December 6, 2002
Trent Lott shows true colors
What the hell? Republican leader of the Senate, Trent Lott, says that the United States would have been better off if then-segregationist candidate Strom Thurmond had won the presidency in 1948. Wow...I want to hear Fox News, Rush, etc, spin Lott's way out of this. Also, does saying this have anything to do with the election in Louisiana on Saturday?
smokingGun10
The 10 Best Smoking Gun Stories of 2002 from Elvis: army helmet or turtleneck? to Enron's code of ethics. The top 10 smoking gun stories according the Shift. I think the pick of nick should have made the list.
Attention, Wi-Fi users: The Department of Homeland Security sees wireless networking technology as a terrorist threat.
Attention, Wi-Fi users: The Department of Homeland Security sees wireless networking technology as a terrorist threat. That was the message from experts who participated in working groups under federal cybersecurity czar Richard Clarke and shared what they learned at this week's 802.11 Planet conference. Wi-Fi manufacturers, as well as home and office users, face a clear choice, they said: Secure yourselves or be regulated.
Is this reasonable? Is this really a threat to security?
(via boingboing )
Flash Flash Revolution
DDR meets the keypad in this flash game. Interesting adaptation and in my opinion, exceedingly difficult. Watch out for RSI. Couldn't find the title site in search, so apologies if it is old.
The fate of the Parthenon sculptures in Athens
The so-called Elgin Marbles A reminder that many of the objects that you love at your local museum actually came from a place in which they often have an even greater meaning.
the baltimore blues
At least this guy’s not giving up. "I can't quite figure out what's going on at 1704. From the landlord on down, they seem to have a pact with the devil. Other than the roof over there, every other aspect of that building is wrong. Everything. 1704 is a malignancy killing this whole block." Amazing documentation of someone not afraid to take a stand in Baltimore. (more inside)
Cutting-Edge Critique of TV or Just a Lot of Guys with No Shirt On?
Cutting-Edge Critique of TV or Just a Lot of Guys with No Shirt On? Exhaustive website of TV shows from the 1950s to the present with discussion of overt gay and lesbian content. Also a lot of coverage of hidden homoerotic content that could be viewed as a parody of academic interpretive overreaching. On the other hand, that didn't stop Jerry Falwell from denouncing Tinky Winky's alleged sexual orientation.
Beautiful Wind Walkers
Walking on Wind. Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist who creates sculptures that use wind power to walk. They're amazingly lifelike and organic - like a physical version of Sodaplay. More images (and a short video) at his website.
(found on boingboing)
What war looks like.
What war looks like. Susan Sontag has written an important essay on the intricate relationship we have with images of human suffering (e.g., war photography) in the December 9 issue of The New Yorker. A sample:
Perhaps the only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order [i.e., gruesome combat horrors] are those who could do something to alleviate it – say, the surgeons at the military hospital where the photograph was taken – or those who could learn from it. The rest of us are voyeurs, whether we like it or not.The essay is not online but there is an excellent introduction with links to other galleries of the imagery discussed. With a new war likely on the way, her essay provides a timely set of insights into wartime suffering and how it is usually depicted, often manipulated, and never understood.
If you show up in Reeboks, I will kill you on the spot.
If you show up in Reeboks, I will kill you on the spot. Twenty-two University of Cincinnati students dressed for success for their final exam Wednesday night in "Global Civility." "I told them, 'If you show up in Reeboks, I will kill you on the spot,"' said Linda Ginter Brown, head of the Media and Cultural Studies department. "Trust me, they do not look like this on campus."
Ignoring the unintentional irony of a professor teaching a class on civility threatening to kill her students -- if only jokingly -- is there not a double standard at play here regarding what kind of violence-laced language is acceptable in academic settings? Spoken by a student, whether to a fellow student or to a teacher, such a comment might have different consequences than a puff piece on CNN.
Rejected
"My Anus is Bleeding!" Not for the faint of heart, this film is definitely on the fringe. Don Hertzfeldt's short animations are all a little bit edgy, but then again, I tend to be drawn to these odd, over-the-top kinds of films.
The piercing truth of the One Ring
Enter the Stick Figure!
Enter the Stick Figure! The lastest XiaoXiao stick figure game (Number 9, I believe), a sort of Double Dragonish thing this time around. Three cheers for flash friday.
