October 2007 Archives

"Magic" (Bruce Springsteen)

Actually, all of corporate media sucks, for the most part. Here's one small example of many.

Republican radio network Clear Channel, a monopoly in many cities and a dominant player in most of the rest, isn't interested. Is it because Springsteen has been an outspoken campaigner for Democrats and progressives? Clear Channel has taken a political stand with its programming in the past. Just think back to their boycott of the Dixie Chicks. Oh, no... not way back, just back to when they released their most recent album. Despite being one of the top 10 best-selling American albums of the year-- across all genres and demographics-- radio studiously ignored it. There were maybe half a dozen country stations that even played it at all. What Clear Channel did to the Dixie Chicks is a watertight case for the need to break the media companies up into a thousand pieces. (John Sununu disagrees; he's pro-censorship.)

I spoke with an old friend who heads a record company and preferred to speak off the record.
"When you have artists like the Dixie Chicks and Bruce Springsteen who have overtly spoken out against this Administration, they are taken to task in spite the clear and undeniable indications from the marketplace that people want to hear their music. What seems to be happening-- if sales are any kind of a barometer of what the marketplace is-- is that these politically-connected radio networks like Clear Channel are not looking to succeed as radio stations as much as pushing forward some political agenda.

Another friend of mine distinctly recalls the Senate hearings on radio consolidation in light of the Dixie Chicks boycott where Barbara Boxer and John McCain heard testimony including an internal Clear Channel memo threatening "Just wait and see what happens if Springsteen tries this." I guess we're seeing that right now.

Of course, Clear Channel hasn't publicly said they are boycotting Springsteen's music. But they are. Fox News, hardly a hotbed of liberal alarmists, reports that "Clear Channel has sent an edict to its classic rock stations not to play tracks from Magic... no new songs by Springsteen, even though it’s likely many radio listeners already own the album and would like to hear it mixed in with the junk offered on radio."
[click to read more of DownWithTyranny!: CLEAR CHANNEL, REPUBLICAN PROPAGANDA NETWORK, OUT TO KILL SPRINGSTEEN'S MAGIC?]

I've never been much of a Bruce Springsteen fan, for whatever reason, but I like his politics enough to consider buying this album, just for spite.

• Feministe » I think vajayjay is a nice word, don’t you?
  "pap smear as a “cooter poking” - I love the English language
  (tags: sexuality language)

In the Bush era, consumer protection and advocacy is a hurdle that businesses must overcome, often with the help of their friends in the Administration (mostly former and/or future employees of the regulated businesses in question). I don't want meat manufacturers to be able to disguise their rotten, spoiled meat with cosmetics. Talk about putting lipstick on the pig....

Meat producers are enthusiastic about carbon monoxide, which in small quantities poses no risk when consumed. By keeping meat red it boosts sales of aging but still edible cuts that would otherwise be tossed or discounted because of poor appearance -- a waste the industry says costs it $1 billion a year.
[snip]
Already, several supermarket chains, including Giant Food, Stop & Shop and Safeway, have announced they will no longer sell carbon-monoxide-gassed meats. And Tyson Foods, the nation's largest processor of meat and poultry, recently said it would stop using the technology.

Those decisions came after the companies received five-page letters from Rep. John D. Dingell, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Bart Stupak, chairman of the panel's oversight and investigations subcommittee -- Democrats from Kalsec's home state of Michigan.

The letters asked how the companies are ensuring that consumers are not being fooled about freshness and demanded reams of data going back several years. Among other sensitive issues, the congressmen asked for data on how often the companies' refrigerators get too warm and how much spoiled meat is returned by customers.
[From Hearing on Beef Packaging Fails Activists' Smell Test - washingtonpost.com]

On the other hand, meat industry lobbyists claim consumers are clamoring for maggots in their meals. Lobbyists like

Randy Huffman of the American Meat Institute Foundation in Washington. The industry is "fed up" with the suggestion that consumers are being duped, he said, adding that the meat "has enjoyed enormous consumer acceptance."

Huffman said new data to be presented today along with a letter of support signed by 17 "independent scientists" should help allay safety fears. But the industry has its work cut out for it.

• Jazz 100 - Top Jazz CDs
  "Best Jazz Ever Released on CD". Well, some are. Some look like shite to me. Stick with the classics
  (tags: Jazz lists Music)

Nice, racking up the negative karma points for faux-recycling.

Suburb goes after contractor's storage of mercury-filled bulbs

A company that won City of Chicago contracts and was told it would receive state grants to recycle fluorescent light bulbs instead left thousands of the mercury-laden lamps inside a Riverdale warehouse, and officials there contend that the building has now become a hazardous-waste site.

Last week, the village began notifying federal and state environmental officials that it will seek to file a federal lawsuit over the alleged illegal storage of the light bulbs, which sit in the warehouse by the thousands and were never recycled.

Inspectors discovered significant levels of poisonous mercury from the light bulbs and other hazardous waste during two inspections of the building in recent weeks, said Michael Blazer, a village attorney who filed the notices.

[snip]

The story behind the fracas involves two convicted felons, a politically connected developer who is under indictment, a lucrative city contract and the assertion by a top-ranking county environmental official that the company was "in compliance with both Illinois and Cook County recycling regulations."
[snip]
According to the Riverdale filing, the warehouse has been used since 2005 as "an unlicensed universal waste storage facility owned and operated by Laurence C. Kelly ... doing business as River Shannon Recycling."
[From Recycler is accused of polluting]

Surprisingly, the owner of River Shannon Recycling is responding by countersuing, alleging violation of civil rights for some reason. Yikes. He should have just relocated to Indiana - the Indiana EPA is nothing if not lenient towards polluters, just ask BP Amoco.

Daley continues to burnish Chicago's green rep. Will this translate into anything substantial? No telling, way to early in the process to make any claims. Still, every little bit helps. There are less splashy things that the Mayor's Office could do to reduce the Chicago carbon footprint, but these acts probably wouldn't get national media attention. For instance, as Dean Armstrong noted a while ago, switching street lights could make a huge impact. Anyway, from the PR hacks at City Hall, we read, in part:

Taking another step towards making Chicago the nation's "most environmentally friendly city", Mayor Richard M. Daley today announced initiatives to encourage the city's home builders and owners to use energy efficient technologies, materials and construction methods.

[snip]
The Green Homes program is for builders and developers who are constructing new residential units in the Chicago or renovating existing units.

It gives points to builders for every sustainable technique and material used in the construction of a new home or residential building.

Upon review and approval by the Chicago Department of Environment, a Chicago Green Homes Certificate will be issued with a 1-, 2-, or 3-star rating depending on the number of points attained.

Projects submitted to the program may qualify for the Chicago Department of Buildings expedited green permit process. Participants also will be granted the use of the Chicago Green Homes logo, and their projects will be recognized on the city’s website.
[Click to read more of City of Chicago - Green Homes Initiative]

I'm probably not alone in imagining a fictional version of this soon-to-be-reality news story. Fast forward a few years, and fresh water supplies will be more important to the politicians and chattering classes than abortion, Israel-Palestine wars, illegal immigration, or any other contemporary news story. When fresh water costs more than wine, or artificial blood, tensions between regions of the US will increase to the boiling point, ahem. Even though climate change means there is less water in the Great Lakes, there is still lots of it.

Western, Southern states covet Midwest resource

While the West burns and the Southeast bakes, there is little to suggest a large-scale, climatological catastrophe playing out any time soon in the Midwest. In fact, farmers in Iowa and Minnesota had trouble last week harvesting their corn and soybean crops because there had been too much rain.

But potentially huge battles over water are looming in the Great Lakes region as cities, towns and states near and far fight for access to the world's largest body of fresh surface water, all of it residing in the five Great Lakes. [snip]

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democratic candidate for president, gave voice to his water lust early this month by suggesting that water from the Great Lakes could be piped to the rapidly growing -- and increasingly dry -- Southwestern states.

"States like Wisconsin are awash in water," Richardson told the Las Vegas Sun.

Richardson soon backed off after swift protests from the Midwest, including a resounding "No" from Michigan's Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

That won't be the end of it. The fires in Southern California, the prolonged drought in the Southeast and the shrinking flow of the Colorado River, which feeds seven Western states, have underscored the importance of water supplies in rapidly developing regions and the determination of a handful of states to hold on to a resource they see as key to their economic future.

With fresh water supplies dwindling in the West and South, the Great Lakes are the natural-resource equivalent of the fat pension fund, and some politicians are eager to raid it. The lakes contain nearly 20 percent of the world's surface fresh water.

"You're going to see increasing pressure to gain access to this [water] supply," said Aaron Packman, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University. "Clearly it's a case of different regional interests competing for this water."

Eight Great Lakes-area states, from Minnesota to New York, and two Canadian provinces have proposed a regional water compact that would, among other things, strengthen an existing ban on major water diversions outside the Great Lakes Basin, home to 40 million Americans and Canadians. That proposal still has to work its way through several legislatures, and then it must go to Congress, where the political balance of power has been tilting west and south for decades.
[From Great Lakes key front in water wars]

I also don't think Nestle should be allowed to suck water out of the Great Lakes, bottle it, and sell it. Who green-lighted this theft of public resources?

In Michigan, Granholm fought with Nestle Waters North America over the company's pulling millions of gallons from Lake Michigan for its Ice Mountain bottled-water franchise. The state has negotiated limits on the amount the company can pump.

'We're going to be stealing it'

When he was House majority leader, then-U.S. Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas) warned a gathering in Michigan that federal control of Great Lakes water would not be in the state's interest.

"We're not going to be buying it. We're going to be stealing it," Armey said in 2000. "You're going to have to protect your Great Lakes."

I'd very much like to shake Studs Terkel's hand once before I died. He writes:

EARLIER this month, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the White House agreed to allow the executive branch to conduct dragnet interceptions of the electronic communications of people in the United States. They also agreed to “immunize” American telephone companies from lawsuits charging that after 9/11 some companies collaborated with the government to violate the Constitution and existing federal law. I am a plaintiff in one of those lawsuits, and I hope Congress thinks carefully before denying me, and millions of other Americans, our day in court.

During my lifetime, there has been a sea change in the way that politically active Americans view their relationship with government. In 1920, during my youth, I recall the Palmer raids in which more than 10,000 people were rounded up, most because they were members of particular labor unions or belonged to groups that advocated change in American domestic or foreign policy. Unrestrained surveillance was used to further the investigations leading to these detentions, and the Bureau of Investigation — the forerunner to the F.B.I. — eventually created a database on the activities of individuals. This activity continued through the Red Scare of the period.
[Click to read the rest Studs Terkel: The Wiretap This Time - New York Times]

Some random snapshots below

Spent some time marching in the anti-war rally Saturday.

The protest will begin with a rally at 1:30 p.m. in Union Park at Ashland Avenue and Lake Street, said organizers. At 2:30, the protesters will march south on Ashland and then east on Jackson Boulevard to Federal Plaza at Dearborn and Adams Streets, where they will hold another rally about 3:45. [From City expects war protest could draw up to 10,000 -- chicagotribune.com]

I was the guy in the Impeach Bush Cheney! t-shirt. (not pictured in any of these photos). Oh wait, there were thousands of us with that shirt. Umm, I was the guy with the pained expression due to a foolish decision to wear new shoes. I blame my blisters on the Neo-Cons.

