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May 31
One of America's Great Parks
is not a natural wonder at all. It was once a swamp dotted with shanty-towns. It cost more to build than the purchase price of Alaska. At times it has not been pretty, but today it is much more than a crime scene. It is Manhattan's Central Park.
posted by ilsa at 8:15 PM PST - 17 comments
McDonald's gets bad review, sues critic.
"McDonald's has labelled as "defamatory and offensive" an influential Italian food critic, who poured scorn on the quality of the fast-food giant's cuisine.
The corporation has sued Edoardo Raspelli, a critic and commentator for the Italian newspaper La Stampa, after he compared its burgers to rubber and its fries to cardboard, in an article last year.
McDonald's is seeking undisclosed damages, possibly as much as the 21m euros (£15m; $25m) it spent on advertising in Italy last year. "
Is it really defamation if it's true? What if every restaurant that got a bad review decided to sue?
posted by kayjay at 11:48 AM PST - 33 comments
Dissent in the ranks.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell was under persistent pressure from the Pentagon and White House to include questionable intelligence in his report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction he delivered at the United Nations last February, source:
US News and World Report Magazine.
According to the report, the draft contained such questionable material that Powell lost his temper, throwing several pages in the air and declaring,
"I'm not reading this. This is bullshit."
posted by CrazyJub at 8:16 AM PST - 76 comments
Khajuraho.
History and extensive galleries on the Indian temple site (built in the tenth century) famous for its erotic sculptures. (Not suitable for work, and the front page contains a warning that it is not suitable for under-21's). (more inside)
posted by plep at 12:19 AM PST - 9 comments
May 30
U.S. Insiders Say Iraq Intel Deliberately Skewed
"Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of Central Intelligence Agency counterterrorist operations, said he knew of serving intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi." The marines are looking, but they
can't find a damn thing. So... were Bush and company played by the INC, or were the American people played by Team Bush?
posted by owillis at 9:36 PM PST - 21 comments
isolation stretcher:
staff at a japanese medical system support company demonstrate the company's 'isolation stretcher': "The highly protective stretcher, which costs 5.2 million yen (a half million dollars?), has been in demand since the spread of SARS" ...a 'bed' you wouldn't want to wake up in.
posted by n o i s e s at 7:43 PM PST - 5 comments
By now, you might already have heard about
Mark Walker, the 3 year old hoops prodigy that Reebok is featuring on their website; while the
video of him hitting 18 straight shots from various spots on the floor is cute/impressive, the "
interview" movie is horrendously creepy. The closing tagline "I'm the future of basketball; I am Reebok" done in the voice of such a small child just conjures up visions of in vitro logo tattooing. (Warning: Movies are in Quicktime)
posted by jonson at 6:26 PM PST - 29 comments
Hoorah!
Fairy Congress '03 is almost upon us. With the admiral goal of Promoting Quality Human & Fairy Relations and special guest
Dotty Maclean of
Findhorn Community fame who apparently has done more than any other person in the 20th century to popularize the idea that humans can communicate with
devas, in attendance you'd be crazy to miss it. Sure
looks like fun...
posted by zeoslap at 2:21 PM PST - 17 comments
In The Rain
boasts a huge collection of vintage erotica; beautiful, artful poses of women you won't see in
Maxim anytime soon. The appeal of
Vintage Sex is ephemeral, but we've been making erotica long before
cameras; since the beginning
of civilization, really. (Should really go without saying that none of these links are safe for work.)
posted by headspace at 1:13 PM PST - 22 comments
Star Wars to Bar Wars. The Star Wars kid is suing, and the $4,000 collected for him may have to be returned. Always a shame to see the kindness of strangers pushed aside in favor of litigation. Good thing the money never got turned over...
posted by luser at 8:55 AM PST - 82 comments
"I don't think it's your average everyday pothead that is buying
these pieces." [Via
Zed]
posted by debralee at 6:59 AM PST - 14 comments
Pentagon: space is for Americans only
At the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs in early April, (NRO director Peter) Teets proposed that U.S. resources from military, civilian and commercial satellites be combined to provide 'persistence in total situational awareness, for the benefit of this nation's war fighters.'
If allies don't like the new paradigm of space dominance, said Air Force secretary James Roche,
they'll just have to learn to accept it. The allies, he told the symposium, will have 'no veto power.'
