Recently in News Category
For those of you who haven't heard the grim/hilarious news, "we" = Georgians, specifically Atlantans, and "water" = "the life-nourishing substance we [humans] have spent the last two hundred years systematically polluting and using up."
It's all gone. We're fucked. (Well, I live in New York; my parents and two of my brothers are fucked.)
Lil Jon did of course gift us Crunk!!!, a delightful beverage indeed. And I take great pleasure in Itoen's Tea's Tea, which is just tea - really good tea. But somehow I think plentiful water will remain in the near future as essential to human life as it's been over the last, oh I dunno, hundred million years.
Georgia's genius plan to keep its millions of citoyens watery? Invade the fuck out of Tennessee.
I guess Paul and Patrick and Sam and I are gonna have to go down there and wrassle some Chattanoogans or something.
(Thanks to Paul for the article.)
So the Times today reports that religious fluidity in America is way up, which makes me happy, but that, according to Rice University's assistant director of the Center on Race, Religion and Urban Life, "Religion is [still] the single most important factor that drives American belief attitudes and behaviors."
Anyway, here's the breakdown, so you ADHD kids can skip the article itself:
Big losers in the irrational monolithic meme wars of recent years: Catholicism, Protestantism.
Big winners: Syncretic faiths of all kinds. Agnosticism.
Other big winners, according to my extrapolations: Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster-ism. Jedi-ism. Clean CSS layouts-ism.
America's biggest families raised by proponents of: Mormonism. Islam.
America's smallest families probably raised by: Infertile nuns who hate babies.
My picks for the "Whatever Happened To...?" file: Zoroastrianism. Mesmerism. Kris Kross (not a religion, but what happened to those guys?).
Craziest shit reported in connection to: Scientology. Self-mummifying monks.
Turkey invaded northern Iraq some time last night to hunt down Kurdish rebels*, and this hilarious photo was one of three the BBC posted to help us irenic hipsters imagine the event.
What the fuck are they wearing? They look like they're part of the Stay-Puff Brigade, about to invade Gum Drop Mountain.
*Kurdish separatists = the Itchy to Turkish nationalists' Scratchy. Kurds, like ethnic Albanians in Serbia (until a couple days ago), Palestinians and the majority of the Armenian people, have been denied a state; Kurds live in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, and probably New York City. None of this explains the huge puffy backpacks in the photo.
Carlee had her going away party this past Friday night at her apartment on Moore St., a place she shared with Bailey, Liz, Carlos, and maybe some other people(?). The population of the apartment expands and contracts (they've had other roommates, Patrick lived there for a spell), but I'm pretty sure those four are the main residents. It was good, there was a big turnout and the apartment was packed with howling bodies by 1:00am. I smoked myself hoarse and drank half a six pack of Yuengling, and left around the time a screaming crowd had formed in a circle surrounding a makeshift flipcup table, warped plywood placed atop an ancient card table with folding legs. The wood was dark with spilled beer and Bailey's booted feet stomped in frothy amber puddles on the floor.
Dylan and Michelle are back from their nearly yearlong curious expedition, and it is good to have them back. It's hard for me to articulate what it is they bring to a room, but I hadn't realized how much I missed it until it was finally back. They have been apartment hunting and have settled on an apartment in Greenpoint. They came over for ice cream and a chat the other day, and I asked them about the more personal aspects of their trip as their blog is more academic than anecdotal. I'll let them share details here if they choose to.
In other news, I have quit smoking as of today, February 17th, 2008. I am done smoking for keeps. (Except, perhaps, the occasional hookah with my neighbors. It would be rude not to!) Whenever one of my friends quit, I always say "Real smokers never quit, they just stop for a while." I am determined to prove that I was never a real smoker!
I guess I'll leave it there for now. I think my writing is coming out a little funny today. I'm reading a story in the new issue of A Public Space all about an expedition to the North Pole that is ruined and devestated by rats. I think the narrator's voice is sneaking in to my prose a little bit.