War Messes People Up

on the way to today's anti-Iraq war rally

Impeach!

random anti-war protestors

SEIU Local 72 against the Iraq War

anti-Iraq war protest

Head of the Parade

anti-Iraq war protest went down Jackson

Stop Bitching Start a Revolution

anti-Iraq war protest

I Miss America

anti-Iraq war protest

Stop the Pillage and Plunder

anti-Iraq war protest

End the War Now

well, the plane message continues, "Ron Paul 4 President", but I don't think that's a viable answer. Circled around the anti-war demonstration. There were a handful of Ron Paul supporters on the march, a couple percentage points worth.

click to embiggen

• Bill Moyers Journal: Jeremy Scahill Answers Your Questions
  Follow up re the Blackwater interview, Mr. Scahill answers questions
  (tags: blackwater corruption Republicans War War_crimes)
• suchi today tumblr.
  "Yellow Line Fever (via swanksalot)"
  (tags: photography republished)
• Cabinet Magazine Online - A Minor History of / Giant Spheres
  coolness indeed (from Kottke)
  (tags: images Science weird history)
• Recipe for Salted Water
  hilarious reviews of this recipe
  (tags: food humor recipe water salt)
• Gapers Block : Airbags : Connect
  "Photo by Seth Anderson."
  (tags: republished photograph)
• The Band: Lyrics and Guitar Chords
  More bands ought to have such a repository of guitar charts and tabluture.
  (tags: Music music_history guitar)

Living with the Blues

Dude out for a smoke, probably not a jump.
Republished gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/connect/

Me? Keep me away from short piers.

To be honest, I have not frequented the Macintosh-oriented MacFixIt site since moving our business machines to OS X, and especially since the site founder, Ted Landau, left. MacFixIt's anecdotal based trouble-shooting style wore thin - I didn't learn much of practical use by visiting there anymore. However, I visited MacFixIt today, prior to a Leopard installation (scheduled for Monday or Tuesday of next week), and skimmed to see if they had reports of any interesting quirks with installation. This one item caught my eye (I don't think any of the 6 Macs I care for have a haxie installed, but wanted to refresh my memory as to where I'd find them to remove 'em if I needed to)

Remove APE haxies (ShapeShifer, etc.)
Another potential cause for this issue that shouldn't be shocking if you've routinely paid attention to MacFixIt: the presence of APE modules. Before installing Leopard, remove APE modules via this uninstall process.
[From Failure to boot after installing Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) - MacFixIt]

However, to my great amusement, the link itself, instead of going to Unsanity, went to this anti-MacFixIt rant by the astute folks of MDJ/MWJ (a great Mac newsletter that I wish I could afford to subscribe to again).

Ever since founding editor Ted Landau sold MacFixIt years ago, the site has been on an increasingly shrill trajectory of fomenting fear and uncertainty about installing any software, largely in an attempt to instill in its readers an unnecessary dependency on the site's blessing before proceeding with, well, anything. The "be very afraid" subtext has always been clear in the current MacFixIt's installation "advice," but it's refreshing that the site has finally come out and said so, to remove any doubts.

The more afraid MacFixIt makes you of installing new software, the more often you'll check the site—and either view the ads or upgrade to a paid subscription—to see if it's "safe" to install yet. If you actually learn how things work and make your own judgments, you might break out of a fear-based dependency on MacFixIt, so the site does its best to prevent that from happening.

More on the topic de jour, Blackwater, from the good Dr. Alterman....

It's become obvious to almost everyone paying attention that the operations of the Blackwater Corporation, among other private contractors, constitute yet another Bush administration scandal of significant proportions. The companies are reaping hitherto unimaginable profits while operating with a virtual—and sometimes literal—license to kill.

The oddest aspect of these operations is that they are, in most cases, fully within the law. Blackwater’s friends in the administration, the State Department and Pentagon set it up that way, and in doing so set up a system with next to no oversight. Then again, to put all the onus on these contractors themselves is in many ways to miss the point. Blackwater is merely an extreme version of the way our system operates. And while there has been some exceptional journalism looking into their operations of late, this central point is being missed. We have a defense sector in the United States that is out of control. And it’s been that way nearly from the start.
[From Think Again: The Blackwater Scandal or The More Things Don’t Change...]

Boggles my mind that the executive branch of the U.S. has a private army of their own - isn't that just a recipe for disaster? Rome didn't fall in a day...

"Kaleidoscope World" (The Chills)

• How to banish the 3-D dock
  $ defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES; killall Dock
  (tags: Leopard Apple tips OSX)

"Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army" (Jeremy Scahill)

Watched this interview last night on our Tivo-esque device. Here's the transcript, and video if you didn't get to see the piece. Quite a good, far-ranging interview, Jeremy Scahill did most of the talking.

You could not miss Erik Prince this week. The founder and top gun of Blackwater usually keeps a low media profile. But there he was all over the place, in a carefully orchestrated campaign to put the best face on a bad situation.
Erik Prince is the man who assembled a private army in Iraq with tax dollars, provided by the U.S. Government — you. Earlier this month, after some of his soldiers of fortune gunned down 17 innocent Iraqis and wounded 27 others in what the Army first called an unprovoked attack, Prince was called before Congress to give an accounting.
[From Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS]

Part Two here

Well, I mean, I believe that Erik Prince is an ideological foot soldier. And I do believe that he's a Christian supremacist. And I think it's very easy to explain that. I mean, look, this is the guy who gave a half a million dollars to Chuck Colson, the first person to go to jail for Watergate who's now becoming a very prominent evangelical minister and an advisor to President Bush, one of the people behind the safe face initiatives.

And Chuck Colson has said things like when Mohammed wrote the Koran, he had had too many tamales the night before. Also one of the leading executives of Blackwater, Joseph Schmidt is an active member of the Military Order of Malta, a Christian militia dating back to the Crusades. And I believe that these men do have an agenda that very closely reflects adherence to a sort of Crusader doctrine.

One could easily make a case that the proposed tax increase could be halved, if some of these questionable police perks were renegotiated.

Almost one-fifth of the city's proposed $5.9 billion budget will be devoted to police personnel costs. Beale read some of the line items in the proposed police budget aloud and asked Starks and his deputies to explain: $28.8 million for police overtime; $3.9 million for "holiday premium pay"; $37.1 million for "duty availability."

"What is 'duty availability'?" Beale asked.

"It's a contractural benefit paid to sworn officers," Starks said. One of his assistant deputy superintendents clarified: officers are paid $730 every three months, on top of their salaries, to be "available" in case they're called in to work an extra or emergency shift. If they report for extra duty, they're paid overtime wages as well.

"So each officer is getting $730 a quarter to be available? My, my, my," Beale said, shaking his head. "Is anyone tracking who's working a second job and isn't available?"

"No," Starks said.

Officers will also be paid a total of $11.5 million if they don't take furlough time they're entitled to, Starks confirmed, and $24 million each year to cover the cost of uniforms. That last expense works out to $600 per quarter for each officer.

"Is there anything in place to find out if the uniform allowance is being spent on that?" Beale asked.

"No," Starks said. "Just on the annual inspection day."

"Well, I can put aside a nice shirt and tie and come in looking real good for inspection," Beale said. "Officers are paid to be available, compensated for furloughs and uniforms, but we don't know if they're using it for uniforms or not--all that comes out to $153 million when we're being asked to slap the taxpayers for $300 million--"
[From Chicago Reader Blogs: Clout City]

Beale is usually not a headline maker (though, this exchange was not in the Tribune or Sun-Times, as far as I can tell)

"The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" (Naomi Klein)

Intriguing premise.

On a recent visit to Calgary, Alberta, I was taken aback to see my book on disaster capitalism selling briskly at the airport. Calgary is ground zero of North America's oil and gas boom, where business suits and cowboy hats are the de facto uniform. I had a sudden sinking feeling: did Calgary's business class think The Shock Doctrine was a how-to guide -- a manual for making millions from catastrophe? Were they hoping for tips on landing no-bid contracts if the U.S. bombs Iran?

When I get worried about inadvertently fueling the disaster complex, I take comfort in the response the book has elicited from the world's leading business journalists. That's where I learn that the very notion of disaster capitalism is my delusion -- or, as Otto Reich, former adviser to President George Bush, told BBC Business Daily, it is the work "of a very confused person."

Many publications have seen fit to assign business journalists to review the book. And why not? They are the experts. Unabashed fans of the late free-market evangeliser Milton Friedman, these are our primary purveyors of the idea that ballooning corporate profits are on the verge of trickling down to the citizens of the world in the form of freedom and democracy. So in the Times, for instance, the book was reviewed by Robert Cole, who writes the paper's personal investor column and is author of the volume Getting Started in Unit and Investment Trusts (Chapter 7 -- Taxing Questions: Pepping up Your Prospects). Cole was none too pepped by The Shock Doctrine, which disappointed him as "too easy to dismiss as a leftist rant." In The New York Times, the task of explaining why "it's all a grand capitalist conspiracy" fell to Tom Redburn, author of its Economic View column. "That's a lot to lay on poor Milton," Redburn sniffed.
[Click to continue reading Naomi Klein: My Unrequited Love for the Business Press]

Instead of working this morning, I spent nearly two hours correcting/annotating the ID3 tags for MP3 files converted from the FLAC files contained in this awesome Dylan bootleg, downloaded via a bittorrent client.

[From Bob Dylan - Genuine Bootleg Series volume 2 : Music > Rock - Mininova]

A few duds, but a lot of good tracks too. I do wish Sony/Columbia would convince his Bobness to release another album of

The Basement Tapes

• Recipe: Raw Tuscan Kale Salad With Pecorino
  yum
  (tags: food recipe)
• Which Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? (Part One) - Errol Morris - Zoom - New York Times Blog
  fascinating
  (tags: history photography War Russia)
• Which Came First? (Part Two) - Errol Morris - Zoom - New York Times Blog
  Sebastopol and Crimean War, part two. Fascinating
  (tags: history photography War research)
• Which Came First? (Part Three): Can George, Lionel and Marmaduke Help Us Order the Fenton Photographs? - Errol Morris - Zoom - New York Times Blog
  conclusion, well maybe
  (tags: history photography War Russia Britain Crimean_War)

Meryl Streep was flogging this film on the Daily Show recently, looks interesting. Though, not compelling enough to brave a metroplex to see it.

The title of Robert Redford's "Lions for Lambs" comes from a comment made by a German officer in World War I about the bravery of British soldiers compared to the criminal stupidity of their commanders.

The film, which had its world premiere Monday at the London Film Festival, makes clear that Redford feels the same way about the current political leadership of the U.S. and the men and women now fighting and dying in the name of their country.

In sober and unemotional fashion, Redford and writer Matthew Michael Carnahan set out the arguments for and against America's military incursions in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving it for the audience to ponder a response. They leave no doubt, however, where they stand.

Box office response to films dealing with the U.S. government's strategies in the Middle East so far suggests that the public is not eager to grapple with the topic onscreen. Redford's film will appeal to those who feel that today's military sacrifices are being made on false premises, but its responsible tone could draw a more widely appreciative audience.

Clocking in at about 90 minutes, the film has three settings, two of which involve discussions on the merits of commitment to activism and politics far removed from the field of battle. The third shows two Special Forces volunteers trapped on a snowy mountain in Afghanistan and surrounded by the enemy.

