Awkard Family Photos: The Book

If you think your family is awkward, compare your clan to the families on display in Awkward Family Photos, a LOL-funny book of pictures and stories culled from the pages of awkwardfamilyphotos.com.

New York City Museum of Complaint

The book New York City Museum of Complaint features 132 representative letters written to the Mayor of New York between 1751 and 1969, all urging the city’s leader to address one municipal problem or another.

Meet 'Be Grateful for Obama' guy

Lenny Kates, a retired social worker from the blue-collar town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, got fed up with all the disrespect being shown to President Barack Obama by Tea Partiers and the right-wing media. So he decided to counter the negativity with a message of his own. Once a week he stands in the middle of a busy traffic circle in his hometown holding a sign that reads: “Be Grateful for President Obama.”

Notably, his message isn’t really addressed to right-wingers, who are mostly unreachable anyway. It’s addressed to those on the left and in the center, who may be taking Obama for granted or frustrated that he hasn’t been able to effect more change (somehow forgetting that Obama inherited a long list of complex problems from the previous administration, problems that will take years to fix).

Says Kates to Americans: “Join with the president and stand up for him. He’s doing a wonderful job in a very difficult time.” Read more about Lenny Kates here.

Richard Whittle interview

Today Failure published its interview with Richard Whittle, author of "The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey."

Obamasfailures.com: A miserable failure

The Tea Partier-in-Chief at obamasfailures.com discovers that equating a president with failure isn’t as easy as George W. Bush made it appear.

Other People's Rejection Letters

A book filled with rejection letters you'll be glad you didn't receive.

MRSA: Superbug

Failure magazine interviews "scary disease girl" Maryn McKenna, author of "Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA" (Free Press).

Victor Gruen's Shopping Mall

Architect Victor Gruen denounced suburbia, hated traffic, and had little interest in shopping. So what possessed him to create the shopping mall?

Age of the Castrato

In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy, thousands of pre-pubescent boys were castrated to preserve their youthful, high-pitched voices and allow them to pursue singing careers. Was getting castrated better than the alternative?

Life imitates Paul Newman's 'Slap Shot'

Johnstown, Pennsylvania loses its failing hockey team -- the Chiefs -- to Greenville, South Carolina.

Utility truck fail

Here's what can happen when you fail to put (or keep) the downriggers out on a utlity truck. This accident occured on Friday March 26 in Ketchikan, Alaska. The worker in the bucket at the end of the truck's extended boom suffered a bloody nose and bruised ribs.

Conn. girl wins Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest

Trinette Robinson, 11, of Bristol, Connecticut, won the 35th annual National Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker contest this morning.

The 2010 Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker contest is March 23

The Odor-Eaters National Rotten Sneaker Contest is a unique competition held annually in Montpelier, Vermont.

If ET calls, who answers for humanity?

Meet Paul Davies, chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Group, and author of the new book The Eerie Silence.

This Day in Failure - Isabella Gardner Museum heist

On this day in 1990, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston was robbed by two men dressed as police officers, who made off with artwork worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The case remains unsolved and the artwork missing.

The Eerie Silence

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 50 years old next month. Yet still no sign of E.T. Theoretical physicist Paul Davies says it's time to re-think the search.

The Viking in the Wheat Field

Failure magazine interviews author Susan Dworkin about the late scientist Bent Skovmand, and her new book The Viking in the Wheat Field.

Remember Up With People?

The new Behind the Music-like documentary Smile Til It Hurts captures the essence of the ideologically-motivated singing group Up With People.

Living Off America's (Food) Waste

Filmmaker Jeremy Seifert hopes to inspire you to eat trash.

The Illusions of Entrepreneurship

"The Illusions of Entrepreneurship," by Scott A. Shane, is now out in paperback (Yale University Press).