A side note: Albanian pride today in Manhattan! Woo! (Full disclosure: I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the Albanian party.)
I'm live-blogging about Culture Project's A Question of Impeachment. Check it out, if you're interested in the whole impeach-our-lying-leaders thing. (And what a thing it is.) The series will consist of songs and lawyers, mostly the latter, as they depose witnesses and mock-impeach our fearless Pres and VP.
Why live-blogging? I'm not sure. They, the producers, asked me to do it, and I was/am intrigued. Let's see where it goes.
Viva la revolucion (sp?),
W.
This video gave me chills. It's amazing. Thoughts?
United 0020 Depart: LAX 07:00 AM Arrive: JFK 03:11 PM Non-stop 5h 11m 757 2,475 miles traveled Fare basis code: LE21NR1 Booking class: L Economy 2,475 Award miles Food for Purchase 23D Download to calendar premium service Flight details --% On-time 2475 miles traveled [Food for Purchase] Economy 2475 Award miles Availability Mon, Sep 10, 2007 - New York, NY (JFK) to Los Angeles, CA (LAX) United 0033 Depart: JFK 08:45 PM Arrive: LAX 12:24 AM Next day Sep 11 Non-stop 6h 39m 757 2,475 miles traveled Fare basis code: LE21NR1 Booking class: L Economy 2,475 Award miles No Meal Service 23D Download to calendar premium service 
I'm not much of a sports fan, but even I know that Barry Bonds, a roid-enhanced SF Giant, just beat former Brave and ATL hero Hank Aaron's home run record. Bonds' record: 756 homers.
Alas, we Japanophiles must note that, once again, the real record belongs to someone you've probably never heard of in Tokyo. Bonds' and Aaron's numbers are both impressive, but perhaps as or more impressive:
Says Mr. Oh, when asked about Aaron's/Bonds' record/s: “I’m just a man who happened to hit a lot of home runs in Japan.â€
Touche, little dude. Touche.
How dem dere tornados?
Apple's iPhone could emerge as the most overrated and misunderstood product of the 21st century - and the overwhelming majority of American's couldn't give even a quarter of a shit, new research suggests.
Lightspeed Research surveyed 39,000 people on its U.S. online panel in the days following the launch of the device on June 29-- and the research findings are staggering.
Sixty-eight percent of those surveyed who do not currently own an iPhone stated that they can't be bothered to drop that kind of cash, with 16 percent unwilling to sign up for two years of anything with AT&T, for fear their calling logs will be delivered without question to the NSA and 44 percent can't imagine why they would spend $600 for a device that actually does less than their current phone.
Respondents ages 45 and over care the least about Apple's new device. Sixty percent of respondents ages 18 to 24 said they are never going to buy an iPhone, followed closely by 25 to 34 year olds (64 percent) and 35 to 44 year olds (67 percent).
Despite the most aggressive hyping of recent memory, nearly 10 percent of respondents have never heard of the device.
Lightspeed Research claims those who live in the Pacific region were less than half as likely as those who live in other regions to ignore the iPhone. The New England and Mid-Atlantic regions also showed below average indifference levels.
In an additional survey of 34,000 respondents conducted by Lightspeed Research on 5 July, nearly half of those who won't buy an iPhone stated that having music, movie, internet and wireless all in one has already been done better for less money.
Suck it milk.
Suck it milk.
Worth a watch. I think you should judge for yourself, but there is one moment that made my blood run cold: our President wearing a gentle smirk while talking about mass graves and mutilation in the first couple minutes.
Anyway, it's not often you see someone directly challenge and question the man without a lot of cuts. Like I said, worth a watch.
We're almost there. The next step is to not mention her at all.
So last night after I made the last post I was kept up thinking about the war in Iraq, the death toll, the sanctity of life, and the right to have an abortion.