Redford plays Dr. Stephen Malley, a lecturer at an unnamed California university, who is attempting to persuade a bright but undisciplined student named Todd (Andrew Garfield) that he should apply his talents to help solving the problems of the day.

Meryl Streep is Janine Roth, a veteran television reporter whose skills include taking shorthand and the ability to land an exclusive interview with hotshot Sen. Jasper Irving (Tom Cruise). Irving has his eye on the White House, and what he has to reveal is a new strategy that involves sending small Special Forces teams deep into mountainous territory to prevent Sunni and Shia insurgents from uniting.
[From Redford goes to war in Lions for Lambs ]

still waiting for the Sundance film theater to open down the street, I'd love to go to the premiere, and shake Mr. Redford's hand.

I'd always heard about this underground network. The Green Mill ought to conduct public tours...

Few people know it's there -- fewer know where it leads.

In the floor behind the bar at the Green Mill, a century-old jazz club in Uptown, lies a door. Beneath it: a musty labyrinth of gangster and Uptown history.

The World Below -- a series of tunnels branching underground from the Green Mill to the bookstore Shake, Rattle & Read a few doors away -- mixes myth and fable, dusty boilers and blood-splattered urinals (more on this in a moment).

In the mid-1910s, the Green Mill was an exclusive hangout for Essanay Studio executives and early film stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Wallace Beery. In recent decades, jazz musicians such as Clifford Jordan, Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr. have graced its stage. But tales of Jazz Age Chicago, when gangsters such as "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and boss Alphonse Capone defied Prohibition, are most prominent down below.

"They could either come to the tunnels and hide, or escape. Of course, the booze was stashed down here," says Ric Addy, owner of Shake, Rattle & Read. The bookstore has been in his family since 1965, which makes Addy an armchair historian and raconteur of all things Uptown.
[From A gangster underworld? -- chicagotribune.com]

I haven't even been to The Green Mill in quite a while (not pictured above), though it is a fun place to take out-of-towners. My brother ordered a glass of Old Style, on tap, for $6.99, and my sister and I thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Before the massive Uptown Theatre changed the face of Broadway's 4800 block in 1925, the Green Mill hosted a vast beer garden and dance hall, complete with underground restrooms. The original stone façade entrance still stands outside, though obscured by a fiberglass sign for the restaurant Fiesta Mexicana.

Below, only the men's restroom survives, complete with the original, tiny octagonal tiles and porcelain urinals.

"It's not too hard to imagine Capone stepping up to do his business here," Addy jokes.

Unlike the brightly lighted Green Mill storeroom, darkness permeates everything and temperatures drop 20 degrees. It's quiet. If any ghosts linger here, they keep to themselves. The corpses of a half-dozen water bugs lie scattered near the doorway.

There is evidence of life, however. I nside one of the urinals, a violent red smear clings to the porcelain - remnant of a fake mob hit shot for the 1993 movie "Excessive Force," starring Thomas Ian Griffith and James Earl Jones.

Jones and Griffith aren't the only celebrities to have visited the tunnels. Over the years, Addy has given private tours to bands such as the Beastie Boys and Suicidal Tendencies who were looking for their own pieces of gangster legacy. Years ago, one room held wooden bank vaults stacked with rotting bank documents, but they're long gone.

Sad isn't it? The federal government has so many more resources available than states, yet Bush/Cheney would prefer to let their Exxon Mobil cronies set policy.

On Wednesday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s administration is to issue regulations requiring power plants to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions, part of a broader plan among 10 Northeastern states, known as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, to move beyond federal regulators in Washington and regulate such emissions on their own.

“I believe that states have to step into a void created by a failure of federal action,” Mr. Spitzer said in an interview on Tuesday. “The global warming issue is one where the current administration has first denied the scientific evidence and only recently begun to discuss the matter in a serious way.”
[From States Set to Sue the U.S. Over Greenhouse Gases - New York Times]

parenthetic complaint: how hard would it have been for the so-called paper of record (and Danny Hakim) to list the states involved in the lawsuit? A few are named (New York, California, Massachusetts), but never all of them. Instead Mr. Hakim uses weasel phrases like: more than a dozen, other states, a number of other states, and even the old favorite, multistate effort.

I really should do this too

Spooked by the possibility of identity theft, increasing numbers of people are taking a radical approach to thwart criminals: They are putting their credit reports on permanent freeze. A frozen credit report prevents almost anyone from using your name to take out a loan or sign up for credit, such as a credit card, a bank account or cellphone service. That is because, with a freeze in place, potential new creditors can't get access to your credit record kept on file by the three main credit-reporting bureaus without your explicit permission. [From More People Are Freezing Credit Reports]

I'm not in the market for any new loans or debts, why should my credit report be available to marketers?

Some states also are requiring the credit bureaus to charge lower fees in their states. As of last month, Indiana residents can request, lift or a remove a freeze for free, while consumers in other places, such as Nebraska and Delaware, pay only a one-time fee to place the freeze with no additional costs to remove the freeze. Some states, including New York, New Jersey and Montana, require that bureaus charge fees of $5 or less.

Consumers can get more information on states' credit-freeze laws, along with general guidelines on how to place a freeze, at www.financialprivacynow.org, a site run by Consumers Union.

Our political system at work. Senator Jay Rockefeller (D- W Va) allowed the telecoms to purchase his vote, then denied it vigorously. At&T and Verizon suddenly gave the corrupt Senator lots of campaign cash, and in return, he helps them evade criminal prosecution. Bleh. Is it any wonder everyone's opinion about Congress is so low?

Telecom executives from companies seeking escape from privacy lawsuits accusing them of illegally collaborating with secret domestic spying programs wrote thousands in checks to the re-election campaign of Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia)

[snip]

The companies are facing surprisingly effective lawsuits against them for allegedly helping the government data-mine trillions of Americans' phone records, wiretap the internet and listen in on Americans' overseas conversations without a warrant as required by federal law.

AT&T and Verizon executives didn't just mail checks to Rockefeller's campaign; they threw fund-raising parties - a Verizon shindig in New York in March and an AT&T gala in San Antonio, Texas in May, according to the New York Times.

That would explain the otherwise inexplicably high number of contributions to Rockefeller from Texans other than AT&T executives (especially from Texas real estate interests) that came in at the same time frame as the AT&T contributions.
[click to read more: Senator Denies AT&T, Verizon Cash Bought Spying Immunity Vote on Threat Level]

In slightly unrelated news, I finally got my Electronic Frontier Foundation t-shirt.

• Michelle Shocked Is Back - A n a r c h i c _ U n i v e r s e ℠
  "Michelle Shocked is back with a beautiful spiritual"
  (tags: Music Youtube)
• How To Get Off A Mailing List - Consumer Assistance
  For $1, less junk mail......hmmm "MPS will substantially decrease the amount of national advertising mail you receive"
  (tags: financial Green junk mail)
• Brazilian Pop Freaks the Power
  "hep world-music emporium Soul Jazz last investigated Brazil in 2006, the cover of their Tropicália set depicted cops wielding batons."
  (tags: Brazil Music)

We knew this would happen (slow, gradual demonization of S. div. , just like cannabis, just like LSD, yadda yadda.) I've read several scary media stories which use phrases like 'dangerous', and 'suicide', even though these phrases are unwarranted. Soon Congress will be holding hearings, with some puritan who never even tried S. div. fulminating about the demon herb.

Did you know your teenager can legally buy a drug whose effects have been compared to LSD? It’s called salvia and it’s very dangerous.

Even seasoned drug users have called salvia “too intense” and “scary.” In fact a teenager’s suicide in Delaware is being blamed on the herb. So the Investigators went undercover to show you how easy it is to buy salvia.
[From The Dangers of Salvia || WXYZ.com | WXYZ-TV / Detroit | Detroit News, Weather, Sports and More ]

We've discussed the matter a few times:
What a frackin crocko
Salvia Divinorum
and probably more.

Don't forget - you are a child, and cannot be trusted to make decisions about your own health. Only over-paid pharmaceutical reps (and their Congressional domesticated critters) are allowed to tell you what chemicals are acceptable to ingest.

Speaking of the Telecom Orifices (as Steve Jobs so memorably called them), Walt Mossberg holds court on a topic near to my heart as well: why are U.S. cell-phone users bound to their carriers in a sort of government-encouraged indentured servitude? Mr. Mossberg is probably a good dinner companion, especially if you get him going on this topic

Comrade Walt Mossberg.

Walt has long railed on the topic of the stifling of innovation by the U.S. cell phone carriers–especially to me over dinner when I am really tired– -so it is nice to see it in a terrific piece you should not miss.
[From Mossberg: Hero of the People United Against the Soviet Ministries, Oops, I Mean Cell Phone Carriers | BoomTown | Kara Swisher]

It’s intolerable that the same country that produced all this has trapped its citizens in a backward, stifling system when it comes to the next great technology platform, the cellphone.

A shortsighted and often just plain stupid federal government has allowed itself to be bullied and fooled by a handful of big wireless phone operators for decades now. And the result has been a mobile phone system that is the direct opposite of the PC model. It severely limits consumer choice, stifles innovation, crushes entrepreneurship, and has made the U.S. the laughingstock of the mobile-technology world, just as the cellphone is morphing into a powerful hand-held computer.

Whether you are a consumer, a hardware maker, a software developer or a provider of cool new services, it’s hard to make a move in the American cellphone world without the permission of the companies that own the pipes. While power in other technology sectors flows to consumers and nimble entrepreneurs, in the cellphone arena it remains squarely in the hands of the giant carriers.

The Soviet Ministry Model

That’s why I refer to the big cellphone carriers as the “Soviet ministries.” Like the old bureaucracies of communism, they sit athwart the market, breaking the link between the producers of goods and services and the people who use them.
[From Free My Phone | Mossblog | Walt Mossberg]

View image

[From Signe Wilkinson]

So proud....so clueless

Steve Wells does some interesting work, reading the Bible (and other religious texts) closely. His latest project is compiling a list of G-d being a hard-ass, or otherwise vindictive.

I'm bothered by the Bible's cruelty most of all.

So far I've marked 880 passages in the Bible that I consider cruel. Acts that were performed, commanded, or inspired by a supposedly kind and loving God.

Now it's true that some on the list are minor, and some might not seem cruel to everyone. Some passages are on the list for excessive violence, even when God may not have been directly involved. So let's focus on those that will seem cruel to nearly everyone.

To help with that, I've created a short list of 237 cruel passages from the Bible. In most cases the cruelty will be clear just from reading the passage. When not, I've tried to add a note to clarify it's meaning. But I think most people who read these passages will be bothered by them.

Here's one to get started with. (To be fair, I'll try to include some later from the Quran and Book of Mormon, too.) Here it is.

And he [Elisha] went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them. 2 Kings 2:23-24 [From Dwindling In Unbelief: Go up thou bald head]

Cursing little kids because they teased his baldness. Yikes. Reminds me of Carl Jung's book (which I really should read again one of these days), Answer to Job.

Of course, any actual evidence is redacted, for national security reasons, and because apparently there are some disgruntled telecom stock-holders who happen to work for the federal government and don't want their stock holdings to lose value.

Federal prosecutors disputed charges by former telecommunications executive Joseph Nacchio that his company lost lucrative government contracts after he refused to cooperate with National Security Agency requests.

