From what can only be described as hailing from a zero-degrees-Kelvin circle of hell, the following news item has appeared:

Bush Urges Conservation as Retail Gas Prices Rise, the New York Times, September 26, 2005:

President Bush called on Americans to conserve gasoline and avoid non-essential driving today as the average national prices for retail gasoline climbed higher for the first time since they peaked over the Labor Day weekend.

Slowly but surely, you've been opening these floodgates of passion, my liberal, free-spending darling.

Let's do it, George. Leave your clown-faced wife. It's you and me, now. Just us. Let's roll around in the protected marshlands together. Let's run off to Northampton and get married. You and me, let's start hugging the trees when we're not too busy making sweet, gay love.

This past weekend, Manhattan's customarily quiet and genteel neighborhood of Chelsea was overtaken by lesbian rage, as 22nd Street became the site of the LTTR Block Party, in honor of the release of the fourth issue of this largely-unknown feminist art/literature/music journal. (That's one more issue than n+1, in case you're wondering. Collect them now!)

So, what sort of clash ensues when the upper-income brackets of Chelsea's brownstone-residing queers play host to a bunch of art-world dykes? Hmm...phrased like that, the whole situation becomes confusing. Let's sort it out by pitting LTTR versus that beacon of aspirational capitalism, BusinessWeek.

BusinessWeek	LTTR
The publication's title pretty much says it all...you're getting the news of "this week in business". Concise, but boring. Kind of like your typical V.P. of Development. Not very gay in the least.	The publication's title serves a dual function; first, it's an artful abbreviation of LETTER, get it? Because the printed word is comprised of letters. Secondly, it's an acronym of sorts, wherein issue number 1 went by the longhand variant of LESBIANS TO THE RESCUE, issue number 2 spelled out LISTEN TRANSLATE TRANSLATE RECORD, and then there's some additional wordplay with the idea of LESBIANS TEND TO READ. Semi-clever, mostly creative. And, therefore, very gay.
Inserts: Each issue includes subscription invitation cards that frequently fall out on the floor of the Metro North train on which its readership rides.	Inserts: Past issues have included insert CDs with rare and exclusive tracks by artists such as Le Tigre. Apparently the group's frontwoman Kathleen Hanna has some sort of penchant for lesbianism?
Current Cover Story: When Rita Came Calling, examining how "after Katrina, Gulf Coast outfits like SBC, Coke, and Texas Instruments prepared extensively for this hurricane." Informative and matter-of-fact. And, again, boring as all fuck.	Potential Cover Story: When Rita Came Calling, examining what happens when an ex-lover comes by your studio apartment in Williamsburg while you're racing to hide your new girlfriend's undergarments. Assuming she wears undergarments. Poetic and beautiful.
Packaging: Bound like ninety percent of all other magazines. Three staples straight down the side, gloss on the front, and poker in the rear. (Sorry, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Account Executives are just so goddamned aggressive after happy hour!)	Packaging: The latest issue comes wrapped in textured paper, bound by a frilly ribbon. Very feminine, but not very durable –– and certainly not built to last in perpetuity. Where are those all-important subscription cards?

This, then, is why the breeders will always win.

From Living Too Much In the Bubble?, Time, September 11, 2005:

On the Monday that Hurricane Katrina landed and the Crescent City began drowning, Bush was joshing with Senator John McCain on the tarmac of an Air Force base in Arizona, posing with a melting birthday cake. Like a scene out of a Michael Moore mockumentary, he was heading into a long-planned Medicare round table at a local country club, joking that he had "spiced up" his entourage by bringing the First Lady, then noting to the audience that he had phoned Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff from Air Force One. "I said, 'Are you working with the Governor?'" Bush recounted. "He said, 'You bet we are.'" But the President was not talking about the killer storm. He was talking about immigration, and the Governor was Arizona's.

From Bush's Booze Crisis, The National Enquirer, September 21, 2005:

"When the levees broke in New Orleans, it apparently made him reach for a shot," said one insider. "He poured himself a Texas-sized shot of straight whiskey and tossed it back. The First Lady was shocked and shouted: "Stop George!"