Our President talks a great deal about how abortion and stem cell research are very bad things that should be outlawed in the country, and avoids talking about his faith-based rationalizations by citing 'The Sanctity of Life.' He even declared January 19 "National Sanctity of Human Life Day."
He might be able to sway my opinion if he worked hard to get a better, more comprehensive welfare system in America. Universal healh care in America would go a long way in convincing me that his feelings about human life were genuine. Certainly, making college free for all students above a certain GPA would help, too.
But, clearly, Bush's feelings about abortion and stem cell research have very little to do with the sanctity of human life. Because human life extends beyond the birth canal, but George doesn't care about those other years that come after a child is born. He believes that every life is precious and sacred, except the mother's if it is endangered by the fetus, right up until the moment it emerges from the vagina or c-section. Then you better pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Like he did.
But the continuing war in Iraq is a much more powerful example of how human life really doesn't matter all that much to our president, and that the continuing focus on September 11th from politicians of all stripes is a gross distraction from the real source of terror in the world.
Right after September 11th, I remember seeing news reports on the war in Afghanistan. The images were haunting by omission. When the twin towers were hit, you could see footage and photographs of people flying through the sky from the buildings, people covered in soot, families crying, and all the carnage and destruction in the pit of ground zero. But when we started attacking Afghanistan (and, later, Iraq) we got underexposed green footage of rocket trails sailing through the sky and a lot of maps with arrows on them.
What happened on September 11th was terrible, really awful, but that horrible day has stretched on for years in Iraq, and the suffering over there is barely even hinted at in the bulk of coverage.
Not for the faint of heart, Salon.com has some terrible images that bring the reality of war to the ongoing story of our neverending 'war against terror'. Or 'global fight against islamic extremism.'
I forget which one we're doing this month.
(Edit: These pictures were taken in 2004 & 2005.)
who will be in nyc arond the 4th of july? it's a wednesday
That's right: All you corny motherfuckers making clownish videos of George Washington, watch out. Insulting the founder of a nation can get you in big trouble.
You Tube learned this recently when Thailand and Turkey started punching/kicking it in the taint, angry that the young video empire would not take down satirical videos mocking the former's current monarch and the latter's Leading Historical Badass (besides Suleiman), Ataturk.
I wonder what Thomas "The MAN" Paine would have said about both You Tube's woes and Tim O'Reilly's plan for a new era of internet Civility.
[Oh, and thanks, Dylan--you rock more than even granite rocks... But, you know, you metaphorically "rock;" it's not like you're a naturally occurring aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.
Other people: Dylan recommended that I check out Paul Collins' The Trouble With Tom, which I did. I now heartily endorse it as new Required Reading.]
Anyway, more about those nasty censorship gremlins in Thailand and Turkey to be found below...
Boarding two helicopters, they left for their base in Devon, where they are to be debriefed and to undergo medical and psychological checkups, said Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of the defense staff.
The above taken from today's NYTimes article about the 15 Britons returned to their native Albion by those scallywag Persians (who not only don't torture their captives, but feed them three meals a day, give them cigarettes to smoke and beds to sleep on, and even provide pajamas to sleep in--what terrorist rascals they be!).
Okay, but seriously, I know we have more guns, bandwidth, secret prisons, instant foods, and other benchmarks d'civilization, however... America will never, ever be half the nation England is until we start naming people [first name] "Jock," [last name] "Stirrup." Huzzah, sirrahs!
Steve posted a while back about the hope-inspiring/scary/very new study that, at least in Africa, circumcision can play a significant role in the reduction of AIDS transmission through sex.
Today's NYTimes brings that study and its results much closer to home:
New York City... is planning a campaign to encourage men at high risk of AIDS to get circumcised in light of the World Health Organization’s endorsement of the procedure as an effective way to prevent the disease.
What y'all think about that? [Damn, I love any conflict in which the word's "penis" and "foreskin" play a central role...] Full text follows...