Mr. Nacchio, former chief executive of Qwest Communications International Inc., made the allegations in recently unsealed documents filed as part of his request for a new trial following his conviction on insider-trading charges. Mr. Nacchio claims he refused to cooperate with what the documents call "improper government requests" in February 2001.

The competing court filings by Mr. Nacchio and the government don't elaborate on what NSA requests are at issue; large sections of the documents are blacked out to protect what the government says are state secrets. Mr. Nacchio has said in the past that he didn't comply when asked by the NSA for access to private phone records of Qwest customers. The NSA request is believed to be part of a warrantless wiretapping program, since discontinued, which has become the subject of political tug-of-war between the White House and Congress, with telecom providers in the middle.

Mr. Nacchio's claim prompted criticism from lawmakers, in part because the Bush administration has said the NSA's program was authorized after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. He claims the NSA approached Qwest for assistance before that.
[From U.S. Answers Nacchio - WSJ.com]

I still don't understand why Congress is even considering expanding FISA without getting more details from the White House: part of genius of the U.S. Constitution is that Congress is part of the governing process, allegedly representing the will of the governed. If the White House circumvents the Congress, we are just a tin-pot dictatorship, or worse. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid should resign their ineffectual Democratic Party leadership roles, and allow a non-enabling Democrat to take over.

The administration has balked at giving Congress documents detailing the legal justifications for the NSA program, and says that the secrecy is necessary to protect national security.

• 10 Really Useful Flickr Userscripts
  for Firefox users
  (tags: flickr firefox freeware)
• Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
  Headline writing tips
  (tags: language webdesign writing advice)
• Tate Modern | Current Exhibitions | Hélio Oiticica
  interesting
  (tags: Arts)

A trial ought to be done in Chicago at least. What's the down side? Get the manufacturer (Cree Lighting) to spring for a few dozen lights as part of a 5 year contract - Chicago is a big city.

Ann Arbor, Michigan plans to convert all of its more than 1,000 streetlights to LED (light-emitting-diode) lamps, at a cost of over $600,000. The city expects to save at least $100,000 a year in costs, and reduce greenhouse emissions by over 2,400 tons annually.

"The LED lights typically burn five times longer than the bulbs they replace and require less than half the energy. Each fixture draws 56 watts and is projected to last 10 years, replacing fixtures with bulbs that use more than 120 watts and last only two years."
[Click to continue reading ArchitectureChicago PLUS - LED Streetlights?]

Lynn Becker also points out that there would be a substantial labor savings if the street lights lasted longer.

For a second, I thought I'd be able to make a Larry Craig joke, but Sioux City is in Iowa, not Idaho.

City leaders have scrapped plans to do away with the Sioux Gateway Airport's unflattering three-letter identifier — SUX — and instead have made it the centerpiece of the airport's new marketing campaign.

The code, used by pilots and airports worldwide and printed on tickets and luggage tags, will be used on T-shirts and caps sporting the airport's new slogan, "FLY SUX." It also forms the address of the airport's redesigned Web site — http://www.flysux.com.

Sioux City officials petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to change the code in 1988 and 2002. At one point, the FAA offered the city five alternatives — GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY — but airport trustees turned them down.
[From Yahoo! News: After fight, airport embraces SUX code]

Oh well, still funny. Though they should have at least considered GAY.

• Real Christians ... again
  scary people indeed
  (tags: Religion repression)

"The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated Edition" (Michael Gray)

The closing track on the Blood on the Tracks album, this is an immensely likeable, modest song of barbed sanity. A blues- structured work, it also neatly conflates other old song titles within its lyric, as when Dylan sings
‘Little red wagon, little red bike / I ain’t no monkey but I know what I like’.

In a genre so riddled with sexual innuendo and double entendre as the blues, it’s sometimes hard to know whether a phrase or a line belongs in the nursery or the porn shop, and this is a good example. One long-term Dylan collector was told years ago that the phrase ‘little red bike’ was a blues term for anal sex: which certainly puts a different perspective on Dylan’s lyric. But it is not a common blues term: there isn’t a single ‘little red wagon’ in Michael Taft’s Blues Lyric Poetry: A Concordance.

‘Little Red Wagon’ is, however, a recording by the pre-war blues artist Georgia White, and by a happy coincidence the very next track she laid down at the same session is called ‘Dan the Back Door Man’.

"Raising Sand" (Rounder)

I've already pre-ordered this album, sounds intriguing.

the album is really a three-way collaboration by an improbable alliance: Mr. Plant, who will be forever known as the lead singer of Led Zeppelin; Ms. Krauss, whose clear voice and deft fiddle style hail from Appalachia; and the producer and guitarist T Bone Burnett, the Texan who is best known for concocting haunted, pensively anachronistic Americana.

[snip]

With Mr. Burnett leading a malleable studio band, Mr. Plant and Ms. Krauss share old and recent songs, drawing on Gene Clark, the Everly Brothers, Townes Van Zandt, Allen Toussaint, Mel Tillis and Tom Waits. It’s a collection of, mostly, sad songs — tales of love betrayed — floating in their own limbo. Together the collaborators triangulate a terra incognita somewhere between swamp and mountain, memories and eternity. Mr. Plant happily called it “the most amazing collision of styles.”
[From When It Takes Three People to Make a Duet]

"Chicago - City of the Century" (Pbs Home Video)

I'm going to insist visitors to Chicago watch disk 4 (the bonus disc) of this fairly well-made documentary. Historically-minded visitors might enjoy the whole series (covers Chicago history up to 1900, with a particular emphasis on the labor unrest and dire poverty, contrasted against the gilded age robber barons, and includes detailed discussion of the Haymarket Riot and repercussions), but the fourth disc contains an excellent tour of Chicago neighborhoods (well, circa 2003, some changes since then). Geoffrey Baird narrates a tour of each of the El lines, and what neighborhoods and ethnic groups you'd encounter on such a journey. If you've been to Chicago (or are thinking about it), and don't want to spend your time solely downtown, watch the footage on the fourth disc.

[Netflix: Chicago: City of the Century: American Experience]

Quite interesting stuff.

Why isn't Pete Stark running for President? And an atheist to boot....

During today's House debates over legislation to expand the SCHIP program, vetoed by President Bush, California Democratic Rep. Pete Stark lodges an indictment against the Bush Administration, and his colleagues in the opposition, sharing his perception that there is a higher priority given to money to wage war and "blow things up" than that given to health care for American children in need.

[snip]

In the previous job as an actor, our Governor used to play make-believe and blow things up. Well, [the] President and Republicans in Congress are playing make-believe today with children's lives. They claim we can't afford health care. They say the bill will socialize medicine. Tell that to Orrin Hatch, Chuck Grassley and Ted Stevens, those socialists on the other side of this capitol. The truth is: [The] CHIP program enables states to cover children primarily through private health care plans. But, President Bush's statements about children's health shouldn't be taken any more seriously than his lies about the war in Iraq. The truth is that Bush just likes to blow things up... in Iraq, in the United States, and in Congress. [Click to read full transcript, and watch video clip
The Raw Story | House Rep. Stark: Kids get 'heads blown off for the President's amusement']

Facts are dangerous, part the 5466th

Scientists say there has been a worrying drop in the amount of CO2 soaked up by the world's oceans. [From Oceans 'soaking up less CO2']

Of course, discussion of Al Gore inventing the internet is still more important to the world's health.

Despite American corporate media's attempt to render every political discussion in binary terms, there are Republicans who want to protect the environment.

An increasingly vocal, potent and widespread anti-coal movement, including environmentalists, ranchers, farmers and others, is developing in the West.



Richard D. Liebert turned his back against a hard wind the other day, adjusted his black cap and gazed across golden fields of hay. Explaining why he is against construction of a big coal-burning power plant east of town, Liebert sounded like one more voice from the green movement.



Richard D. Liebert, who owns the Windwalker Ranch near the planned site, is a vocal, and unusual, opponent of the power plant. “The more I learn about global warming and watch the drought affect ranchers and farmers, I see that it’s wind energy, not coal plants, that can help with rural economic development. Besides, do we want to roll the dice with the one planet we’ve got?”



But Mr. Liebert, despite his sentiments, fits nobody’s stereotype of an environmentalist. He is a Republican, a cattle rancher and a retired Army lieutenant colonel who travels to South Korea to train soldiers to fight in Iraq.



He is also an example of a rising phenomenon in the West. An increasingly vocal, potent and widespread anti-coal movement is developing here. Environmental groups that have long opposed new power plants are being joined by ranchers, farmers, retired homeowners, ski resort operators and even religious groups.

[From Fight Against Coal Plants Is Creating Diverse Partnerships]

Coal pollution is nobody's friend. Sure, most of the Western Republican anti-coal coalition is based on a Not In My Back Yard impulse, but an ally is an ally.

Maybe not quite so simple after all - pre 9-11 illegalities would still be actionable

Legislation aimed at updating a law on government-surveillance activities would give telecommunications companies legal immunity for aiding a warrantless wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- but leave them vulnerable when it came to any aid they offered previously.

The exception may be significant in light of suggestions by Joseph Nacchio, former chief executive of Qwest Communications International Inc., that the government approached telecom providers for help in a contentious surveillance program run by the National Security Agency before Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Nacchio was convicted this spring of insider trading and is free pending his appeal.
[From Surveillance Law Could Hold New Risks for Telecom Firms - WSJ.com]

There still is no reason to give immunity - the telecoms are claiming the Good German excuse (sure, we broke the law, but somebody in the government asked me to), but shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.

• wire to the ear » » MySpace is going to open its platform.
  my photo of myspace
  (tags: Swanksalot republished)
• Real Christians ...
  Christians who follow the precepts of their lord are few, so kudos to the few with a strength of their belief
  (tags: Religion Iraq irony)
• Gonna Have Surgery...Someday
  think positive thoughts for John Burt, hope all turns out well
  (tags: insurance_companies_suck)

Alleyway entrance, West Loop.

glad the perfume company kept the old facade

Acme Industrial, originally uploaded by swanksalot. no Wil E Coyote to be found. A joke so obvious I was compelled to type it....

• Basketbawful: Brad Miller: A history of violence
  I actually was watching the Bulls beat the Lakers when this dustup occurred. As Basketbawful notes, nobody messes with Oak.....
  (tags: NBA Youtube Chicago Bulls)
• Call (202) 224-6472, and say: "Hi, is this the number I call to get retroactive immunity for my past illegal acts?" | Corrente
  Too bad, the mailbox was full. Perhaps a letter writing campaign?
  (tags: Congress Congress_sucks telecom)

Tim Starks of Congressional Quarterly reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) plans to bring the Senate’s surveillance bill up for floor debate in mid-November. That’s despite the hold that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) plans to place on the measure — something first reported by Election Central’s Greg Sargent.

[From Reid Tries To Shut Down Dodd’s Hold]

"Tom Waits' Swordfishtrombones (33 1/3)" (David Smay)

"Swordfishtrombones" (Tom Waits)

I want to take a tangent into another period of troubles for Tom. In his early adolescence, Tom Waits lost the ability to filter out sound. The most innocuous sounds – his mother’s hand trailing across his bedsheet, or a car passing on the street – became unbearably present, intensely discomfiting experiences. He thought he was going insane. It usually came on him at night as he lay in bed. To ground himself he would mutter and chant nonsense syllables (“shack a bone, shack a bone”) until the episode passed.

