Armchair Sociology

This Venn diagram pretty much sums up why we love Twitter. And it is available in 3XL!

Buy yourself one here. Found via Neatorama

The bald dude is Gerry Pasciucco who was at Morgan Stanley and currently 'heads' AIG's Financial Products division.

We just had to stare and blink at this for a couple of minutes.

Really? Che Guevara? Socialist revolutionary? Morgan Stanley? AIG?! Are you freaking KIDDING?!

Via Buzzfeed.

According to an article in today's LA Times, many bald men are getting hair transplants to compete in today's competitive job market. At least, that's the excuse for the expensive cosmetic procedure. From David Lazarus' article:

"Society discriminates against bald people," said Dr. William Rassman, who runs the New Hair Institute. "If you have two people coming in for a job, and one of them is partly bald, you'll think that the one with hair has more youth and vitality."

In response to my skeptical look, he added: "Many full-headed people have a hard time understanding the problems of balding people."

I heard that a lot in speaking with the two dozen or so guys at the open house, especially when I'd point out that a shiny scalp hadn't hurt the likes of Bruce Willis or Charles Barkley. Some of the men agreed to let me use their full names. Others wanted only their first names used.

"You can't understand," said David, a 39-year-old UPS driver, making me uncomfortable with the way he kept checking out the top of my head. "You have a full head of hair."

He said a more youthful appearance would definitely improve his chances if he had to start looking for work -- which he hopes won't happen any time soon, but you never know with the way things are.

"I wouldn't feel intimidated if I had to compete with someone younger," David said. "A full head of hair makes all the difference."

We have to respectfully disagree. We at FBLA like balding men- even prefer them. Hair loss is often a side effect of high testosterone levels. And those high testosterone levels have all sorts of other wonderful side effects-

Found via LA Observed, of all places.

By an overwhelming majority, our readers that voted think the cartoon by Sean Delonas that ran in the NY Post yesterday was inappropriate at best.

A lot of people voted in on this one. A lot. It's clearly got people 'up in arms'. For the record - we thought the New Yorker cover last summer was funny and pretty decent satire. The controversy around it was stupid. But the cover was poignant.

Here's the thing with comedy: poking fun at power is funny. Kicking the weak is not funny. Monkeys - very funny. Cops shooting monkey dead - not funny. Cops being stupid - funny. Cops assassinating man-like mammals - not funny.

Equating our new first black president to an assassinated (shot twice in the chest) monkey - NOT FUNNY.

And even saying,"No, no - he didn't mean Obama - he meant Congress."

We say that true racists - true ones - not the ones you have to read between the lines to see they are kind of biased - but the real ones. The ones on the mailing lists for neo-Nazi groups. The ones that complain that their local dry cleaner won't starch their white hood properly. When those people look at this cartoon - do THEY see Congress?

And if THEY like it - hang it in their cabins - put it on t-shirts and email it to all their friends - then? - then is it racist?

Rihanna and Chris Brown have been making headlines lately- which happens when a celebrity couple misses their performances at the Grammys because one is allegedly beating up the other, police are called, and the victim is treated at a local hospital.

We thought the issue of domestic violence would keep the media from treating the incident like any other trashy celebrity break up. But no.

MediaTakeOut.com has a screen capture of a Facebook page that supposedly belongs to Chris Brown. It shows Brown in the arms of a brunette, his relationship status as single, and his status reads, "Chris Brown thinks you'll begin to see her true colors. Believe it!"

We know this, not because we have ever heard of MediaTakeOut.com before, but because we read about their "scoop" on the websites of the LA Times, NBC, ABC, and Washington Post.

A Google news search of the tags Chris Brown, Rihanna and Facebook gave us 5,684 articles that have been published in the last 24 hours.

And this coming Monday, MTV will air "Chris Brown & Rihanna: Love in Trouble".

Maybe some of this will raise public awareness about the problems of violence in relationships. Right now, it just feels like a tabloid free-for-all.

Our polls are not very scientific. We doubt if they'll ever hold up in court. But we learn things from them.

Being allergic to chocolate is more sympathetic than being a dude on Valentine's Day.

So put that in your EpiPen and smoke it.

Our poll yesterday asked if the Octuplet's Mom could make Whittier look any worse.

There was a general consensus that Whittier is crappy, but a whole bunch of you chimed in that La Habra is not the best place in the world either.

In a effort of full disclosure: we've never been to La Habra. But we have been to Oroville, California and Burley, Idaho...which makes us an expert in horrible places.

We're glad we can have these deep philosophical discussions with our readers. Our little Rand McNally round table.

Yesterday we asked what networking site is your favorite.

So apparently, this is how it's going - publications that are niche are hiring and thriving.

Social networking sites that are niche...meh...no one goes there.

Fickle pickles.

This is the first time we've done a poll where we've been given more answers than we've written.

Serious. The write-in answer was pretty popular yesterday. We asked what the best part of the show was and here are the responses (the ones that make sense):

-"it was pretty meaningless entertainment"
-"Paul McCartney's performance!"
-"the jonas bros/stevie wonder pairing"
-"Thom Yorke fronting the USC marching band"
-"MIA"
-"Al Green can still light up the room!
-"Sugarland-- that girl can sing!"
-"U2"

Gee whiz. We really dropped the ball on this one. Here is our editorial conversation on the subject of the Grammys:

TD: Want to do a post about the Grammys?

PY: I have trouble telling the difference between the Grammys and American Idol.

TD: LOL. Mkay. Poll it is.

We asked yesterday if rain makes Angelenos lose their collective minds.

The answer? Yes.

The headline from CBS2:

If Angelenos could handle their rain they'd be Seattleites...or Oregonians in exile.