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"Inmate rape has such an established place in the mythology of prison that references to confinement often call forth jokes about sexual assault. But while rape is accepted as a fact of prison life, the subject has received little serious attention and legal remedies are rare. Few prison rapists are ever prosecuted, and most prisons provide little counseling or medical attention for rape victims, or help in preventing such attacks." New York Times: Little Sympathy -- I don't know what this does for recidivism, but it doesn't sound like rehabilitation to me. What's a prison activist to do?
comment posted at 11:21 PM on Apr-17-01

Trellix buys Blogger.
comment posted at 11:44 PM on Apr-17-01
comment posted at 9:18 PM on Apr-18-01

Joey Ramone dead at 49. Succumbed to lymphatic cancer.
comment posted at 3:53 PM on Apr-15-01
comment posted at 1:49 PM on Apr-16-01
comment posted at 11:34 PM on Apr-17-01

IF THE VIKINGS HAD FOUNDED New York (and they damn well nearly did), they probably would have called it New Jorvik after their own city of Jorvik (now called York) on the coast of Britain. Despite their reputation as marauders, Viking York was a densely populated and bustling port city which boasted a skyline of high rise buildings. It was the New York of it's day and here's a sense of what it was like.
comment posted at 12:38 PM on Apr-15-01

New April additions to the "Interior Desecrators" gallery of horrific 70's design will leave you in awe (or gouging your eyes out, it's your choice). You'll wonder who on earth would ever use a bathroom like this, if you were child how on earth could you sleep in this room, and why, why, why? It's already 20-30 years behind us, but I distinctly remember looking at my parents' Better Homes and Gardens books like this and wishing I lived in those high tech interiors. Remember to check back each month for updates.
comment posted at 10:01 PM on Apr-14-01

"You don't have to burn books now," says Thomas. "You just press the delete key." Two unabashedly partisan reports of the Bush administration's clandestine campaign to "tighten up" anything from online government sources dealing with the development of Alaskan mineral resources. We've done the debate on Alaska, but what about the ability to amend online records? The old administration's sites are meant to be preserved by law, but plenty appears to have been deleted in the name of "polishing": "We changed value-laden words like 'destroy' to 'impact.'" Newspeak in action? Should government-run sites be required to carry a Changelog?
comment posted at 9:47 PM on Apr-14-01

J. Philippe Rushton topped? You may remember the controversy over Mr. Rushton's book, "The Bell Curve". The scholarly work linked above has the potential to be just as provocative.
comment posted at 2:15 PM on Apr-14-01

Brando ill. The saddest, scariest part of this story is that he was just getting ready to film Scary Movie II when he got sick. Scary Movie II...and the Oscar for "Most Pathetic Former Genius" goes to....
comment posted at 4:45 PM on Apr-13-01

The Nation finds 200,000 Floridians disenfranchised in voter-roll purging operations last year, a disproportionate number of them black. They charge this was an effort in direct response to phenomenally successful voter registration drives in the black community.
comment posted at 2:45 PM on Apr-13-01
comment posted at 11:33 PM on Apr-13-01

Davey and Goliath. When I watched this show as a kid, I had no idea it was pushing so much religion at me. Still... memories right? The Clips are pretty low quality in .mov format. Bless you Davey, let's pray.
comment posted at 2:28 PM on Apr-13-01

Well that didn't last long.... Yahoo caves in and renegs on the porn thing.
comment posted at 12:27 PM on Apr-13-01

Anti-Semitism on the comics pages. Is it just me, or is this way over the line?
comment posted at 10:49 PM on Apr-12-01

Yahoo to donate $3 million in free banner advertising for Tolerance.org. This ranks up there as one of the coolest things Yahoo has ever done: whenever people search for hate-filled words, they'll get a banner ad reminding them of the effects of discrimination and intolerance. A single banner ad won't change the world, but it certainly can't hurt to spread information about tolerance (via rc3.org)
comment posted at 11:06 PM on Apr-12-01
comment posted at 12:03 PM on Apr-13-01
comment posted at 12:46 PM on Apr-13-01
comment posted at 1:56 PM on Apr-13-01

There's a wingnut on the streets of Seattle wearing a sign saying "will do web design for food." Not only does his sign have a URL, but he's keeping a weblog of his progress. Here's a [self-link] better photo of the dude who, full disclosure, I do not know at all. Please do not hire him, I want to watch this unfold.
comment posted at 11:59 AM on Apr-13-01

McVeigh's execution will be on closed-circuit television for the families of bomb victims to watch. Now, as a person who sees dead people fairly often, even I can't imagine watching an execution. So my question is: is this public entertainment for the bloodthirsty, or some misguided idea of providing "closure"?
comment posted at 6:23 AM on Apr-12-01
comment posted at 6:51 AM on Apr-12-01
comment posted at 3:34 PM on Apr-12-01
comment posted at 10:27 PM on Apr-12-01
comment posted at 2:15 PM on Apr-13-01

Kozmo is dead. I know they weren't making much money, they spent too much on advertising, and they were eventually going to go away, but they're possibly the most convenient and useful service on the web (amazon being the only thing close). I'm sorry to see them go, they were the greatest thing in the world when you're sick or when it's too late to go out for videos and ice cream (kozmo.com is unreachable already).
comment posted at 9:42 PM on Apr-11-01

This link is copyright, Eric Costello... aka Glish. No, really, he's serious. Is this really necessary? Comments?
comment posted at 2:24 PM on Apr-11-01

