This week, Tommy started off with the best Lo and Rejoice topic ever: a Manchester guy who gets potholes fixed by drawing huge penises around the problem. The video below shows some of his artwork, is hilarious, and also totally NSFW (or kids, unless you're cool with them seeing cartoon genitalia).
My topic was special to me because it was about my home state, South Carolina. Stephen Colbert announced that he was going to fund all requests posted on DonorsChoose.org from South Carolina schoolteachers. You can click here to read more about his much-needed donation to SC public schools.
We also talked about how Buckton Vale Primary school sent out a very encouraging letter to grade 6 students who were preparing to take an important test that week. Many schools get caught up in pushing kids to make great grades, especially because the schools require on certain scores to obtain funding and grants. However, this school took a slightly different approach and sent every student this letter:
And our conversation took a sordid turn, as it usually does, to the topic of books bound in human skin. Because why wouldn't it?
It turns out that there's quite a selection of said books. The official title of skin bound books is "anthropodermic bibliopegy" which I completely failed to correctly pronounce, and campuses like Brown University, The University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, and several more all boast of having such books.
The BBC has an interesting article on why these books aren't as unusual as you might think. You can click here for more info.
We also talked about a devastating turn in cartoon news this week. Harry Shearer, the voice of Principal Skinner, Kent Brockman, Mr. Burns, Waylon Smithers, Ned Flanders, Reverend Lovejoy, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny Leonard, Otto Mann, Rainier Wolfcastle, Dr. Marvin Monroe and many others on The Simpsons, has reportedly quit the show so he can pursue other projects. Since we recorded, there is talk of him being brought back but as of right now, he says he's done. RIP, cartoon voices of awesome people. RIP.
Speaking of awesome cartoon voices, who did your favorite Batman voice? What about the Joker? When I think of those guys, I think Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson but Tommy automatically thinks of Kevin Conroy, who did the voice of Batman in the animated series.
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And of course Tim Conroy made us think of G Man.
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| Half Life FTW |
Because again...why wouldn't it?
And if you're going to talk about the mysterious G Man and how we know nothing about life, we're naturally going to segue into talks of the mysterious Georgia Guidestones:
If you've never heard of the Georgia Guidestones and you enjoy sleeping at night, then skip this part. The Georgia Guidestones were mysteriously built by a mysterious person under mysterious circumstances for mysterious purposes.
They are engraved with instructions or "guidestones to an age of reason":
1. MAINTAIN HUMANITY UNDER 500,000,000 IN PERPETUAL BALANCE WITH NATURE
2. GUIDE REPRODUCTION WISELY - IMPROVING FITNESS AND DIVERSITY
3. UNITE HUMANITY WITH A LIVING NEW LANGUAGE
4. RULE PASSION - FAITH - TRADITION - AND ALL THINGS WITH TEMPERED REASON
5. PROTECT PEOPLE AND NATIONS WITH FAIR LAWS AND JUST COURTS
These messages are also engraved in Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Hindi, Chinese, Spanish, Swahili and some have speculated that they're instructions for the "end of time", possibly in a post-apocalyptic environment, or maybe even instructions to us today to shape up and get the world in better condition.
At any rate, it today's episode perfectly summed up the apparent theme of our podcast: "WE DON'T KNOW". We know nothing. We're told things. We read things. But this world is still full of so many topics on which we remain clueless. So let's go to outer space!
What's your favorite mystery?
Tell us on Twitter: @TommyToeHold or @aGirlyMMA and maybe we'll talk about it on a future episode of The Lo Down podcast. Thanks for listening (and reading). See you next week!