Sure, it's a logical explanation for the last month's worth of public appearances -- but does this make the President the second man to appear before the United Nations General Assembly smashed out of his gourd?

Or the third?

From L-R, McDonald's new female Ronald McDonald, as seen in a current Japanese TV campaign, and Milla Jovovich as Leeloo in Luc Besson's The Fifth Element (1997)

Talk about Hamburglars! (Ba-dum.)

Sony Corp. to Slash 10,000 Jobs Globally, Thursday, September 22, 2005

Delta Plans to Cut Up to 9,000 Jobs, Thursday, September 22, 2005

Philadelphia Newspapers cutting 100 staffers, Tuesday, September 20, 2005

New York Times Co. to cut 500 jobs, or about 4% of staff, Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Fed raises interest rates for 11th consecutive time, Tuesday, September 20, 2005

The Federal Reserve raised a key short-term interest rate Tuesday and suggested more rate hikes are on the way, saying it believes the effects of Hurricane Katrina on the economy would be temporary.

The central bank's policy-makers boosted their target for the federal funds rate a quarter-percentage point to 3.75 percent, the highest level in more than four years.
For consumers, the increase in the fed funds rate, an overnight bank lending rate, means higher rates for credit cards, car loans and adjustable-rate mortgages.

Today's Salon features an insightful, probing piece by Rebecca Traister on the humdrum, sorry state of being a Modern American Woman, and the trouble with dating the contemporary early-adult American male – specifically, how today's women are dissatisfied with this "new breed of man: a man of few interests and no passions; a man whose libido is reduced and whose sense of responsibility nonexistent. These men are commitment-phobic not just about love, but about life. They drink and take drugs, but even their hedonism lacks focus or joy. They exhibit no energy for anyone, any activity, profession or ideology."

Traister sagely acknowledges that writers such as Candace Bushnell et al have explored this subject to death, and, as such, she seeks a new hook: What might Ben Kunkel, the author of Random House's Indecision – this month's literary hotcake amongst the city's subway- and nightstand-reading set – have to contribute to this line of discussion? Of the author and his text's protagonist, she asks, "After I finished Kunkel's novel, I was curious about the man who had so precisely drawn a figure whose initial indifference is so painfully familiar. With Kunkel, I thought I might be able to have a safe, objective conversation about the kind of guy Dwight is as his story begins. How did we get a population of Dwights? Will they ever get better? Why do my friends and I continue to date them?"

But why limit Kunkel to a simple, one-track discussion on dating and relationships? We asked him, this literate, Harvard-trained man-about-town, to help our sullen readers with some of their sundry dilemmas. And boy, did he ever!

Welcome, then, to the first installment of our new, groundbreakingly opinionated, and most important, gentlemanly advice column.

ASK BEN KUNKEL

Dear Ben,

I recently left my wife of five years after – for lack of a better way of phrasing it – losing my passion for her. Not falling out of love, mind you...just losing that sense of passion that keeps people together. Lately, however, I have been regretting my decision, and want her back. The problem is, she has taken up reading all sorts of self-help books that seem to discourage exes from reuniting. What should I do?

It can be very difficult dealing with the repercussions of our actions, particularly when it comes to love and the causalities thereof. Do we love for the sake of loving, or do we love merely to stay afloat in this pool of the everyday, the human interactions that define our existence? Hannah Arendt hit it right on the head when she put forth that being female was akin to being imprisoned by one's mind and morality, and that, no matter what we may do to attempt to break free, we – and, it may be said, all of humanity – will forever be subjected to a greater external framework, an ethical morass the likes of which no mere mortal can transcend. Which is why she encouraged her lover, Walter Benjamin, to take his own life. Ever the slattern, she then wound up fucking Heidegger over, too.

Dear Ben,

I recently moved into an elite co-op in Chelsea, and was thrilled to become a part of what felt like a second home, this tightly-knit community of likeminded, intellectually vibrant, book-reading wage-earners. But since settling in last month, I have learned my upstairs neighbor insists on playing his music far too loudly, and usually at moments when I am trying to sleep. I have thought of leaving notes on his door, but am uncertain of what this might do to upset the otherwise tranquil balance of our collective abode. Any ideas?