I usually have a great dislike for all that is Frat Boyesque, but I have to say these guys are kind of awesome. First thing, look at their Coat of Arms/Logo
They basically seem to be a bunch of pot smoking, beer drinking dudes...who are going to the most remote location in Antarctica. From their mission statement
"The expedition will spend the next 50 days dragging 19stone(120kg) pulks over 1100 miles(1800km) across the Antarctic wasteland in temperatures as low as -50°C (it never gets warmer than -30°C at their destination and thats during high summer!!)."
Even more amazing, it appears they did it, and did not freeze to death while trying to put their friends hand in a bowl of warm water. It is definitely worth a visit.The home page includes a lovely photo montage of them smoking pot, looking at porn and throwing up gang signs, all in the middle of Antarctica.
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. could be blunt. The worst he would say about George W. Bush in the early going was that he was “an amiable mediocrity.â€
--Robert B. Semple Jr., todays NYTimes.
From today's NYTimes:
Tezuka sought out a Japanese computer scientist, Ryutaro Himeno, to test his theory. They published a book in 2001 called “Makyuu no Shoutai.†Translated, the title of the book means, “Secrets of the Demon Miracle Pitch.â€
“I’m reading about George Washington still... My attitude is, if they’re still analyzing No. 1, 43 ought not to worry about it and just do what he thinks is right, and make the tough choices necessary.â€
another edit: saw this in last week's times. don't you associate with these people?
Addendum from Book Review Ron Jeremy has a half blind, hairless rat named Fetus.
Highlights:
The word 'scrotum' is ruining this year's Newburry Award winning novel's sales as grumpy elementary school librarians ban the book. The word scrotum is overheard by the main character about a dog getting his scrotum bit by a rattlesnake. The author says this is a true story. Kids get some awesome books. And now it's new with a bunch of folks.
The navy will be deploying dolphins. Linking to dot mil sites makes me nervous.
Non NYT stuff follows including a J. Mann update.
Combing the NYTimes and BBC as part of my daily ritual of doing as little actual work as possible before noon (this is one of the five Esoteric Tenets of Producing, the remainder of which I'll endeavour to sketch for you in successive posts), I came across not one, not two, but four blog-worthy fuck-ups from around the world:
1.
Two-time Italian Pime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on reason why foreigners should invest in Italy: "Aside from the good weather, we have beautiful businesswomen and also beautiful secretaries."
Mr. Berlusconi can now been seen from space, he's so fierily blazing with embarrassment. His wife just published an editorial in one of Italy's biggest papers asking him for a public apology for publicly flirting with so many women. Berlusconi apologized, publicly. Critics wonder why Hillary never asked Bill for a public apology. The public wonders why Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, isn't smart enough to flirt privately.
2.
An Arizona 12-year-old named Casey Price was just arrested... for actually being a 29-year-old convicted sex offender. Apparently, he was "quiet," so no one noticed, you know, the lack of interest in Spongebob, the raunchy stubble... or the boy-touching.
3.
Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden of Delaware announced his bid... right after he said Barak Obama is: “The first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.â€
Wow. I wouldn't have the heart to announce my next trip to the shitter after that, but this guy's asking people to vote him into the Oval Office. That's not kablamo.
4.
Finally, and best of all, the city of Boston is suing Ted Turner over Aqua Teen Hunger Force ads that use harmless magnetic lights to, well, light up Err and Ignignot as they flip off passing motorists. But no one's mad about the Mooninites' vulgar hand motion; Boston's mayoral office is mad because they mistook the remarkably cartoonish and non-terrorizing ads for terrorist "devices," a vague term that leads me to think more of my boss' broken Powerbook than of dirty bombs.
For all their whining and complaining, and despite profits being up, the entertainment industry may ultimately be responsible for its own demise.
The blog is back to normal. Better than normal! We have a new WYSIWYG editor for entry creation, I suggest you check it out!
