still do not have the right to vote.

Today, women may no longer wear Victorian-style dresses, not to mention the sashes. But all too often in these accelerated times, we churn along on a hamster wheel of busy, busy, busy.

We work for less than men in the paid workplace.

We work unpaid in the home.

And we volunteer to sustain our schools, our congregations and our communities.

The 90th Anniversary of Woman Suffrage presents us with an opportunity to rest.

Let us pause for a moment, therefore, and appreciate the difference that 90 years makes.

Heartfelt thanks to our foremothers, who fought with such spirit on our behalf.

Wholehearted thanks to those forefathers whose enlightened support helped open the doors of opportunity.

Thanks, as well, to all those who continue to agitate for freedom today, with mouths open and fingers upraised.

Elizabeth Galewski is a community organizer for the Madison Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW).

My Ex ‘tried to torch me at a black man’s orgy.” …..say what?

Is this story even shocking?  Interesting maybe, but not really.  Anybody with an internet connection has seen a room full of black guys banging a room full of white chicks.  I clicked on the story not expecting much of a looker and my assumption was right.  In the real world, the women willing to gather and have 100 person orgies, with men of any race, rarely look like the girls on porntube.com.  I present to you Helen Shields, the madame of Manchester, the scarlett of Radlett.  Enjoy!

source

Party hostess … Helen Shields organised ‘playing’

Party hostess … Helen Shields organised ‘playing’

By ANTONELLA LAZZERI

Published: Today

AN orgy hostess told a court yesterday how her ex tried to set her on fire as she organised a wild sex party.

Helen Shields, 43, said Kenneth Stewart squirted lighter fuel over her as he chased her through a house where she was staging a night for members of “The Black Man’s Fan Club”.

‘Adult’ nights … house in Radlett

She added that Stewart, who organised orgies with her before they fell out, was brandishing a Zippo lighter – and that she feared for her life.Helen told Luton Crown Court: “I thought if it’s not acid, then he’s going to set me on fire. I was screaming, ‘He’s going to kill me!’”

She said Stewart, 44, was dragged off her by other men and police were called.

He denies attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and making a threat to kill.

The alleged attack happened at a private house in Radlett, Herts – a regular venue for the orgies.

Helen told the court 150 club members were due to attend. She explained members were “either black guys or ladies into black guys”.

Parties where guests would “play” were arranged through the internet and usually held twice a month on Saturday nights.

Asked to explain “playing”, Helen said it could be “anything from small touching right through to full sex”.

She and Stewart were business partners and lovers for more than four years.

They split last November and tried to keep organising the orgies together.

Advertisement

// <![CDATA[// // <![CDATA[//

But prosecutor Simon Wilshire said that by January “things had become untenable”.

He added Stewart wanted £2,500 from Helen in return for letting her run the whole business.

On the night of the alleged attack in February, Helen arrived at the house with five men helping with catering and security.

She found Stewart was already there with a new girlfriend.

He was asked to leave. But Helen said he ran towards her.

She added: “He had his hand out pointing something towards me. I saw a blue nozzle. I realised he was squirting fluid at me. He got me on my face and hair.”

She said she ran screaming into a lounge pursued by Stewart, who had her by the hair and coat. She ended up on a coffee table with Stewart on top of her before he was dragged off.

The jury heard witnesses saw Stewart with a lit Zippo.

Cross-examined by defence lawyer Stephen Garrett, Helen agreed that following her split from Stewart they had both been at a party where he saw her “playing” with several guests.

She said: “I was single and had every right.”

Asked if anything “changed hands” at the orgies she replied: “I might get out some condoms.”

The case continues.

a.lazzeri@the-sun.co.uk

How To Crash An Orgy (via College Humor)

How To Crash An Orgy

by OBOJ 19 hours ago

Contrary to what you might think, the best way to crash a stranger’s orgy is to walk right through the front door, armed with all the confidence of Jay Leno at an antique car show. If someone is standing in your way, dazzle him with one of the following lines as you smoothly brush past:“Did you see the march for civil rights outside?”

“Don’t worry about me—this boner is just for show.”

“Great googly-moogly! You haven’t changed in twenty years!”