Noise, and music in particular, can be a source of great asymmetric tension. Historically, one may note, Theodor Adorno espoused nothing but the severest disdain for jazz music, or rather, what he termed "jazz music", but which was, in fact, a series of sounds akin to "big band" music, henceforth confusing generations of Marxists and music critics alike. It was his literal reading of this cacophony, the simpleminded focus on aberrant rhythms and layered ideas, that confounded his aesthetic judgment, and led to a great deal of turmoil in his dealings with his onetime partner in the Frankfurt School, Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer really got down with the horns, the clarinet, the vibrato...all of which conveyed an intricate melding of joy and sadness and expedient physicality. This tapestry of the old and new, incidentally, can be found in the recent works of Radiohead.

The Century 21 Department Store overlooking the wreckage of the World Trade Center at Ground Zero, September 18, 2005. A close-up below:

Not only is Century 21, downtown's pre-eminent bargain-rate clothing store, discounting their prices on designer neckties and Polo boxers, but it seems they've taken to discounting the lives of nearly 2,500 New Yorkers who perished mere yards away from the site of the store's high-quality sale items.

Is there anything remotely funny or clever about "falling" into fashion as we stay the course in Iraq to defend the lives of those who perished that solemn day four years ago, as the city's iconic Twin Towers tumbled mercilessly to their molten demise??

We urge you to boycott Century 21 and abstain from purchasing their fine selection of men's Geoffrey Beene linen shirts.

EARLIER: low culture Exclusive: An Outrage Grows in Brooklyn!!!
low culture Exclusive: The Outrage Continuesâ€'Continuously!!!
low culture Exclusive: The Outrage Gets Outragously Obvious!!!

From Bush Questions Reopening of New Orleans, the Associated Press, September 19, 2005:

"We have made our position loud and clear," Bush said. "The mayor is working hard. The mayor _ you know, he's got this dream about having a city up and running, and we share that dream. But we also want to be realistic about some of the hurdles and obstacles that we all confront in repopulating New Orleans."

Mayor Ray Nagin, for what it's worth, is a colored man.

President Bush, center, stops for a group photo as he greets visitors at the White House on his return from a two day respite at Camp David, in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2005.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

In his televised address to the nation from New Orleans last Thursday night, President Bush inspired millions of Americans who had become concerned with what was perceived to be the federal government's belated and inadequate response to the Disaster That Was Katrina. Channeling the finest moments of FDR, he lifted our wounded spirits and explained how the wrongs that had inflicted America over the past several centuries were going to be corrected under his watch...the true, idealistic Compassionate Conservative.

As all of us saw on television, there's also some deep, persistent poverty in this region, as well. That poverty has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America. We have a duty to confront this poverty with bold action. So let us restore all that we have cherished from yesterday, and let us rise above the legacy of inequality.

Stirring. Resonant. We saw this poverty on our flat-screen TVs in the White House situation room, and, fuck, we're going to fix this shit. We're going to throw cash your way. Cash. Money. Bills. You black people like that shit, right? Yeah? Yeah? Check this shit out, all these noble actions and understanding gestures we've got for you poor, penniless motherfuckers:

Sensenbrenner: Nix on Bankruptcy Delay, TPMCafe, September 14, 2005:

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, refuses to even consider a vote delaying bankruptcy law changes for Katrina victims.  The party line is, the law is, was, and always will be perfect, and why mess with perfection?

Medicaid Cuts to Continue Despite Hurricane Katrina, TPMCafe, September 19, 2005:

While legislation was delayed last week, House leaders are determined to introduce legislation cutting $10 billion from the Medicaid program once they can turn their attention away from the hurricane cleanup.

OK, but what does our First Black President Who Also Happened to Be Poor think?