Suckers!
posted by magullo at 6:31 AM PST - 80 comments
Looking for a design for your next website?
Open Source Web Design is a site that offers tons of free web design templates that you can take and modify for your own needs.
posted by oissubke at 6:05 AM PST - 10 comments
Looking for a design for your next website?
Strange Banana is a generator that randomly produces XHTML transitional, CSS-layout-driven webpages. Hit "refresh" repeatedly, and find that one layout that matches your inner web designer's dream. (
Found on Zeldman's Daily Report.)
posted by Katemonkey at 3:12 AM PST - 20 comments
Goblins in upstate NY!
Brought to you by Adventures in Midland. They have a very indepth, Live Action Roleplaying website. Funny pictures and all that. Go Too much too look at in one sitting... I feel like this has been posted here already, apologies if that's true.
posted by Slimemonster at 12:17 AM PST - 5 comments
May 29
Mr. Spock's Nudes
David Bowman talks to 72-year-old
Leonard Nimoy about Leonard Cohen's music, the famous Vulcan hand sign, and his movie career, but especially about his
new book of female nude photographs, and how they relate to the Kabbalistic idea of Shekhinah. Nimoy comes across as more than a little flaky (but that's
nothing new); turns out he can also be thoughtful, perceptive, and dryly funny.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 10:22 PM PST - 6 comments
The Clickz Weblog Business Strategies 2003 Conference & Expo
kicks off on June 9, with the highly-relevant keynote: "What Are Weblogs?" Also on the schedule: "
Business Blogs: Hype or Opportunity?"
Kathleen Goodwin (conference chair)
Blogs : "Someone wrote that they are offended that blogs, what used to be "an 'innocent' repository of ideas," are now becoming commercialized. Hello! Get with the program. It is the 21st century and every great idea gets commercialized in a nano second these days."
posted by scarabic at 3:50 PM PST - 21 comments
Tyson spouting off again
In Thursday night's "The Pulse" on Fox, Mike Tyson goes on the record about his 1992 trial that put him in jail for three years. (sentenced to six, paroled after three). He denies raping Desiree Washington and says "I just hate her guts. She put me in that state, where I don't know...... I really wish I did now. But now I really do want to rape her.''
Reuters has
an article on it too
I thought after Tyson's statements about breaking his back after his last fight he would calm down a bit....but it's Tyson.
posted by meanie at 12:08 PM PST - 35 comments
"The roots of Hip Hop Culture will no longer be ignored.
Hip Hop's pioneer MC's, DJ's, B-boys and Graffiti Artists finally get to tell their stories. Travel with the real Hip Hop historians (Ralph McDaniels, DJ Red Alert, Grandmaster Caz, Kool Herc) through their old stomping grounds and listen to them reminisce as we drive down memory lane.
Hush Tours takes you to all the hot spots Uptown (Harlem and the Bronx) giving Hip Hop Culture more than a venue... also a voice."
posted by monkeymike at 12:02 PM PST - 10 comments
Need a job? The winner of the
Google Puzzle Contest might recieve a prestigious spot in the Google engineering labs. So whip out all your old
Martin Gardner books and get practicing, because the competition is on May 1st (and registration closes today).
posted by kaibutsu at 11:10 AM PST - 6 comments
The kilogram
has lost some weight (and/or mass, depending on your point of view) in the past 2 centuries. Scientists race so
their spiffy idea will be the next benchmark. via
Ars Technica
posted by Nauip at 10:32 AM PST - 22 comments
When Most Of The Reviews (And Indeed Books) Are Long Since Forgotten,
David Levine's extraordinary portraits of the public figures and obsessions of the last 40 years will stand as a lasting impression of our literary and political lions, masters, avatars and bugbears. The generous and ever essential
New York Review of Books offers us a complete and fully searchable gallery of the great caricaturist's work since its first issue hit the stands back in 1963 - almost 2,000 cartoons in all. It's fascinating to trace the sequence and evolution of Levine's drawings through the years of particular figures:
Nabokov and
Beckett, for instance.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 9:49 AM PST - 10 comments
"Are You a Manly Man Full of Vigor?"
