Everyone loves this mystery first grader's poem.

Photographer Jason Gardner visited some New York public schools to photograph various students and their families, when he caught a glimpse of poem written by an anonymous first grader during an after school program for National Poetry Month.

The photo has since gone viral, as people have flocked to the simple, cute imagery penned by a child.

While the poem and photo from Gardner's Facebook page has become all the rage, the story behind it is now become the most shared item on New York's NPR website, and countless websites like Yahoo, Gawker, and Perez Hilton have all jumped on the bandwagon. Whoever wrote it, it's the most popular poem written in America in the 21st century. Which is saying something.


Photo: Jason Gardner



I call shenanigans. This anonymous first grader apparently can't spell for their life, and the letters somehow change shape in the last sentence (specifically the letter "E")--but they know how to use adverbs and phrases like "personal space." And though it's posted in a school, somehow no one has any idea who wrote it. No teacher, no aide, no supervisor, no one. Sure. Mystery children are often allowed to randomly post things in a school with no one else aware.

Yes. I'm a cynic.

James Franco doesn't take kindly to New York Times criticism of his new play 'Of Mice and Men.'

John Steinbeck's 'Of Mice and Men' is back on Broadway (hide your baby rabbits!), starring James Franco as George and Chris O'Dowd as Lenny. And while reviews generally have been filled with high praise, James Franco is irked with the New York Times critic offering only a shoulder shrug of appreciation.


And when you're a pissed off actor today, it's time to hit the Twitter machine and let your verbal vengeance fly. Cue the Franco fisticuffs:


“Sadly Ben Brantley and the NYT have embarrassed themselves. Brantley is such a little bitch he should be working for Gawker.com instead of the paper of record. The theater community hates him, and for good reason, he’s an idiot.”

Well, that's got to sting for Brantley. If Franco keeps that up, Ben Brantley might get shivved by a 17-year old girl in a Whole Foods parking lot.

Malaysian Education Ministry is afraid of gays and lesbians, releases hilarious guidelines on how to detect "homosexual symptoms" in your own child.

Malaysia's Education Ministry recently endorsed an 8-point set of guidelines on how to detect homosexuality percolating in your child, and released the guidelines to 1,500 teachers and administrators at a recent seminar in order so teachers and parents can take early, corrective measures to stop it.

Let's cut to the highlights...

For detecting gays:
1.) Have a muscular body and like to show their body by wearing a v-neck and sleeveless clothes;
2.) Prefer tight and light-coloured clothes;
3.) Attracted to men;
4.) Like to bring big handbags, similar to those used by women, when hanging out.

For detecting lesbians:
1.) Attracted to women;
2.) Besides their female companions, they will distance themselves from other women;
3.) Like to hang out, have meals and sleep in the company of women; and
4.) Have no affection for men.

"Once the children have these symptoms, immediate attention should be given," advises the guidelines.

And, as the Education Minister is quoted as saying, "This can also spread among their friends. We are worried this happens during schooling time."

There's no information on how to detect bisexuals.

You know what the real headline here is? That lesbians are hanging out with women--and then trying to distance themselves from other women. Sneaky little vixens, those lesbians!

What can we learn here? That gay and lesbianism is possibly as contagious as West Nile. Who knows if mosquitoes are carrying it? Get some bug repellent with some extra-strength DEET just in case. Better safe than sorry.

And what's key to remember--and I always forget this myself--is that gay men apparently will always have affection for men. Same goes for lesbians; they only focus on fellow women. I jotted this note down in a steno pad and kept it readily available for safe keeping.




As a side note:
My aunt once bought me a sort of satchel as a gift. What's apparent now is that she was trying to infect me with the gay. Sure, I used the bag--but because I knew she was trying to make me gay, I was able to thwart her gay advances and make the bag heterosexual.



photo: Malaysiakini
Story:Gawker,Gaystar, Malaysiakini

Taylor Swift is holding a competition for a concert at a school, and the deaf kids are in the lead.

Taylor Swift--through promotions with various companies and blah blah blah--has a competition where people can vote for which school in the United States she'll visit to play a concert.

The Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Allston, MA, is currently in the lead. And leading by a marathon, too. UCLA is in second place, naturally. You can't deny the power of the Horace Mann School.

