This is what we get after almost 5 days of absolute silence: people are stupid will turn into a ghost Weblog as its curator, Joe Lira, decides to ride towards the sunset.

i've decided that i can think of nothing worth writing, and if i could, it would deserve a more noble place of record than the internet. i do not wish to add to the stink of this toilet.

Mexican poet Salvador Díaz Mirón once wrote, "Hay plumajes que cruzan el pantano/y no se manchan..." "Some plumages cross the swamp/without a stain..." And, others add, leave the swamp worse for the wear. Joe leaves the electronic commode reeking with the added whiff of his "steaming pile of bitter observations," while he walks away relieved and whistling a happy tune.

Au revoir, you big bastard, and thanks for nothing.

For tourists visiting Rome, tradition states that throwing 3 coins into the Trevi Fountain guarantees a return to this city. But some of those wishes must have been spirited away:

For Roberto Cercelletta, [the Trevi Fountain] has been a lucrative pool of clandestine profit. What tourists gave, Mr. Cercelletta took away — six days a week, under the cover of early-morning darkness, with a rake or magnet or his own hands, as he splashed through the late Baroque masterpiece like Anita Ekberg in "La Dolce Vita," albeit less cinematically.

His daily take, for perhaps 15 minutes of hurried work, occasionally exceeded $1,000, according to police officials, who never made much of a fuss about him. That all changed a week and a half ago when the Italian news media first publicized that much of the Trevi's sunken treasure, supposed to go to charity, was going instead to Mr. Cercelletta, an otherwise unemployed, mentally unstable man who started fishing in the fountain back in 1968.

[The morning of August 6,] when he took his usual dip under Neptune's feet, police officers were watching, and arrested him. His black sneakers were still soggy more than three hours later as he waited in a nearby police station to be hauled off to jail.

...

Mr. Cercelletta ignored [previous fines the police issued him for wading into the fountain], insulated from further punishment by his lack of a permanent address, his history of mental illness, the obvious ambivalence of some police officers and, most astonishingly, the absence of any evidence that he was holding onto much of the money or had the resources to pay. Mr. Cercelletta seems to have few possessions beyond the two primary staples of Roman life: a moped and a cellphone.

Now, what was that Martha Plimpton's Stef said in The Goonies?

...these are somebody else's wishes. They're somebody else's dreams.

My 3 pieces thrown in the hope of a new visit to the Eternal City must have paid for the cell's bill.

PopPolitics frontpage, July 15 to Aug. 6, 2002

Gone fishing!
We'll be back with new articles Aug. 6. Please read our call for articles for the upcoming war issue.

Aug. 7, 2002

Gone fishing!
We'll be back with new articles Aug. 7. Please read our call for articles for the upcoming war issue.

Aug. 8, 2002

we're back from break!
please read our call for articles on war

After a prolonged absence, PopPolitics is back with fresh material: capsule reviews of releases from Doves, Fatboy Slim, Dave Matthews Band and Mogwai, and full-length reviews of the About a Boy soundtrack and the films Tadpole, Signs, Full Frontal and Austin Powers in Goldmember.