Such was the come-on in John Romulus Brinkley's ads for his goat-gland operations. He made enough money from them to start first station KFKB (Kansas First, Kansas Best!), then (after he was run out of Kansas) XER out of Del Rio, Mexico, at a half-million watts the most powerful station in the world, which made the Carter Family (among many others) famous. Read William Bryk's brilliant account, and if you get nostalgic for the old days of AM, listen to the
Blasters' great "
Border Radio."
posted by languagehat at 9:35 AM PST - 7 comments
Welcome to the World Sex Guide forums
Ever wonder if your town had a seamy underside? The WSG forums exist to
facilitate "the exchange of information between men who are looking for sex
with women," and allow users to
browse by city & country to discuss the local cruising scene with other Johns in the field. It's replete with much insider lingo, curious acronyms, awkward tiptoe language (think "bong" vs. "water-filtered tobacco pipe" in headshop culture), and red-herring posts left as bait for the law enforcement (LE) who evidently monitor these forums. Agree or disagree morally with the John lifestyle, it's still worth a glimpse into this strange subculture.
posted by dhoyt at 9:29 AM PST - 19 comments
The treasures of the sea.
A fascinating look at underwater archeological sites in France. The Cosquer Cave is particularly enthralling due to the art and the difficulty in getting to it.
(warning - annoying frames and popup info boxes that don't work so well in Mozilla) [More inside...]
posted by Irontom at 8:35 AM PST - 2 comments
The bait and switch.
A last-minute revision by House and Senate leaders in the
tax bill that President Bush signed today will prevent millions of minimum-wage families from receiving the increased child credit that is in the measure.
posted by four panels at 6:14 AM PST - 21 comments
Miss, Miss! Little Jimmy Bond peeked at my intelligence report!
"The UK's latest move in the fight against terrorism is a secret project to bring together intelligence data from the UK's security agencies, say reports." Because normally, it's far more sensible to have all the different agencies hoarding their own information and not letting anyone else see it... But seriously: first steps to a UK TIA? Knowing the inefficiences, bureaucratic in-fighting, and awful data mess that these agencies routinely engage in, I doubt it.
posted by humuhumu at 5:26 AM PST - 3 comments
May 28
Huarochiri: A Peruvian Culture in Time.
'Huarochir is an Andean province near Lima, Peru. This site offers an ethnographic and historical tour of some of its communities. It samples the Huarochir Quechua Manuscript, which alone among colonial documents explains a pre-Christian tradition in an Andean language, and visits modern highlanders who inhabit and interpret the mythic landscape.'
Related :-
Martin Chambi. Chambi was an Amerindian Peruvian photographer famous for his photographs of indigenous Andean life. The site is in Spanish - no impediment to enjoying the photographs.
posted by plep at 11:36 PM PST - 3 comments
How to symbolify your life!
I put in both "I am a no talent ass clown" and "Life is just a bowl of cherries" and was rather pleased with the results. (I made sure to click on "all" in the options, on the right side.
posted by Lynsey at 9:13 PM PST - 9 comments
Way Too Personals.
I'm interested in a woman who is not caught up in the dependency of a psychotherapy relationship. I prefer someone who is not addicted to simple "therapyisms" and who has the courage to survive and enjoy life without a "therapy crutch". I prefer someone able to get beyond simple psychotherapy paradigms, and view behavior (in the REAL WORLD) in terms of factors that explain considerably more than a negligible amount of the total variance.
posted by srboisvert at 7:43 PM PST - 9 comments
Quick, Hide The Body!
"...But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits.
The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the US is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 per cent across-the-board income tax increase."
posted by owillis at 7:10 PM PST - 18 comments
Copernica
Martin Wattenberg, in collaboration with NASA and
Rhizome.org, developed
a gorgeous applet to showcase NASA's commissioned art program. Participating artists include William Wegman, Andy Warhol, Annie Leibovitz, and Robert Rauschenburg, among others. Pieces can be viewed by subject, title, or create your own gallery. Beautiful.
posted by ariana at 2:53 PM PST - 9 comments
What do these people
have in common?
Mr. Lucian Jacob Wojciechowski, of Salton City, CA, whose various nicknames are Wladysla wa poniecki, Kuba, and Lovie.
Mr. Maximus Englerius, of Seattle (presumably) who would like to ban Playgirl mag.
Mr. Ole Scorpio Savior, of Minneapolis, who lists his first favorite Book as Bible: Revelations.