“Would you be a peach and fetch me a Sanka?”

“Just direct me to the game of ass-naked horseshoes, please.”

“This is the best day after surgery ever.”

———-

Once you make your way inside the orgy site, you’re more than halfway home. The trick is to be affable and charming but also inconspicuous. There is still a chance you’ll be approached and questioned by someone who doesn’t recognize you. If so, you’ll need to have some additional lines ready:

“I hope you know you’re talking to a tetherball champion.”

A classic bait-and-switch, this line gets other attendees who may inquire about your presence thinking, They have tetherball here? Or, in the case of confrontation by the host or hostess, they will simply think you are talking about some advanced sexual technique and be shamed into silence—perhaps even tears—by their unfathomable ignorance.

“I’m a friend of Big Russ. Who are you?”

Count on it: at any swingers event, there will be an attendee nicknamed “Big Russ.”

“Wait a sec—I gotta wear a rubber?”

If there’s one thing that quickly diverts attention, it’s putting people on the defensive. The beauty of this line is that no matter what answer you receive, you can react accordingly: relieved, bored, angry, baffled, bewildered, nauseated, catatonic, or drenched in sweat.

“Donna collapsed again. Have you seen her purse?”

This is alarmist behavior, yes, but it’s also very effective in a pinch.

“Get in line. I got a lotta people to fuck if I’m gonna make my numbers this quarter, and I ain’t startin’ with you.”

This is perhaps the ultimate in false bravado, but if you embrace it, it works like a charm. Once you’ve mastered this attitude you will be able to tackle any stranger’s orgy as if it’s your own.

———-

In the highly unlikely event that none of these lines works for you, you should have at least a few indispensable props close at hand:

Disco whistle.

Distracting and fun during sex.

Spark wheel and flash cotton.

An old wizard’s trick. A must.

A blackjack or sap.

We’re not advocating violence, but come on… you’re technically trespassing.

Six thousand dollars in iTunes gift cards.

Bribes.

Falsified Make-a-Wish document.

This is a cheap ploy and should be used as an absolute last resort, but if you are in dire trouble, it will certainly melt the hearts of your aggressors to know that your dying wish was to attend what’s-his- name’s fuck fiesta.

———-

Once safely at the orgy, be prepared to penetrate anyone and everyone with great haste. You may not have much time.

This is an excerpt from humorist Mike Sacks’ upcoming book, Sex: Our Bodies, Our Junk, by the Association for the Betterment of Sex (Scott Jacobson, Todd Levin, Jason Roeder, Mike Sacks, and Ted Travelstead), due out on August 24 and available for preorder through Amazon here. Visuals by Michael Faisca, Nick Gallo, and Bob Sikoryak.

Exclusive Q&A: Oprah Winfrey Celebrates 25 Years (from TV Guide)

Exclusive Q&A: Oprah Winfrey Celebrates 25 Years

Aug 24, 2010 07:00 AM ET
by Ileane Rudolph

Oprah

As almost everyone on the planet knows, The Oprah Winfrey Show will come to an end this spring after 25 years of groundbreaking interviews, emotional reveals, multiple awards and the best giveaways ever. Arguably the most influential TV personality of all time, Oprah Winfrey has helped sell millions of books and launched a myriad of successful careers. Her next venture, OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network, kicks off January 1, but her talk show is still her No. 1 priority. “My intention is to be fully present this season,” says Winfrey, 56. “To take in every experience and allow myself to feel it all.”

Want more about Oprah’s final season? Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!

TV Guide Magazine: Why did you decide to end your show after this season?
Winfrey: It just feels like the right time. I always wanted to leave when I felt the platform was still vital and held some kind of meaning in the hearts and minds of the audience.

TV Guide Magazine: The Oprah Winfrey Show has been a major part of your life for 25 years. Will there be a lot of tears?
Winfrey: I don’t intend to be crying the whole season. The only time I get really emotional and nostalgic about the show is when I think about the viewers. Hopefully some of them will follow me to OWN, but I know not everybody will. And it will be bittersweet because it’s bringing this chapter to a close. The show hasn’t been a big part of my life. It’s been my life. I didn’t have children. I had the show. And I have created a family of support from my staff and the audience that really has had a huge impact on my life.