If you don't like it, you can switch back to old-style editing at the bottom of the form by switching from WYSIWYG to Convert Line Breaks.
Enjoy the new That's Plenty!
And a special thank you to David Phillips at movable type who helped me find my ass, a feat which I could not perform even with the aid of both hands and an electric torch device.
My cell phone is crippled and unusable in so many ways it's hard to count them. Even the camera, one of the main features of the phone, is nigh unusable. The camera interface is easy enough, but it's such a pain in the ass to get the pictures off the phone that it's not even worth it to bother. You can send the pictures to a Verizon website, then after finding the website (the URL changed a couple times in the time I've had my phone, plus it's not easy to find even if you're on Verizon Wireless' page) you have to enter a username and password, different from your regular verizon account, and then eventually you can right click and save the thing to your computer. Only recently did I discover that I could use SMS to e-mail the pictures to myself, which is an undocumented method. And still a bit of a pain.
This is what it's like for a lot of the technology in my life. Commercial-level technology that is effectively broken due to poor design or the selfish dependency on undersupported proprietary technology.
I bought my Apple laptop so that I could do editing and sound work from home. Now it's my primary computer for everything, doing everything I ask quickly and flawlessly.
The short and simple reason I love my Mac so much more than I love my PC is this: I spend more time doing stuff and less time constructing hacks and workarounds.
As of last week, my PC spits out error after error when I perform tasks as simple as *opening folders on my desktop.* I'm not some computer n00b, haplessly banging away on a keyboard, either. I'm a lifelong veteran of these electronic disasters, and my first tour of duty was on DOS 3.0.
But now. Now! Here comes the iPhone.
Check out features after the jump...
LONG LIVE JAMES BROWN!
The New York Times reported today that box office receipts are up 6.5% from last year, and attendance is up nearly 5%.
Despite the MPAA's failed attempt to bring down one of the world's largest bittorrent trackers, The Pirate Bay, this year, the industry is experiencing growth.
The MPAA, meanwhile, attributes the lack of an additional $18.2 billion dollars in their pockets last year to piracy. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they came up with that figure, so I dug a little deeper. The MPAA's 2005 U.S. Piracy "Fact" (quotes mine) Sheet offers only this nugget in reference to the statistic: "Piracy loss calculations are based on the number of legitimate movies - movie tickets and legitimate DVDs - consumers would have purchased if pirated versions were not available."
So, okay, get this: to calculate their "losses" figure in anti-piracy press, the MPAA includes every illegal copy made, every bootleg sold, and every movie illegally downloaded as a lost sale. Not only that, but the MPAA couldn't possibly have reliable statistics for illegal copies, bootlegs, and illegal downloads. Why? Because such statistics don't exist and would be incredibly difficult to compile.
That's like estimating the number of blowjobs that happened in the United States last year by counting the married couples and multiplying by five.
To put the figure in perspective, Exhibitor Relations is projecting over $9 billion domestic box-office total. So, above and beyond the strange mathematics they used to calculate their "loss" figure, the MPAA estimates that the loss from piracy actually amounts to 200% of their annual domestic box-office gross *on a growth year*.
Oh, and MPAA, if you're listening, I borrowed my friend Eric's legitimate Old School DVD because I couldn't bring myself to see it in the theatre, buy the DVD, or rent the darn thing. It just looked too bad. But I watched it. And didn't pay for it. So add another $20 to that loss figure. Or $10, if you thought I'd see it at the theatre. Or $3.50 if you thought I would rent it.
In other news, Viacom's revenues up 7% in the third quarter, Microsoft's first quarter revenues up 11%, and Warner Music's revenue up 11% this past quarter.
