by Brett Warner

As far as pieces of paper go, this one isn’t especially impressive. At 14 x 11 inches, it won’t fit in any common sized frame. Thick and off-white, its menacing black ink still glistens slightly in the light. The stamped, indecipherable signatures of the Provost, President, and the Dean rest at the bottom; My name sits in the exact center, in the same archaic font as the university and school title. “In witness whereof we have caused this diploma to be signed by the duly authorized officers of the University and sealed with our corporate seal…” No frill, no frou-frou flourishes – just cold, dead language. At $158,298.25, this boring piece of paper is the most expensive thing I may ever own. I keep it in a box underneath the basement pool table.

NPR reports that in June of this year, student loan debt in the United States exceeded credit card debt for the first time, peaking this summer at $830 billion. Public and private tuition continues to skyrocket each year, out-escalating inflation and household incomes. In the 2008, the percentage of student loan defaults rose from 6.7 to 7 percent in a single year. In the case of for-profit colleges that number rises to 11.6 percent (according to Bloomberg). Extended repayment plans of up to 25 or 30 years have become commonplace, and an entire generation of college graduates have found themselves dependent on high-paying jobs for their very survival – jobs that may or, most likely, may not be waiting for them. Had I the foresight to know how bad the job market would eventually get, or even just exactly how much money I would owe, I might have made some very different choices. But as it stands, this author is one of thousands with a very costly piece of paper gathering dust. Standing for hours on end behind a cash register five days a week, it’s very easy to wonder, “What was the point of all this?”

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by Blogbot

Titan Books are putting out a compendium of rare and recently uncovered photos of burlesque icon Dita Von Teese. The volume, entitled Fetish Goddess Dita, comes out on September 21, but the publishers have been kind enough to offer SG an exclusive advance viewing of some of the images, which are posted below for your delectation and delight.

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by Fred Topel

Pat Tillman was a safety for the Arizona Cardinals. In 2002, instead of renewing his NFL contract, he decided to enlist in the Army. As a Ranger, he served tours in Afghanistan, where he was killed in 2004. Early reports said he died taking enemy fire, but further investigation showed that it was actually a friendly fire incident. This would simply be a tragedy if the facts came out. But the military tried to spin a different story which resulted in a now exposed cover-up.

The Tillman Story is a documentary that shows what we were told about Pat Tillman, what actually happened to Pat Tillman, and why the government lied. Director Amir Bar-Lev follows Danni Tillman, Pat’s mom, and Kevin Tillman, his brother who also enlisted, as they piece together the truth and bring it to light.

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Trinidad Suicide in Tart

• INTO: Literature, photography, vegan cooking, art house films, poetry, good art, bikes, and cute dogs.
• NOT INTO: Misogyny, from either men or lesbians.
• MAKES ME HAPPY: Sunny days.
• MAKES ME SAD: Meat eaters, consumerism, ignorance.
• HOBBIES: Cooking, taking pictures, writing.
• 5 THINGS I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT: Camera, vibrator, notebook, lip gloss, and cupcakes.
• VICES: Forgetfulness.

Get to know Trinidad better over at SuicideGirls.com!

by Damon Martin

Dressing like a nerd has become the “in” thing to do (which is a little worrying when you consider yesterday’s “in” is today’s “out”). Personally I’ve been dressing like a nerd pretty much my whole life, because well, I’m a huge nerd – so I’ve little choice but to ride the wave (even if it beaches me in fashion oblivion in 6 months time). That said, there’s nothing wrong with being a stylish nerd (at least for now) and so with that I present “Geek Chic: The May the Force Be With You” edition.

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by Tara Diane

I was supposed to go to this dinky little local amusement park tonight, but things didn’t exactly work out. In an effort to hinder my depression, I felt like some fatty fair food was in order. I don’t need your Ferris wheel to enjoy myself, bitches! I remember going to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz when I was in high school. We would usually go down to the caves and take an educational tour of the local vegetation, then go pig out on funnel cakes. So let’s make some fricking funnel cakes!

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by Ryan Stewart

William Gibson will always be the cyberpunk prophet, the man whose Hugo-winning 1984 debut novel Neuromancer, about a future underworld dystopia where radically advanced computing possibilities exist in tandem with sex, drugs and political skullduggery, introduced the notion of “cyberspace” to the public and predicted the emergence of a world wide web, along with computers of ever-increasing intelligence and dubious motive. In the post-September 11th world, however, his attention has increasingly focused not on a new imagined future (the branch of Matrix-style cyber fiction his work spawned chugs along regardless) but on the complexities of the present. In a recent NYT op-ed about Google’s tightening grip on our lives, Gibson conceded that “science fiction never imagined Google” and characterized the search engine as a “coral reef of human minds” with an impact so potentially transformative that it should cause us to consider new ideas like “training wheel” identities for today’s minors, whose every stupid, impolitic thought is being cached to their potential future detriment.

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