4Chan and Reddit folks are the amazing geniuses behind this, voting enough times to make sure Taylor has a captive audience.

On the plus side, Horace Mann is only a few minute jaunt from Taylor's stalking of the Kennedy family down in Hyannisport, so that works out nicely.

Shitterton, England, is actually a cute little hamlet despite its name.

Etymology is a quirky thing. Sometimes benign words and names from hundreds of years ago become tee-hee-hee chuckle-hahas today.

Which brings us to Shitterton, England--a name what won the little English hamlet the award of Most Unfortunate Place Name in Britain, according to genealogy website findmypast.com.

The runners-up?
Crapstone
Broken Wind
Scratchy Bottom

According to The Scotsman, via Gawker, Shitterton's name derives from the 11th century Norman French moniker Scatera, which translates to "a little town that is on the stream of a midden or sewer."

Shitterton resident, Ian Ventham, is a practical man. "Shit is shit," he said. "Let's not beat around the bush. That is where the name comes from...[t]hose of us who live here are not the least embarrassed by it."

It beats Fucking, Austria, eh?

Professor declares earthquake made cats depressed and suicidal.

Cats have serious emotional issues. My old cat Lil' Kitty (real name) became moderate-sized kitty once she didn't like the new apartment I moved into and found food as the only comfort that could stop the hurt. It was a dark time in the life of Lil' Kitty, one of expanding waistlines and shrinking hope. It only snowballed from there, to the point of dependency on the wacky tobacky.*

This is all to say that a professor of veterinary sciences from Century University in the Turkish city of Van claims an earthquake last year in that city has turned countless felines into desperate suicidal kitties that are one bad night of drinking away from needing to be talked down from a ledge.

"After the quake that jolted Van, a large number of cats are throwing themselves from heights," said Dr. Abuzer Tas. "They are getting fidgety by remaining in confined areas for a long time, and they are throwing themselves out in order to free themselves."

And here I thought Lil' Kitty's addiction to Fancy Feast was a concern.



*She became addicted to catnip at one point. It became so bad that she figured out a way to open the kitchen drawer hiding the bag of catnip, pull it out, and generally trip the light fantastic everyday by herself while I was at work. The saddest part is that I enabled the addiction by going to a dealer (Petco) and buying more for her. I'm the reason she became a junky!

**Do professors keep databases for feline suicides? How do you know the cat flung itself off a ledge because it was suicidal and not just an adventurous cat with bad balance? Does the cat leave a note behind? Did it have conversations with its fellow felines about how despondent it felt? How does this work? We need answers.

***Are dogs not suicidal? Do they not jump from windows? Do dogs have good health insurance that pays for quality therapy?

Gawker ranks the people most easily offended by their website...

...and academics are #2!

On the plus side, I bet all that academic bellyaching is written with some quality grammar, so props for that.

Green Boy Packers: what the Green Giant calls his jeans.

The Green Bay Packers are a publicly held National Football League team. Recently, for only the fifth time in their 92 year history, they offered 250,000 public shares up for grabs.

This is what the shares looked like:

I'm trademarking that bad boy and making a line of green-hued skinny jeans.


photo: deadspin.com

Students at College of William & Mary are studious and/or bored.

Depending on the quality of student, finals week means...

1.) Lots of studying.

2.) Lots of holiday shopping.

3.) Figuring out ways to burn some time until you can go home for winter break.

At The College of William and Mary*, students enjoy blending all three, by reenacting Black Friday hoard-crushing shenanigans with all the nobleness of pretending they want to study--all in an attempt to kill a few hours because they're lonely. (It's William and Mary, you know?)

According to Gawker, apparently students mass by the hundreds (thousands?) outside their main library waiting for the doors to be unlocked so they can stampede Pamplona bull style--crushing smaller, weaker students into a bloody pulp of lower intellect, all for the sake of getting primo study seats inside the library.

I can only assume the alternative for students was to sit in a dorm room with the freaky roommate that smells of methane and has an unhealthy addiction to Japanese anime.



*Really, who named this school? Yoda? Why is it backwards? Maybe--MAYBE--I'd give a pass to such a name if the school was Oxford or Harvard based on pretentiousness alone. But whosa whatsa William and Mary? What if we changed the names to College of Bubba and Shirley? Sounds classy to me.