Our good friend over at Boobs Radley has pointed out to me a golden nugget of headlining news from Yahoo News. Okay, get ready for this, because you are going to be SHOCKED...ready?...The headline reads: Vampires a Mathematical Impossibility, Scientist Says! (I didn't add that exclamation point, by the way) The all too short article goes on to tell us that an alarming percentage of the public actually believes that vampires and zombies exist. (I'm going to say it's safe to assume they mean the American public)...I wish someone had published this sooner, because the only reason I wanted to move to Eastern Europe was to find the vampires that I was sure were hiding in castles there...now I have to rethink my entire life plan...perhaps I should turn my focus to something scientists can't debunk...like werewolves, or maybe the Blob.
His job? To throw a ball.
Literally, the man made $3,300,000 this year as a ball thrower.
He will be missed, and the balls left unthrown will, in their stillness and proximity to the ground, leave a gaping hole in the psyches of all Americans, but especially New Yorkers. And Philadelphians. You know, 'cause he was on the Phillies for, like, two years. And Cincinnatians, they'll feel it too over at Great American Ball Park. (Yes, that really is the name of the field where the Reds play.)
Torontoans, they'll feel it too, and the Blue Jays might even have a moment of silence during their next game.
Cory Lidle can never be replaced.
Except by the next $3 million dollar ball thrower.
Let's have a moment of silence for the other 6,500 or so Americans who died today.
Stabbed in the heart by a stingray.
We officially lost a planet, there's only 8 left.
If they can take a planet out of the Solar System, then why can't they make a licorice flavored milkshake? Or put a stop to Lifetime, the Network for Women? Or do away with Mariah Carey, once and for all? Priorities, people!
"One of Dr. Smith’s favorite venomous fishes is the stargazer, which buries itself and can fire electric shocks as well as venom. In some cultures it is a delicacy (cooking destroys the venom, and so does the human digestive tract), and Dr. Smith has seen it for sale in fish markets in Chinatown in Manhattan, with the electric organ carefully ripped out by fishermen."
Hey, how come there's no "Animals" category?
(Wrote this a while ago and never posted it:)
'What bores they are with their politics!' said theh notary Cardot. 'Close the door. There's no science or virtue that is worth a single drop of blood. If we were to call on truth to settle its accounts we should perhaps find it bankrupt.'
'Ah! It would no doubt have cost us less to enjoy ourselves doing evil than to quarrel about doing good. And so I myself would swap all the last forty years' speeches in Parliament for a tasty trout, a fairy-tale by Perrault or a sketch by Charlet.'
'You're absolutely right!...Pass me some asparagus...For, after all, liberty engenders anarchy, anarchy leads to despotism, and despotism brings us back to liberty. Millions of people have perished without being able to establish any one of those systems. Is not that the vicious circle in which the moral world will always turn? When man thinks he has brought things to perfection, all he's done is to shuffle them around.'
From The New Yorker:
After his most recent exhibit, at a Tokyo gallery, [Yamataka Eye's] art work was stolen. "This guy just walked in one morning and took it all," Eye told me. Several weeks later, the thief sent Eye a package containing all but five or six works, along with a pair of sandals, some watermelon seeds, and a copy of his will. "We have a picture of him from the security camera, when he stole the stuff," Eye said. "He had a hat on, and he looked really cool. We are going to put his picture on a T-shirt. We have to."
Was quite a toughie: Whether or not to file this under "Books" or "Bad Art," but I figure "News" has a nice, antiseptic ring to it, so fuck all, that's what this is: News.
(Definitely not just upping my blog-count... Well, maybe a little upping my blog-count, which from now on will be called "pulling a Christopher Lambert," in honor of that great French actor, and not because he ever inanely upped his blog-count, but because he was in The Highlander movies, which are the sweetest movies about inane competition I have ever seen, excepting possibly Jet Li's The One, which is meta-sweet, because Jet Li is inanely competing against... Jet Li.)