Mr. Warren Roderick Ashe, of Newport News, VA, whose hobbies and special talents are Professional musician and double-AX bass player. Astronautical and Astrophysics computer math involving saucer technology and time travel.
Choices, choices, choices!
posted by micropublishery at 12:51 PM PST - 9 comments
Intelligence expert does new kind of spin
(as in the 180 degree kind). Intelligence expert (and former National Security Advisor) Kenneth Pollack
appeared on NPR [scroll to 3rd entry for full audio] to retract statements that he made on the
same show in
November. Pollack seems to be the first major wonk to call change his mind not on a single, tangible intelligence claim, but on the broader rationale for war in Iraq, and on the reliability of American intelligence in general.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:11 AM PST - 10 comments
U.S. says Iraq may have junked toxic arms
Thus spake Rummy in a speech. We know they have them. If we can not find them it is because they got rid of them. But that still means they had them at one time, right?
Question: what are those top scientists and Bath party members telling their captors wherever they are being held for questioning? Or is too important to reveal too.
posted by Postroad at 9:29 AM PST - 64 comments
"Clinton was a good guy, but he did fuck all"
or so says Bob Geldof when it comes to Clinton getting aid to Africa. And he's just as critical about the EU as well (
"The EU have been pathetic and appalling, and I thought we had dealt with that 20 years ago when the electorate of our countries said never again...") pointing out their tiny contribution to the recent aid shipments to Ethiopia. But what about the Bush government you ask?
"You'll think I'm off my trolley when I say this, but the Bush administration is the most radical -- in a positive sense -- in its approach to Africa since Kennedy."
posted by PenDevil at 4:35 AM PST - 19 comments
May 27
US bills Australia for bombs.
This is the first time I have seen a 'user-pays' principle of modern warfare spelled out in this way. But then again Australia doesn't make a habit of going to war.
'The ADF will also be required to pay an undisclosed amount believed to be up to $3 million for satellite time and band width to connect the Canberra war room with command in the Gulf, and enable it to talk directly with SAS troops on the ground. "It was described as the first struggle in the war, to secure band width," said Derek Woolner, defence analysis director at the Australian Defence Studies Centre.'
posted by blue at 10:30 PM PST - 22 comments
The SalmoFan: So long, and thanks for all the fish and animals, and plants...
Amidst the
catastrophic decline of large ocean fish, Salmon farmers can choose the hue of their
"farmed" Salmon with the
SalmoFan. [Meanwhile, these same salmon are fed on a factory fishing catch process which effectively strips most large life forms from the ocean.] With
1/4 of all mammmals and
1/2 of all plant species facing extinction, Is the planet truly
at a crossroads? Are we
losing the extinction battle?
..
"Overfishing is a global problem. People are taking marine life faster than it can reproduce. The world's catch peaked at 86 million tons in 1989, up fourfold in 50 years.....But many governments, including the United States, Mexico, the European Union, Japan and China, kept on pouring subsidies into commercial fishing fleets to keep them afloat...The Gulf of California in Mexico is not dead, but it is exhausted from overfishing, which has caused every important species of fish there to decline....Crucial fisheries have collapsed worldwide."
Contrast that with
This: "[once upon a time there were] cod shoals
"so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them." There were six- and seven-foot-long codfish weighing as much as 200 pounds. There were great banks of oysters as large as shoes. At low tide, children were sent to the shore to collect 10-, 15-, even 20-pound lobsters with hand rakes for use as bait or pig feed. Eight- to 12-foot sturgeon choked New England rivers, and salmon packed streams from the Hudson River to Hudson's Bay. Herring, squid and capelin (a small open-water fish seven inches long) spawning runs were so gigantic they astonished observers for more than four centuries"
posted by troutfishing at 8:55 PM PST - 31 comments
Black Table Beer Run
Ever wondered which beer is like a well-hung hunchback? This is the place for you. It's also racist, sexist, homophobic and overall very PinC (especially
the sequel), so be forewarned.
posted by joaquim at 2:54 PM PST - 18 comments
Created by the CIA in Saigon in 1967,
Phoenix was a program aimed at "neutralizing"--through assassination, kidnapping, and systematic torture--the civilian infrastructure that supported the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam. The CIA destroyed its copies of the documents related to this program, but the creator of Phoenix gave his personal copies to author Douglas Valentine. He, in turn, has given them to
The Memory Hole. They have never previously been published, online or in print. Via
Politech.
posted by gd779 at 12:32 PM PST - 28 comments
Cake or Death?
