I just came across an interesting call for stories from editor and designer David Barringer, who’s putting together a lit mag featuring up-to-the-minute writing that has been influenced by events/moods/trends over the course of the Bush years. “Your story/poem/essay/interview does not have to literally address Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rummy. It does not have to be about 9/11 or Afghanistan, Iraq or Abu Ghraib, Gitmo or Jon Stewart, Scooter Libby or Anna Nicole Smith. But it could be, and it must at least be influenced by the past six years. It can’t be a piece of writing with its head in the proverbial sand. The work must have opened itself up to the world. The more directly your piece defines some mood or state of mind or tension set off by events of the Bush years, the more likely it will be accepted.”

He’s taking: stories, essays, interviews, poems, email exchanges, blog entries, diary entries, letters to editors or cousins in the Green Zone. Says Barringer: “Make it personal. Make it painful. Make it funny. Make it real.”

More info/submissions: dlbarringer [at] gmail [dotcom].

George W. Bush>>Flickr>>Creative Commons>>omestes

By now, net neutrality opponent Senator Ted Stevens’ comments bizarrely describing the Internet as a series of tubes that can become clogged have attained near-infamous status in certain tech-savvy circles. (You can read Stevens’ comments, here, or watch Jon Stewart take the piss out of them, there.)

Last week, a friend made me aware of these tee shirts, hand printed by gen-u-ine West Philadelphia activists. Proceeds from sale of the shirts go to support media activism and digital divide groups in Philly, so you know it’s a good cause. Personally, I can’t get over the shirts’ genius conjunction of imagery and message; it has what the French would call a certain “I don’t know what.” Perhaps it’s the residual teenager in me, but there’s something irresistibly subversive about replying to a crusty old senator with a diagram of lady bits. Beyond, or maybe above that, I think the shirts’ creators are way smart to work the connection between feminism and a free media.

Anyway, I’ll be wearing mine to work the moment it arrives.

For Friday: The Best Blonde Joke Ever Made.

curry-n-rice girl music video / current.tv storytelling guide (click “On Storytelling” section) / the personal annual report

sometimes, you’ll take advice from anywhere.

sometimes you lose your underwear.

A first time / Eating (way) out / Time as you know it is morphing / bad sex