MetaFilter posts by y2karl.
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A Private Army Grows Around the U.S. Mission in Iraq and Around the World As Report Shows Iraq Contractors Politically Active
--see also Making A Killing - The Business of War, and on the inside...
posted on Oct-30-03 at 4:50 AM
It seems slightly scandalous that Krugman has persisted in noting that the present administration has been moving the lion's share of the money to an array of corporate interests distinguished by the greed of their CEOs, an indifference toward their workers, and boardroom conviction that it is the welfare state that is ruining the country. Krugman has been strident. He has been shrill. He has lowered the dignity of the commentariat. How refreshing. Russell Baker reviews Paul Krugman's The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. We have now reached a point when even the White House may be forced to sort out how a president who got elected to execute a straightforward business agenda managed to sandbag himself with the coinciding fantasies of the ideologues in the Christian fundamentalist ministries and those in his own administration.... Joan Didion reviews Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages by Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. The New York Review of Books 40th anniversary edition is an especially good read..
posted on Oct-28-03 at 5:02 PM
At least four times in the fall of 2002, the president and his advisers invoked the specter of a "mushroom cloud," and some of them, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, described Iraq's nuclear ambitions as a threat to the American homeland... Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.
So in regards to Iraq's possession of the one weapon we can be certain causes mass destruction: the atomic bomb, as Gregg Easterbrook put it, the verdict is the unsurprising (and unsurprisingly closely held) nope, not, zero, zip, nada...
posted on Oct-27-03 at 3:43 PM
Forecasters at the NOAA Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo., observed two dynamic areas of the sun, one of which has produced a coronal mass ejection, or CME, Wednesday morning at 3 a.m. EDT that appears to be Earth-directed. The forecasters are predicting a strong geomagnetic storm, G-3 on the NOAA Space Weather Scales, that should reach Earth on Friday, October 24. Satellite and other spacecraft operations, power systems, high frequency communications, and navigation systems may experience disruptions over this two-week period. Auroras visible in the lower 48 states are possible tonight and tomorrow.
posted on Oct-24-03 at 1:42 PM
How the Poll Results on Iraq Were Manipulated by James Zogby, Special to Arab News - ...In fact, Zogby International in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the American Enterprise Institute did publish their interpretation of the findings. But the AEI’s "spin" and the vice president’s use of their "spin" created a faulty impression of the poll’s results and, therefore, of the attitudes of the Iraqi people. Consider some of the other poll findings: Over 55 percent give a negative rating to "how the US military is dealing with Iraqi civilians." Only 20 percent gave the US military a positive rating... When asked whom they preferred to "provide security and restore order in their country," only 6.5 percent said the US...
posted on Oct-23-03 at 8:25 AM
Beginning in April 2002, the State Department project assembled more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts... to study topics ranging from creating a new justice system to reorganizing the military to revamping the economy. Their findings included a much more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems... warned... many Iraqis might react coolly to Americans' notion of quickly rebuilding civil society. Several officials said that many of the findings in the $5 million study were ignored by Pentagon officials until recently... The work is now being relied on heavily as occupation forces struggle to impose stability in Iraq.
posted on Oct-20-03 at 9:33 AM
Since finding that Tongue In Chic was on CD at last, of late I've thought of the rhythm section nonpareil, Chic, with that welded groove between Nile Rodgers's guitar and Bernard Edwards's bass. As performers and producers--applying the patented Chic sound to an encyclopedia of superstars--what Chic played was a tight and transcendent penthouse funk. Now I find that Nile Rodgers has a homepage, too. The Links pages one and all are motherlodes of Chic-ism, let it be noted. Ah-h-h, Freak Out!
posted on Oct-16-03 at 12:28 AM
A certain psychologist of Hungarian extraction, Mihaly Csikszentimihaly--sounds like stoned sex-crazed muppet: Me High-ee! Chicks sent me highee!--began by monitoring the activities and emotional states of talented adolescent artists with what became known as experience sampling forms, now available in a new, improved hi tech version. He found people reported the greatest satisfaction when actively involved in a challenging task that stretches abilities, to the extent that time, space, and self-awareness become secondary to the accomplishment of the task. He wrote a book about it, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, which flew off the shelves in the Self Help sections of bookstores everywhere--even though there were no easy steps nor Idiots Guide To... included beyond an academic enunciation of the parameters involved: the zone of experience in which Flow existed. [More Within]
posted on Oct-10-03 at 1:02 PM
We can know more than we can tell. Consider The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi. The Tacit Knowledge and Intuition Website has one take on Polanyi's concept of tacit knowing. Karl Erik Sveiby also has an interesting page in Tacit Knowledge and provides you the opportunity to Test Your Tacit Knowledge. Tacit knowledge and Implicit learning provides yet another view. I don't pretend to understand much of this and yet I feel the concept has merit--ah, as Wittgenstein observed, Of that of which we can not speak, we must be silent.
If you know what I mean... *rolls eyes*
posted on Oct-7-03 at 8:59 AM
An Enigma Wrapped In Songs. Here is Laura Nyro.com, the home page of the late Laura Nyro. Laura Nyro.net is the most elaborate fan page ever, with not only photos, interviews, articles, audio and video clips but two virtual reality galleries in VRML!--it's truly the labor of love of all labors of love. The Ectophiles Guide To Good Music! has an informative Laura Nyro Page. Here's a link to a mianfei's So you'd like to... Understand The Legacy Of Laura Nyro --I'd never thought I'd link to an Amazon customer's fan page but she's got Nyro's story in a nutshell, so there it is. And those famous philistines at Wilson and Alroy's Record Reviews presents a, shall we say, more sanguine and detached perspective.
posted on Oct-6-03 at 12:53 AM
A land ruled by chaos. Award-winning writer Suzanne Goldenberg returns to Iraq, from where she reported on Saddam's fall. But in place of the promised peace she finds a country where lawlessness, violence and fear have filled the void.
posted on Oct-3-03 at 10:04 PM
The King and Tehanu go to meet dragons. A map of Earthsea. A very large map of Earthsea. The Hainish Encyclopedia. The Ekumen. The Disconnected. Le Guin's World. Ursula K Le Guin's Official Website.
posted on Oct-2-03 at 9:29 PM
Iraq: What Went Wrong By General Wesley K. Clark. I appreciate this article. It is simple, easy to read, and represents what I've been feeling for quite some time now. (NY Review of Books)
posted on Oct-1-03 at 11:46 AM
Stumbling Into War by James P. Rubin, From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003
Why did most of the world abandon Washington when it went after Saddam Hussein? The war in Iraq could never have been an easy sell, but nor should it have been such a difficult one. The Bush administration badly botched the prewar maneuvering, presenting a textbook study in how not to wage a diplomatic campaign.