The spectacularly funny British comic
Eddie Izzard, currently on Broadway in A Day In The Death of Joe Egg has revamped his web site (warning: irritating flash animation & audio), and annouced that he is coming on tour, starting
Down Under and continuing throughout
Canada & The U.S. For those NY mefites, check out Joe Egg while you can, it is depressing but simultaneously funny, and anyone who hasn't seen Eddie either live or on HBO, do yourself a favor and catch a show, it's good stuff.
posted by jonson at 11:11 AM PST - 35 comments
Abas Amini
is knocking on deaths door, after sewing his eyes and mouth shut to bring attention to his request for asylum. He claims if he is sent back to Iran he will be executed for his political past. This guy is hardcore, he is threatening to set himself on fire if anyone tries to force feed him.
posted by dancu at 10:25 AM PST - 18 comments
Who was that masked man?
A bunch of friends decide to fool their local paper into thinking there is a real-life superhero in Tunbridge Wells.
Local paper falls for it hook line and sinker. Swiftly followed by
national media. This thread on a Divine Comedy discussion board describes the whole dastardly plot unfolding. The fun starts on page 2.
posted by salmacis at 7:59 AM PST - 13 comments
It's What Comes After The Dot, My Dear,
that really
matters in Internet addresses, don't you know? A useful list of TLDs (
that's Top Level Domain names to you, kiddo) is also a reminder of the incredible variety of cool ISO country codes. If there are personalized license plates, why not e-mail addresses? I, for instance, am definitely looking into acquiring a prestigious
.mc address. Unless it means actually having to move to Monaco, God forbid. [
Via Bifurcated Rivets.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:20 AM PST - 34 comments
May 26
Easycinema
- Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of the European no-frills airline Easyjet, is planning to open Easycinema, the first of what he hopes to be a no-frills theater chain, in Britain (the London suburb of Milton Keynes) on Friday. All ticket buying will be conducted on the Internet (there will be no box office at the theater); tickets must be printed out at home; early buyers can purchase tickets for as little as $.35, while tickets purchased on the day of the screenings will cost $8.00; there will be no concession counter, no trailers, no ads. In an interview with the BBC on Sunday, Easycinema claimed that movie distributors representing the majors have balked at providing new releases or even quality second-runs.
posted by suprfli at 11:13 PM PST - 31 comments
160 million people watched the gloriously kitsch
Eurovision Song Contest this year. The UK's
entry [Real] scored an astonishing
nul points (i.e. none of the other 25 countries thought the British song was in the top 10 competitors). The
singers blame the country's worst ever result on sabotage. What do you think?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 7:49 PM PST - 37 comments
Other People's Stories: "These stories have been overheard and misheard, told and re-told and sometimes refined over time. They do not shy from hearsay, gossip, myth or guys we knew in high school." Some of the stories are
funny (warning: NSFW picture on that link), others
sad,
scary, and some just
bizarre.
posted by eclectica at 6:35 PM PST - 14 comments
The No Logs Network
is encouraging web hosts and system admins to refrain from keeping site access logs, saying their storage can
constitute a threat to free speech. It sounds like a good idea, but considering how paranoid many system admins tend to be, one has to wonder whether it could ever really take off as a movement.
posted by mrbula at 3:09 PM PST - 24 comments
BodyBurden: the pollution in people.
"Researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with a total of 167 chemicals found in the group. Like most of us, the people tested do not work with chemicals on the job and do not live near an industrial facility. Scientists refer to this contamination as a persons body burden. Of the 167 chemicals found, 76 cause cancer in humans or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development. The dangers of exposure to these chemicals in combination has never been studied."
This was also the subject of a PBS program by Bill Moyers,
Trade Secrets. Moyers himself was found to have
84 chemicals in his blood and urine. [Via
This Modern World.]
posted by homunculus at 1:04 PM PST - 17 comments
Extra, extra!
