In case you were wondering, honesty is not dead in the digital age. Today on craigslist, the best men seeking women personal of the day:

The headline reads: “ I just want to get laid.”

Who doesn’t?

The text of the ad reads:

“I don’t want to meet your mother or father. I don’t care about your personal life, your history or your dreams and aspirations. I just want to fuck you. It’s natural, I’ve got the penis and you’ve got the vagina. Hopefully they fit together. The rest of these guys are just yanking on your chain to get down your pants after some cheap pizza and beer. All men are scumbags and I am the only honest scumbag left on the planet. You read this far so obviously you are not all that disgusted so send me a photo and Ill send you one of mine.”

The honesty of this ad is refreshing. Why more people don’t just put it right out there like this astounds me. I’d like to shake this guy’s hand.

Don’t think I forgot about my homeboys. I found you fellas out there a little someone special:

Creative Diva Looking for Ideal Man

This 5′6″ cutie has bi-colored eyes and can’t start a conversation to save her life, but she loves getting nasty underneath the sheets. She’s good at it, too, evidently: she has four kids, all of whom still live at home. Dude, now’s your chance to start that band.

If all of that wasn’t good enough for you, Creative Diva has an identical twin. Hot city, ain’t it? The undertone of this ad suggests that Ms. Diva is the “good” twin, while the other mysterious twin is the wild child twin. I say you find out what Ms. Diva looks like, then go find her swinging sista. Maybe she has less children.

Since Ms. Diva posted her ad in Missed Connections instead of the expected Women Seeking Men section, it’s clear that Ms. Diva is either: 1) innovative in her approach to man-hunting or 2) dumb. Either works in your favor. Go get her, cowboy.

Does it count as shameless self-promotion to promote my promotion of a friend’s event? Hopefully not. Scope my piece in this week’s Phoenix on the upcoming criminal justice reform festival, Justice or Just Us?, taking place at AS220 real soon.

Okay, ladies, I found a real winner for you:

Ax Dude Seeks Love

The ad starts with: “I’m sick of being judged by the way I look?”, which, please note, is not a definitive statement but a question, as if the writer wonders if, in fact, he is being judged for the way he looks, not for the weaponry in his hands. “CONSIDER ME WILLY FUCKING WONKA,” demands the ad, before ending with, in a most beautiful irony, “Please, no fatties.”

Go ahead, girls. Fight it out.

This happened like two weeks ago, but I just got the e-mail that Peta2, the branch of the animal rights organization aimed at Dilinger Escape Plan-loving teenagers, finally announced the winners of its Cutest Vegetarian Alive contest.

18-year old Kelly Anderson has terrible Karen O hair with mysterious yet grating blonde pigtails, but she makes up for it with a really cute t-shirt; Leonard Sun, the totally emo boy winner, has a lip ring and the same camera as me and according to his bio he’s really into tight pants and big sunglasses.

Because I have lots of free time and an unhealthy addiction to the internet, I had been following the competition pretty closely when it first started; 32 original contestants were featured, each with a little bio and one photo, and visitors to the site all voted for their favorites–the Peta2 website is something to behold, but I won’t get into why because that’s more the subject for a dissertation than a blog post.

Naturally, all the contestants have perfected the art of taking lots and lots of pretty pictures of themselves, and a bunch of them have three or four Myspace profiles just to keep up with their trillions of friends.

Not that I was checking their Myspaces or anything.  I mean, you know, except to get some context about them and to evaluate how cute their other pictures were.  And stuff.  Kayle, for instance, looked pretty cute in his picture on the Peta2 site, despite the really lame Transformers tattoo on the back of his hand and the fact that his name is freaking Kayle.  But, upon closer inspection, what a dopey cheesebucket!

Jordan’s pictures were less impressive than I thought they would be (as were the Youtube videos of him snowskating), but I liked the range of stuff going on with sixteen-year old Austin’s pictures.

Of course, all this was entertaining for about five minutes, and then it got mildly creepy because I realized I was judging the cuteness of boys and girls that were as young as fourteen.  And rather than letting Peta2 turn me into a pervy old man, I thought I’d just stop voting.

A helluvalot going on this week.  Ian covers some of it here, including marriage equality, medical marijuana, and pre-registration.  There’s also a slew of anti-immigrant bills, including the E Verify bill that passed the House last week.  An important probation reform bill, discussed in detail here, is also up for a vote today.

And on and on.  The budget situation sucks, but I’m still somewhat hopeful that it won’t all be resolved on the backs of our state’s most vulnerable.   And we might yet make it out of this session with some key advancements on the renewable energy front, and on prison reform.

The Manton Avenue Project’s annual benefit, Big Top - A Three Ring Musicale will take place on Monday May 19th from 6-8pm at the Pell Chafee Performance Center!

These eight tiny circus themed plays, each with an even tinier song, will be written by project kids in conjunction with special guest writers, Donald W. King, executive artistic director for Providence Black Repertory Company, Michelle Muscatello, WPRI Meteorologist, Lynne McCormack, Director of the Department of Art, Culture and Tourism, Councilman Cliff Wood, Ward 2 (College Hill), City of Providence and performed by professional actors from Perishable, Trinity Repertory Company, Providence Black Repertory Company, The Gamm, and 2nd Story Theatre. It will be directed by Peter Sampieri.

Tickets are $100. Call 401.331.7007 or visit www.mantonavenueproject.org

Tomorrow (Thursday). Fundraiser. For me. Please come — it’ll be sweet, for real:

Rep David Segal has spent the last 5+ years advocating for environmentalism, social justice, civil rights, and civil liberties while on the Providence City Council and in the Rhode Island General Assembly.

Now, as elections approach, he needs your support.

