Pimps, Popes and Other Controversies

This website has been unavailable for the past day. You see, an old credit card was left on file at the hosting company. The automated billing process noted a decline and quietly shut things down. My dozens of readers kept me appraised, but I've been extremely busy the past two days, with little time to sort things out.

I was worried about my brother, who is busy at college, and once admitted (to my horror, actually) that Spacetropic was one of his primary news sources. University can be a cocooning experience, sure, when we are walled away from the world at large. Nonetheless, I am reminded of a guy I knew at school who ate canned corned beef for most of a semester, and at the end he was smelly and despondent. Variety is important to your diet, intellectual or otherwise.

And on that note, some random ideas, links, and observations that don't constitute a full-blown post, but are worth mentioning:

• The Oscars were painfully boring. As much as I despise the Hollywood liberal jackasserati - I can't imagine why John Stewart didn't win over the crown with some Bush-bashing.
• The winner for best song, a hip-hop number about pimping, appears to have touched off a controversy. Many African-Americans feel like it promotes a gratuitously negative image.
  
• It's warmer and rainy in the Midwest this week. I really like Springtime and all of the biology and renewal.
• Spring also coincides with the solemn season of Lent, for us Catholics. Consider this photograph of Andy Warhol, pop artist and famous practicing Catholic. The photograph is entitled Goofing Off During Lent.
• Pope Benedict XVI is now an iPod user. This should come as no surprise to anyone. The pontiff may be in his 80s, but he has a noted flair for fashion, and counts Gucci and Prada among his favorite designers.
• Nat Comisar, former proprietor of the five-star Maisonette offers his perspectives on the restaurant business and city/exurban demographics trends in the Blue Chip Review. (I plan to highlight this analysis in forthcoming post about the New Dubliner.)
• They killed Edgar on 24! As many commenters on the Dave Barry blog wondered - why didn't he simply eat the canister of nerve gas?

More uptake as time permits.