posted on Sep-21-03 at 9:16 PM
David Garland's disturbing new book addresses the question why there are so many more people in jail in America and Britain than anywhere else... Its broader concern is with "cultures of control," how societies treat deviance and violence and whom they single out for what treatment. Here are some facts about skyrocketing imprisonment... There are approximately two million people in jail in America today, 2,166,260 at last count: more than four times as many people as thirty years ago. It is the largest number in our history... [and] between four and ten times the incarceration rate of any civilized country in the world... Twelve percent of African-American men between twenty and thirty-four are currently behind bars (the highest figure ever recorded by the Justice Department) compared to 1.6 percent of white men of comparable ages. And according to the same source, 28 percent of black men will be sent to jail in their lifetime... It was not until crime rates had already leveled off that incarceration rates began their steady, year-by-year climb. Between 1972 and 1992, while the population of America's prisons grew and grew, the crime rate as a whole continued at the same level, unchanged. Jerome S. Bruner reviews The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society for The New York Review of Books, as does Austin Sarat in the American Prospect.
posted on Sep-18-03 at 7:14 PM
The Gropenator will have to spin his wheels for awhile: California's Vote Delayed by Court Over Punch Cards. And here's the kicker--it's deja vu all over again, Bizarro stylee: Bush v. Gore Outlives Its Limited Warranty for Use in California
The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore was meant to be a ticket good for one ride. "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances," the justices said in their unsigned opinion in 2000, "for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities." Three judges on the federal appeals court in San Francisco, all appointed by Democratic presidents, decided yesterday to use it for another ride anyway.
posted on Sep-15-03 at 8:23 PM
Heraclitus of Ephesus, sometimes called Heraclitus the Obscure: We only know him through 100 gnomic quotes and aphorisms--I loves me some gnomic aphorisms!--all direct from or inferred in the comments of various authors of Classical literature, of which no one steps into the same river twice is the best known. Mark Cohen, J. H. Lesher and Cynthia Freeman provide excellent introductions. John Burnett's 1920 translation is another academic standard. Jonathan Barnes. whose Penguin Classic The Early Greek Philosophers has the best contemporary translation, wrote Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour. Here are the jampots of Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger. And here, in passing, is a taste of the jampot of Jorge Luis Borges. Heraclitus coined the word enantiodromia. John William Corrington's Logos, Lex, And Law is also of interest. Heraclitus figures strongly in the Archetypal Psychology of Carl Jung and James Hillman, the latter especially in his discussion of the Soul.
posted on Sep-11-03 at 5:59 AM
Iraq Estimates Were Too Low, U.S. Admits
The White House acknowledged Monday that it substantially underestimated the cost of rebuilding Iraq and that even the additional $87 billion it was seeking from a wary Congress would fall far short of what is needed for postwar reconstruction. Administration officials said President Bush's emergency spending request - which would push the U.S. budget deficit above the half-trillion-dollar mark for the first time - still left a reconstruction funding gap of as much as $55 billion.
Reserve Tours Are Extended
With U.S. forces stretched thin in Iraq and the Bush administration still searching for additional international peacekeepers, the Army has ordered thousands of National Guard and Army Reserve forces in Iraq to extend their tours in the country to a year, months longer than many of the troops had anticipated, Army officials said yesterday.
$87,000,000,000 + $55,000,000,000=$142,000,000,000
One year tours for National Guard and Army Reservists
Hope you enjoyed your meal--here's your bill...
posted on Sep-9-03 at 7:14 AM
How To Be A Jug or String Band MVP - starting with guitar: It's all in tablature, by the way, something easy enough to understand. Three finger fingerpicking guitar is easy to learn--start with Mississippi John Hurt: Payday was the first song I ever learned. Of course, it's a cinch, being in Open D--but open tunings are a cinch, too. With open tunings, how about learning some slide guitar? Beyond John Hurt, slide or not, open or standard, , there are the ever expanding Fahey Tablatures at John Fahey.com, where Melissa keeps the flame burning ever brightly.
There's Much More Within...
posted on Sep-5-03 at 2:06 PM
Unprepared for Peace in Iraq
Let us reject the blinders of isolationism, just as we refuse the crown of empire. Let us not dominate others with our power -- or betray them with our indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. The humility of real greatness.
Presidential Candidate George W Bush, 2000
Footnotes: March 26, 2003: U.S. Plans For Post-Conflict Iraq Receive Mixed Grade - CSIS Scorecard Cites Gaps, Shortcomings in Administration's Plans; March 2003: Plotting the Aftermath; August, 26, 2003: Do What It Takes in Iraq--and, on an ancillary note: WMD: Intelligence Without Brains
posted on Aug-26-03 at 9:27 AM
Hidden Sides, Hushed Ideals of a Civil Rights Strategist
Bayard Rustin - Quaker, former Young Communist cum anti-communist socialist, advocate of non-violence, ''known homosexual'' , architect of the March on Washington and, it goes without saying, great American. A critical socialist take on Rustin. Here, for our resident Malcolm X man, a debate between Rustin and X in 1960--do note the latter's views evolved greatly between then and his assassination--and here is Nat Hentoff on Rustin. A recent P.O.V. fim on Rustin - Brother Outsider.
posted on Aug-25-03 at 9:17 AM
SEE! Harvey Pekar, file clerk extraordinaire, wrestle with mortality. DREAM!! with Harvey as he plots to re-sell his used books and records for absurdly inflated prices. FEAR!!! for your sanity as Harvey takes you deep into the bowels of a Cleveland veteran's hospital. RAGE!!!! with Harvey at the aggression and general obtuseness of people around him. He's a reasonable guy. He's also a noted jazz critic, book reviewer and radio commentator. Now Playing At A Theater Near You.
posted on Aug-19-03 at 2:32 PM
Welcome to Root Beer World! Root Beer Reviews. Ask Dr. Root Beer about Root Beer Brand Names! Then ask Professor Root Beer about his reviews. And for the home brewer, a recipe for Root Beer Concentrate. More Root Beer Recipes. Root Beer History. Apart from root beer schnapps and various root beer float recipes, it's not a beverage one associates with mixed drinks. Ah, but it is so sweet and cool to drink on a hot summer's day.... Well, salud!
posted on Aug-17-03 at 2:47 PM
Democracy might be impossible, US was told
The CIA's March report concluded that Iraqi society and history showed little evidence to support the creation of democratic institutions, going so far as to say its prospects for democracy could be "impossible," according to intelligence officials who have seen it. The assessment was based on Iraq's history of repression and war; clan, tribal and religious conflict; and its lack of experience as a viable country prior to its arbitrary creation as a monarchy by British colonialists after World War I.
