
Seattle's National Film Festival for Talented Youth is the largest youth film festival in the world, this year featuring 224 works by filmmakers from all over the world, all of them 22 years of age and under. NFFTY 2012 goes down this weekend at the Cinerama and SIFF, and we'll have piece on the fest in the paper landing tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this year's NFFTY trailer.
A plague o' Duggars take turns praising Santorum.
Speaking of the worthless opinions of inappropriately spilled seed, the crispy T-shirt under my bed endorses Ron Paul.
Thank you, Christian Nightmares.
This doesn't bode well for the future of the Republican Party:
Former Sen. Rick Santorum was the overwhelming choice of young Republican voters in Alabama and Mississippi with 41% and 45% of the under-30 vote, respectively...
“Santorum performed poorly among young people in the early caucuses and primaries, as he did in his last Pennsylvania Senate race,” said CIRCLE director Peter Levine. ”But he has improved his showing since Michigan, probably on the strength of socially conservative youth.”
The good news is that total youth turnout in the Republican primaries was down from 12 percent and 10 percent in Alabama and MIssissippi in 2008, to 10 percent and 8 percent respectively in 2012. So while southern Republican youth voters appear to be getting even crazier, there are at least fewer of them.
A mini-parade of anarchists, maybe 40 strong, is currently marching up Broadway, in the middle of the northbound lane, trailed by cops on bikes (on the sidewalk) and cops in cars. The marchers are shouting—slowly, sing-song-y—"All cops are bastards! All cops are bastards!" The cops on bikes look bored and capable. A trash can just clattered to its side. There are at least three police cars and a larger police vehicle following them, slowly, at the speed that anarchists walk. It looks like a reverse procession.
According to preliminary data from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, only one percent of eligible voters under the age of 30 turned out for Saturday's Nevada caucuses, compared to the five percent that participated in 2008. Ron Paul once again won the youth vote, with 41 percent, but just barely.
“These very low numbers raise questions about whether Ron Paul can compete in big-state primaries and whether Mitt Romney can draw significant youth support,” said CIRCLE director Peter Levine. “The McCain/Palin campaign performed poorly among young people in 2008, and Mitt Romney has an opportunity to improve, but so far, the primary and caucus turnout rates provide no evidence that he has connected with young people.”
Nobody expects young voters to turn out nearly as enthusiastically for President Obama in 2012 as they did in 2008, but they sure as hell aren't flocking to the alternative.
Attention, kids, stoners, and stoners with kids: You will all find plenty to love at this year's Children's Film Festival Seattle, starting tomorrow and running through Feb 5 at the Northwest Film Forum. Here's the adorable trailer:
And here's some key info:
This year's festival will begin on Thursday, Jan. 26 with the Seattle premiere of Michel Ocelot's "Tales of the Night," a film that wowed audiences at this year's Berlin Film Festival. The festival fun will continue on Friday, Jan. 27, with a rockin' pajama party for ages 3 and older, featuring a sneak preview of animated films from the festival, and a concert by Caspar Babypants, a high-octane kids' band fronted by Seattle music legend Chris Ballew, of The Presidents of the United States of America. Other Festival highlights will include "Fire and Ice," a retrospective of animation from Russia's famed SHAR Studio and Animation School, founded in 1993 by a group of top Russian animators; a live performance of "String," a new theater piece for very young audiences by Seattle movement artist Mary Margaret Moore; and of course our popular Pancake Breakfast.
Full Children's Film Fest info here. For a preview of tomorrow's opening night film—Michel Ocelot's gorgeous Tales of the Night—proceed after the jump.
But this takes the cake.
The headline kind of says it all:
"Man eats cocaine from brother's butt, dies."
As one commenter put it, "Crack kills."