TV Guide Magazine: How will you top last season’s kick-off—the Black Eyed Peas concert with half of Chicago dancing in a choreographed number?
Winfrey: We’re not closing down any streets and I don’t know if there will be any dancing. But it will be meaningful in its own way. And I absolutely can’t tell you what it will be.

TV Guide Magazine: Throughout the season, will you go back to your favorite moments on the show?
Winfrey: There will be some of that. We have nearly 5,000 hours [of footage], and we broke up into different teams of people who have over the past eight, nine months looked at every single show.

TV Guide Magazine: Wow. Impressive.
Winfrey: That’s what I say, too. [Laughs] They have reviewed and documented every single show, so we know what to revisit. I plan on going back to Forsyth County [in Georgia]. That’s the town where there were no black people allowed and a guy was using the N-word with me. I’m going to do a tour of the new Forsyth County with him. I’m also going to go back to Williamson, West Virginia, where the town wouldn’t allow a young man who had AIDS in the grocery store. His name was Michael Sisco. He’s since died.

TV Guide Magazine: What about celebrity guests?
Winfrey: This year is about creating moments. So I can assure you we’re saying to all of our celebrity friends this is not the year you can come on and just promote your book or promote your song. You have to create moments. So the team is looking at ways of pairing different celebrities to create unexpected moments. They had asked me, because after Mary Tyler Moore’s [surprise appearance] — when I went into the ugly cry on the air — I made a rule that I was never to be surprised again on air. I don’t want to lose that kind of control. If you’ve ever looked at that tape, snot’s running out of my nose and I had such a headache that I couldn’t focus. I don’t handle surprise very well.

TV Guide Magazine: Have you asked President Obama to make an appearance?
Winfrey: No, I did not ask him to come on this year. But I did say, “I’m sure you will hear from somebody on my team before this year is over.” [Laughs] I’m sure that at some point I will see a taped message or something.

TV Guide Magazine: Is it true that you’re trying to locate the people who were on your first show and in the audience for your first national show?
Winfrey: That is true. Our record-keeping wasn’t as solid then as it is now. [Laughs] Those were the days when I would go out on the street and ask people to come in: “Come in! It’s air-conditioned.”

TV Guide Magazine: How did Oprah evolve into a show that is about inspiration and aspiration?
Winfrey: Yesterday I was looking at a skinhead show [we did in 1988], and I said to my staff, “That’s the show that caused me to do television differently.” What I learned from that is you cannot allow yourself to be a vehicle that promotes the energy of hatred in any form. That was life-changing for me.

TV Guide Magazine: You’ve helped launch the TV careers of Drs. Phil and Oz and now Nate Berkus. Do you feel like a proud mama?
Winfrey: It’s more than being a mama. It’s Mother Goose trying to lay an egg every day. Phil started when I said, “Gee, I like what you’re telling me. Maybe somebody else will like what you’re saying.” But viewers didn’t like him at first because they’re not used to people being that straightforward and direct. And so I said, “I can course-correct this. I will go on the air and tell people this is who you are, that you tell it like it is.” Once I did that, people started writing in saying, “I want Phil to tell me like it is!” It became apparent after a while that he could do this on his own. So that started very organically. And after Phil worked so well, we thought OK, let’s see if Oz has the ability to do that. And so it is with Nate.

TV Guide Magazine: Is there a secret to creating a great talk show?
Winfrey: The secret is authenticity. The reason people fail is because they’re pretending to be something they’re not. And even those who are not in alignment with my value system, people like Jerry Springer, he works because he’s real. If you can find what the passion is and figure out a way to express that in an authentic and entertaining way, you have a chance at success.

For more with Oprah, including details about OWN, working with Rosie O’Donnell and her greatest accomplishment, pick up this week’s issue of TV Guide Magazine on newsstands Thursday, Aug. 26!

Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!

Remembering the Green Book: The Guidebook for Negro Travelers

For almost three decades beginning in 1936, many African-American travelers relied on a booklet to help them decide where they could comfortably eat, sleep, buy gas, find a tailor or beauty parlor, shop on a honeymoon to Niagara Falls, or go out at night. In 1949, when the guide was 80 pages, there were five recommended hotels in Atlanta. In Cheyenne, Wyo., the Barbeque Inn was the place to stay.