The State Department came to the same conclusion. "Liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve in Iraq," said a March State Department report, first reported by the Los Angeles Times. "Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements."
posted on Aug-14-03 at 3:50 PM
Howard Armstrong, artist and black string band musician who played 22 instruments--excelling by far on violin and mandolin--who spoke seven languages, who first recorded in 1930 and was still an active performer up into this year, died last Wednesday of complications due to a heart attack he suffered in March. He was the subject of the P.O.V. film Sweet Old Song, which will be reprised a week from today on August 12th, 2003. He was also the subject of Louie Bluie--the first film by string band muscian and director of Crumb and Ghost World, Terry Zwigoff--which is well worth your watching by itself. He was quite a character and lived quite a life.
posted on Aug-5-03 at 5:40 PM
Weaponizing Space
The Case Against
Four Myths about Space Power - From Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly
Star wars could make space unusable
posted on Jul-29-03 at 7:58 PM
Study Finds 2.6% Increase in U.S. Prison Population The nation's prison population grew 2.6 percent last year, the largest increase since 1999, according to a study by the Justice Department. The jump came despite a small decline in serious crime in 2002. It also came when a growing number of states facing large budget deficits have begun trying to reduce prison costs by easing tough sentencing laws passed in the 1990's, thereby decreasing the number of inmates. The key finding in the report is this growth, which is somewhat surprising in its size after several years of relative stability in the prison population, said Allen J. Beck, an author of the report. U.S. Prison Population Grew 2.6% in 2002. The country's prisons, jails and juvenile facilities held 2,166,260 persons at the end of last year, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) said in a report released today. Prisoners in 2002 Abstract
posted on Jul-28-03 at 12:17 AM
Comics for Grown-Ups
David Hadju discusses Joe Sacco's Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde and Daniel Clowes' Ghost World. I wanted to link the Ghost World movie site but it's currently down. Whether this is permanently or not, I know not. I'll be sad if it's gone--it was so darn cool and so elegantly done.
posted on Jul-26-03 at 3:35 AM
As to The Uses and Disadvantages of Socrates, sources differ but seem to share in common an ideal fictional Socrates to speak their understanding of the common account. From Doug Linder's Famous Trials--for your bookmarking convenience--comes The Trial of Socrates, featuring ample background materials, including I.F. Stone's take. Marilyn Katz's Background Materials on Socrates' Trial and Death are essential, too. Several other accounts are offered online--consider Socrates and his Audience, The Accusations Against Socrates, Gadfly on Trial: Socrates as Citizen and Social Critic and the rather d.i.y. Socrates Had It Coming. But as to the historical Socrates, the man in context becomes key--as all of the above do contend, more or less, let it be noted--and therefore one needs to become become familiar with things like sexuality in Fifth-Century Athens, desecration of the herms, Eleusian Mysteries, the Peloponnesian War, the fateful Sicilian Expedition and the collective memory of civil war and civic memory in ancient Athens that ensued, as well as the personalities of Critias and Alcibiades to answer the question entitled in my own favorite account, the book entire: Who Was Socrates ?
posted on Jul-24-03 at 6:33 AM
Preparing for War, Stumbling to Peace The Bush administration planned well and won the war with minimal allied casualties. Now, according to interviews with dozens of administration officials, military leaders and independent analysts, missteps in the planning for the subsequent peace could threaten the lives of soldiers and drain U.S. resources indefinitely and cloud the victory itself. Lonely At The Top Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that he hoped to enlist as many as 30,000 troops from 49 nations. The problem, however, is that many of the recruits the Pentagon has tried to line up so far appear to fall into two categories: the not so willing and the not that able. Report: U.S. May Call National Guard for Iraq Duty - The Pentagon could start a call-up of as many as 10,000 U.S. National Guard soldiers by this winter to bolster forces in Iraq and offset a lack of troops from allies, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Postwar Window Closing in Iraq, Study Says A team of outside experts dispatched by the Pentagon to assess security and reconstruction operations in Iraq reported yesterday that the window of opportunity for achieving postwar success is closing and requires immediate and dramatic action by U.S. military and civilian personnel. Turning and turning in the widening gyre...
posted on Jul-18-03 at 3:05 PM
We are because of others. We are born into this world with minds as naked as our bodies and we have to rely on others to feed, clothe us, and to teach us to think of ourselves as selves. The key is language -- grammatical speech and human culture build upon the brain's biological capacities to create a mind that is something different again than that with which we are born. We are conscious because we can speak to others and ourselves, because we can speak of ourselves to others and ourselves. Language gives us as individuals, memory, and as groups, culture, the social memory. Or so thought Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, among others. Welcome to the the neuronaut's guide to the science of consciousness.
posted on Jul-11-03 at 7:57 AM
Miracles You Will See In The Next 50 Years From Popular Mechanics, February 1950, Page 112. Ah, yes, I remember Yesterday's Tomorrows. Hey! Where's my robot slave? Why, I oughta... I'll Futurama you! Hey everybody--let's all sing There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow! Mmm... The Future In Song
posted on Jul-3-03 at 6:07 AM
Wussy Boy. Wussy Boy Manifesto. The Wussy Boy Chronicles.
Excerpt: Is A Wussy Boy/Is Not A Wussy Boy - A wuss upon wusses.
posted on Jul-1-03 at 8:24 PM
The Maxims of François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. He was on the losing side in the Fronde, and later became a luminary of the salons of 17th century France, more particularly the salon of Mme. de Sable at Port-Royal, who wrote a neat Maxim or too, herself. Also on topic are Mots Français and Four Essays on Writing and Sentences by Peter Kalkavage.
posted on Jun-29-03 at 4:32 PM
< earshot >
Live improvisation with digital audio. Play, loop and compose with multiple sound file formats, including: wav, aif, aiff, aifc, mov, au, mid, mp3, swa, mpg, mpeg, snd... Found while Googlifying for links to the currently tanked Johnny Spencer's 'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. I have not a clue as to the what or why of it but thought the teeming geeky horde might. Provided for your consumer testing.
posted on Jun-27-03 at 12:34 PM
As Penis enlarger with new credit line will clean your septic system *
--a recent piece of spam which I received--puts it:
OH MY GOD. No, really - this is one of the coolest websites of ALL TIME. You know I love you lots for sending me this url, and I am sworn to secrecy. Who the hell is this guy? And how did you find the site? I'm going to look at every single page and download every single one of these mp3s. Before you post this to mf, that is ;) - iconomy
Ladies, Gentlemen, Neuters and quonsar, I give you ...
Johnny Spencer's 'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. Music from both Jamaica and America!
You have scans of various 45s, Johnny's beautiful dust jacket artwork, his interesting system of nomenclature defining Jamaican popular music, detailed notation and... music!!
(caveat & details within)
posted on Jun-23-03 at 10:55 AM
BornDigital, anyone? Actually, try the Site Map. And the
links are... interesting enough--for instance, Tiny Pinnochio,
the world's smallest dog. Aww...
posted on Jun-20-03 at 3:09 PM
Greek Temple Architecture: They were houses--houses for cult statues, storehouses of treasures given to the gods--they were not churches. Worship consisted, by and large, of sacrificial ritual--animal sacrifice: killing animals and eating them, for the most part--and, hence, it was done out of doors. The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook's Accounts of Hellenic Religious Beliefs and Accounts of Personal Religion give additional flavor and context. Greek religious architecture evolved from wooden structures and was tradition bound--they built in stone as they had in wood according to variations on a traditional canon called the orders, first and foremost, the Doric Order , the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order. Here are some restorations. I love restorations, on paper or models rather than at the actual sites. The first in a series.
posted on Jun-19-03 at 5:05 AM
Did You Hear the One About the Suicide Bomber?