75% of Americans favor Government funding of faith-based organizations. However, when asked about specific faiths, that number drops dramatically to 38% for Buddhist Temples and 29% for the Nation of Islam. So what did they expect, their own religion should get funds, but no others?
comment posted at 1:26 PM on Apr-11-01

I Love Paul Krugman! He, better than any writer I have seen, cuts through all the political BS to expose the Republican party, whose members, for the most part, obtain office by cleverly deceiving the little people on what is in their interest. I would love to see PK "debate" the President (link to the NYTIMES--make up a username/password if don't have one and you're that concerned).
comment posted at 1:47 PM on Apr-11-01

Bush is no idiot - or so claims this opinion piece from The London Times. "What a pity that President Bush’s critics haven’t learnt to leave the playground, and its insults, behind." What Bush has done is "show that a conservative isn’t just a leftwinger with better table manners but an honest defender of superior principles."
comment posted at 2:12 PM on Apr-11-01
comment posted at 2:15 PM on Apr-11-01

Riots in Cincinnati. Cincinnati city police have this odd habit of killing unarmed young black males. In November, two men were killed. One was shot, another was crushed or suffocated while already in police custody and, according to witnesses, not resisting. Several weeks later a policeman shot and killed a twelve year old out joy-riding. Saturday night an officer chased down and shot a nineteen year old he 'thought he recognized' as someone with outstanding traffic warrants. Every time someone is killed Cincinnati city council promises to look into the matter but does nothing. Today someone decided to take action, even if it was in a destructive and politically impotent form of action.
comment posted at 9:46 PM on Apr-10-01

Focus on the Family Contacts Will & Grace Story Editor
...and gets more than it bargained for!
comment posted at 8:30 PM on Apr-10-01

Blogs of Our Lives. There I was, enjoying a Burger King breakfast, reading the local Gannett paper, when I turn to their Tuesday technology section and find . . .
comment posted at 9:22 PM on Apr-10-01

School's mathematics don't add up! PS 234, a primary school in TriBeCa, is at the forefront of the revolution in math instruction being carried out in more than half of New York City's schools. The district's approach to math instruction follows an egalitarian theory called "constructivist math," which is the idea that children shouldn't learn basic techniques for adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying. Rather, emphasis is placed on "feeling good about numbers" etc. Said one angry parent, "The idea that the home has to be turned into the school because the school is the testing ground for inane programs - that's frightening." And leading university mathematicians have joined parent groups in denouncing the method. All things concidered, is it right for schools to use children as guinea pigs in this manner?
comment posted at 10:58 PM on Apr-10-01

He's baaaack. Business news bad boy Lou Dobbs returns home to CNN, and his estranged babies CNNfn and Moneyline. No word on whether he'll have to divest himself of his personal playtoy, Space.com. (My guess is he won't. CNN is desperate.) Can he restore Moneyline's past glory and steal back the ratings crown from Baldy and Bubbles?
comment posted at 6:33 AM on Apr-10-01
comment posted at 6:40 AM on Apr-10-01

"These Wall Street stunners are what truly spur aggressive growth," teases Playboy in their latest attempt since failing miserably at luring a TV Analyst to bare all. [Via: The Daily Telegraph (Friday, April 06. Page 37.)]
comment posted at 6:04 AM on Apr-10-01

A FIFTH-grade girl at Cincinnati's Mount Airy School says at least 15 boys have been trading soda and cash for sex with at least five girls, according to WLWT Eyewitness News. Police and school officials are looking into the allegation, which claims the students -- some as young as 10 -- were sneaking into closets to do it.
comment posted at 6:12 AM on Apr-10-01

Free Cone Day- Ben and Jerry's gives the world a cone- May 2, 2001
comment posted at 11:15 PM on Apr-9-01
comment posted at 5:54 AM on Apr-10-01

Germany Plans Infowar Against Websites? So, Wired News reports that German Interior Minister Otto Schily has said publicly that Germany should stage denial-of-service attacks on right-wing websites housed in other countries. AOL versus Germany as WWWIII/InfoWar I?
comment posted at 3:11 PM on Apr-9-01

Boingy boingy boingy. Has anyone had any experience with these? The movies on the website look pretty cool.. and it would seem that doctoring those videos up would take some considerable effort, so I'm guessing it's not a hoax?
comment posted at 3:14 PM on Apr-9-01

A Flash usability white paper that says Flash can improve the usability of a web site.

"When executed correctly, with attention paid to the needs and wants of users, Macromedia Flash content can actually improve the user experience on any Web site."

Can Flash be saved if developers start thinking about usability? Is this going to impact Jakob Nielsen's 99% figure?
comment posted at 3:41 PM on Apr-9-01

Can Salon make it? A great article, if you're interested in Salon, content on the web, and/or online journalism in general. A few things I learned: Salon's peak readership is 3 million unique visitors a month; Salon's office got bomb threats after they broke the Hyde affair story; and Salon's founding editor made $175,000 last year, plus a $50,000 bonus.
comment posted at 12:28 AM on Apr-9-01

Pre-bankruptcy bonuses at PG&E The corruption in California couldn't be any more obvious to me.
comment posted at 4:02 PM on Apr-8-01
comment posted at 11:54 PM on Apr-8-01
comment posted at 12:40 AM on Apr-9-01

New book talks about democracy and the web. The student newspaper that I work for reviewed the new book Republic.com, which talks about the potential problems that the Internet poses to democracy. Contrary the ideal of free information and exposure to new ideas on the Internet, the author concludes that in online communities, people choose to associate with people who share similiar opinions, which subsequently radicalizes their opinions and shuts them out to opposing voices. Food for thought.
comment posted at 9:55 AM on Apr-7-01