At one point in an interview he even speculated about having had a “bout of autism.” More recently he’s related it to his issues with vertigo, an inner ear disturbance. Certainly issues with sensory integration are symptomatic of autism and it’s the rare interviewer who doesn’t note his tendency to wrap his arms around his body and rock back and forth as he talks, which is very reminiscent of classic “stimming” behavior for autistics. In most respects, though, Tom Waits is a poor candidate for an autistic diagnosis. His entire songwriting career testifies to his capacity for empathy and emotional nuance.

Whatever caused Tom’s breakdown in sensory integration passed within a few years and by the time he was in his late teens he had already begun his musical career. What’s interesting, though, is that he didn’t simply overcome a pathology, but incorporated it into his creative process.
[From 33 1/3: Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones]

[From Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Features - 300+ New Features]

Sure, I purchased Leopard already, even though nothing on this list seems like a 'must-have' feature by itself. I'm hoping the OS architecture will take advantage of multicore chips, and add speed to everyday tasks. Actually, bought the so-called family pack since the number of active computers in my office keeps growing.

Multicore Optimized Take full advantage of modern architectures with multiple processor cores with improved scheduling, memory management, and processor affinity algorithms.

Autumn is always a bitter-sweet time. Beautifully desolate weather, liberally sprinkled with hints of impending winter, and my psychic energy always at a low point.

from:

"Stands for Decibels/Repercussion" (The dB's)

• super OS X menubar items
  stuff to clutter your menu bar with (some already do, on my machine)
  (tags: Apple application freeware Macintosh OSX)
• The Stew - A taste of Chicago's food, wine and dining scene | Chicago Tribune | Blog
  Manny's After Dark. Gotta love those sandwiches the size of a small child....
  (tags: deli food restaurant Chicago)
• Last.fm – the Blog · Spot the difference
  radiohead made a lot of fans
  (tags: Radiohead statistics Technology Music)
• Dave Zirin: Etan Thomas gets support he's used to giving
  "You're not going to reduce me to an entertainer. I'm a man who stands up for what I believe in and you're going to respect me for it" Bill Russell
  (tags: NBA activism)
• Avoid a missing CD issue when reinstalling Adobe CS3
  yikes, hope this doesn't happen to me, I might get annoyed, and forget the solution
  (tags: Adobe)

No wonder there are so many cost over-runs: corruption is 'standard operating procedure'. How many billion dollars (in cash) have been lost in Iraq? Some dollars seem to have never left the States.

The civilian official, Charles D. Riechers, 47, came under scrutiny by the Senate Armed Services Committee this month after reports that the Air Force had arranged for him to be paid about $13,400 a month by a private contractor, Commonwealth Research Institute, while he awaited clearance from the White House for his selection as principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisition. He was appointed to the job, which does not require Senate confirmation, in January.

[snip]

Commonwealth Research, registered as a nonprofit organization in Johnstown, Pa., paid Mr. Riechers for two months as a senior technical adviser while he awaited final approval to the Air Force post. During that time, he worked for Sue C. Payton, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, on several projects for which the service had contracted with Commonwealth Research for technical assistance.

Payments to Mr. Riechers totaling $26,788 were confirmed by Mary Bevan, a spokeswoman for the Concurrent Technologies Corporation, the parent of Commonwealth Research, or C.R.I.

Those payments were first reported on Oct. 1 by The Washington Post. In an interview with The Post, Mr. Riechers said: “I really didn’t do anything for C.R.I. I got a paycheck from them.”

The Air Force has defended the arrangement as routine. The matter raised enough questions, however, that the service asked the Defense Department’s inspector general several months ago to review the propriety of such consulting arrangements. A spokesman for the inspector general said Monday that the review was still under way.
[From Top Air Force Official Dies in Apparent Suicide - New York Times]

Too bad there wasn't a hidden camera in his garage - I would not be surprised to discover there were assistants to the suicide.

Via Pitchfork, we read about the Washington (Mooney) Times asking various White House employees about the new excellent Radiohead album, In Rainbows.

Turns out Radiohead have at least one "big fan" in the big house, that being deputy press secretary Tony Fratto, who expressed his intention to score a copy of In Rainbows.

Others, including deputy press secretary Scott Stanzel and National Security Council spokesperson Gordon Johndroe, were at least aware of the band. Stanzel called himself an "appreciator" of their music, while Johndroe admitted to being "90% sure" he had some Radiohead jams on his iPod. [snip]

White House press secretary Dana Perino-- who was 21 when Pablo Honey came out-- demonstrated her worldliness when asked about the British rock group: "I don't even know what that is. Is that a band?"

[From Pitchfork: White House Weighs in on Radiohead]

Dana Perino is an idiot, but I bet she secretly has a copy of Hail to the Thief on her Zune

"Clapton: The Autobiography" (Eric Clapton)

is it possible that living the life of a drugged-out rock and roller isn't all that mythologizing reporters have made it out to be?

“Clapton: The Autobiography” (Broadway Books) does what many rock historians couldn’t: It debunks the legend, de-mythologizes one of the most mythologized electric guitarists ever, puts a lie to the glamour of what it means to be a rock star.

“Backstage, John [Lennon] and I did so much blow that he threw up….” Those few words capture the book’s tenor: intimate, scandalous, titillating, but ultimately sad, at times pathetic. Legends reduced to drug-addled buffoons.

As a first-time author, Clapton has a matter-of-fact, self-deprecating touch. In this autobiography, for which he was reportedly paid nearly $7 million, the guitarist who launched the Yardbirds, Cream and Blind Faith psycho-analyzes himself and recounts a life riddled with drugs, booze, womanizing, shame, self-doubt and self-destructive choices. He sleep-walks through the prime of his life in a haze of self-medication, and rightly trashes most of the albums he released in the ‘70s and ‘80s. “There was no reason for me to be making records at all,” he acknowledges, yet he went right on making them, tarnishing a great legacy almost beyond repair.

[snip]

His promoters and handlers were a mix of enablers and exploiters disguised as friends. They kept Clapton on the road when he should have been in rehab, and they made sure the money kept rolling in, even as Clapton’s personal life was in shambles. To his credit, the singer never blames anyone but himself for most of his sorry behavior.A few nuggets from Clapton’s musical world do emerge. He was deeply suspicious of Beatlemania and loathed Led Zeppelin. He was awed by Buddy Guy’s power trio, which became a model for Cream. He thought Cream’s debut album was innovative, until he heard Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?” Cream, he writes, soon turned into a complacent “con.” It led him to Blind Faith, which he abandoned almost at its inception. Derek and the Dominoes’ landmark “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” was written and performed almost entirely under the influence of sleeping pills, cocaine and hard liquor. One of his last great songs, “Let it Grow,” “totally ripped off ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ ”
[From Turn It Up - A guided tour through the worlds of pop, rock and rap | Chicago Tribune | Blog]

Wait, Clapton despised Led Zeppelin, but then ripped off one of their (most overplayed) songs? Pathetic. For the record, I do like the most recent Clapton/JJ Cale album, but from Blind Faith dissolution until 2006 is a long time of making crap music.

"The Road to Escondido" (J.J. Cale, Eric Clapton)

Mural, found on Ashland, just north of Lake Avenue. Not entirely sure as to what it means, but it is quite cool.

----
update:
turns out to be another Jeff Zimmerman piece

jazim.com/new.html
(first one I photographed, here)

Well, the Food Police don't live anywhere else, thanks to years of budget cuts and staff shortfalls. Lest we forget, a bi-partisan choice. The nation's food factories are big businesses, and have big lobbying dollars to convince compliant Congress-critters that regulation is for suckers. But the constant news about consumers getting sick is bad for business some are realizing.

Food industries and regulators are advocating preventive action by companies as the best way to prevent food-borne illnesses.

But this system of "preventive controls" has worked in the past only with adequate regulatory enforcement and industry support -- neither of which is guaranteed.

"The reason you have regulation is some companies don't have the market incentive to meet high food-quality standards," said Mike Taylor, a food-safety expert who worked in the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. "The public doesn't trust a system that leaves it entirely to the industry."

In recent years, the number of illnesses caused by foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration -- including fresh produce and peanut butter -- has risen sharply, according to an analysis of government and medical-journal data by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group in Washington.
[From Can Food Industry Police Itself?]

Poor, poor FDA, so overworked, and out-manned by circumstance. My heart aches for their tough job(and my stomach too).

A boom in food imports also hit the FDA much harder. The USDA regulates mostly U.S.-produced goods, with only 33 foreign countries allowed to ship meat to the U.S. through as many ports. The FDA, by contrast, has relatively little control over the 13,916 foreign seafood processors shipping into 400 U.S. ports -- when imports accounted for more than half of all seafood consumed in the U.S. in the late 1990s and 83% today.

The FDA in the late 1990s had planned to visit foreign countries to evaluate seafood-safety standards. But those plans were gradually abandoned due to costs and the challenges of dealing with myriad differing standards.

"The U.S. is flooded with an enormous volume of food from abroad, where the risks to food are greater than ever before, and at a time in which the FDA's ability to protect our food supply is growing even weaker," Mr. Hubbard said.

Now the industry is looking to strengthen regulation, including broadening the use of preventive controls. Apparently realizing that a weak FDA affects consumer confidence -- and their bottom line -- several trade groups, such as the GMA and National Fisheries Institute, are lobbying for more funding and authority for the agency to oversee food safety.

Nice words, but show me some actual changes first, before touting Wal-Mart's green credentials. As the cliche goes, talk is cheaper than an Arkansas hooker. Err, something like that.

In a show of force no government likely could pull off, Wal-Mart Stores CEO Lee Scott summoned 250 CEOs to a Rogers, Ark., convention center Oct. 10 to outline his plans to hold them accountable for their "carbon footprints" and scrutinize away their excess packaging.

[From Why Wal-Mart Has More Green Clout Than Anyone - Advertising Age - News]

However, if Lee Scott is serious about holding Wal-Mart's suppliers to a higher standard, good for Wal-Mart. I guess he won't be going to any cocktail parties at the Cheney's mansion anytime soon.

Wal-Mart, on the other hand, has morphed into something else -- a sort of privatized Environmental Protection Agency, only with a lot more clout. The EPA can levy a seven-figure fine; Wal-Mart can wipe out more than a quarter of a business in one fell swoop, as Mr. Scott reminded his audience in a not-so-subtle exercise in passive-aggressive environmental regulation.

Wal-Mart's environmental scorecards are voluntary -- for now. But Mr. Scott made clear there's a stick coming to supplement the carrot.

"Two or three years from now," he said, Wal-Mart merchandising executives "are going to have to make choices." Marketers "who haven't done anything, who have products that really aren't very good for the environment," may lose access to Wal-Mart's advertising circulars, end caps or front-of-store displays, he said. That's if Wal-Mart is convinced consumers really want the products. If not, it just won't carry them.

That threat, however veiled, has Wal-Mart's suppliers lining up to drink the green Kool-Aid.