After Sept. 11, Shazia Mirza became famous by telling a single (some think abominable) joke. It's a funny thing, being a devout Muslim female comic.
posted on Jun-14-03 at 9:06 PM
Oh, the mundanity!
In the lyrics of the Beatles; in our tastes for amateur porn; in how to prepare a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; and, by extension, in The Journal of Mundane Behavior. It's about nothing extraordinary
...and everything ordinary. Think of it as Lilek's ...with Science.
--And here's one for MrBaliHai: Squat Toilets and Cultural Commensurability: Two Texts, Plus Three Photographs I Forgot to Take. (Earthquake not included.)
posted on May-29-03 at 10:01 AM
Prospecting for Gold Among the Photo Blogs
Photo blogs are the colorful offspring of blogs, or Web logs, written diaries posted and updated regularly on the Internet. For a half-dozen years people have been posting text blogs to rant and to ponder the events of the day and the dust beneath their feet. Then, sometime in 2000, people started posting photographs to go with the text. The photo blog was born. Now photo blogs often are posted with no text at all. And there are thousands of them.--Oolong gets his picture in the New York Times, among other things
posted on May-25-03 at 6:42 AM
Terror's myriad faces
Al-Qaeda, conceived of as a tight-knit terrorist group with cadres and a capability everywhere, does not exist in that form. It barely existed before the war in Afghanistan in 2001 destroyed Osama bin Laden's carefully constructed infrastructure there. It certainly does not exist now. Instead, we are facing a different kind of threat. Al-Qaeda can only be understood as an ideology, an agenda and a way of seeing the world that is shared by an increasing number of predominantly young, predominantly male Muslims. Eliminating bin Laden and a few hundred senior activists will do nothing to counter this al-Qaeda. Hundreds more will come forward to fill their ranks. Al-Qaeda, however understood, will continue to operate. The threat will remain and it will grow.
See also Sowing The Dragon's Teeth.
Or, alternately, Hercules and the Hydra.
posted on May-20-03 at 11:02 AM
bohemian rhapsody!
posted on May-4-03 at 11:21 PM
There is a heppy lend, fur, fur a-wa-a-ay - Sure as moons is cheeses
posted on Apr-28-03 at 3:40 AM
Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse at the circus, Love and war, Foxy Grandpa and Polly in a little hilarity, Roosevelt, Friend of the Birds, Refrigerator-Man, Mabel and Fatty viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco, Visitin' 'round at Coolidge Corners, Ranch Rodeo and Barbecue (1951), Panorama of Eiffel Tower , Colored troops disembarking, The mob outside the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition, Theodore Roosevelt's arrival in Africa, Trapeze Disrobing Act, Tourists going round Yellowstone Park, Skyscrapers of New York City, from the North River, Girls winding armatures, Bird's-eye view of San Francisco, from a balloon , Walking hot dog, hamburgers, and disappearing Coca-Cola, um, and The phable of the phat woman.
Selections from American Memory Online Films (More Inside)
posted on Apr-26-03 at 3:20 AM
Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Doris Day
--four of sixteen hundred photographs of celebrated jazz artists--
William P. Gottlieb - Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz.
posted on Apr-25-03 at 1:19 AM
There was a spontaneity about the crowd that contrasted with the sullenness and silences of the Saddam years. Most converged in the centre from all directions and joined throngs marching up and down Ali Abbas and Hussein streets, next to the Shia Muslims' two holiest shrines. Others exercised the right to do nothing, to sit on doorsteps watching people pass, to play or to cook on open fires. They chanted that they had come to celebrate their martyrs in spite of all the efforts by Saddam to persecute their religion. In keeping with Shia tradition, some tore their clothes and cut themselves, drawing blood. Others flogged themselves with chains, to bring themselves closer to the pain of the martyrs.
Iraqi Shiites Show Their Fervor in City They Hold Holy.
U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites.
Why the Mullahs Love a Revolution.
The war was won as planned.
The peace was not planned quite as meticulously.
A Democratic Iraq May Not Be Friendly to U.S. (More Within)
posted on Apr-23-03 at 10:27 PM
I've written before about the myth of the heartland--roughly speaking, the "red states," which voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, as opposed to the "blue states," which voted for Al Gore. The nation's interior is supposedly a place of rugged individualists, unlike the spongers and whiners along the coasts. In reality, of course, rural states are heavily subsidized by urban states. New Jersey pays about $1.50 in federal taxes for every dollar it gets in return; Montana receives about $1.75 in federal spending for every dollar it pays in taxes.
Any sensible program of spending on homeland security would at least partly redress this balance. The most natural targets for terrorism lie in or near great metropolitan areas; surely protecting those areas is the highest priority, right?
Apparently not. Even in the first months after Sept. 11, Republican lawmakers made it clear that they would not support any major effort to rebuild or even secure New York. And now that anti-urban prejudice has taken statistical form: under the formula the Department of Homeland Security has adopted for handing out money, it spends 7 times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it does protecting each resident of New York.
Paul Krugman, cited by Eric Alterman in regards to Jonathan Chait's The 9/10 President, a story we all seemed to have missed. Not long ago, the Washington Post carried Begging, Borrowing for Security.
Welcome to Trickle Down Homeland Security.
posted on Apr-21-03 at 5:01 PM
Philosophy Radio and Philosophy Lectures
Among many selections are Relativism and Scepticism, Ethics and Morality ,The Origins of Value, Heidegger's Being and Time, Memes, Zombies and Human Consciousness, The Soul In Our Time and a football match between Grecian and German philosophers. We call it soccer. There's more comedy featuring a pseudointellectual cult leader beloved by privileged prep school students and college freshmen everywhere and stavrosthewonderchicken has recommended The Philosophers Drinking Song. Miguel has his picks, too. I found this while researching my I Feel Therefore I Am post yesterday and mentioned it in a comment but, heck, it deserves its own post, no?
posted on Apr-20-03 at 4:11 PM
I Feel, Therefore I Am. Consider the work of Dr. Antonio Damasio, humanist and neuroscientist, who has turned the Mind and Body debate between René Descartes and Benedictus de Spinoza upon its head--or at least the heads of Phineas Gage and one Elliott--via his research and writings such as The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Descartes' Error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain and Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. He's influenced writers like Ian McEwan and David Lodge, and via his thoughts on the perception of music, inspired a composition. (More Inside)
posted on Apr-19-03 at 2:25 PM
--see also Making A Killing - The Business of War, and on the inside...
