No way!?!

Google the News: Egyptian tsunami

To understand just how big the events taking place in Egypt are on a global scale, examine Google the News. Normally a leading news event of the day: Elizabeth Edwards passing, the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster to give but a few recent examples, has five-thousand or six-thousand articles about them as a Google News feed topic. A really big story like the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords might crest at 10,000 or 11,000 articles. Egypt might be the single largest Google the News story we have seen since the Asian tsunami seven years ago. There are currently 19,000 articles on the Google the News thread for Egypt.

The Wisdom of Kelly Oxford

"Adulthood is the moment you switch from taking the occasional drug to trip out, to taking the occasional drug to feel normal."---Kelly Oxford

What they are watching...Episode XVIII

Our look at what the teens and tweens of America are watching. We peer into their world through the lens of Youtube. You may have caught some of our earlier episodes, if not, follow this link and [scroll down].

Watch closely. This video is pretty funny.

Cops hits pedestrian

A Raleigh police officer hit a pedestrian last night on Glenwood Avenue near Brier Creek. Unsurprisingly, the cop blamed the civilian, who was taken to the hospital, treated for an injury to his arm and released. The section of Glenwood Avenue in question has no sidewalks. The man said he was walking in the median. The cop says he was in the travel line.

Police refused to share the police cruiser's dashboard video saying it was evidence in the case. The pedestrian will be charged with impeding the flow of traffic.

Michael, Michael, Michael

How badly did Michael Douglas want to be in this picture?





Many thanks to Clarion Content fave Kelly Oxford for the steer to the shot.

Snooki on Southpark

One of our loyal readers from Hillsborough, NC sent this internet meme our way. The Jersey Shore's Snooki is satirized in cartoon form on Southpark. We were drawn to the physical depiction of Snooki. What crazy ass shit Cartman and the boys are doing with her hardly matters, because they cannot debase her more than she has herself on the Jersey Shore. In Southern parlance, she has shown her ass. Of note, she has also literally shown her ass and been arrested in the last two shows. Yet throughout it all, Snooks remains human and sympathetic. She is just a kid.

What's My Line? Reset

You may, dear readers, remember this author and Clarion Content guest columnist, one of Durham's own, from his on-going work of meta-fiction. The hilarious and wildly popular, The Unauthorized Autobiography of G.Ia.M'Rock. Read the old chapters here. Today he muses on memory and fame. Check out this piece and accompanying clip from the old television show, "What's My Line?"

It's a curious thing, fame. How someone who is well known to the nation or even the world at one time can be completely anonymous at another time, or vice versa. I doubt many of my compatriots could identify Humphrey Bogart, even in his trademark fedora and trenchcoat. And yet my grandfather would be at a loss to pick out Justin Bieber from any sort of lineup.

I don't know if you're familiar with the old panel show "What's my Line", but it's a guessing game where a panel of four famous contestants try to identify the occupation of someone of less renown. When the guest has a famous face, the panelists are blind folded, but in this particularly amusing section, someone whose face is now legendary, sits calmly in front of a group of people who have no idea who he is. At the end of the clip, he describes how big his fame has spread, and it makes you sort of wonder about the effects of advertising on our consciousness.

Bill Cosby tries to find North, SC

A grateful thank you to one of our oldest readers for sending this clip our way from PA. And while the little old lady Mr. Cosby is speaking to is living in Pennsylvania, she is actually from South Carolina. North, South Carolina. Which is ninety miles southeast of Due West, South Carolina. Funny ha-ha.