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The brouhaha that erupted in Britain last month when it was learned that the prestigious Booker Prize might be opened to American writers by 2004, displays a British inferiority complex and underscores the remarkable persistence of preconceptions that Britain and the United States hold about each other. But it's about ideas and styles and even language being swapped and appropriated across the globe. It's about artists picking from a smorgasbord of techniques and influences to try to get a handle on an increasingly fragmented and cacophonous reality, and in doing so creating a new wave of writing that is richer for its multicultural mingling of styles and voices, its voracious mixing of the high and low, the cerebral and street-smart, the old and the new. Just like in MeFi.
posted by semmi at 9:16 PM PST - 17 comments

Royalties proposed for booming used market as new-CD sales stagnate. (Via Slashdot). First sale doctrine, anyone? Section 109 of the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 109, permits the owner of a particular copy or phonorecord lawfully made under title 17 to sell or otherwise dispose of possession of that copy or phonorecord without the authority of the copyright owner, notwithstanding the copyright owner's exclusive right of distribution under 17 U.S.C. 106(3). Commonly referred to as the ``first sale doctrine,'' this provision permits such activities as the sale of used books. The first sale doctrine is subject to limitations that permit a copyright owner to prevent the unauthorized commercial rental of computer programs and sound recordings.
posted by Bezuhin at 7:12 PM PST - 23 comments

Pimps and Gangs Subtracted From Math Test
"Rufus is a pimp for three girls. If the price is $65 per trick, how many tricks per day must each girl turn to support Rufus' $800 per day crack habit?" So reads a math test from a now suspended Canadian teacher, apparently modeled after this joke.
posted by bloggboy at 6:54 PM PST - 13 comments

John Dean's Watergate Expose, due to be published Monday, will not be as illuminating as he earlier claimed. Meanwhile, two time Pulitzer Prize winner William Gaines's journalism class at the University of Illinois names Pat Buchanan as Deep Throat on NBC's Dateline.
posted by ljromanoff at 6:48 PM PST - 11 comments

Cheer for Bush, or face arrest, OSU grads informed. A first person account of how Bush's speech at the Ohio State Graduation today resembled nothing so much as a fascist rally - as graduates who had planned to protest by simply turning their backs to Bush during his speech were informed that if they did so they would be arrested and expelled (no diploma). Inside the stadium, crowds of Bush suppporters had been bussed in from miles away. And everyone was instructed to cheer loudly for the president.
posted by dnash at 6:03 PM PST - 44 comments

What do grass, sashimi, wine corks and the pope have in common? Art cars!
posted by modge at 2:08 PM PST - 13 comments

"Stupid Barbados. You must be stopped!" It's official: Greenpeace now opposes everything.
posted by nobody_knose at 1:47 PM PST - 17 comments

Some organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area are dedicated to setting up public wireless access points, avaliable free of charge, which people can connect to with either their exisiting 802.11 NICs in close proximity or with modified wi-fi cards with external antenna connections over distances up to 5 miles away. While these ideas are all fun and exciting, I was reading the SF Bay Guradian's recent article about these networks, I was struck by Tim Pozar's notion of creating these networks without internet connections, just for community lans. I had almost the same idea about a month ago, concerning a kind of mainstream internet alternative with personally run severs and access points, completely off of big ISP pipes, and have been thinking quite a bit about it lately. Now that I've found all this information on it, my only question is: How do we get started and who's up for it?
posted by Hackworth at 12:49 PM PST - 16 comments

Airport Security Tightens: Al Gore stopped twice for extra screening
posted by magullo at 11:43 AM PST - 34 comments

Solar System Akin to Earth's Is Discovered Any minute now, I imagine somebody at a listening station on a smaller, bluer planet a few in from this one making a minute adjustment to their equipment and promptly spraying warm stimulant-laced beverage over their console...
posted by hob at 11:16 AM PST - 13 comments

Would you sign your name to this statement? Why doesn't it appear in an American media outlet?
posted by nofundy at 11:12 AM PST - 70 comments

A whole new spin on "Home Schooling". Child-endangerment charges follow apparent sharing of Ecstasy with his kids on HBO show. I can think of a number of documentaries I've seen where illegal activity was taking place but never heard of the participant/s being arrested. Dangerous precedence? (via Obscure Store)
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 11:05 AM PST - 10 comments

"Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives..."
The Rev. Jerry Vines slams Islam while speaking to delegates at the Southern Baptist Convention this week. The group's newly-elected president, the Rev. Jack Graham, refused to denounce the comments since "his statement is actually a statement that can be confirmed." Hmmm... since when is 'demon-possessed' an emperical statement?