posted on Oct-30-03 at 4:50 AM
It seems slightly scandalous that Krugman has persisted in noting that the present administration has been moving the lion's share of the money to an array of corporate interests distinguished by the greed of their CEOs, an indifference toward their workers, and boardroom conviction that it is the welfare state that is ruining the country. Krugman has been strident. He has been shrill. He has lowered the dignity of the commentariat. How refreshing. Russell Baker reviews Paul Krugman's The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century. We have now reached a point when even the White House may be forced to sort out how a president who got elected to execute a straightforward business agenda managed to sandbag himself with the coinciding fantasies of the ideologues in the Christian fundamentalist ministries and those in his own administration.... Joan Didion reviews Armageddon: The Cosmic Battle of the Ages by Tim F. LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. The New York Review of Books 40th anniversary edition is an especially good read..
posted on Oct-28-03 at 5:02 PM
At least four times in the fall of 2002, the president and his advisers invoked the specter of a "mushroom cloud," and some of them, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, described Iraq's nuclear ambitions as a threat to the American homeland... Among the closely held internal judgments of the Iraq Survey Group, overseen by David Kay as special representative of CIA Director George J. Tenet, are that Iraq's nuclear weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign, and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use.
So in regards to Iraq's possession of the one weapon we can be certain causes mass destruction: the atomic bomb, as Gregg Easterbrook put it, the verdict is the unsurprising (and unsurprisingly closely held) nope, not, zero, zip, nada...
posted on Oct-27-03 at 3:43 PM
Forecasters at the NOAA Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo., observed two dynamic areas of the sun, one of which has produced a coronal mass ejection, or CME, Wednesday morning at 3 a.m. EDT that appears to be Earth-directed. The forecasters are predicting a strong geomagnetic storm, G-3 on the NOAA Space Weather Scales, that should reach Earth on Friday, October 24. Satellite and other spacecraft operations, power systems, high frequency communications, and navigation systems may experience disruptions over this two-week period. Auroras visible in the lower 48 states are possible tonight and tomorrow.
posted on Oct-24-03 at 1:42 PM
How the Poll Results on Iraq Were Manipulated by James Zogby, Special to Arab News - ...In fact, Zogby International in Iraq had conducted the poll, and the American Enterprise Institute did publish their interpretation of the findings. But the AEI’s "spin" and the vice president’s use of their "spin" created a faulty impression of the poll’s results and, therefore, of the attitudes of the Iraqi people. Consider some of the other poll findings: Over 55 percent give a negative rating to "how the US military is dealing with Iraqi civilians." Only 20 percent gave the US military a positive rating... When asked whom they preferred to "provide security and restore order in their country," only 6.5 percent said the US...
posted on Oct-23-03 at 8:25 AM
Beginning in April 2002, the State Department project assembled more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts... to study topics ranging from creating a new justice system to reorganizing the military to revamping the economy. Their findings included a much more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems... warned... many Iraqis might react coolly to Americans' notion of quickly rebuilding civil society. Several officials said that many of the findings in the $5 million study were ignored by Pentagon officials until recently... The work is now being relied on heavily as occupation forces struggle to impose stability in Iraq.
posted on Oct-20-03 at 9:33 AM
Since finding that Tongue In Chic was on CD at last, of late I've thought of the rhythm section nonpareil, Chic, with that welded groove between Nile Rodgers's guitar and Bernard Edwards's bass. As performers and producers--applying the patented Chic sound to an encyclopedia of superstars--what Chic played was a tight and transcendent penthouse funk. Now I find that Nile Rodgers has a homepage, too. The Links pages one and all are motherlodes of Chic-ism, let it be noted. Ah-h-h, Freak Out!
posted on Oct-16-03 at 12:28 AM
A certain psychologist of Hungarian extraction, Mihaly Csikszentimihaly--sounds like stoned sex-crazed muppet: Me High-ee! Chicks sent me highee!--began by monitoring the activities and emotional states of talented adolescent artists with what became known as experience sampling forms, now available in a new, improved hi tech version. He found people reported the greatest satisfaction when actively involved in a challenging task that stretches abilities, to the extent that time, space, and self-awareness become secondary to the accomplishment of the task. He wrote a book about it, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, which flew off the shelves in the Self Help sections of bookstores everywhere--even though there were no easy steps nor Idiots Guide To... included beyond an academic enunciation of the parameters involved: the zone of experience in which Flow existed. [More Within]
posted on Oct-10-03 at 1:02 PM
We can know more than we can tell. Consider The Tacit Dimension by Michael Polanyi. The Tacit Knowledge and Intuition Website has one take on Polanyi's concept of tacit knowing. Karl Erik Sveiby also has an interesting page in Tacit Knowledge and provides you the opportunity to Test Your Tacit Knowledge. Tacit knowledge and Implicit learning provides yet another view. I don't pretend to understand much of this and yet I feel the concept has merit--ah, as Wittgenstein observed, Of that of which we can not speak, we must be silent.
If you know what I mean... *rolls eyes*
posted on Oct-7-03 at 8:59 AM
An Enigma Wrapped In Songs. Here is Laura Nyro.com, the home page of the late Laura Nyro. Laura Nyro.net is the most elaborate fan page ever, with not only photos, interviews, articles, audio and video clips but two virtual reality galleries in VRML!--it's truly the labor of love of all labors of love. The Ectophiles Guide To Good Music! has an informative Laura Nyro Page. Here's a link to a mianfei's So you'd like to... Understand The Legacy Of Laura Nyro --I'd never thought I'd link to an Amazon customer's fan page but she's got Nyro's story in a nutshell, so there it is. And those famous philistines at Wilson and Alroy's Record Reviews presents a, shall we say, more sanguine and detached perspective.
posted on Oct-6-03 at 12:53 AM
A land ruled by chaos. Award-winning writer Suzanne Goldenberg returns to Iraq, from where she reported on Saddam's fall. But in place of the promised peace she finds a country where lawlessness, violence and fear have filled the void.
posted on Oct-3-03 at 10:04 PM
The King and Tehanu go to meet dragons. A map of Earthsea. A very large map of Earthsea. The Hainish Encyclopedia. The Ekumen. The Disconnected. Le Guin's World. Ursula K Le Guin's Official Website.
posted on Oct-2-03 at 9:29 PM
Iraq: What Went Wrong By General Wesley K. Clark. I appreciate this article. It is simple, easy to read, and represents what I've been feeling for quite some time now. (NY Review of Books)
posted on Oct-1-03 at 11:46 AM
Stumbling Into War by James P. Rubin, From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003
Why did most of the world abandon Washington when it went after Saddam Hussein? The war in Iraq could never have been an easy sell, but nor should it have been such a difficult one. The Bush administration badly botched the prewar maneuvering, presenting a textbook study in how not to wage a diplomatic campaign.