Got a stupid, stupid crying baby at home that JUST... WON'T... SHUT... UP? Well, first of all, you have no one to blame but yourself. Those are your genes the stupid baby is carrying, after all. However, while you certainly deserve the punishment of endless squalling from a mentally deprived idiot baby, your neighbors and those around you certainly do not. That's why I'm sharing the following fool proof tip for silencing your stupid, crying, stupid baby. OBSERVE:
That's right. Shut UP, you stupid baby.
...do you know where your kids (and the 5 lb. bags of flour) are?
First they erroneously deleted his account thinking it was a fraud, then they said they'd reinstate it if he sent his passport, then Facebook reinstated his account with the first name that appears on his passport, which is Ahmed. Ahmed Rushdie. Nice work, Facebook!
Best story ever.
Feel free to reflect on what this profoundly important news means to you here.
He writes to The Stranger:
Hi there,
Having been recently alerted to the Victoria Liss story on your website [here and here], I cannot stand by and have my good name tarnished.
As an Andrew Meyer who lives nowhere near the scene of the crime (I live in Fountain Valley, California), I am outraged by this situation.
I would like to cover for the trouble that poor Victoria has had to go through on behalf of someone who should be ashamed of himself on so many levels.
As a result, I'd like to send a 100% tip from the cost of the meal to Victoria. I will send $28.98 to her if you can arrange for that to happen.
Please contact me via e-mail or at [redacted].
My "name" can't be shamed anymore. It was bad enough when this guy tried his part.
I can stand my ground no more.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Andrew Meyer
Hilarious. Well played. We are putting Andrew from California in touch with Victoria.
On one hand, Mom is probably right: This young man will probably never grow up to be a great breakdancer. On the other hand—was there really a need to bring Asians into this? (To Mom's credit, Asian breakdancers are the best.)
Tavi Gevinson, former prepubescent fashion blogger and darling of the fashion world circa 2009–2010 (she started blogging at 11; her parents didn't really know about it until she had to ask their permission to be in a New York Times Magazine article), has just started Rookie, "a new site for teenage girls."
They'll post three times a day: "Roughly when school ends, when dinner starts and when it’s really late and you should be writing a paper but are Facebook stalking instead." She said in an interview with New York magazine this week, "After being in all these meetings with publishing companies and advertisers and stuff, it's like everyone just wants to trick people into reading their website. If the content is good, people will read it—you don't have to create some funny little 'trying to be cutesy' gadget or whatever to coax them." She's 15.
It's pretty much the today-version of that zine your cool arty friend drew with a sharpie and xeroxed in the teacher's lounge. Actually, Tavi's so well-connected, this is really supposed to be the today-version of Sassy, the beloved '90s magazine. She used to hang out with Anna Wintour; now she hangs with Ira Glass.
It's totally adorable, and it makes me feel so old when I look at it that my bedtime is now 6:00 p.m.
Okay. I can maybe accept that stupid, stupid babies are too stupid to stop themselves from drooling all over my new H&M polo. Because, after all, they're STUPID. What I CANNOT and WILL NOT accept is the butchering of anatomical terminology. NOTE TO STUPID, STUPID BABIES OF THE WORLD: It's "VA-gina" not "PA-gina," you blithering infantile morons! Jesus fucking Christ. I need a goddamn drink.
Posted by news intern Megan Burbank
On the heels of such Capitol Hill Block Party-induced madness as Les Savy Fav's potted-plant-throwing mostly-naked frontman, a wandering wizard man, and TV On The Radio's evident disdain for encores* comes a report that Marination Station, the purveyor of delicious meat sandwiches on Capitol Hill, got a special surprise this weekend, according to neighborhood blog Capitol Hill Seattle:
According to Seattle Police, officers were called to the restaurant for a report that a highly inebriated male had locked himself in the bathroom, had removed a ceiling tile and was now crawling around in the Marination Station ceiling. After 20 minutes of the shenanigans as officers told the man to exit the ceiling through the same route he had entered, the man suddenly busted through the tiles and into the kitchen of the small restaurant, creating a reported five square-foot hole above.