Enlarge This Image

Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times

Calvin Alexander Ramsey at the Auburn Avenue Research Library in Atlanta. He is the author of a play and book about how black travelers found food and lodging before the Civil Rights Act.

A Harlem postal employee and civic leader named Victor H. Green conceived the guide in response to one too many accounts of humiliation or violence where discrimination continued to hold strong. These were facts of life not only in the Jim Crow South, but in all parts of the country, where black travelers never knew where they would be welcome. Over time its full title — “The Negro Motorist Green Book: An International Travel Guide” — became abbreviated, simply, as the “Green Book.” Those who needed to know about it knew about it. To much of the rest of America it was invisible, and by 1964, when the last edition was published, it slipped through the cracks into history.

Until he met a friend’s elderly father-in-law at a funeral a few years ago, the Atlanta writer Calvin Alexander Ramsey had never heard of the guide. But he knew firsthand the reason it existed. During his family trips between Roxboro, N.C., and Baltimore, “we packed a big lunch so my parents didn’t have to worry about having to stop somewhere that might not serve us,” recalled Mr. Ramsey, who is now 60.

He is among the writers, artists, academics and curators returning a spotlight to the guide and its author, emblematic as it was of a period when black Americans — especially professionals, salesmen, entertainers and athletes — were increasingly on the move for work, play and family visits.

In addition to hotels, the guide often pointed them to “tourist homes,” privates residences made available by their African-American owners. Mr. Ramsey has written a play, “The Green Book,” about just such a home, in Jefferson City, Mo., where a black military officer and his wife and a Jewish Holocaust survivor all spend the night just before W. E. B. DuBois is scheduled to deliver a speech in town. The play will inaugurate a staged-reading series on Sept. 15 at the restored Lincoln Theater in Washington, itself once a fixture of that city’s “black Broadway” on U Street.

Julian Bond, the civil rights leader who is now a faculty member at American University, will take on a cameo role. Mr. Bond recalled that his parents — his father, a college professor, became the first black president of Lincoln University, in southern Pennsylvania — used the book. “It was a guidebook that told you not where the best places were to eat,” he said, “but where there was any place.”

In November, Carolrhoda Books will release Mr. Ramsey’s “Ruth and the Green Book,” a children’s book with illustrations by the award-winning artist Floyd Cooper. It tells the story of a girl from Chicago in the 1950s and what she learns as she and her parents, driving their brand-new car to visit her grandmother in rural Alabama, finally luck into a copy of Victor Green’s guide. “Most kids today hear about the Underground Railroad, but this other thing has gone unnoticed,” said Mr. Ramsey. “It just fell on me, really, to tell the story.”

Historians of travel have recognized that the great American road trip — seen as an ultimate sign of freedom — was not that free for many Americans, including those who had to worry about “sunset laws” in towns where black visitors had to be out by day’s end.

For a large swath of the nation’s history “the American democratic idea of getting out on the open road, finding yourself, heading for distant horizons was only a privilege for white people,” said Cotton Seiler, the author of “Republic of Drivers: A Cultural History of Automobility in America,” who devoted a chapter of his book to the experience of black travelers.

William Daryl Williams, the director of the School of Architecture and Interior Design at the University of Cincinnati, in 2007 organized a traveling exhibition he called “The Dresser Trunk Project,” in which he and 11 other architects and artists used the “Green Book” to inform works that incorporated locations and artifacts from the history of black travel during segregation. Mr. Williams’s own piece, “Whitelaw Hotel,” referred to a well-known accommodation for African-Americans in Washington and included several pages from the “Green Book.”

Lonnie Bunch, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, a co-sponsor of “The Green Book” play reading, said the presence of the guide into the 1960s pointed out that at the same time people were countering segregation with sit-ins, the need to cope with everyday life remained.

He added: “The ‘Green Book’ tried to provide a tool to deal with those situations. It also allowed families to protect their children, to help them ward off those horrible points at which they might be thrown out or not permitted to sit somewhere. It was both a defensive and a proactive mechanism.”