posted on Sep-21-03 at 9:16 PM
David Garland's disturbing new book addresses the question why there are so many more people in jail in America and Britain than anywhere else... Its broader concern is with "cultures of control," how societies treat deviance and violence and whom they single out for what treatment. Here are some facts about skyrocketing imprisonment... There are approximately two million people in jail in America today, 2,166,260 at last count: more than four times as many people as thirty years ago. It is the largest number in our history... [and] between four and ten times the incarceration rate of any civilized country in the world... Twelve percent of African-American men between twenty and thirty-four are currently behind bars (the highest figure ever recorded by the Justice Department) compared to 1.6 percent of white men of comparable ages. And according to the same source, 28 percent of black men will be sent to jail in their lifetime... It was not until crime rates had already leveled off that incarceration rates began their steady, year-by-year climb. Between 1972 and 1992, while the population of America's prisons grew and grew, the crime rate as a whole continued at the same level, unchanged. Jerome S. Bruner reviews The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society for The New York Review of Books, as does Austin Sarat in the American Prospect.
posted on Sep-18-03 at 7:14 PM
The Gropenator will have to spin his wheels for awhile: California's Vote Delayed by Court Over Punch Cards. And here's the kicker--it's deja vu all over again, Bizarro stylee: Bush v. Gore Outlives Its Limited Warranty for Use in California
The Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore was meant to be a ticket good for one ride. "Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances," the justices said in their unsigned opinion in 2000, "for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities." Three judges on the federal appeals court in San Francisco, all appointed by Democratic presidents, decided yesterday to use it for another ride anyway.
posted on Sep-15-03 at 8:23 PM
Heraclitus of Ephesus, sometimes called Heraclitus the Obscure: We only know him through 100 gnomic quotes and aphorisms--I loves me some gnomic aphorisms!--all direct from or inferred in the comments of various authors of Classical literature, of which no one steps into the same river twice is the best known. Mark Cohen, J. H. Lesher and Cynthia Freeman provide excellent introductions. John Burnett's 1920 translation is another academic standard. Jonathan Barnes. whose Penguin Classic The Early Greek Philosophers has the best contemporary translation, wrote Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour. Here are the jampots of Friedrich Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger. And here, in passing, is a taste of the jampot of Jorge Luis Borges. Heraclitus coined the word enantiodromia. John William Corrington's Logos, Lex, And Law is also of interest. Heraclitus figures strongly in the Archetypal Psychology of Carl Jung and James Hillman, the latter especially in his discussion of the Soul.
posted on Sep-11-03 at 5:59 AM
Iraq Estimates Were Too Low, U.S. Admits
The White House acknowledged Monday that it substantially underestimated the cost of rebuilding Iraq and that even the additional $87 billion it was seeking from a wary Congress would fall far short of what is needed for postwar reconstruction. Administration officials said President Bush's emergency spending request - which would push the U.S. budget deficit above the half-trillion-dollar mark for the first time - still left a reconstruction funding gap of as much as $55 billion.
Reserve Tours Are Extended
With U.S. forces stretched thin in Iraq and the Bush administration still searching for additional international peacekeepers, the Army has ordered thousands of National Guard and Army Reserve forces in Iraq to extend their tours in the country to a year, months longer than many of the troops had anticipated, Army officials said yesterday.
$87,000,000,000 + $55,000,000,000=$142,000,000,000
One year tours for National Guard and Army Reservists
Hope you enjoyed your meal--here's your bill...
posted on Sep-9-03 at 7:14 AM
How To Be A Jug or String Band MVP - starting with guitar: It's all in tablature, by the way, something easy enough to understand. Three finger fingerpicking guitar is easy to learn--start with Mississippi John Hurt: Payday was the first song I ever learned. Of course, it's a cinch, being in Open D--but open tunings are a cinch, too. With open tunings, how about learning some slide guitar? Beyond John Hurt, slide or not, open or standard, , there are the ever expanding Fahey Tablatures at John Fahey.com, where Melissa keeps the flame burning ever brightly.
There's Much More Within...
posted on Sep-5-03 at 2:06 PM
Unprepared for Peace in Iraq
Let us reject the blinders of isolationism, just as we refuse the crown of empire. Let us not dominate others with our power -- or betray them with our indifference. And let us have an American foreign policy that reflects American character. The modesty of true strength. The humility of real greatness.
Presidential Candidate George W Bush, 2000
Footnotes: March 26, 2003: U.S. Plans For Post-Conflict Iraq Receive Mixed Grade - CSIS Scorecard Cites Gaps, Shortcomings in Administration's Plans; March 2003: Plotting the Aftermath; August, 26, 2003: Do What It Takes in Iraq--and, on an ancillary note: WMD: Intelligence Without Brains
posted on Aug-26-03 at 9:27 AM
Hidden Sides, Hushed Ideals of a Civil Rights Strategist
Bayard Rustin - Quaker, former Young Communist cum anti-communist socialist, advocate of non-violence, ''known homosexual'' , architect of the March on Washington and, it goes without saying, great American. A critical socialist take on Rustin. Here, for our resident Malcolm X man, a debate between Rustin and X in 1960--do note the latter's views evolved greatly between then and his assassination--and here is Nat Hentoff on Rustin. A recent P.O.V. fim on Rustin - Brother Outsider.
posted on Aug-25-03 at 9:17 AM
SEE! Harvey Pekar, file clerk extraordinaire, wrestle with mortality. DREAM!! with Harvey as he plots to re-sell his used books and records for absurdly inflated prices. FEAR!!! for your sanity as Harvey takes you deep into the bowels of a Cleveland veteran's hospital. RAGE!!!! with Harvey at the aggression and general obtuseness of people around him. He's a reasonable guy. He's also a noted jazz critic, book reviewer and radio commentator. Now Playing At A Theater Near You.
posted on Aug-19-03 at 2:32 PM
Welcome to Root Beer World! Root Beer Reviews. Ask Dr. Root Beer about Root Beer Brand Names! Then ask Professor Root Beer about his reviews. And for the home brewer, a recipe for Root Beer Concentrate. More Root Beer Recipes. Root Beer History. Apart from root beer schnapps and various root beer float recipes, it's not a beverage one associates with mixed drinks. Ah, but it is so sweet and cool to drink on a hot summer's day.... Well, salud!
posted on Aug-17-03 at 2:47 PM
Democracy might be impossible, US was told
The CIA's March report concluded that Iraqi society and history showed little evidence to support the creation of democratic institutions, going so far as to say its prospects for democracy could be "impossible," according to intelligence officials who have seen it. The assessment was based on Iraq's history of repression and war; clan, tribal and religious conflict; and its lack of experience as a viable country prior to its arbitrary creation as a monarchy by British colonialists after World War I.