• Photoshop - www.stevengotz.com
  some good links here
  (tags: Adobe photography Photoshop tutorials)
• The REAL Rudy: Radios
  go ahead, sign the petition
  (tags: 9/11 Republicans)
• Hullabaloo Standing Their Ground
  One of Giuliani's flaws is that he believes his own PR. Facts point to a different conclusion.
  (tags: Giuliani 9/11)
• Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones
  oh, I'm getting this. Love this album.
  (tags: Music music_history rock_snob 33.3 books)

"Chrome Dreams II" (Neil Young)

New Neil Young album

the record’s centerpiece, “Ordinary People.” The song is a leftover from the late eighties, when Young was playing with a full horn section and calling his band the Bluenotes. A massive ode to our collective humanity, it runs for nine long verses and more than eighteen minutes: that’s three times as long as “Like a Rolling Stone” and longer even than “Sister Ray.” It’s also a major composition, passing through scenes of hope, justice, ambition, and disappointment as the guitar stings and the horns surge. “Some are saints and some are jerks,” Young sings, cataloguing his subjects more specifically as he goes—“alcoholic people,” “patch-of-ground people,” and even, in a wonderfully perverse refusal to update lyrics, “Lee Iacocca people.”
[From Chrome Never Sleeps: Recordings: The New Yorker]

I never really got into the Bluenotes, I should give 'em another listen

Tim Novak and Fran Spielman have been reading my blog. Ahem. No, not really, in fact, they took the widely discussed Chicago culture of corruption as a launching point, and attempted to affix a dollar amount to all the recent scandals.

When Mayor Daley asked Chicagoans to cough up $293 million more next year to finance the cost of city government, there's one tax he failed to mention: The Corruption, Waste and Mismanagement Tax.

It's almost impossible to calculate the cost of the Hired Truck, city hiring, minority contracting and police corruption scandals.

It's even harder to determine how much more it costs taxpayers when employees and contractors with clout are hired over more qualified competitors and then watched less closely.

But one thing is certain: Chicagoans pay a price for corruption, waste and fraud.

If they didn't, Daley would never have agreed to establish a $12 million fund to compensate victims of the city's rigged hiring system after the conviction of his former patronage chief. And the mayor would not have abolished a $40-million-a-year Hired Truck program so tarnished by scandal, a federal investigation has already resulted in 45 convictions, 29 of them city employees.

"There's still a corruption tax in Chicago," said Jay Stewart of the Better Government Association.
[Click to read more about the specific scandals, and their estimated costs The cost of corruption :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Hired Truck Scandal]

I am not sure, are all big cities as corrupt as Chicago? Still, Chicago is a nice place to live, a great place, in fact, but wouldn't it be better if so much taxpayer money wasn't diverted to line the pockets of connected insiders?

More on the political hackery re: the Qwest CEO Joseph P. Nacchio matter

Nacchio discovered that the NSA was engaged in a project to gather warrantless surveillance data on millions of Americans. He took advice of counsel. His lawyers told him, correctly, that this was illegal. They probably also warned him that if Qwest participated in the program, it would be committing a felony. So Nacchio said, no, sorry, I can’t work with you on this. But I can help if you want to change the law. And the reaction of the NSA? It was, apparently, to cut Qwest out of a series of contract awards by way of retaliation. (If that charge sticks, it would probably be yet another felony.) And the second reaction? To try to build a criminal case against Nacchio as a means of retaliation against him. (And if that charge sticks, it would probably be yet a third felony–on the part of the Government officials who did it). We are seeing the Government engaging in a sweeping pattern of criminal dealings, and ultimately, one of the biggest crimes of all, abusing the criminal justice process to strike out at an individual who refused to play their crooked game. Oh, and by the way: who was heading the NSA when all of this transpired? Michael Hayden, the man who now runs the CIA, and is busily dismantling the CIA Inspector General’s office because it has apparently raised questions about potentially criminal conduct on his watch there, too.
[Click to read "Qwest: Another Political Prosecution?" by Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)]

See also lambert's piece on the same topic.

One could hope....

For months, the Alabama Republican machine has attempted to brush off claims about Rove’s involvement as some sort of fantastic speculation. Those efforts have just been exploded. We are one step closer to understanding why Karl Rove left the White House, and perhaps also why Alberto Gonzales stepped down as attorney general. The Siegelman case is emerging, as we predicted, as the most damning exhibit yet in the story of the Bush Administration’s use of the Justice Department as a partisan political tool.
[Click to read "Karl Rove Linked to Siegelman Prosecution" by Scott Horton (Harper's Magazine)]

Perhaps there is still a frog-march in Rove's near future...

Coming soon, but not soon enough. Season 4 will be available on DVD soon....

On a muggy August afternoon in Baltimore, trash scuttled down Guilford Avenue, the breeze smelling like rain and asphalt. It was the last week of shooting for the fifth and final season of the HBO drama “The Wire,” and the crew was filming a scene in front of a boarded-up elementary school. Cast members had been joined by forty or so day players—mostly kids from the neighborhood. Earlier, the episode’s director, Clark Johnson, had been giving some of the kids the chance to say “Cut!,” and they’d bellowed it like drunks at a surprise party. Now, when Johnson yelled “Cut,” the kids swarmed around a video monitor to look at themselves in the last shot, pointing and laughing. “He just said it was good,” one kid complained. “Why we gotta do it again?” Johnson, who was wearing what he called his “lucky cowboy hat,” stepped away to talk to one of the professional actors. Another man—a bald white guy, unprepossessing in jeans and a T-shirt—remained by the monitor, and he answered the kids: “Hey. He’s the director. You don’t believe him? He kinda, sorta knows what he’s doin’.” The bald guy was David Simon, the show’s creator: a former Baltimore Sun reporter who figured that he’d spend his life at a newspaper, a print journalist who has forged an improbable career in television without ever leaving Baltimore. The kids listened politely to Simon and ran back to their places.

[snip]
Johnson is an actor as well as a director. He played a detective on “Homicide,” the NBC cop series based on Simon’s 1991 book by the same name, about murder in Baltimore, and in the new season of “The Wire” he plays Gus Haynes, a city editor who tries to hold the line against dwindling coverage, buyouts, and pseudo-news. In the season opener, Haynes provides a bitingly funny introduction to newsroom culture. He complains about a photographer who invariably gooses the poignancy of fire scenes by positioning a charred doll somewhere amid the debris. (“I can see that cheatin’ motherfucker now, with his fucking harem of dolls, pouring lighter fluid on each one,” Haynes fumes.) And he patiently explains to a junior reporter one of those house rules which arbiters of newspaper style cling to with fierce persnicketiness: a building can be “evacuated,” he instructs, but you cannot evacuate people. “To evacuate a person is to give that person an enema,” one of the old-timers chimes in. “At the Baltimore Sun, God still resides in the details.”
[Click to read more of Profiles: Stealing Life: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker]

Snow porn from a few years ago.

• Frothy Paradise
  Talbot Hotel Ladybug photo republished
  (tags: Swanksalot Chicago republished)
• make crystal clear ice! - Instructables - The World's Biggest Show & Tell - art, craft, diy, food, games, home, life, offbeat, ride, tech [category: life]
  Ice ice baby - howto make clear ice, and some other interesting discussion
  (tags: BoingBoing chemistry food DIY)
• Jean de Florette (1986)
  I do so love this movie.
  (tags: film French)
• :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews :: Jean de Florette (xhtml)
  obviously not a big budget film, yet gripping drama
  (tags: film_history French review)
• Jean De Florette / Manon Of The Spring | The A.V. Club
  "They're meant to be watched as a single excellent movie, a bitter, intelligent generational portrait suggesting that while evil acts aren't always immediately punished, delayed reckonings can be far worse."
  (tags: film review French)
• Pure Pedantry : She ovulates hard for the money: lapdancing and economic evidence for estrus
  I've actually never been to a strip club...
  (tags: sexuality Science)

"I Am America (And So Can You!)" (Stephen Colbert)

He was sneering that Times columns make good “kindling.” He was ranting that after you throw away the paper, “it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.” He was observing, approvingly, that “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”

I called Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to “shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.”
[From A Mock Columnist, Amok]

In the case of the National Security Agency collecting data on all internet and telephone traffic, apparently, 9/11 was tacked on as justification after the fact.

Startling statements from former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio's defense documents alleging the National Security Agency began building a massive call records database seven months before 9/11 aren't the only accusations that the controversial program predated the attacks of 9/11. According to court documents unveiled this week, former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio clearly wanted to argue in court that the NSA retaliated against his company after he turned down a NSA request on February 27, 2001 that he thought was illegal. Nacchio's attorney issued a carefully worded statement in 2006, saying that Nacchio had turned down the NSA's repeated requests for customer call records. The statement says that Nacchio was asked for the records in the fall of 2001, but doesn't say he was "first asked" then. [From Qwest CEO Not Alone in Alleging NSA Started Domestic Phone Record Program 7 Months Before 9/11 on Threat Level]

Liars, crooks, and scum.

President resists curbs on spy bill:
Bush wants immunity for telecom firms

President Bush, demanding "flexibility" in the pursuit of suspected terrorists, insisted Wednesday that he would not sign a new domestic spying bill if it unduly limits the administration's authority to eavesdrop without warrants.

Yikes. Luckily for the world, Bush's Neo-Con-Artists are not as powerful as they once were, and the plans will probably just end up as classified documents in the Bush Presidential Library. How about we impeach him first, and ask questions later?

"A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country" (Wesley K. Clark)

In "A Time to Lead: For Duty, Honor and Country," published by Palgrave Macmillan last month, the former four-star general recalls two visits to the Pentagon following the terrorist attacks of September 2001. On the first visit, less than two weeks after Sept. 11, he writes, a "senior general" told him, "We're going to attack Iraq. The decision has basically been made."

Six weeks later, Clark returned to Washington to see the same general and inquired whether the plan to strike Iraq was still under consideration. The general's response was stunning:

"'Oh, it's worse than that,' he said, holding up a memo on his desk. 'Here's the paper from the Office of the Secretary of Defense [then Donald Rumsfeld] outlining the strategy. We're going to take out seven countries in five years.' And he named them, starting with Iraq and Syria and ending with Iran."

While Clark doesn't name the other four countries, he has mentioned in televised interviews that the hit list included Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan
[Click to read more Joe Conason: Wesley Clark's memoir and the neocon strategy for a wider Mideast war | Salon.com ]

• ATA Airlines hates its passengers
  remind me to never fly on ATA - especially if I have a cellphone.
  (tags: airline telecom iPhone)
• De Palma and Producers Tussle Over Redacted Bits in Redacted
  Mark Cuban redacts Redacted.
  (tags: film censorship Iraq irony)
• Being Stupid And Litigious Is No Way To Go Through Life
  reminds me of Trey Buck's frivolous claims to 'sue me'. Asshole.
  (tags: copyright funny legal litigation)

"The Man Who Sold the World" (David Bowie)

Noted fashion designer Keanan Duffty isn't the first of his kind to ship a ready-to-wear collection to emporium of merchandise Target. He is, however, the first to rope one of rock'n'roll's true mavericks down into the realm of low-low prices along with him. Duffty's fall men's collection-- hitting stores just in time for this Sunday's circular-- "drew inspiration" from the music, persona, and the years and years of wacky ensembles of Mr. David Bowie.