Anyway, the point of this post is: My friend Paul Vargas and I have started an online literary venture, something in between McSweeneys.net and Kaiju Big Battel, except actually more like just McSweeneys.net. Our site is called A Lush In Rio (alushinrio.com) and is replete with Treasures divers and Soul-Opiates such as those found in ye Bloggs of Hyghest Qualities throughout the Land.
So: Please visit my new literary venture, which includes word-games (by a Doctor of Mathematics!), and please submit humorous writings of all sorts (1001 words or fewer, please) to submissions@alushinrio.com. We love publishing our friends.
Oh, and if you love web design, feel free to offer a lended hand, because Paul and I are, as we say in the quasi-professional world, "quasi-professional writers," which is synonymous with "bad at technical stuff, but really enthusiastic about other people doing it for us."
"There is no apparent necessity for rooms with changeable gravity, nor is it clear why aliens need ghost children."
This from the New York Times, about a new video game called Prey. Your guess = as good as mine. The article was as confusing as I imagine the game is.
(From Brooklyn Vegan)
826NYC BENEFIT @ THE BEACON THEATER, NYC - AUG 23, 2006 8:00PM
"826NYC and The Bowery Presents present REVENGE OF THE BOOK-EATERS, a star-studded night featuring some of today's most recognized names in indie-rock, literature, and comedy, including SUFJAN STEVENS (in a rare solo acoustic performance), JON STEWART (in an equally-as-rare stand-up performance), DAVE EGGERS (best-selling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), SARAH VOWELL (best-selling author and This American Life contributor), JOHN HODGMAN (Daily Show regular and author of The Areas of My Expertise) and JOHN RODERICK (songwriter and frontman for The Long Winters) in an evening that promises once and for all to settle the debate: words or music - which is better?"
"The evening will benefit 826NYC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students aged 6 to 18 with their creative and expository writing skills and to helping teachers inspire their students to write."
I got quoted and linked by BrooklynVegan in his post about the Final Fantasy show! In fact, he quoted and linked me and thatsplenty twice! (from this post and this other post). I haven't been this happy since yesterday when my boss bought me a chocolate bar (with pretzels inside!). But really, it's great. I mean, maybe it's not that big a deal, but I was excited.
An Inconvenient Truth is a movie and a statement unlike any other. It covers some information about global warming that you probably already know, and then some that you might not. But the remarkable thing about this film isn't the way in which the very real and inevidable threat is presented as hard cold scientific fact. It is the way you feel when the movie is over. You leave feeling ready and desperate to make changes in the way you live. The fact that this movie was made and realeased is heroic: politically, and moreover, morally. More than anything else, it is an appeal to the people of America to do what they can, it makes the immediate nessesity of such change crucial and relevant. I personally was strongly affected, and I know Dylan was too. Even if you already know all there is to know about global warming and you're well educated in what you can personally do, see it anyway. And tell you friends and families.
I remember seeing this painting in some text book in high school. Turns out the admiral's race was painted on in the 70s. Very odd. Link to NPR story.
Our own Sena Clara Creston's last show of her photography just got reviewed in New York Arts magazine, on stands now. Check it out! Way to go Sena!
So, this isn't really the biggest news, but the last and largest human chromosome has been sequenced. Link to Reuters
This is so awesome:
German "Robin Hoods"
A group of Germans dressing up like superheroes, robbing luxurious food from top eateries and giving it to the poor. (But not before presenting the cashier they're robbing a bouquet of flowers (they are so ripping V's style))
How big are the balls on this man? As big as they need to be. Watch now, as Stephen Colbert makes the President and 1,000 invited cronies very uncomfortable. Today the man is a GOD. My question is, who is the genius who booked him to speak at the White House press corps dinner?
What follows is a bunch of boring updates about my life. Proceed with caution...
Continue reading Weirdness from the front.....
From the desk of Julie Lou,
Holy shit, the father of modern chicken died on Monday, and the NYTimes has the funniest obituary I've ever read. Goodbye Robert Baker, your pioneering in the field of poultry will not go unnoticed...