All posts by James

About James

James Seidler is a writer living in Chicago. The editor for the now-defunct humor publication FLYMF, he has now decided to maintain his web presence and smart remarks through this blog.

Guess Who Has an IMDB Listing?

Movies, , ,

This guy!

The listing comes from my brief-brief-brief cameo in Illegal Use of Joe Zopp, the film that FLYMF co-creator Nick Holle and a group of his friends created in their home town of Chippewa Falls. The movie’s great (you can my response to it here), and it’s been really rewarding to see a group of good friends take a big artistic project through to fruition.

The movie will have its theatrical debut  on August 22 in Chippewa Falls Micon Cinemas; I will definitely be there. The movie will also be featured in Iowa City’s Landlocked Film Festival on August 23, after which there will be a DVD release. If you can make it to any of the screenings, you should show up to support an innovative grassroots film project. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Poisonclover’s Patch

FLYMF Alums

FLYMF contributor Patrick Alexander has started a new blog, Poisonclover’s Patch. The blog promises a fun, irreverent take on everyday life. As he puts it, “I have a lot of free time in the summer and I finally got around to creating my own place on the Net to vent my mental cruelty and off colour humour.  Tell your friends, tell your enemies.”

Consider it done, Patrick! Patrick’s work for FLYMF included The Enza, The Swab, Why I Need Weapons at a Wake, The Lepre-Con,  and Confessions of an Anti-Dentite.

Another Taser Murder

Well Worth Reading,

From the Chicago Tribune:

At 1:28 p.m. last Jan. 17, Baron “Scooter” Pikes was a healthy 21-year-old man. By 2:07 p.m., he was dead.

What happened in the 39 minutes in between — during which Pikes was handcuffed by local police and shocked nine times with a Taser, while reportedly pleading for mercy —is now spawning fears of a political coverup in this backwoods Louisiana lumber town infamous for backroom dealings.

Continue reading Another Taser Murder →

American Inequity—In Graph Form!

Well Worth Reading, ,

The American Human Development Project has put together a fascinating report, “The Measure of America: American Human Development Report 2008-2009,” which uses United Nations human-development rankings to evaluate the state of the nation, highlighting health, access to knowledge and standard of living.

As the report explains, this is the first time this has been done for “an industrialized nation.” The results show a wide gulf in development scores between different regions and races. As the map shows, the South comes out the worst (and the deepest blue states come out the best). Meanwhile, African Americans have nearly half the living index of white citizens.

Continue reading American Inequity—In Graph Form! →