Poor Mojo's Newswire

I got the Haunted House job after a couple friends from high school and I answered an ad in the college paper: WANTED actors and artists to help create the most frightening Halloween experience in town. Haunt Industry experience a plus. $8/hour.

We weren't actors or artists, and we certainly didn't have any experience in the Haunt Industry, but we sure did like the sound of eight dollars an hour. I even quit my minimum-wage job at the student bookstore. The guy in charge of the operation was a scatterbrained 20-something named Cameron ("Call me 'Cam!'") who'd inherited an old house that he planned to gut and flip after Halloween. He hired us the second we showed up. "Can you papier-mache?" was all he asked. He pronounced it "pop-ee-ay ma-shay." Nearly every night during the month of October, we toiled at the haunted house, building rooms, painting everything black. Cam would show up every few hours with hundreds of dollars of materials, gallons of fake blood, pizza, and cases and cases of beer. Cam had bowl-cut blond hair and he literally tied sweaters around his neck. He had Excel spreadsheets to show how much money he was going to make on this haunted house. Cam was the first entrepreneur I ever knew.

The majority of our fellow spooks looked like they'd made the short list for "most likely to become a serial killer" at their respective high schools. The time spent decorating this haunted house was kind of like an extended group therapy for these people: Instead of sitting around alone, torturing small mammals and masturbating to old issues of Fangoria, they were doing something socially redeeming, you know, brainstorming better ways for the child mannequin torso to emerge from the bathtub full of blood or how to make the corpse hanging from the noose the closet look more realistic. "Let's put a puddle of real piss under him," one suggested. The others nodded. Who knows how many lives this haunted house actually saved.

TOKYO — When Google Earth added historical maps of Japan to its online collection last year, the search giant didn't expect a backlash. The finely detailed woodblock prints have been around for centuries, they were already posted on another Web site, and a historical map of Tokyo put up in 2006 hadn't caused any problems. But Google failed to judge how its offering would be received, as it has often done in Japan. The company is now facing inquiries from the Justice Ministry and angry accusations of prejudice because its maps detailed the locations of former low-caste communities.... Google Earth's maps pinpointed several such areas. One village in Tokyo was clearly labeled "eta," a now strongly derogatory word for burakumin that literally means "filthy mass." A single click showed the streets and buildings that are currently in the same area. Google posted the maps as one of many "layers" available via its mapping software, each of which can be easily matched up with modern satellite imagery. The company provided no explanation or historical context, as is common practice in Japan. Its basic stance is that its actions are acceptable because they are legal, one that has angered burakumin leaders. "If there is an incident because of these maps, and Google is just going to say 'it's not our fault' or 'it's down to the user,' then we have no choice but to conclude that Google's system itself is a form of prejudice," said Toru Matsuoka, a member of Japan's upper house of parliament.... An Internet legal expert said Google is quick to take advantage of its new technologies to expand its advertising network, but society often pays the price. "This is a classic example of Google outsourcing the risk and appropriating the benefit of their investment," said David Vaile, executive director of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Center at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Kentucky Equality Federation received reports that a Franklin County High official allegedly sent an email to teachers instructing them not to allow homosexuals to leave class to use the restroom.

The email was allegedly sent after two female classmates were caught kissing in the public restroom. . . .

Shoot-outs, robberies, gas-huffing, drug-dealing, pill-popping, murders, and tap dancing. From MTV Studios and executive producers Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine comes a shocking and outlandish year-in-the-life documentary about the Whites—Boone County, West Virginia’s most notorious and surly family. Nestled deep in the Appalachian Mountains, the White family lives an existence more like something from the Wild West than modern day suburbified America. The legendary family is as known for their wild, excessive criminal ways as they are for their famous mountain dancing members, including Jesco White, the star of the cult classic documentary Dancing Outlaw. Over the course of one tumultuous year, the Whites deal with a stabbing, criminal sentencing, attempted murder, death, and birth. The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia debuts at the Tribeca Film Festival this coming weekend.