According to a press release, "Several of the collection's key pieces draw direct inspiration from characters and songs by David Bowie. The tuxedo, vest, and pants were inspired by David's Thin White Duke persona, the song

Station to Station

and his most recent album Reality. The dress shirts and trench coat are references to David's first movie role as Thomas Jerome Newton in The Man Who Fell to Earth. In addition, the gray button-down shirt features Bowie's 'Let's Dance' lyrics scripted onto the fabric." [From Pitchfork: Bowie-Inspired Clothes Hit Target, New Box Set Due]

"The Man Who Fell to Earth - Criterion Collection" (Nicolas Roeg)

The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the recipients' efforts to "lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract [climate] change".

The committee said it wanted to bring the "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states" posed by climate change into sharper focus.

It highlighted a series of scientific reports issued over the last two decades by the IPCC, which comprises more than 2,000 leading climate change scientists and experts.

The reports had "created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming", the committee said.

Mr Gore was praised as "probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted", through his lectures, films and books.

"We face a true planetary emergency," Mr Gore warned. "It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity." He said he would donate his half of the $1.5m prize money to the Alliance for Climate Protection, reported the news agency Reuters.

Correspondents say Mr Gore's selection has prompted supporters to renew calls for him to stand in next year's US presidential race. Until now, Mr Gore has said he will not run.
[From BBC NEWS | Europe | Gore and UN panel win Nobel prize]

A UK High Court judge has rejected a lawsuit by political activist Stuart Dimmock to ban the showing of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in British schools. Justice Burton agreed that

"Al Gore's presentation of the causes and likely effects of climate change in the film was broadly accurate."

There were nine points where Burton decided that AIT differed from the IPCC and that this should be addressed in the Guidance Notes for teachers to be sent out with the movie.

Unfortunately a gaggle of useless journalists have misreported this decision as one that AIT contained nine scientific errors. Let me name some of the journalists who got it wrong: Sally Peck in the Daily Telegraph, Nico Hines in the Times, Mike Nizza in the New York Times, James McIntyre in the Independent, PA in Melbourne's Herald Sun, David Adam in the Guardian, Daniel Cressey in Nature, the BBC, Mary Jordan in the Washington Post, Marcus Baram for ABC News, and (of course) Matthew Warren in the Australian.

• 27 Environmentally Friendly Cities to Live - www.private-communities.org
  "By the year 2020, Austin plans to have 20 percent of its power needs met by solar power and other renewable energy resources"
  (tags: environment Green Austin)
• Yankee Fans Hate Rudy Giuliani
  "Giuliani got roundly booed at Yankee Stadium and this will play out on the campaign trail."
  (tags: New_York 2008 Republicans)
• Hillsborough: Inmate freed after test finds powder isn't meth
  Doh! Turns out to be cat urine for science project.
  (tags: Drug_War drugs)
• 36 Reasons Flickr is a Photographer’s Ultimate Tool | Make Money Selling your photos - Photopreneur Blog
  I check flickr twice a day usually, or more if I have the time
  (tags: flickr photography Business photos)
• Right Brain v Left Brain | Herald Sun
  I see both, but cannot control why. "THE Right Brain vs Left Brain test ... do you see the dancer turning clockwise or anti-clockwise?"
  (tags: weird Science)
• The Watcher -The Saga of Deadwood Continues
  Oh, Deadwood, won't you return to your glory days? Another cop show for Milch instead? Sigh.
  (tags: television Deadwood HBO)

Bob Log III - Boob Scotch plays South Paw in Brooklyn NY.Bob Log III is a Lo-fi music blues one-man band based in Tucson, Arizona. Formely of Doo Rag. He is well known for performing in a flight helmet and singing through a telephone headset attached to the helmet. He plays slide guitar and a bass drum at the same time as well as using a drum machine and various effects. He supported Franz Ferdinand on their 2003 tour. Some of his songs include: Clap Your Tits, Boob Scotch, Slide Guitar Ride, I Want Your Shit on My Leg & Log Bomb

"Log Bomb" (Bob Log III)

Tom Waits: "And then there’s this guy named Bob Log, you ever heard of him? He’s this little kid — nobody ever knows how old he is — wears a motorcycle helmet and he has a microphone inside of it and he puts the glass over the front so you can’t see his face, and plays slide guitar. It’s just the loudest strangest stuff you’ve ever heard. You don’t understand one word he’s saying. I like people who glue macaroni on to a piece of cardboard and paint it gold. That’s what I aspire to basically.”

yet not a drop to drink

Mayor Richard Daley reached for bottled water to slake his thirst for new tax revenue Wednesday, proposing a 10-cent tariff on every bottle sold in the city.

That $1.25 water from a vending machine could soon cost $1.35. And a 24-pack of Aquafina, advertised for $4.50 at a local grocery chain, would cost $6.90 with the proposed tax, an increase of more than 50 percent.

With millions of water bottles drained each year across the city, the dime-per-bottle tax would add up to a projected $21 million, part of a $293 million package of new taxes, fees and fines proposed by Daley on Wednesday.

The tax would place Chicago squarely in the center of a national debate over the environmental and economic impact of bottled water. The tide appears to be turning on bottled water, a national trend that has spawned a backlash from those who complain that landfills are awash in clear plastic empties. Suddenly, bottled water seems to have fallen to the level of cigarettes and soda pop -- an easy tax target.

"Money-wise, it's a good idea, and environmentally, it's a good idea," said Ald. George Cardenas (12th), who proposed the bottled-water tax in August.

"People get upset when they hear the word tax," Cardenas said. "There's no tax on water. There's a tax on the plastic. [Tap] water is practically free."
[From Squeezing a dime out of every bottle -- chicagotribune.com]

We actually have a reverse osmosis filter under our kitchen sink, and use Nalgene

Because his daddy did to.

House committee defies Bush warning

A key House committee defied forceful opposition from the Bush administration and Turkey on Wednesday and passed a resolution labeling the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians as "genocide."
[From Panel OKs 'genocide' bill]

Never misunderestimate the power of words

U.S. presidents issue statements every April 24, Armenian Remembrance Day, marking the beginning of the mass killings of Armenians in 1915. Both Presidents George H.W. Bush and Clinton avoided referring to "genocide," for fear of offending Turkey. As a presidential candidate in 2000, George W. Bush pledged to ensure that "our nation properly recognizes" what he called "a genocidal campaign that defies comprehension." But Bush has not used the word "genocide" in his annual presidential statement.

Dr. Alterman wonders why the MoveOn.org General Betrayus dustup received 10 times as much coverage as the more-inflammatory comments about the military by the vulgar pig-boy. Rhetorical question of course, since the standards are obviously different for Rethuglicans.

Last month, we were treated to wall-to-wall media apoplexy over MoveOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times. The four all-news cable channels mentioned it over 500 times in the week following the advertisement's appearance. The New York Times published five stories on the controversy alone. The Washington Post immediately declared that the advertisement "provided Republicans a life raft," and Time's Joe Klein agreed, saying the advertisement was "potentially very damaging to Democratic candidates running across the country."[snip]

Now compare and contrast a far worse offense to common decency and military sacrifice. On September 26, Rush Limbaugh -- the nation's most popular radio talk show host, a mainstay of Armed Forces Radio, and Dick Cheney's go-to interviewer -- characterized active duty troops who opposed the war as "phony soldiers."

Anyone getting their metaphorical media umbrellas out in anticipation of similar precipitation -- that is, a storm of criticism similar to that showered on MoveOn -- likely found themselves all dressed up with no place to go. Limbaugh's week-long assault on active duty troops, or phony suicide bombers as he called them, garnered far less attention than the two words in MoveOn's advertisement in the New York Times about the record of testimony by Gen. Petraeus.

After mentioning the MoveOn controversy 50 times in the week after the ad was placed, CNN brought up Limbaugh's comments only 10 times after he originally made them despite the almost daily gasoline Limbaugh poured on the fire during that week. The New York Times ran just one story on the matter, albeit a good fact-check piece that made short work of most of Rush's phony explanations on the comments.

[snip]
Also missed by the mainstream media, but reported by Media Matters months before the appearance of the MoveOn ad, was when Limbaugh himself called Vietnam veteran and U.S. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) "Senator Betrayus" after the senator sided with Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a non-binding Iraq withdrawal vote. Remember that media firestorm? Neither does anyone else...
[Click to read more No Story There]

Sounds like a lot, until you look at the actual out-of-pocket amount for each homeowner.

Mayor's budget seeks $108 million property-tax hike

Mayor Richard Daley proposed a whopping $293 million increase in taxes, fees and fines today, including a 15 percent jump in Chicago's property-tax levy, believed to be the biggest in the city's history.

"I know that many Chicagoans are struggling to make ends meet and facing economic uncertainty, which made developing this budget all the more difficult," the mayor said.

But, he added, "Do we maintain city services and make the investments needed to keep Chicago moving forward, or do we cut services, make substantial layoffs and risk falling behind? I believe we have only one choice: We must keep Chicago moving forward."

[From Daley says city must ask taxpayers for more]

but in actual dollar amounts, the increase in property tax is not much:

The owner of a home with a market value of $225,000 would pay about $100 more a year under the property-tax increase, according to city budget officials.

The typical homeowner would also pay an additional $45 next year in water and sewer fees. The water fee would rise by nearly $44 million in 2008, and the sewer fee by almost $21 million, under a plan that would build in further rate increases for the following three years.

Daley also proposed increases in a long list of other taxes and fees on phone users; people who buy beer, wine and liquor; and those who lease cars, office equipment and other items. Fines for certain parking offenses would rise, developers of some larger real estate developments would have to pay a new fee of 15 cents a square foot to build their projects and owners of big sport-utility vehicles would pay $120 for city stickers, up from $90.

A new 10-cent tax would be imposed on every bottle of water sold in the city.

Little in the way of new programming is planned for the coming year. Among initiatives will be the hiring of 50 new police officers, deployment of 100 more police surveillance cameras citywide and increasing the number of households in the blue cart recycling program from the current 80,000 to 211,000.

• AlterNet: DrugReporter: The War on Pot: America's $42 Billion Annual Boondoggle
  $42,000,000,000 is a lot of cash, per year
  (tags: drugs marijuana Politics)
• This Modern World » Blog Archive » Two minutes hate
  "refreshing to see a reasonably accurate portrayal of one of these rightwing hatefests in the mainstream media."
  (tags: Rethuglicans SCHIP)
• Here Are the Answers to Your Craigslist Questions - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog
  "newspaper reporters who confide that they are only allowed to write negative stories about Craigslist these days, because we’re viewed as competition by their newspaper’s business managers"
  (tags: Corporate_Media)
• best of craigslist : Fuck The Fullerton Bus, and while I'm at it, My Whole Entire Block
  an oldie but a goodie
  (tags: CTA Chicago bus humor)

theoretically, this site will reduce environmental waste (trees for paper, gas for shipping, yadda yadda), and allow me to block unwanted catalogs from stuffing my mailbox. I wonder what they are doing with the data about my shopping habits? and why is this terms and conditions agreements (posted below) so fixated upon DMCA and intellectual property rights?

. I'm joining anyway, but....