Think your job is bad? Film extras (or 'background' as they're commonly referred to) just stand around waiting all day, have to bring their own wardrobe, and must always obey the unspoken rule of not chatting up the real talent. It's
the job that's pretty much 'about nothing', with
no guarantees, no glamour, no money. Yet, with that said, there are already many who do it, and more trying to
break in every day. Are movie extras merely suckers for punishment, or are they hoping to find
fame and fortune?
posted by debralee at 8:31 AM PST - 20 comments
His Turgid Member, Her Heaving Bosoms, My Gag Reflex:
There's nothing like really bad erotica to take your mind off sex. There's no sentence like "
Brooke ripped off Randy's mesh jersey. His abs were undulating hills, with heavy underbrush around his navel." to make you think of lint and tumbleweed. For our undelectation, Nerve.com's readers have chosen the very
worst examples of lurid chastity-inspiring unsexiness. [
Safe for work and Viagra-proof thanks only to downright descriptive incompetence. If you're excited by any of this, seek psychiatric assistance immediately.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 2:21 AM PST - 31 comments
May 25
Make your own EKG
for less than $5 in parts, using your PC, pennies for electrodes, and a simple amp circuit. But careful with the voltage, now.
posted by Vidiot at 8:06 PM PST - 9 comments
Remember the outrage of the US Govt. as the Iraqi's paraded POWs before television cameras - a pretty clear-cut breach of the Geneva Convention?
It appears
the US Govt. isn't so concerned about what behaviour breaches the convention, anymore.
"The International Committee of the Red Cross so far has been denied access to what the organisation believes could be as many as 3,000 prisoners held in searing heat [near Baghdad airport.] All other requests to inspect conditions under which prisoners are being held have been met with silence or been turned down."
posted by Blue Stone at 11:42 AM PST - 62 comments
Prospecting for Gold Among the Photo BlogsPhoto blogs are the colorful offspring of blogs, or Web logs, written diaries posted and updated regularly on the Internet. For a half-dozen years people have been posting text blogs to rant and to ponder the events of the day and the dust beneath their feet. Then, sometime in 2000, people started posting photographs to go with the text. The photo blog was born. Now photo blogs often are posted with no text at all. And there are thousands of them.--Oolong gets his picture in the New York Times, among other things
posted by y2karl at 6:42 AM PST - 20 comments
The Worst Book I Ever Read
Finnegans Wake is the best example of modernism disappearing up its own fundament.
A Brief History of Time and Iris Murdoch show up twice.
Mein Kampf is as interesting as a bus timetable and JK Rowling is the sub-literary analogue of Tony Blair. Tolkien appears most foten, making him the most hated of this little group.
posted by raaka at 4:51 AM PST - 140 comments
May 24
2003 Reith Lectures.
Neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, talks about a number of fascinating neurological disorders and the insights they provide into mental functioning.
posted by srboisvert at 2:35 PM PST - 10 comments
Old Firm dialectics
It's going down the thinnest wire tomorrow in the Scottish Premier League (football/soccer/fitba that is) as Celtic and Rangers, with one game left to play in perhaps the most absurd league in Europe, stand equal on points and goal difference after 37 games thus far.
posted by skellum at 2:17 PM PST - 7 comments
Conservative acts like conservative
Columnist William Safire (in the NYT, though mirrored in the link for your convenience) takes on corporate consolidation of media and culture:
The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting those outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many. Does that sound unconservative? Not to me. The concentration of power - political, corporate, media, cultural - should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy. (
search for info. about your
hometown media). Safire, in fighting against deregulation alongside "the left", has some
strange bedfellows. Obviously, terms like "left" and "right" are less than perfectly useful, but is this the beginning a larger shift? 20 years from now, will libertarians and gun-owners still be de facto Republicans, and if not, will they simply cease to be a block, or find comfort elsewhere on the political spectrum?
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:02 AM PST - 26 comments
The Tragic Mulatto wore Doc Martens.
In this
NYT Magazine piece, Paul Tough explores the uneasy case of white supremacist Leo Felton - a would-be racial holy warrior who happens to be biracial, the child of a white woman and a black man.
While "
passing" has always, always been fraught with risks and contradictions, this is one of the more charged, vivid, and frankly depressing examples in recent memory. But is there some hope bound up in it? With "race" increasingly being understood as a social construct, some seven million Americans identifying themselves as "multiracial," and an interracial community replete with its own
voices, was Leo Felton the prophet of something entirely other than what he thought?
posted by adamgreenfield at 1:47 AM PST - 72 comments
May 23
Emma Peel could eat Buffy Summers for breakfast.
