Maybe Michael Phelps swim cap was stolen. You’ll have to read on to find out in these Olympic comedy re-posts from Twitter.com. Most of them are dumb, but it’s just random fun I send out via my cell phone to the world…

These are all true I swear:

Chinese weightlifter banned after caught rolling in butter and cinnamon and offering self as delicacy to hungry Armenian bicyclist.

Phelp’s swim cap stolen? Phelps last seen wearing swim cap to bed. Beijing Police: “Luckily we invested $8 million in cap-sniffing dogs.” (more…)

ASTORIA, NY-

As I was watching the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics on television, I recalled the moment seven years ago when Beijing won the Olympic bid.

At the time I was living in Beijing and working as an English-language copyeditor for China Central Television (CCTV), which billed itself as an international news channel with “timely, accurate, and objective” news. As one of the several foreign experts there, my job was to coax passable news stories from awkward translations and naked propaganda. More often, it was like trying to spin straw into gold.

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CHIGAGO, IL-

I have this one friend who is a political mover and shaker. Her name is Jen Nix, and she has done some really cool things that those of us who spend much of our time either hiding in a quiet room trying to write fiction (or changing diapers and organizing playdates) don’t spend a lot of time doing, i.e. putting out political bestsellers like George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant, writing for and co-founding progressive blogs, chastising Michael Moore and other big name lefty types for publishing their progressive books with big corporate publishers and ultimately making money for Right wing corporations, drawing the attention of not only the alternative media but also the very corporate media she was lambasting and getting invited to Judith Regan’s office…

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A few words on the self-destruction of erstwhile presidential candidate John Edwards. At first glance, yes, it’s just another tired and ugly story, tabloid drivel about deviant sex involving another slick Washington shark. Then, when you stop for a moment and consider the actual human fallout, it becomes a gut-wrenching soap opera with seriously depressing undertones…the sort of story that makes you put down the newspaper and turn away from the television entirely. Elizabeth Edwards, the wife, has terminal cancer. The couple have three children: Cate is in her twenties; Emma Claire and Jack are eleven and nine, respectively. (A fourth child, Wade, was killed in a car accident in 1996.) And Rielle Hunter, the mistress, is now a single mother raising an infant daughter—identity of father as yet unknown.

So yeah. It’s pretty safe to say that the political career of John Edwards now finds itself at a dismal dead end. Maybe temporarily; probably permanently. American implosion at its finest and most telegenically pulverizing. Any hope of a Cabinet position in an Obama administration appears to be a silly pipe-dream. No veepstakes, no attorney general…not even housing and urban development.
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BAKERSFIELD, CA-

Can I just say now that spoken word poet Rich Ferguson is a great inspiration? Recently I wrote a rebellious poem-essay that I read at the Virgin Megastore in Hollywood and got freaky nervous because Ferguson showed up. OK, I would have been nervous anyway, but he was there looking like a poet gunslinger… (more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA-

I think I just had an epiphany regarding the Veepstakes debate and Barack Obama’s selection process in particular. I was reading the newspaper in a state of customary numbness, and all of a sudden it hit me like a thunderbolt. Please excuse me while I nerd out for a moment.

I think Barack Obama will choose one of the following two guys to be his VP:

Evan Bayh, senator from Indiana

or

Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia

Here’s why:

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LOS ANGELES, CA-

The heat in Los Angeles this past weekend was atrocious. Dastardly hot and dry. We don’t have air conditioning. Just a bunch of fans. And the fans were blowing hot air. That’s how hot it was.

Then, last night, the heat broke. Happened right at sundown. The heat broke. Almost instantly, the air temperatures cooled by ten or fifteen degrees. It’s weird how that happens. The heat breaks.

I worked all weekend in the heat, slogging through the next book, hopefully wrapping up a readable draft. Sitting here in the heat. Chugging water. Staring at my computer. A fan blowing hot air on me. My dog at my feet. I kept feeding him ice cubes. (more…)

Los Angeles, CA-

I’m nervous about this post.  I’m worried that because of its subject matter and the nasty habit we all have of interpreting things differently than they were meant, I will come across as being a racist.  I would say I am not, but that seems pretty much pointless, so I will just write what I am going to write and we’ll see where we end up. (more…)

PARIS-

The Olympic Flame passed me by, and I didn’t even see it.

I was waiting outside Stade Charléty, not far from Paris’ Chinatown section in the 13th.

As the Olympic torch makes its second-ever global tour of the world before the Beijing Games this August, it swooped into Paris on a cold April day.

Already plagued by protests, starting with its lighting ceremony on Mount Olympus a few weeks ago, the Olympic Torch Relay (OTR) ran into continual hassles along its Parisian stretch, which caused organizers to stash the torch in a bus and keep it rolling through the city, the flame sadly reduced to a few licks of fire in specially-designed lanterns.

At Stade Charléty it seemed like the cop to spectator ratio was about 1:1. (more…)

MCALLEN, TX-

Chelsea Clinton was in town, here in Texas, stumping for her mom, so I convinced my husband to go with me to see her. I’ve always felt a weird interest in her, I guess because she went through her awkward stage publicly at the same time as I was going through my own awkward stage. She might be a year younger than me, maybe two.

My husband and I went just to see her. We’re not really fervent Hill-dog supporters. There aren’t very many things we’re fervent about in politics, except that no one seems to be doing what we want.

Our big primary is in a little over a week, as I’m sure you’ve heard on CNN. Chelsea was here to give a two-minute speech downtown, trying to hold on to the last Clinton supporters around. (more…)

GRAND BLANC, MI-

In a word, inequity. As capitalism continues running amok like a rabid dog, I simply cannot take one day longer without a plan for escape, my fingers caked with mud from the tunneling. While a Democrat may very well become president, he or she will inherit more problems than Bush inherited wealth. That only makes sense, for Bush certainly wouldn’t favor distributing the only thing of which he has an abundance, that being wealth. Still, months to go before I sleep and my awakening in a land that, at this time, I care not to disclose.

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SEATTLE, WA-

Tomorrow’s a big day.

The whole country is buzzing about “Super Tuesday” and all of the possibilities that may ensue.

As a matter of fact, this primary season has actually garnished a lot of attention within popular mainstream culture; a first in my lifetime. (more…)

SANDY, UT-

As I write this, the results of the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary are in.

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SANDY, UT-

First things first. Benazir Bhutto, I know you’re dead now but still I’d like a word.

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PARIS, FRANCE-

Although it’s not listed as a national sport, I’d have to say the preferred national past-time of the French is smoking.

In Paris, women smoke cigarettes while taking their babies on walks, pushing the stroller with one hand and smoking a cigarette with the other.

Children take smoking breaks during recess.

And every cafe has a haze of cigarette smoke loitering at the bar. (more…)