For more info, or to donate online, please visit www.VoteSegal.com

Thursday, May 8th
6-10PM
Nick-a-Nees
75 South Street, Jewelry District

Featuring
The What Cheer? Brigade
The Low Anthem
The Trolleys

Pay-what-you-can

Thanks for your support!

Here’s the Projo’s write-up on last year’s event:

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Ari’s new boss, of sorts, is Krist Novoselic — the former bassist for Nirvana, who’s spent the last decade or so as a democracy activist:

Krist Novoselic is best known as the bassist in the groundbreaking rock band Nirvana. But he recently added another title: chairman.

Novoselic has replaced former congressman John B. Anderson (R-Ill.) as chairman of FairVote, a group that advocates ways to encourage voting. Anderson comes from a different realm entirely; he was an independent candidate for president in 1980.

The transition is not as strange as it seems. In 2004, Novoselic did a national tour with FairVote to promote his book “Of Grunge & Government: Let’s Fix This Broken Democracy!” In the book, Novoselic discusses how Nirvana emerged as the biggest band of the early 1990s and how he became involved in politics.

On second thought, it does seem pretty strange. In addition to chairing FairVote, Novoselic now plays with a punk band called Flipper.

Board Votes to Hold Public Hearings on Proposed Fare Increases

RIPTA’s board of directors voted at it April 7, 200th meeting to hold public hearings on proposed fares increases. Sharp hikes in the cost of fuel are behind the fare increase proposal. “Unfortunately, we have to seek fare increases to compensate for some of the steep increases in fuel costs. Fuel costs have more than tripled since FY 2002 when we paid on average 87 cents for a gallon of fuel. We’re now averaging about $3.27 a gallon for the current fiscal year. Fare increases won’t absorb the full impact of the higher cost of fuel, but they will help, said RIPTA General Manager Alfred J. Moscola.

If approved, the proposed fare increases would raise the base fare from $1.50 to $1.75 and include the following changes:

Details and hearing dates after jump

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This is very sad news, for a group that’s done great work in contributing to Providence’s decreased crime over the last decade.

PROVIDENCE — A streetworker for the Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence was stabbed and attacked with a baseball bat early yesterday as he tried to break up a disturbance that may have been gang-related outside a downtown nightclub.

Sareth “Tony” Kim, 32, was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with head injuries and a stab wound to his shoulder. Three men who were with Kim — Sokha Chea, 27, Ray Min, 16, and Steven Ormerod, no age available — all suffered severe cuts and other injuries. Min, who is Kim’s nephew, was stabbed in the right arm and chest as he tried to protect his uncle, the police said.

On Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, James Carville recently quipped: “If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.”

It was far from the first time that a political pundit used testicles as a metonymy for power, courage, boldness, or guts. In fact, Hillary’s “balls” have been the subject of much praise (and disdain) throughout the course of this exhausted Democratic primary.

Introducing Clinton at a rally in Indiana, Paul Gibson, president of a steelworkers local union, proclaimed that the nation needed a leader like Clinton with “testicular fortitude.” Clinton thanked him for the compliment, though she did note that women, too, can have fortitude.

Reporting on the incident, Salon editor Joan Walsh wrote, “Clinton does indeed have … fortitude. Hell, she has balls.” Walsh says that Clinton handled the situation as best as she could and did not employ a double-standard by accepting this incredibly sexist “compliment.”

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Your last chance to see this spring’s festival of dance at Brown Univerity’s Stuart Theatre (Waterman Street) is at 2PM today. Tickets start at $7.

Think you wouldn’t enjoy a freaking dance recital? Think again. Weird doesn’t even begin to describe the 6 dance numbers that make up this event. Strange, like Dr. Suess Meets A Couple of Drunk African Starving kids strange? Better. So Freaking Bizarre, And Yet Beautiful, That It Made My Head Spin? Yeah, that’s about right. (more…)

Bad ass:

On May 1, every port on the West Coast of the United States was shut down to demand an end to the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The historic May Day walkout by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is the first time ever that an American union has struck against a U.S. war. The union ranks defied the rulings of an arbitrator, who twice ordered them to go to work.

They overcame the capitulations of the ILWU leadership, which didn’t want the work stoppage in the first place, tried to water it down and cowered before the threats of legal action while waving the flag. The employers’ Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) declared the May 1 port shutdown an “illegal strike.” But after all the huffing and puffing from the bosses’ mouthpieces, the dock workers pointed the way to defeating the imperialist war by mobilizing working-class power. In the end, it was more than a work stoppage. The dock workers’ May Day strike against the war was a first step, a show of what it will take to bring down the warmongers in Washington.

The Watershed Council requested KaBOOM!, a national non-profit, to build a playground in Merino Park. Councilman Igliozzi contributed $7500 to the build and the word spread. Now, Staples jumped on board, providing the new 5000 square foot playground and over 350 volunteers to help organize and build the playground.

The park is situated between two large housing developments providing housing over 1300 people, predominately women and children. More about the park here. (more…)

Many of you know that, for the past two years, I have been facilitating arts and writing workshops at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institutions (ACI) through Space in Prison for the Arts and Creative Expression ( SPACE).

This Sunday, May 4, SPACE will be opening its annual exhibit of art and writing from the ACI. The exhibit will take place in the Youth Gallery at AS220, 115 Empire Street from 4 PM to 7 PM.

In addition to displaying art and writing, we will be reading selections of poetry written by the men and women who participate in our workshops. We will also be distributing our annual Zine, a collection of their work. Refreshments will be served. If you can’t make it on Sunday, the exhibit will be up in the AS220 Youth Gallery through July; please stop in and check it out!

More about SPACE and the exhibit after the jump.

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