Magellan The man—who wasn't seriously injured—was arrested and booked into jail for investigation of burglary and property damage. They were able to reopen Sunday for the final day of Block Party.
*Who DOES that?
And more as we dredge it out of our beleaguered brains! Here.
It's hard to tell from this picture, but here's a plastic bag of cherries inside of another plastic bag. Also purchased by my line mate was four potatoes also in a plastic bag. Those things are already dirty! How is this kind of thing not illegal? Of course, said person brought their own satchels.

I think I'll just move to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, actually.
First, the video, in which an uppity couple outside an Alabama Walmart freaks out hard enough to warrant police attention.
Then, the question-answering, icky-feeling-reducing backstory:
Anthony Scott Smith, 41, and his wife, Chrisanna Elizabeth Smith, 40, of Scottsdale, Arizona, were arrested Friday and charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest and second-degree assault on a police officer. According to Lt. Thurston Bullock, the couple became irate when they saw Officer Caleb Bibby in Walmart shortly before 11 p.m. Friday. They approached him aggressively, accusing him of treason and of shopping on duty and telling the officer he was under federal investigation, Bullock said.
According to Bullock, the situation escalated as follows: The couple was waiting by the door when the officer left the store and began shouting and encroaching on the officer. They created such a public disturbance, in Bibby's view, they broke the law, giving the officer probable cause to arrest them...
Full story (with mugshots) here.
To close, a poll.
Citing this year's strong tourism season along the Gulf Coast and a "too generous" settlement formula. From the NYTimes:
Last Friday, in a court filing that included a detailed list of indicators of “the strength of the gulf economy,” BP argued that “there is no basis to assume that claimants, with very limited exceptions, will incur a future loss related to the spill.”
But cities, businesses, and families in the affected zone argue that recovering from a 4.9-million-barrel oil spill is more nuanced than having one successful summer tourism season:
...one concern about the future is raised more than any other.
It was the topic of another document sent out last week, this one to state and local officials from the command center of the spill cleanup operation in New Orleans. It is a draft version of a “decision matrix,” a list of several factors to consider in deciding when and when not to remove submerged mats of oil that are still being found, some even in recent days, sitting just offshore.
The prospect of not removing a mat for just about any reason is unacceptable to Taylor Kirschenfeld, an environmental officer for Escambia County, Fla. If a tropical storm or hurricane comes through and whips up those mats, sending tar patties onto the beach, “it could be the whole thing all over again."
Meet the lovely fellow here!
This young woman's name is Courtney Alexis Stodden. She just got married to a dude who was apparently in Lost and The Green Mile—congrats, you two!

Now, how old do you think Miss Courtney is? 25? 32? A young-looking 40-year-old who's maybe had some work done?
Why do teenage girls keep getting famous for looking like 35-year-old women who've spent an entire lifetime smoking and tanning!? I know it's not a new thing for young women to want to look older, but this shit is getting ridiculous. 15-year-old Kendall Jenner, I'm looking at you.
(Related: Get off my lawn.)
The following infomercial for the "Happy Hot Dog Man" is so jam-packed with hilarious surreality—I frankly don't know where to start. So I'll just say this: WATCH IT, AND YOU'LL WANT IT.
"One of the reasons it's so tough to find work is that aging baby boomers refuse to leave their jobs. Trust me on this. Even if they promise you for five years they are going to leave, and say it on television — you can go on YouTube right now and watch the guy do it — there's no guarantee they won't come back. I'm speaking generally."
Check out these hillbilly kids absolutely wailing on their version of Earl Scruggs' "Flint Hill Special." The only way this could be improved is if they were all bald and blind (think Deliverance). Oh, and by the way? NICE STUFFED FOX!
Yeeeeeeeeeeee-HAWWWWW!!!
I actually owned this toy. Which, I suppose, explains a lot. (Feel free to make your own assumptions about why I turned out like I did in the comments.)