The State Department came to the same conclusion. "Liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve in Iraq," said a March State Department report, first reported by the Los Angeles Times. "Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements."
posted on Aug-14-03 at 3:50 PM
Howard Armstrong, artist and black string band musician who played 22 instruments--excelling by far on violin and mandolin--who spoke seven languages, who first recorded in 1930 and was still an active performer up into this year, died last Wednesday of complications due to a heart attack he suffered in March. He was the subject of the P.O.V. film Sweet Old Song, which will be reprised a week from today on August 12th, 2003. He was also the subject of Louie Bluie--the first film by string band muscian and director of Crumb and Ghost World, Terry Zwigoff--which is well worth your watching by itself. He was quite a character and lived quite a life.
posted on Aug-5-03 at 5:40 PM
Weaponizing Space
The Case Against
Four Myths about Space Power - From Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly
Star wars could make space unusable
posted on Jul-29-03 at 7:58 PM
Study Finds 2.6% Increase in U.S. Prison Population The nation's prison population grew 2.6 percent last year, the largest increase since 1999, according to a study by the Justice Department. The jump came despite a small decline in serious crime in 2002. It also came when a growing number of states facing large budget deficits have begun trying to reduce prison costs by easing tough sentencing laws passed in the 1990's, thereby decreasing the number of inmates. The key finding in the report is this growth, which is somewhat surprising in its size after several years of relative stability in the prison population, said Allen J. Beck, an author of the report. U.S. Prison Population Grew 2.6% in 2002. The country's prisons, jails and juvenile facilities held 2,166,260 persons at the end of last year, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) said in a report released today. Prisoners in 2002 Abstract
posted on Jul-28-03 at 12:17 AM
Comics for Grown-Ups
David Hadju discusses Joe Sacco's Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde and Daniel Clowes' Ghost World. I wanted to link the Ghost World movie site but it's currently down. Whether this is permanently or not, I know not. I'll be sad if it's gone--it was so darn cool and so elegantly done.
posted on Jul-26-03 at 3:35 AM
As to The Uses and Disadvantages of Socrates, sources differ but seem to share in common an ideal fictional Socrates to speak their understanding of the common account. From Doug Linder's Famous Trials--for your bookmarking convenience--comes The Trial of Socrates, featuring ample background materials, including I.F. Stone's take. Marilyn Katz's Background Materials on Socrates' Trial and Death are essential, too. Several other accounts are offered online--consider Socrates and his Audience, The Accusations Against Socrates, Gadfly on Trial: Socrates as Citizen and Social Critic and the rather d.i.y. Socrates Had It Coming. But as to the historical Socrates, the man in context becomes key--as all of the above do contend, more or less, let it be noted--and therefore one needs to become become familiar with things like sexuality in Fifth-Century Athens, desecration of the herms, Eleusian Mysteries, the Peloponnesian War, the fateful Sicilian Expedition and the collective memory of civil war and civic memory in ancient Athens that ensued, as well as the personalities of Critias and Alcibiades to answer the question entitled in my own favorite account, the book entire: Who Was Socrates ?
posted on Jul-24-03 at 6:33 AM
Preparing for War, Stumbling to Peace The Bush administration planned well and won the war with minimal allied casualties. Now, according to interviews with dozens of administration officials, military leaders and independent analysts, missteps in the planning for the subsequent peace could threaten the lives of soldiers and drain U.S. resources indefinitely and cloud the victory itself. Lonely At The Top Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that he hoped to enlist as many as 30,000 troops from 49 nations. The problem, however, is that many of the recruits the Pentagon has tried to line up so far appear to fall into two categories: the not so willing and the not that able. Report: U.S. May Call National Guard for Iraq Duty - The Pentagon could start a call-up of as many as 10,000 U.S. National Guard soldiers by this winter to bolster forces in Iraq and offset a lack of troops from allies, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Postwar Window Closing in Iraq, Study Says A team of outside experts dispatched by the Pentagon to assess security and reconstruction operations in Iraq reported yesterday that the window of opportunity for achieving postwar success is closing and requires immediate and dramatic action by U.S. military and civilian personnel. Turning and turning in the widening gyre...
posted on Jul-18-03 at 3:05 PM
We are because of others. We are born into this world with minds as naked as our bodies and we have to rely on others to feed, clothe us, and to teach us to think of ourselves as selves. The key is language -- grammatical speech and human culture build upon the brain's biological capacities to create a mind that is something different again than that with which we are born. We are conscious because we can speak to others and ourselves, because we can speak of ourselves to others and ourselves. Language gives us as individuals, memory, and as groups, culture, the social memory. Or so thought Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, among others. Welcome to the the neuronaut's guide to the science of consciousness.
posted on Jul-11-03 at 7:57 AM
Miracles You Will See In The Next 50 Years From Popular Mechanics, February 1950, Page 112. Ah, yes, I remember Yesterday's Tomorrows. Hey! Where's my robot slave? Why, I oughta... I'll Futurama you! Hey everybody--let's all sing There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow! Mmm... The Future In Song
posted on Jul-3-03 at 6:07 AM
Wussy Boy. Wussy Boy Manifesto. The Wussy Boy Chronicles.
Excerpt: Is A Wussy Boy/Is Not A Wussy Boy - A wuss upon wusses.
posted on Jul-1-03 at 8:24 PM
The Maxims of François Duc de La Rochefoucauld. He was on the losing side in the Fronde, and later became a luminary of the salons of 17th century France, more particularly the salon of Mme. de Sable at Port-Royal, who wrote a neat Maxim or too, herself. Also on topic are Mots Français and Four Essays on Writing and Sentences by Peter Kalkavage.
posted on Jun-29-03 at 4:32 PM
< earshot >
Live improvisation with digital audio. Play, loop and compose with multiple sound file formats, including: wav, aif, aiff, aifc, mov, au, mid, mp3, swa, mpg, mpeg, snd... Found while Googlifying for links to the currently tanked Johnny Spencer's 'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. I have not a clue as to the what or why of it but thought the teeming geeky horde might. Provided for your consumer testing.
posted on Jun-27-03 at 12:34 PM
As Penis enlarger with new credit line will clean your septic system *
--a recent piece of spam which I received--puts it:
OH MY GOD. No, really - this is one of the coolest websites of ALL TIME. You know I love you lots for sending me this url, and I am sworn to secrecy. Who the hell is this guy? And how did you find the site? I'm going to look at every single page and download every single one of these mp3s. Before you post this to mf, that is ;) - iconomy
Ladies, Gentlemen, Neuters and quonsar, I give you ...
Johnny Spencer's 'vanity site' directed towards fans of Black popular music c1940's to 1970's. Music from both Jamaica and America!
You have scans of various 45s, Johnny's beautiful dust jacket artwork, his interesting system of nomenclature defining Jamaican popular music, detailed notation and... music!!
(caveat & details within)
posted on Jun-23-03 at 10:55 AM
BornDigital, anyone? Actually, try the Site Map. And the
links are... interesting enough--for instance, Tiny Pinnochio,
the world's smallest dog. Aww...
posted on Jun-20-03 at 3:09 PM
Greek Temple Architecture: They were houses--houses for cult statues, storehouses of treasures given to the gods--they were not churches. Worship consisted, by and large, of sacrificial ritual--animal sacrifice: killing animals and eating them, for the most part--and, hence, it was done out of doors. The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook's Accounts of Hellenic Religious Beliefs and Accounts of Personal Religion give additional flavor and context. Greek religious architecture evolved from wooden structures and was tradition bound--they built in stone as they had in wood according to variations on a traditional canon called the orders, first and foremost, the Doric Order , the Ionic Order and the Corinthian Order. Here are some restorations. I love restorations, on paper or models rather than at the actual sites. The first in a series.
posted on Jun-19-03 at 5:05 AM
Did You Hear the One About the Suicide Bomber?
