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Konono No. 1 "This band is one of the main exponents of a spectacular style of music which has developed in the suburbs of Kinshasa (DR Congo). The Congolese call it "tradi-modern", in other words: electrified traditional music. These are musicians who left the bush to settle in the capital and who, in order to go on keep fulfilling their social role and make themselves heard by the ancestors (and, more concretely, by their fellow citizens) despite the high level of urban noise, have had to resort to DIY amplification of their instruments, and to megaphones (conical speakers). This makeshift electrification has provoked a radical mutation of their sound, as it has introduced distortions which they have integrated to their style. [...] The band's line-up includes three electric likembés [thumb pianos] (bass, medium and treble), equipped with hand-made microphones built from magnets salvaged from old car parts, and plugged into amplifiers." Via womanonfire.
comment posted at 11:56 AM on Feb-25-03

Virtual march on Washington. "On February 26th, in every Senate office and in the White House, the phones will be ringing off their hooks...Working together, we'll direct a steady stream of phone calls - about one per minute, all day...while at the same time delivering a constant stream of emails and faxes."
comment posted at 10:08 AM on Feb-25-03

Fast for George W. Bush. "If you are willing to fast at least one day a month primarily for George W. Bush's holiness (and other areas, such as bipartisan work among the Democrats and Republicans, Wisdom in his work, wisdom for his cabinet, healing for our nation, etc. ... but primarily holiness) then we encourage you to sign up and join us [...] Our goal is to have 1,000 people fasting for the President each day. That will greatly encourage him and keep him accountable when the Evil One seeks to sidetrack him from his commitment to the Lord. "
comment posted at 10:56 PM on Feb-24-03
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comment posted at 10:15 AM on Feb-26-03

Bush wants to deploy a new missile system - without testing it. Seems like a relatively bad idea, considering the numerous things that can do terribly awry with such a complex situation.
comment posted at 4:52 PM on Feb-24-03

Korean pop group has "Seoul". Covered in greasepaint and sticking their lips out in exaggerated fashion, Korean girl group, the Bubble Sisters, sing and dance to teenybopper pop in blackface. In homogenous countries, racism seems to play out differently than in diverse countries such as the United States. In Asia, putting on blackface may be seen as a way to pay homage to artists of African ethnicity, but in the U.S. it makes most people cringe and recoil in horror much like hearing someone say the "N" word. The Bubble Sisters profess a love for black music and seek to emulate it, but in their “Bubble Song” video, the group wears blackface while lamenting they are ugly and praying to be pretty for their true loves. Is this an earnest homage to African-American musicians, blatantly offensive Sambo-esque imagery or a cultural misinterpretation of flattery?
comment posted at 2:01 PM on Feb-24-03
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Parts of Bible ruled hate speech in Canada. Frankly, I've always found it odd how easily the gay and lesbian community lives with what can best be described as thinly-veiled death threats like in this ad. "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."
comment posted at 7:40 PM on Feb-23-03

Just Party like it's 2060 According to some researchers, this will be the year sir Issac Newton predicted the world will come to an end, based on his Biblical interpretations. Like we didn't have enough depressing news already.
comment posted at 7:06 PM on Feb-23-03

Anti-Bush T-shirt banned at Michigan school "DEARBORN, Michigan (AP) -- School officials ordered a 16-year-old student to either take off a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "International Terrorist" and a picture of President Bush and or go home, saying they worried it would inflame passions at the school where a majority of students are Arab-American. " That amazes me. Heard the same thing with a canadian teenager wearing this Tshirt of his favorite rock star, Matthew Good. "Freedom of fashion?"...
comment posted at 5:50 PM on Feb-23-03

Nightclub fire injures scores at the Station nightclub in West Warwick, RI at a Great White concert on Thursday night. WHJY-FM reports that 150 people have been taken to area hospitals and 10-20 bodies have been recovered from the scene so far; blood is needed in the Providence area and a press conference is imminent. A Kent County official reports 40-50 unconfirmed casualties, and an unnamed West Warwick fire official has been quoted as saying that bodies "are stacked in there like cordwood [Providence Journal; requires registration]."
comment posted at 1:42 PM on Feb-21-03
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Giving lip. Put your words in the mouths of talking heads. Or dogs, with Scottish accents. Brought to you by the good folks at Bud. Weis. Er. Excellent pronunciation!
comment posted at 8:12 PM on Feb-20-03
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comment posted at 10:52 AM on Feb-21-03