Clinton Levels Sharp Criticism at the President's Relief Effort, the New York Times and ABC News, September 19, 2005:

"I think it's very important that Americans understand, you know, tax cuts are always popular, but about half of these tax cuts since 2001 have gone to people in my income group, the top 1 percent. I've gotten four tax cuts. They're responsible for this big structural deficit, and they're not going away, the deficits aren't. Now, what Americans need to understand is that that means every single day of the year, our government goes into the market and borrows money from other countries to finance Iraq, Afghanistan, Katrina and our tax cuts. We have never done this before. Never in the history of our republic have we ever financed a conflict, military conflict, by borrowing money from somewhere else."

U.S. President George W. Bush boards Air Force One after speaking about Hurricane Katrina's damage to the nation on network television from Jackson Square in New Orleans, September 15, 2005. Bush believes the vision for rebuilding should be 'locally inspired,' but that the country as a whole needs to be committed to that longer-term effort. The president will continue to the White House following the speech. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Sure thing John Roberts (l.) and Team American Gary Johnston (r.)

(Big thx Martin...)

From the first interview with the recently-departed Michael Brown since his 'resignation' on Monday, in "Ex-FEMA Chief Tells of Frustration and Chaos", the New York Times, September 15, 2005:

FEMA, he said, had no helicopters and only a few communications trucks. The agency typically depends on state resources, a system he said worked well in the other Gulf Coast states and in Florida last year.

What does it mean when Reuters' photo editor takes it upon his or herself to make the widely-linked photo above available through its wire service? Why, that the President was speaking to members of the United Nations yesterday, of course! Here's the caption:

U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

So, the gist of the news-worthy nature of this event: Bush spoke to the United Nations. And, it seems, the President wrote "a note" to Condi at some point. But someone at Reuters understands that of late, Bush's popularity has been a bit worse for wear, and the usual "funny photo" of the President caught off guard just won't do...

How does Reuters, then, sieze the moment? By also making available a blown-up, zoomed-in version of the image above, solely to focus upon the note's most-certainly-not-classified subject matter.

Good luck with piecing together your moving, inspirational Katrina backdrop for tonight's presidential address, Karl.

This post is dedicated to Jean-Paul Tremblay, who was found dead in his apartment beneath a stack of old Nation magazines, surrounded by anti-Bush paraphernalia. Now you're Photoshopping with Jesus, sweet prince.

From "What's in a Name, Katrinas?", an article exploring the irksome after-effects of being named "Katrina" in these troubling times of ours, appearing in Sunday's New York Times, by Allen Salkin:

Katrinas can expect three to five years of stoking bad memories before the sharpness of the pain recedes, said Katrina Cochran, a disaster relief psychologist who has worked with victims of the Oklahoma City bombings and the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ms. Cochran, who has been hired by Church World Service to counsel hurricane victims, said she hopes they will forgive her name. "People will see me trying to help and offering care and compassion, and it might actually help them recover more quickly," she said.

Meet the new face of "poking fun".

The noted socially-responsible, orphan-adopting, AIDS-research financing, poverty-reducing, and Chilli-fucking R&B musician Usher on Kanye West's "outburst" last week:

"And the R+B star, who will be among performers appearing on an MTV telethon tonight (10SEP05), states, 'I wasn't mad at Kanye's statement - that's his opinion - but it's obviously not the opportunity or the time to poke fun or appoint blame.'"

Emphasis added, because, of course, you can't speak in boldface. Well, you can, but then you'd be a liar, as opposed to an idiot.

Alaska: the largest state, and the biggest elected-official achievement gap

You Voted Me into Office, but I'm a Fucking Idiot, Round 1
Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, via the Associated Press, September 6, 2005:

Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said the administration is "getting a bad rap" for the emergency response.

"This is the largest disaster in the history of the United States, over an area twice the size of Europe," Stevens said. "People have to understand this is a big, big problem."

Factual Refutation (fig. 1a):

Europe is about one-fifteenth of the world's total land area...Area: 4,000,000 square miles including adjacent islands

By Sen. Stevens' logic, that would make America's Gulf Coast region equal to roughly two-fifteenths of the world's land mass. That's some awesome Bush-Brand Science!

You Voted Me into Office, but I'm a Fucking Idiot, Round 2
Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, via the New York Times, September 7, 2005:

"We are just in the beginning of the hurricane season," said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska. "What happens if there is another hurricane?"