Anyone want to guess what the reaction would be if a Muslim leader denounced Jesus with this much venom?
posted by Dirjy at 10:50 AM PST - 47 comments

First JPEG virus discovered... "The W32/Perrun virus, as it is now being called, extracts data from JPEG files and then injects picture files with infected digital images. A fair warning to those individuals who are fond of sending multimedia files to friends and families." Is everyone's porn stash threatened now?
posted by darian at 10:08 AM PST - 28 comments

Lots of Robots is the site of Andy Murdock. Andy creates gorgeous animated films. Really stunning.
posted by gwint at 9:32 AM PST - 9 comments

The eight worst TV dads, according to EW. Just in time for Father's Day. Tony Soprano is #1, Ozzy #2. Aw, Ozzy is a bit mad, but at least he wants to do right by his kids. I make no excuse for Tony Soprano. He'll buy Meadow whatever she wants, but then again, he offed her boyfriend. Any bad (or good) TV dads to discuss?
posted by GaelFC at 9:30 AM PST - 27 comments

Harmik… a name synonymous with the legendary singer Tom Jones. Internationally recognized and praised as the #1 Tom Jones look and sound alike in the world. When Harmik met Tom in 1998, Tom amazed at the resemblance said to Harmik "you look more like me than I do."
posted by kirkaracha at 9:15 AM PST - 9 comments

HP Lovecraft is often seen as the first modern horror writer, and maybe the best. His stories tend to follow a certain formula: a protagonist investigates strange events and is drawn into ancient horrors and madness. Lovecraft himself seems to have been deeply freaked out by the ocean, and evil from the deeps is another common theme.

Anyone who has seen The Deep episode of the BBC's Blue Planet is well on their way to feeling as Lovecraft did. And recently, strange artifacts and strange sounds have arisen from the deeps.
Are you Afraid? Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagh'nagl fhtagn!
posted by malphigian at 8:49 AM PST - 18 comments

"I could hella be a gigolo." Have you ever eavesdropped on a conversation and heard one part that was so bizarre that you had to share it with others? Welcome to "In Passing", a daily chronicle of overheard snippets of conversations.
posted by ColdChef at 8:32 AM PST - 44 comments

U.S. Consulate attacked in Karachi, Pakistan. No one has claimed responsibility for the car bombing that has left 8 dead and another 40+ injured.
posted by catatonic at 6:39 AM PST - 21 comments

How much is inside?
posted by Spoon at 6:21 AM PST - 19 comments

Spider-Man "too violent for kids" The British Board of Film Classification has given the Spider-Man film (which opens here in the UK today) a '12' certificate because of its violence, meaning no one under that age can see it. Some local authorities have exercised their power to reclassify it as a 'PG' to open it up to younger viewers.
The BBFC's argument runs that "The violence is set in a modern urban setting with a clear message that the use of violence is the normal and appropriate response when challenged." In fact, I'd say, the film suggests that an appropriate response when challenged is to put on an armoured exo-skeleton and fly around on a jey-powered glider. How can the BBFC not get the concept that this is a fantasy?
posted by jonpollard at 3:05 AM PST - 45 comments

Plutocracy and Politics. Paul Krugman's musings upon reading Kevin Phillip's Wealth and Democracy: How Great Fortunes and Government Created America's Aristocracy, reviewed here by Bruce Reed of the Washington Monthly. Also, Three Questions For Kevin Phillips.
posted by y2karl at 1:46 AM PST - 9 comments