Open Source Content Management Systems Great resource for software (typically free) that allows you to start and maintain websites. The owners have gone so far as to install each one of them and give users admin access to try them out before downloading them.
comment posted at 4:49 PM on Feb-20-03

Despot or Sexpot? Are these the moustaches of historical dictators or famous porn stars?
comment posted at 7:47 AM on Feb-19-03

How to love the US is a story on the newly redesigned BBC pages, just recently mentioned here. I was struck by the tone of the piece, which seemed to me to be a desperate bid to find good things to say about the US.
Have things really sunk so low? Is the US so despised that it needs the BBC to pimp it?
comment posted at 7:15 AM on Feb-19-03
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Tom Ridge wants you to be ready. Kind of like Airtoons for the Homeland. I particularly like how Texas is the location of the radiation threat.
comment posted at 6:24 PM on Feb-18-03
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Protato. India has developed a genetically modified potato that contains 30% more protein than your standard spud. The hope is to use the 'protato' to combat malnutrition. Needless to say, there are those who dissent from the GM spud being touted as a cure-all for world hunger.
comment posted at 5:35 PM on Feb-18-03

A refreshing read With all the bad news and fear in the air lately, I found this article to be hopeful. I hope that merits a post.
comment posted at 1:00 PM on Feb-18-03

French Muslims Influence Government Policy on Iraq This piece from an on-line Arab source helps us to understand the French reluctance to want a war with Iraq. And you thought it was only about French oil interests, but non.
comment posted at 1:20 PM on Feb-18-03

"They missed a good opportunity to keep quiet." Is it wise for France to make opposition to war against Saddam such a central tenet of their foreign policy? Opposing the war may be politically sound today, but this seems a bit heavy-handed, and perhaps short-sighted. Is "European solidarity" just a code phrase for "France and Germany get to call the shots"?
comment posted at 1:57 PM on Feb-20-03

The Best Food You Never Had: Reading Jake Adam York's juicy essay on the art of the barbecue, I was once again sadly reminded I've never had the pleasure of tasting real, Southern U.S. open-pit barbecue. I have no idea whether it's better in Texas, Kansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Kentucky or Georgia; whether pork is better than beef; smoked is tastier than plain... Then I realized there are quite a number of other delicious foods (like fresh abalone sashimi; Alaskan king crab cooked live; a clam-bake on the beach; real wasabi; smoked sablefish; fresh unsalted caviar; an oyster Po'Boy...) I've never tried. It's an interesting gastronomic category: something you've read about and heard about and probably drooled over, that you just know you'd love if only you had a chance to try it! So forgive my curiosity: what's the best food you've never had? [Main link via Arts and Letters Daily]
comment posted at 2:52 PM on Feb-12-03
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Did the Feds bungle intelligence on the 1995 OKC Bombing? FBI officials feared that white separatists might lash out on April 19, 1995 -- the day McVeigh chose. They were so concerned that a month earlier they questioned a reformed white supremacist familiar with an earlier plot to bomb the Murrah federal building, the one McVeigh selected. Does this affect earlier theories on OKC? Does it make the current advisories more significant?
comment posted at 10:28 AM on Feb-12-03

Pencil Carving For Experts. A mere four months after I posted this, I ran across this latest site of pencil carving wizardry, this time from Japan. Be sure to check out the gallery. The bar has been raised.
comment posted at 3:53 PM on Feb-11-03

Some interesting Q & A with Roger Ebert in the National Post regarding commercials in movie theatres. We assume that the only sure fire way to get your message across would be to walk out and demand your money back, but a theatre manager is quoted as saying Everything else is secondary to making sure all commercials are running -- including customer complaints. Yes, but for how long? And why does it seem that so few people are annoyed by this?
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Not your average athlete He walked away from pro football glory to serve his nation, and he's loving every minute of it.
comment posted at 12:37 PM on Feb-7-03

"Feminism" isn't the problem , it's Woman's Super Ego that's the problem. "...there comes a time in every relationship when a woman has to be tender and empathetic. If she can't or won't do that, it doesn't matter if she has the face of Helen of Troy with George Eliot's mind."
comment posted at 11:54 AM on Feb-6-03

Which Breakfast Club character are you? No, it's not another online quiz. It's an article on a project done by a social researcher, asking 900 high school sophomores to choose which Breakfast Club character they were most like. Following up 16 years later, their associations played out to a high degree as they grew older. So which were you, Jock, Princess, Brain, Basket Case or Criminal? Did your self-image in high school have lasting effects on your life?
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