A Spitzer with Our Weiner

It's hard to imagine many decent, informed people signing petitions for the thuggish, sleazy, hypocritically prostitution-prosecuting, bullying, business-bashing, campaign-funds-abusing, law-warping, anti-medical-marijuana, disgraced filer-and-withdrawer of groundless cases that is (or once was?) former governor and aspiring comptroller Eliot Spitzer -- and one's limited faith in humanity might almost be redeemed by Roger Stone's July 15 entry suggesting that Spitzer probably hasn't gotten as many signatures as his underlings claim (though Stone, of course, has his own host of issues).

On the bright side, we will all enjoy the (Stone-orchestrated) spectacle of Spitzer running against a former madam for the position.

(And, hey, The Nation was pushing Spitzer for vice president back in the day, so think of what might have been and be grateful we do not live in an even worse alternate universe.)

My Terminator Pitch

I don’t mean to suggest that I think the guy who wrote Drive Angry isn’t up to the task, but this is what I’d do.

As I've said before (but I'll say it shorter each time), the only new Terminator worth doing would have a line like "It's 2015 A.D., and after countless time travel missions we finally achieved a timeline with no nuclear war and no Terminators -- I'm the only one who remembers how horrible things might have been...and somehow that's why, in this pleasant world of cat videos, social networking, and algorithmic online shopping, the drones and military robots have begun tracking me. My name is John Connor."

But in the meantime, let’s do a debate about Bitcoin (and related matters) at next month’s Dionysium in Williamsburg.  More soon.

DIONYSIUM 7/9: Sex Roles: More Biology or Society?

Are even the most bizarre gendered actions undertaken by the human race -- say, men wanting to smash foes like Superman smashing Zod, or women flocking to the defense of Aaron Hernandez and the surviving Boston bomber -- just the playing out of arbitrary social codes?  Could these patterns be unlearned, or are they just evidence of an intractably gendered human biology?  Find out at last! 

The Dionysium presents a debate next week, Tue., July 9th (8pm) on

"Blurred Lines: Are Sex Roles Created More by Biology or Society?" 

with:

Biology: Diana Fleischman, Ph.D., senior lecturer in evolutionary psychology at the University of Portsmouth (and vegan blogger at http://Sentientist.org) 

VS.

Society: Kelly Ann Beavers, Ph.D. candidate in sociology/urban studies -- sometimes studying Williamsburg (she's also a yoga instructor and aspiring underwear model)

And because Beavers is in the band Bells and Hunters (http://bellsandhunters.bandcamp.com/), we will also hear a song -- possibly about love or gender roles.

Todd Seavey moderates in typically-sensitive fashion, with loads of audience Q&A.

It's all Tue., July 9 (8pm), at the Muchmore's performance space/bar in Williamsburg, ground floor of 2 Havemeyer St. (corner of N. 9th St.), just three blocks east of the easily-reached first L stop into Brooklyn, Bedford Ave.