"I'm on the drunk diet... I like to drink whiskey and stuff while I'm working."

"But the deal is, I've got to work out every day, and I work out hung over if I'm hung over... I live my life as I want to, and creatively... It's about the cross-training and keeping yourself inspired. I have to say, I do a ton of yoga."

Said Lady Gaga, either telling the truth or cleverly inserting a promo for her boyfriend's book — "The Drunk Diet" — into the viral media. 

"Chakra Con."

"It took these latest revelations of sexual impropriety to get anyone to question whether Al Gore - a man who, for years, made one bogus, scare-mongering thing after another - is someone trustworthy enough for us to have listened to. Again: how does that happen?"

"The NYT is totally on this important urban trend story."

The Catio. That's from The Corner, but it made me wonder what's going on at Stuff White People Like these days. SWPL used to be all over stories like this. Now, it doesn't even manage a post a month. And yet the NYT still comes up with those style articles that were once mocked so skillfully there under the heading "White People in the News."

Here's one from April 2009 about people doing yoga with their dogs. Like the new "catio" article, it had a cutesy, pet-related coined word: Doga. The best part of these old "News" posts, was the list at the end of "Stuff Mentioned in the Article"

#53 Dogs
#15 Yoga
#26 Manhattan (now Brooklyn too!)
Portland, Oregon (Book)
#11 Asian Girls
#92 Book Deals
#101 Being Offended

Each item links to an old post that added an item to the master list of stuff white people like (or refers to the SWPL book). I guess we could do that ourselves for the catio article, but I can't help but feel that SWPL has been the victim of its own success. It can't be bothered, even when powerfully baited. I can't be bothered with it either. Plus, I can't put up with actually reading an article about city folk who encase their tiny balconies in wire fencing so the cat won't jump over the railing. If it were sickening hipsteresque, it might be fun, but that's just pathetic to put yourself in a cat cage.

The newest SWPL piece, from a couple weeks ago, is on the timely topic of the World Cup, which I've noticed the NYT is featuring right at the top of its front webpage these days. I thought Americans didn't care, but SWPL was never about white people or white Americans generally. It's about the subcategory of folk who read the NYT. Anyway:

[B]efore you start planning out long watching sessions with white people you should be aware of exactly why white people get so excited about the World Cup. Though you may be waiting on baited breath for your favorite sport on a global scale, white people like the World Cup because it allows them to pretend they are European for a few weeks....

By the way, the expression is "waiting with" — not "on" — "bated" — not "baited" — "breath," and if this guy knows so much about what white people like, he ought to know we like proper spelling, proper use of prepositions, and knowledge of idiomatic expressions. I do anyway.

Geoffrey Taylor, in his little poem Cruel, Clever Cat, 1933, used the confusion over the word to good comic effect:

Sally, having swallowed cheese
Directs down holes the scented breeze
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

Cats! They're heartless killers. Of mice and, now, an unobscured view from the balcony.

Why believe in a religion? Why not believe in 2 or 3 or more?

And throw in astrology and ghosts while you're at it.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life released a report [that]... points out that many Americans are now choosing to “blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs” and that “sizable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups” said that they have had supernatural experiences, like encountering ghosts....

Twenty percent of Protestants and 28 percent of Catholics said they believe in reincarnation... [A]bout the same percentages said they believe in astrology, yoga as a spiritual practice and the idea that there is “spiritual energy” pulsing from things like “mountains, trees or crystals.”...

[T]hose who identified themselves as Christian were more likely to believe these things than those who were unaffiliated....

Furthermore, 16 percent of Protestants and 17 percent of Catholics said that they believe that some people can use the “evil eye” to “cast curses or spells that cause bad things to happen.”...

... Democrats were almost twice as likely to believe in ghosts and to consult fortune-tellers than were Republicans, and the Democrats were 71 percent more likely to believe that they were in touch with the dead....

Religion is the snack food of the people.

"[L]adies, ladies, ladies..." — *you* are the whores!

"[S]o many of you have been cool, supportive and loving. But there are those of you out there who just love to judge."

Love to judge Ashley Dupre, the prostitute who did business with Eliot Spitzer.

Let me say this - most girls, to varying degrees of course, want to be pampered and have nice shoes, designer handbags and gorgeous clothes. I know many women who target guys with money and use them to get these things. They toy with them, flirt, go on dates, have sex and then drop hints about that new dress at the store down the street or being short on rent money – and the guys deliver it. This is a dishonest relationship. I see this all over New York City. Some women aren’t as vindictive, but still dive into relationships with wealthy guys who they don’t love or even find attractive, but they stay in it because they have a nice home, a car and spending money – they would rather stay in an unfulfilling or loveless relationship than lose that security. This, too, is a dishonest relationship.

You, ladies, you are whores too.

I see this type all over the suburbs of New Jersey with the housewives who are strung out on mood stabilizers or the couples who put all their attention on their children so they don’t have to deal with their own issues. What about going to those sugar daddy websites? Is that legal? Should it be? Is what I did any more dishonest? Get real and get over yourself.

Yeah, get over yourselves, ladies. Judge me? I judge you!

You’d be shocked at some of the messes I’ve gotten myself into....and, more importantly, how I got out of them. I have so much more to say, and I will – but it’s time for Yoga class! Om Shanti!

Om Shanti!