It’s recess time, and Daniel* is yanking a coat out of Alim’s* hands. Alim wails, but doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t tell the teacher Daniel accidentally switched their coats. He doesn’t ask Daniel to give it back. All he can do is cry in a room with 23 second graders who can’t understand him.

Chris Bell made a mistake during the summer of 1996 — over and over again. He had unprotected sex with a man, sometimes up to six times a week. Then, after he caught mononucleosis in August 1997, doctors ran a few tests. Bell, who had spent most of his academic career studying AIDS, was now HIV-positive.

It is 8:40 p.m. on a Saturday and the place is practically empty. A blond woman in a black-and-red-striped shirt sits at the bar waiting to be served by a 20-something bartender with tattoos on her arms and chest. Stacks of empty beer boxes sit on the floor behind the bar. On the other side of the venue, a band begins setting up for tonight’s show. The club is unusually quiet.

Josh Blair, 25, spends his days going to the library for story time and to the park for play dates. But as soon as the clock strikes eight, he puts his 2-year-old son Ian to bed and plugs into his 4-year-old low-fi Dell desktop for a long night.

Dear President-elect Obama, I know I should offer you congratulations on your election victory. You essentially had a landslide victory of Reagan ’84 and Johnson ’64 proportions. Though you won’t have a filibuster-proof Democratic Senate majority, at least SNL alum Al Franken might be in the Senate after the recount. That would be good. He can cover the funny while you get down to business. You might have won the election, but John McCain most definitely had the best comedy routine at the Al Smith Dinner. Just saying…

When I picked up a copy of Jerk’s October issue, the article by Renee Orenstein, “When Fashion Falters,” immediately caught my attention. Orenstein questioned the popularity of the keffiyah scarf: a checkered, fashion must-have associated with the Middle East.

At 6 a.m. on a Saturday, I hear a whining noise coming from my bedroom floor. I clamp a pillow over my head. The whining turns to growling. Then I feel a tug on my comforter accompanied by a ripping sound.

Look here. When’s the last time you went to Bird Library and actually got shit done? Never? Well smack my ass and call me Sally. Bird Library is a sham. I mean, nobody in her right mind can get work done there. It’s like a fucking nightclub. You’re all screaming, giving lap dances, and blathering on about sucking dick, fucking pussy, and blowing weed smoke up your cat’s asshole.

An interview with drummer Damon Che from the band Don Caballero.