The matrix creates, the body profligates.
breathe -- the overdose game
breathe -- the overdose game
"You and some friends have been drinking all day and you just scored & cooked some dope. The guy who went first barely got the needle out before collapsing in a weird position. What ya gonna do?"
do you know what to do if someone overdoses, and what resources -- if any -- exist in your community to educate people about overdoses? if there are no such resources do you think there should be, and what would you like to see?
"You and some friends have been drinking all day and you just scored & cooked some dope. The guy who went first barely got the needle out before collapsing in a weird position. What ya gonna do?"
do you know what to do if someone overdoses, and what resources -- if any -- exist in your community to educate people about overdoses? if there are no such resources do you think there should be, and what would you like to see?
Santa Lives
Santa Claus, elusive jolly old elf, has finally been located by someone curious enough (in both senses of the word) to use FedEx to track him down. (The page I linked to here only tells half the story; click that link down on the left to get FedEx's tracking page.)
Eno on the Beach
A simple, absolutely perfect short comic about musician/artist/music producer Brian Eno (by cartoonist Tom Hart). If this puts you in the mood, why not draw wisdom from one of Eno's (and artist Paul Schmidt's) Oblique Strategies. Click (or refresh if clicking doesn't work) for a new aphorism, like shuffling a Tarot deck and drawing a new card. "Honour thy error as a hidden intention" is one of my favorites. (More inside for anyone still interested.)
Africa.
Africa. Whether you think of it as The Heart Of Darkness,
the Dark
Continent, or as an ecological laboratory, Africa is
ultimately home
to us all. But Sub-Saharan Africa is in peril of
spiraling into chaos: the scourge of AIDS, near-continuous
unrest,
and a lamentable
inability of most African countries to maintain anything like a
modern civil society are precursors to what might become a humanitarian
catastrophe unlike anything we have ever witnessed. Do we still blame
the ghosts
of colonialism for this, or is it time for Africans to take the
responsibility for their own problems?
More french toast please!
Let's talk French Toast. I'm not going to deny that we LOVE pancakes here on MeFi...but I think that we need to expand our breakfast discussion repetoire. Personally, I've always found Mom's simple french toast recipe -- eggs, milk, bread, and that's it -- to be the best, but still, there's no shortage of places on the web to find french toast recipes. Pass the maple syrup please!
Ye Olde England - Does It Have A Future?
What Happened To My Woodcock? Much as I love reading Mary Killen's etiquette column in The Spectator, it has to be said it's becoming more and more exotic and self-consciously ridiculous. But that's nothing compared to the success of This England magazine, Britain's best-selling quarterly, complete with a crusty, pastoral editor's letter (Yes, Amanda, it was published in 2002) and a reactionary, anti-EU petition. Add magazines like Country Life and The Lady, Countryman or The Field, and the old question once again arises: will there still always be an England or will it just become more and more parochial and eventually go undercover? Or just disappear?
Baby Drop
Be a hero! That big bad Michael enjoys dropping his kids off balconies, and it's up to you to stop him... just don't get hit by falling vinyl!
Microsoft like Tanya Harding
Microsoft akin to Tanya Harding. So says U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz. The crowbar wielding, knee popping company is also similar to baseball.
America's Culinary Heritage
Not by Bread Alone: America's Culinary Heritage This online companion to a recent Cornell University Library exhibition has a handful of interesting images from the annals of food and drink. Does OXO make a Good Grips raisin seeder yet?
2nd Amendment decision
The right of the people to keep and bear grenade launchers. San Francisco's 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the Second Amendment protects only the right of states to organize and maintain militias, not the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. The 3-0 decision upheld California's sweeping 1999 assault weapons ban.
Patriot Act in Action
The Patriot Act Abuse Begins
An amateur photographer named Mike Maginnis was arrested on Tuesday in his home city of Denver - for simply taking pictures of buildings in an area where Vice President Cheney was residing.
I reported, you decide.
An amateur photographer named Mike Maginnis was arrested on Tuesday in his home city of Denver - for simply taking pictures of buildings in an area where Vice President Cheney was residing.
I reported, you decide.
The Hasselhoff Reviews
Architectural Review Winners 2002
The Architectural Review picks the best of 2002. The ar+d award honors young, unknown designers and architects from around the world. This year's winners include a Honey House, a Cemetary for the Unknown in Hiroshima, and a Pedestrian Bridge in Rijeka, Croatia dedicated to the victims of the Balkan Wars.
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