(no subject)

Good morning all! It's storming like the end is nigh here in Chicago. Hope it's less terrifying where you all are. This is Radio Free Monday, let's get it going!

Ways to Help:

nutmeg3 let me know about L.A. Banks, a bestselling author who spearheaded a recent movement to provide affordable healthcare. She is now in late-stage cancer herself, and a fund has been set up to cover her health care costs. There's more info here, and an auction fundraiser here.

rising has been fundraising for assistance acquiring some aids to assist with his living situation. He's raised money for a disability-friendly binding shirt and a set of durable crutches, but is still looking for help purchasing daily-living adaptability aids. You can find more information here.

lispeth let me know about Resolve Network (Donation link here), a not for profit working to help women in the Democratic Republic of Congo start small businesses. They're hoping to hold a Peace Summit later in the year, but have lost a major donor and need to raise funds fast.

shadesofbrixton is raising money to help a friend clear a debt so they can continue their college education. There's more details and a donation link at her post.

Help For Free:

Nicole in Australia is desperately seeking a flatmate. She lives in Sydney/Lilyfield, about twenty minutes from Central station. "Rent is $435 a fortnight for a HUGE room and study, share kitchen and bathroom with me, and laundry with a few other people. It's very quiet and in a good location. I'm covering rent for two at the moment, and I really can't afford to keep doing it, so I need someone ASAP!" You can contact her at nicole.nelmes at gmail dot com .

arsenicjade is searching for a fanartist to collab with on a "supernova" challenge (like a big bang, only...more so) and is willing to donate to charity of the artist's choice in return for art. You can find more information about her offer and her needs here.

News To Know:

onebrightroad has a post up about the new bill in Massachusetts that would add gender identity and gender expression to the list of human attributes protected from discrimination by law, along with a discussion of opposition to the bill and some pointed information about the utter harmlessness of trans-friendly bathrooms. There's also info at the bottom of the post about how you can help support the bill.

Just for Fun:

essayel, a longtime Cafe member, has a story in Britain Flash, a free anthology of LGBT fiction available at Smashwords. Check it out!

The new White Collar DVD set is out, and with it the gag reel, the only reason DVD extras should ever exist. Some kind soul uploaded it to YouTube -- it's worth it purely for the moment Tim DeKay says "You guys moved this!"

And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can always post items for my attention in comments here (or on any post) or email me at copperbadge at gmail dot com. If you're not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help. Remember, non-embedded links are love.

(no subject)

iamshadow linked me, the other day, to a story about a theft from a Catholic church in California. Now, granted, the news article is from Yahoo, so I'm not expecting journalistic excellence, but I wasn't expecting to crack up laughing, either. The item stolen was a relic of St. Anthony of Padua and its reliquary, and the reporter was either aware and circumspect or completely ignorant of the fact that in a religious context "relic" is used almost exclusively to refer to body parts of dead saints.

Nowhere in the article does it mention that the stolen object is, in fact, A REALLY OLD BONE.

I suppose he could have been trying to be as delicate as the officials. From Reuters:

The relic, which police and church officials have declined to describe, had been on display for the first time in nine years...

There are probably plenty of rational reasons not to describe something that's been stolen, but I can only think of two off the top of my head: either they think it'll prevent people from faking up replicas to sell or "return" for reward money, or they know it's kind of freaky to keep bits of saints lying around and don't want to remind people they do it (A of P's tongue, incidentally, is on display in Italy, because Italy hogs all the good stuff).

But I think really the church should realise that if they won't describe the Relic of St. Anthony -- at least designate which bone -- we're all just going to assume it's his penis. And no amount of remarks on the irony of a relic of the Patron Saint Of Lost Stuff being stolen is going to make up for it.

After all, penis theft has precedent.

If you'll pardon the pun (or even if you won't) the story does have a happy ending. The police found the relic undamaged, and it's been restored to the church, where hopefully they've attached a bell or something to prevent this from happening again. The suspect has apparently been released "due to a medical condition" which the police won't elaborate on either; the whole thing is veritably shrouded in mystery. (It's probably something simple like she's not quite mentally stable and didn't understand what she was doing, but admittedly that's less interesting than the mystery.)

Shadow hoped, and she wasn't really wrong, that I would be inspired to write some kind of story about all this. I have to say that I think there is a rich vein of material to be found in the story of a stolen holy penis.

OH MAN I LOVE WHEN I GET TO USE THE FRACTURED PENIS TAG.

(no subject)

Things I have been asked today:

"Sam, where do I go to recycle batteries?"
("I googled 'chicago battery recycling' and apparently you can turn them in to your nearest Walgreens.")

"Can you send my guests driving directions to the parking garage? I ride the train."
("I ride the train too! But here's the address, and Googlemaps gives very accurate directions.")

Apparently I am the Avatar of Google upon the Earth.

FEAR MY SLIGHTLY INEPT TRANSLATIONS, MORTALS.

(Before you guys ask, because I know some of you will, you can get a Google Logo of your own right here.)

(Also, fess up, how many of you guys just tried to click in the search box of that image?)

(no subject)

A while back I posted an image I'd found of a dollar bill folded into a boat, except it was clearly shopped because it would have had to have been like, four dollar bills folded into a boat.

Turns out you can do it with just one!

But it makes a really small, awkward, kind of ridiculous looking boat.

Ah well. SAIL LA VIE. :D