After Sept. 11, Shazia Mirza became famous by telling a single (some think abominable) joke. It's a funny thing, being a devout Muslim female comic.
posted on Jun-14-03 at 9:06 PM
Oh, the mundanity!
In the lyrics of the Beatles; in our tastes for amateur porn; in how to prepare a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; and, by extension, in The Journal of Mundane Behavior. It's about nothing extraordinary
...and everything ordinary. Think of it as Lilek's ...with Science.
--And here's one for MrBaliHai: Squat Toilets and Cultural Commensurability: Two Texts, Plus Three Photographs I Forgot to Take. (Earthquake not included.)
posted on May-29-03 at 10:01 AM
Prospecting for Gold Among the Photo Blogs
Photo blogs are the colorful offspring of blogs, or Web logs, written diaries posted and updated regularly on the Internet. For a half-dozen years people have been posting text blogs to rant and to ponder the events of the day and the dust beneath their feet. Then, sometime in 2000, people started posting photographs to go with the text. The photo blog was born. Now photo blogs often are posted with no text at all. And there are thousands of them.--Oolong gets his picture in the New York Times, among other things
posted on May-25-03 at 6:42 AM
Terror's myriad faces
Al-Qaeda, conceived of as a tight-knit terrorist group with cadres and a capability everywhere, does not exist in that form. It barely existed before the war in Afghanistan in 2001 destroyed Osama bin Laden's carefully constructed infrastructure there. It certainly does not exist now. Instead, we are facing a different kind of threat. Al-Qaeda can only be understood as an ideology, an agenda and a way of seeing the world that is shared by an increasing number of predominantly young, predominantly male Muslims. Eliminating bin Laden and a few hundred senior activists will do nothing to counter this al-Qaeda. Hundreds more will come forward to fill their ranks. Al-Qaeda, however understood, will continue to operate. The threat will remain and it will grow.
See also Sowing The Dragon's Teeth.
Or, alternately, Hercules and the Hydra.
posted on May-20-03 at 11:02 AM
bohemian rhapsody!
posted on May-4-03 at 11:21 PM
There is a heppy lend, fur, fur a-wa-a-ay - Sure as moons is cheeses
posted on Apr-28-03 at 3:40 AM
Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse at the circus, Love and war, Foxy Grandpa and Polly in a little hilarity, Roosevelt, Friend of the Birds, Refrigerator-Man, Mabel and Fatty viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco, Visitin' 'round at Coolidge Corners, Ranch Rodeo and Barbecue (1951), Panorama of Eiffel Tower , Colored troops disembarking, The mob outside the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition, Theodore Roosevelt's arrival in Africa, Trapeze Disrobing Act, Tourists going round Yellowstone Park, Skyscrapers of New York City, from the North River, Girls winding armatures, Bird's-eye view of San Francisco, from a balloon , Walking hot dog, hamburgers, and disappearing Coca-Cola, um, and The phable of the phat woman.
Selections from American Memory Online Films (More Inside)
posted on Apr-26-03 at 3:20 AM
Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Nat King Cole and Doris Day
--four of sixteen hundred photographs of celebrated jazz artists--
William P. Gottlieb - Photographs from the Golden Age of Jazz.
posted on Apr-25-03 at 1:19 AM
There was a spontaneity about the crowd that contrasted with the sullenness and silences of the Saddam years. Most converged in the centre from all directions and joined throngs marching up and down Ali Abbas and Hussein streets, next to the Shia Muslims' two holiest shrines. Others exercised the right to do nothing, to sit on doorsteps watching people pass, to play or to cook on open fires. They chanted that they had come to celebrate their martyrs in spite of all the efforts by Saddam to persecute their religion. In keeping with Shia tradition, some tore their clothes and cut themselves, drawing blood. Others flogged themselves with chains, to bring themselves closer to the pain of the martyrs.
Iraqi Shiites Show Their Fervor in City They Hold Holy.
U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites.
Why the Mullahs Love a Revolution.
The war was won as planned.
The peace was not planned quite as meticulously.
A Democratic Iraq May Not Be Friendly to U.S. (More Within)
posted on Apr-23-03 at 10:27 PM
I've written before about the myth of the heartland--roughly speaking, the "red states," which voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 election, as opposed to the "blue states," which voted for Al Gore. The nation's interior is supposedly a place of rugged individualists, unlike the spongers and whiners along the coasts. In reality, of course, rural states are heavily subsidized by urban states. New Jersey pays about $1.50 in federal taxes for every dollar it gets in return; Montana receives about $1.75 in federal spending for every dollar it pays in taxes.
Any sensible program of spending on homeland security would at least partly redress this balance. The most natural targets for terrorism lie in or near great metropolitan areas; surely protecting those areas is the highest priority, right?
Apparently not. Even in the first months after Sept. 11, Republican lawmakers made it clear that they would not support any major effort to rebuild or even secure New York. And now that anti-urban prejudice has taken statistical form: under the formula the Department of Homeland Security has adopted for handing out money, it spends 7 times as much protecting each resident of Wyoming as it does protecting each resident of New York.
Paul Krugman, cited by Eric Alterman in regards to Jonathan Chait's The 9/10 President, a story we all seemed to have missed. Not long ago, the Washington Post carried Begging, Borrowing for Security.
Welcome to Trickle Down Homeland Security.
posted on Apr-21-03 at 5:01 PM
Philosophy Radio and Philosophy Lectures
Among many selections are Relativism and Scepticism, Ethics and Morality ,The Origins of Value, Heidegger's Being and Time, Memes, Zombies and Human Consciousness, The Soul In Our Time and a football match between Grecian and German philosophers. We call it soccer. There's more comedy featuring a pseudointellectual cult leader beloved by privileged prep school students and college freshmen everywhere and stavrosthewonderchicken has recommended The Philosophers Drinking Song. Miguel has his picks, too. I found this while researching my I Feel Therefore I Am post yesterday and mentioned it in a comment but, heck, it deserves its own post, no?
posted on Apr-20-03 at 4:11 PM
I Feel, Therefore I Am. Consider the work of Dr. Antonio Damasio, humanist and neuroscientist, who has turned the Mind and Body debate between René Descartes and Benedictus de Spinoza upon its head--or at least the heads of Phineas Gage and one Elliott--via his research and writings such as The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Descartes' Error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain and Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. He's influenced writers like Ian McEwan and David Lodge, and via his thoughts on the perception of music, inspired a composition. (More Inside)
posted on Apr-19-03 at 2:25 PM
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