France bans ketchup in school and college cafeterias.

In an effort to show they're not down with love handles and early-onset heart attacks, France has banned ketchup in academic cafeterias, including at colleges and universities. Their reasoning is that it's packed with sugar and really not worth the potential headaches.

According to Jacques (you just knew he had to be named Jacques) Hazan, president of the Federation of School Something-or-Another in France, "We can't have children eating any old thing."

Thankfully, France still allows all kindergarteners two fifteen minute smoke breaks per day.

Your effort on that Wikipedia page for REO Speedwagon has been a little lackluster these days.

So says Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales*, who claims his darling child is not replenishing its editor ranks nearly as much as it should.

Is Wikipedia dying? Is there disinterest? Why do I look so good in a tuxedo? Can my baby blue eyes look deep inside your soul? These are questions for other people to answer. Possibly in the form of a Wikipedia page.




* "Jimmy Wales" sounds like the name of some Scottish mobster with a penchant for Siamese cats and trafficking heroin. Or maybe a 1970's rock guitarist. Sadly, the man in the above photo can't be either of those because neither would be seen in a white-dotted olive green sweater with bacon neck.

Brooks Brothers now makes college clothing, just in case you weren't pretentious enough.

Is your name Ambrose, Hampton, or some other similarly-sounding elite name? Did you attend boarding school with a future sheik of some Middle Eastern country who may or may not be a dictator right now? Have you ever had the urge to wear a monocle? Are you a preppy, young gentleman of higher breeding with a penchant for wearing wing-tip shoes made from the leather hide of a two week old baby calf while you sashay across campus to your Benz?

More importantly, are you concerned that the lower masses are wearing preppy clothing with much too greater frequency for your liking, and are looking for a way to distinguish your family's wealth from the filthy wretches of the middle and lower classes?

Well, good news! Brooks Brothers Clothier, America's oldest, known for their high-end clothing, has decided to create a line of shirts, ties, and other accoutrements specifically for 15 colleges and universities.

According to Gawker.com, this means these 15 colleges and universities now house the most unbearable student bodies. Those 15, ranked in unbearability according to Gawker?

15. The U.S. Naval Academy
14. Stanford
13. Georgia
12. Vanderbilt
11. Alabama
10. Cornell
9. Virginia
8. Auburn
7. Ohio State
6. Princeton
5. Georgetown
4. Boston College
3. NYU
2. Notre Dame
1. Harvard

I actually attend the 4th-most unbearable school. But I'm the redheaded stepchild there. Forget Brooks Brothers, I can't even afford Jonas Brothers clothing.

Taiwanese blogger goes to jail for bad restaurant review.

A Taiwanese blogger named Liu published a restaurant review in which she said the food was too salty and the restaurant was unsanitary.

But this is Taiwan. That whole freedom of speech thing Americans pretend we have? Yeah, they don't even pretend in Taiwan.

Liu was brought to court by the restaurant owner (who apparently treated this like a Zagat Guide review), and Liu was found to be defamatory in her remarks. That gets you 30 days jail time in Taiwan.

My guess is Liu will have a glowing review of prison food coming out this time next month. "The gruel? Stupendous! The three month old bread? Just enough mold to tickle your tongue."

The world's last handwritten newspaper. (Sounds kind of ominous put like that.)

Gawker has a story about a little newspaper (only four broadsheet pages) in India that is not only the world's oldest Urdu-language newspaper, but it's also the last remaining hand-written newspaper thought to exist in the world. In other words, it's a handwritten Boston Globe, with a larger readership probably, too.

The Musalman is the newspaper's name. It has reporters throughout India who report via phone or fax. Four gentlemen, named katibs, who are ancient practitioners of a form of calligraphy, hand-write out the news reports on the four sheets. The front page is mainly national and international news, the middle two pages belong to local happenings, and the final page is all about sports. I can only assume it's wall-to-wall coverage of cricket matches.

According to the story, the editing position at the paper passes down from father to son. Kind of like the British monarchy, circa 1550, minus that whole religious brouhaha. All modern editors at The Musalman admit there's no logical reason they don't use computers to create the paper--they just don't.

It's cute when traditions continue like this. Antiquated things are charming. Makes me want to wear a shawl, get in a rocking chair by a fire, and bang my cane.