Factual Refutation (fig. 3f):

Hurricane season officially descends on the Atlantic June 1st.

By Sen. Murkowski's logic, we get to re-experience our entire summer all over again! This means you can ask out that girl at the beach who was being all flirtatious and shit, but you were too cautious, too tentative. Thanks, Sen. Murkowski!

So, are they this stupid and misinformed because they're Alaskan, or is it because they're Republicans?

President Bush greets people receiving food and water at a Salvation Army relief area in a Biloxi, Miss., neighborhood devastated by Hurricane Katrina, Friday, Sept. 2, 2005. Bush is touring the Gulf Coast communities battered by Hurricane Katrina, hoping to boost the spirits of increasingly desperate storm victims and exhausted rescuers. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

So inspiring, the hope that is given from the President's magnanimous arms before the AP's cameras!

But, umm, wait...then there's this, from the office of Louisiana's Senator Mary Landrieu:

But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment.

With President Bush "out of the picture," so to speak, so goes the show of support, it seems.

From "Public Begins Paying Respects to Rehnquist", the Washington Post, September 6, 2005:

The flag-draped coffin of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist was carried up the long marble stairs to the Supreme Court's Great Hall this morning by eight former law clerks, including John Roberts, the man nominated to succeed him.

[...]

Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and David Souter were absent from the ceremony.

And so it all comes together, by way of this handy Kanye West-derived interpretation of these events:

KENNEDY: "William Rehnquist hates black people. Motherfucker's dead now...Rehnquist got sonned."

SOUTER: "Please call...Wait, what the fuck, I was down in the Big Easy helping to evacuate the city. Shorty can't catch a break?"

From Wired News' "Queer Blog for the Straight Web", September 1, 2005:

There are blogs for just about every hobby, interest and persuasion, but why don't any cover gay lifestyle?

[...]

I can't claim to have come up with the idea, though. David Hauslaib, 21, who operates gossip blog Jossip, did. Next week he is planning to launch Queerty (a play on Qwerty, the keyboard standard), which will feature the blogging of Bradford Shellhammer (yes, his real name: I checked his driver's license). Shellhammer, 29, spots fashion trends for JC Report, the online fashion magazine published by Flavorpill Productions, and has written for Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly, The Baltimore Sun and Gay.com.

Recently I interviewed the two of them at a cafe in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, where they talked about their plans for Queerty.

SCENE: A small brick-walled cafe, colorfully--yet tastefully--adorned with the most masculine of motifs, including Robert Mapplethorpe photographs and rich, transcendently phallic iron sculptures. An isolated table with three chairs stands in the center of the room, at which is seated BRADFORD, a sleek and stylized prototype of homosexuality, and DAVID, a young and cherubically aspirational "gay bloke" who is wiping his face with stock certificates.

DAVID (sighing): Must reporters always be so fucking late? I swear...it's scandalous how delicate the nature of time is to these people. And time, of course, is money. Gay money!

BRADFORD: David, relax. I am so, so off the market. And he's just a writer! Hardly big-money-man material. Truly, while a little plug-and-play here and there has never hurt anyone, I am not willing to betray Gus' confidence in my behavior after that last fiasco in July.

A trim young bespectacled gentleman, ADAM, enters from STAGE LEFT. He smiles confidently at DAVID and BRADFORD and seats himself between the two.

Gasoline customers check prices and leave at a BP station in Stockbridge, Ga., Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2005. (AP Photo/Gene Blythe)

From "Looting chaos hits New Orleans relief effort", Times Online (UK), September 1, 2005:

President Bush has called for a "zero tolerance" policy against looters and profiteering today as New Orleans descended into lawlessness.

RELATED: "Looting" or "finding"? Bloggers are outraged over the different captions on photos of blacks and whites in New Orleans, Salon

"The Pat O'Brien's motto is "Have fun!" and visitors to this cornerstone New Orleans establishment have been doing so since 1933. With roots that extend into the Prohibition Era, Pat O'Brien's has been serving signature drinks for more than 60 years and is best known for the Hurricane, its original invention."
-from the AOL City Guide