Although Victor Green’s initial edition only encompassed metropolitan New York, the “Green Book” soon expanded to Bermuda (white dinner jackets were recommended for gentlemen), Mexico and Canada. The 15,000 copies Green eventually printed each year were sold as a marketing tool not just to black-owned businesses but to the white marketplace, implying that it made good economic sense to take advantage of the growing affluence and mobility of African Americans. Esso stations, unusual in franchising to African Americans, were a popular place to pick one up.

Mr. Bunch said he believes African American families are likely still have old copies sitting in attics and basements: “As segregation ended, people put such things away. They felt they didn’t need them anymore. It brought a sense of psychological liberation.”

Theater J in Washington, which specializes in Jewish-theme plays, is a co-producer of “The Green Book” reading. The “inconveniences” (as Green genteelly put it) of travel that African-Americans encountered were shared, albeit to a lesser extent and for a briefer period, by American Jews. In Mr. Ramsey’s play the Holocaust survivor comes to the tourist home after he’s appalled by a “No Negroes Allowed” sign posted in the lobby of the local hotel where he had planned to stay.

“The Jewish press has long published information about places that are restricted,” Green wrote in his book’s introduction, adding, “There will be a day sometime in the near future when this guide will not have to be published. That is when we as a race will have equal opportunities and privileges in the United States.”

The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, and Mr. Green ceased publication.

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14th Amendment nullification threatens core of citizenship

By Kevin Alexander Gray, August 18, 2010

When I was in the military in the 1970s, I heard two white soldiers talking on the rifle range. One soldier asked the other how he learned to shoot so well.

“I like shooting cans right off the fence,” the other soldier responded, adding: “Af-ri-cans, Puer-to-Ri-cans and Mex-i-cans.”

The comment came to mind when I heard Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., saying, “Birthright citizenship is a mistake,” and when he and his GOP cohorts started talking about immigrants having “anchor babies.”

“People come here to have babies,” said Graham. “They come here to drop a child. It’s called, ‘Drop and leave.’”

“Drop a child.” It’s as if he were talking about animals.

Graham says he’s considering introducing a bill to rescind Section 1 of the 14th Amendment.

Section 1 does confer citizenship on anyone born in the United States. But that’s not all it does.

The second sentence of that section says: “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Also called the “due process” clause or the “equal protection” clause, this part of the 14th Amendment is the very foundation of U.S. civil rights law. The new nullifiers who talk of getting rid of Section 1 are signaling their larger purpose and are targeting all those they hold in contempt, like so many cans on the fence.

The Reconstruction-era amendment, finally adopted as part of the Constitution in 1868, ensured that former enslaved Africans and their children were U.S. citizens. Together with the 13th Amendment, which bans slavery, and the 15th, which prohibits the government from denying any citizen the right to vote on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude, the 14th Amendment is fundamental to the whole country’s long walk toward human rights and equality under the law.

For instance, the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education of Topeka decision was based on the idea that the discriminatory nature of racial segregation “violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws.” White supremacy loomed large in the public debate during Reconstruction, and it lies just below the surface today.

Back then, opponents of the amendment talked about “public morality” being threatened by people “unfit for the responsibilities of American citizenship.” Today it’s Graham slurring immigrants as baby machines who come to America to “drop a child.”

And, incidentally, the focus on reproduction by people of color is but a twist on the long obsession with controlling black bodies.

Tampering with the citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment in any way would be devastating. Apart from creating hundreds of thousands of newly defined “illegal” persons, it would return the United States to the doctrine of the 1857 Dred Scott decision and to the hideous idea that one can never overcome the status of one’s previous condition: once a slave, always a slave; once undocumented, forever undocumented, down to one’s children and children’s children.

There may be a perverse benefit to all of this blatant nativism. It reminds us of our history, and it’s a bracing reminder that many politicians — and a lot of our fellow citizens — don’t want to consider people of color Amer-i-cans.

Kevin Alexander Gray is the author of the recently published books “Waiting for Lightning to Strike: The Fundamentals of Black Politics” and “The Decline of Black Politics: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama.” He can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.