An online encyclopedia dedicated to one of the best shows to come out of Britain,
The Avengers. It's also the best TV fansite I've ever seen, I think--comprehensive, well-designed, smart without being "inside" or academic, and free of fanboy attitude. Even if you've never watched the show, take some time to look around. [more inside]
posted by Prospero at 4:53 PM PST - 24 comments
From
crematorium scandals to
pimp suits and
Ben Curtis in between, the Chattanooga area has it all. Enter our latest wonder:
Beer for the Homeless.com. Created by a local Talk Radio DJ or two, the site is a serious attempt (ok, it's kinda tongue-in-cheek) to stop homeless citizens from hassling people for beer money. Well, they made their first delivery last week and have some photos and quote from their "clients".
posted by mkelley at 2:53 PM PST - 4 comments
The Young Hipublicans.
"Still searching for their identities, many of these kids are not yet prepared to declare a particular political affiliation. This is where the conservative campus activists come in. Having recognized the importance of conservativism to their own lives, they have committed themselves to the task of bringing out the unacknowledged conservatism in other students. The mission of today's activists involves less an act of persuading their peers to accept an ideology than in awakening them to the fact that they already embody it." Welcome to Room 101.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:45 PM PST - 32 comments
MAKE MONEY (?) FAST by blogging.
Someone who just doesn't get it tries to cash in on the blognomenon -- but who's actually gonna
pay $3/month to read blogs? Oh, and you can get paid to blog...but given the blogs they point to as successful examples, I can't imagine that the're raking in the cash.
Found via Google TextAd on MeFi. Really.
posted by Vidiot at 10:58 AM PST - 22 comments
Economists
is a little bit of socio-political commentary that doubles as Friday Flash.
More likely to generate chuckles than comments...
posted by BentPenguin at 10:42 AM PST - 3 comments
Fo shizzle my nizzle!
At last, the lingustic puzzle is solved, or at least attempted. Over and over. And over.
Definition - "for the sizzle" of tasty burgers on the grill. Often used by members of lower classes because they cannot taste the tasty burgers, nor enjoy the sizzle.
posted by xmutex at 10:02 AM PST - 33 comments
Elliott could no longer bear the waste.
He had six staff and a budget of £3.5m a year. He had a potential client group of 25,000 users ... but at the end of all his work and all that public money, the total number of detox beds he was able to provide was five. The Guardian reports from the front-line of the drugs war. (
part two) You may have no interest in Drugs or the UK but read this superb piece for a profile of a bureaucracy in farcical, tragic, total collapse.
posted by grahamwell at 9:31 AM PST - 5 comments
I'm glad I live in D.C. Why? Because we'll never run out of News of the Wierd: "FBI Specialist runs over the foot of a "person of interest" then gets police to issue him a ticket for
'walking to create a hazard'."
posted by omidius at 9:19 AM PST - 4 comments
Mort pour la France
Setting aside partisan differences and arguments re: Iraq for the moment, and at the risk of offending the more cynical of the denizens that lurk within with what they may consider the smarminess of this link, we would do well to remember during the upcoming weekend, what Memorial Day should be about - a tribute to those who have served & fallen in uniform.
posted by Pressed Rat at 9:14 AM PST - 13 comments
Who Was Photog?
In 1986, an 11-year-old boy named Nathan Bitner designed a character named Fearless
Photog. He won a contest to have his creation made into an action figure in the
He-Man/Masters of the Universe line. The figure was never actually never produced.
In 2003, a website specializing in 80's junk culture asked
Who
was Nathan Bitner? (scroll down for the comments). It's a
story
about call girl named Gemini, working for Bungie (creators of Halo), insurmountable
credit card dept, joining the army at 28...
posted by andrewzipp at 6:47 AM PST - 23 comments
Who Is Mary Rosh?
Mary Rosh often spoke sweetly of her days as a student of John's, she gave a glowing Amazon.com review of his book "More Guns, Less Crime," she criticized anyone who questioned John's research or his conclusions, and she attacked other researchers in her ardent defense of Lott's idea that more guns on the streets leads to less crime.
Take
that Jayson, you rookie! Let a real man (guffaw) show you how to
write cheat!
posted by nofundy at 5:34 AM PST - 5 comments
May 22