There is also this from their FAQ:

Gathering of Personally-Identifying Information
Certain visitors to Catalog Choice’s websites choose to interact with Catalog Choice in ways that require Catalog Choice to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that Catalog Choice gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we ask visitors who wish to create an account to opt-out of direct mail solicitations to provide the following information: Name(s) and site address(es) (street, city, state and zip code). In each case, Catalog Choice collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with Catalog Choice. Catalog Choice does not disclose personally-identifying information other than to request that the name(s) and address(es) provided be removed from the mail list of catalogs you select, and/or as described below. And visitors can always refuse to supply personally-identifying information, with the caveat that it may prevent them from engaging in certain website-related activities.


Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information

Catalog Choice discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that (i) need to know that information in order to process it on Catalog Choice’s behalf or to provide services available at Catalog Choice’s website, and (ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using Catalog Choice’s website, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. Catalog Choice will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone. Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, Catalog Choice discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only when required to do so by law, or when Catalog Choice believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Catalog Choice, third parties or the public at large. If you are a registered user of the Catalog Choice website and have supplied your email address, Catalog Choice may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with Catalog Choice and our services. We primarily use our our website and our blog to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of email to a minimum. If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. Catalog Choice takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Technorati Tags: environment, Green, surveillance, USPS

Who says we aren't already residing in a black-iron prison surveillance state? Remember, dissent against the government is nearly a criminal infraction these days.

Vanessa Alarcon saw them while working at an antiwar rally in Lafayette Square last month.

"I heard someone say, 'Oh my god, look at those,' " the college senior from New York recalled. "I look up and I'm like, 'What the hell is that?' They looked kind of like dragonflies or little helicopters. But I mean, those are not insects." Out in the crowd, Bernard Crane saw them, too.

"I'd never seen anything like it in my life," the Washington lawyer said. "They were large for dragonflies. I thought, 'Is that mechanical, or is that alive?' "

That is just one of the questions hovering over a handful of similar sightings at political events in Washington and New York. Some suspect the insectlike drones are high-tech surveillance tools, perhaps deployed by the Department of Homeland Security.
[From Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs. - washingtonpost.com]

In two years, what will the conservatives do when President Clinton unleashes the vastly increased powers of the imperial Presidency against their vast conspiracy meetings?

So what was seen by Crane, Alarcon and a handful of others at the D.C. march -- and as far back as 2004, during the Republican National Convention in New York, when one observant but perhaps paranoid peace-march participant described on the Web "a jet-black dragonfly hovering about 10 feet off the ground, precisely in the middle of 7th avenue . . . watching us"?

They probably saw dragonflies, said Jerry Louton, an entomologist at the National Museum of Natural History. Washington is home to some large, spectacularly adorned dragonflies that "can knock your socks off," he said.

At the same time, he added, some details do not make sense. Three people at the D.C. event independently described a row of spheres, the size of small berries, attached along the tails of the big dragonflies -- an accoutrement that Louton could not explain. And all reported seeing at least three maneuvering in unison.

"Dragonflies never fly in a pack," he said.

Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the Partnership for Civil Justice said her group is investigating witness reports and has filed Freedom of Information Act requests with several federal agencies. If such devices are being used to spy on political activists, she said, "it would be a significant violation of people's civil rights."

Above all, people claim to be shocked by the Bush administration’s authoritarianism, its disdain for the rule of law. But a full half-century has passed since The National Review proclaimed that “the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail,” and dismissed as irrelevant objections that might be raised after “consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal” — presumably a reference to the document known as the Constitution of the United States.

Now, as they survey the wreckage of their cause, conservatives may ask themselves: “Well, how did we get here?” They may tell themselves: “This is not my beautiful Right.” They may ask themselves: “My God, what have we done?”
But their movement is the same as it ever was. And Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir. [From Same Old Party - New York Times]

A number of readers seemed to enjoy the Talking Heads reference at the end of yesterday’s column. Here’s how it happened: I knew the piece would be about various ways in which Bush is just like previous conservative standard-bearers; writing it, I found myself using a repeated phrase — “People claim to be shocked” — and realized that it had a preacher-like tone to it; and that led me to David Byrne’s preacherish lyrics. [From Once in a lifetime - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog]

I'd love to go to this on my way to the Led Zepp reunion concert....

The City of London police have been in, and, says Graham Sheffield, artistic director of the Barbican, "they are completely cool. We're kosher." That means, come Friday, the first ever mainstream exhibition devoted to sex will be unleashed upon an unsuspecting British public.

According to co-curator Martin Kemp: "We are not setting out to shock, but it is certainly provoking." Marina Wallace, another of the curators, added: "We want London to be thinking about nothing but sex for three months."

Graphic hardly does justice to the romp through 2,000 years of art history's frankest moments. But the organisers argue that context is all: which is why Robert Mapplethorpe's fetish photographs; Nan Goldin's slide of a man ejaculating while having sex with his male partner; even an eye-opening 18th century Arabic manuscript illustrating 10 men having group sex, are all absolutely fine by the police.

This is a serious, art-historical exhibition, which is why even potentially controversial material - such as certain photographs by Goldin showing nude children as part of her sometimes explicit work Heartbeat - is, according to the curators, acceptable.

[From The art of seduction: sex through the ages, from every possible angle | Art & Architecture | Guardian Unlimited Arts]

His previous band still factors heavily on my playlists, but his solo work? Not so much. I bought several of the albums as they came out, but find myself skipping the tunes when they come up. Perhaps his new album is better?

Bob Mould fans experienced the next-best thing to a private living-room performance from the singer-songwriter Tuesday at a sold-out Schubas. "Chicago is my No. 1 town in the world," announced the former Hüsker Dü and Sugar frontman, kicking off a brief tour on which he's answering audience questions, playing a short solo set and screening his new DVD.

[From Mould to his fans: Stop in for a bit if you feel like it]

I've also seen Bob Mould perform a few times when he lived in Austin, puts on a good show.

"Body of Song" (Bob Mould)

"Bob Mould: Circle of Friends - Live at the 9:30 Club" (Granary Music)

From my archives:




My brother in silhouette.



From a recent Dan Flavin exhibit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Flavin at the Museum of Contemporary Art.



Not supposed to take photos (for some blasted reason), but somehow a few dozen photos managed to make it onto my camera.

But what happened to Benjamin De Jong and his girlfriend after a Mariners game Sept. 15 is more than a simple case of jaywalking.

"Police brutality is more like it," contends the 22-year-old, who was visiting from British Columbia when he got a lasting memory of Seattle, courtesy of police.

De Jong admits he and his girlfriend jaywalked across First Avenue in Pioneer Square -- just like a throng always does after a sporting event. They were on the heels of friends who forged into traffic just ahead of them that evening, heading to the J&M Cafe.

"As we were 5 to 10 feet from the curb, an unmarked vehicle sped toward us," De Jong said. "He hammered on his brakes. Two guys jumped out wearing dark clothing."

Put yourself in De Jong's shoes. One second you are about to join friends at a pub after going to see a Mariners game. The next, you're terrified about who might be storming out of a strange van just feet away. Thugs? Thieves? A driver with road rage?

Nope. Try cops -- though De Jong insists he and his girlfriend couldn't tell the men were officers. "They never said to us, 'Stop, this is Seattle police,' or that they wanted to talk to us," De Jong said. "You know how cops in movies show badges? Nothing like that happened. I thought they wanted to fight." [From Jaywalkers smarting after rude encounter with cops]

Actually, one of the first things I noticed about Seattle when I visited last summer was that nobody jaywalked. I thought that was really weird, seeing as jaywalking is just how pedestrians walk in Chicago. I eventually starting asking natives, and they all without fail mentioned the Seattle Police Department's War on Jaywalking as a big reason. One cab driver even hinted that the police might rough you up a bit. I couldn't resist jaywalking anyway (seems so wrong to wait at a light when there are no cars coming at all) though I always looked around for cops first.

• RGB and CMYK | creativebits
  good info on RGB/CMYK conversions for printing
  (tags: color Reference printing tips Photoshop)

Like so many others, received an email from Radiohead re: their tip jar strategy, stating:

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING IN RAINBOWS. THIS IS AN UPDATE.

YOUR UNIQUE ACTIVATION CODE(S) WILL BE SENT OUT TOMORROW MORNING (UK TIME). THIS WILL TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO THE DOWNLOAD AREA.

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOWNLOAD:

THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.

Partial transcript of a Stephen Colbert riff regarding Media Matters quoting "out of context" mouth-breathers.

COLBERT: That's right. Hatemongers like Media Matters take innocent statements like mine, Rush Limbaugh's, John Gibson's, and Bill O'Reilly's and make them offensive by posting them on the Internet, allowing the general public to hear words that were meant for people who already agree with us.

Hey, Media Matters, you want to end offensive speech? Then stop recording it for people who would be offended. Because the Constitution gives us broadcasters the right to say anything we want but that doesn't mean that just anyone has the right to listen [From Media Matters - Colbert: "Hey, Media Matters, you want to end offensive speech? Then stop recording it for people who would be offended."]

Still life, Madison Wisconsin.

while fishermen throw flowers....

Am looking forward to seeing I'm Not There. Weird can be good.

Todd Haynes's much-anticipated Bob Dylan biopic, I'm Not There — in which the legendary musician is played by Cate Blanchett and an 11-year old black kid — debuts this week at the New York Film Festival. Critics say the film "jumps all over the place," is "densely idiosyncratic," and lacks "a thread of narrative coherence." In other words, it's a fitting tribute to rock and roll's most iconic absurdist, a guy who hasn't made any literal sense since 1963. Dylan's made baffling music

Self Portrait

books (his 1966 novel, Tarantula), and films (1978's Renaldo and Clara, 2003's

Masked and Anonymous

but he's never made less sense than when he was talking to reporters. Here's our list of the Top Ten Most Incomprehensible Bob Dylan Interviews of All Time. [From The Ten Most Incomprehensible Bob Dylan Interviews of All Time -- Vulture -- Entertainment & Culture Blog -- New York Magazine]

you've probably seen a few of these, but still, worth seeing again. In defense of Bob, after the 9876th interviewer asks the same inane question, I'd probably start not caring what I said either.

• What does chef Blumenthal eat at 3 a.m.?
  I've eaten at La Pasadita many times, especially when I lived over in the Ukranian Village 'hood
  (tags: food Chicago food_snobs)
• YOUTH BASKETBALL MEDICINE: Passing Plyometrics
  hotlinking is a crime
  (tags: copyright Sacramento_Kings)
• Google Grants Application Process for Nonprofits
  if we were a non-profit.....
  (tags: Google)

Simon Dumenco is not impressed by the Huffington Post's business model.

Last week, the Huffington Post, the liberal news/political blog co-founded by Arianna Huffington and Ken Lerer, successfully lured [Betsy ]Morgan away from CBSNews.com. The inevitable headlines and analysis -- about how the scrappy blog was edging ever closer to mainstreamness by luring a respected news veteran to be its CEO -- was helpful not only in underscoring Huffington's status as a national media power broker.

It also helped everyone forget Lerer's astonishing statement in USA Today, just days earlier, that HuffPo has no plans to ever pay its bloggers. "That's not our financial model," he told the paper. "We offer them visibility, promotion and distribution with a great company."

Coming right out and saying that -- and saying it that way, with those particular words -- takes cojones. Not our financial model. Geez, wow. Not since the Pets.com sock puppet scored a deal to write his memoir (published in 2000 as "Me by Me: The Pets.com Sock Puppet Book") has there been a more tellingly, creepily poetic new-media moment. In fact, if it weren't for Betsy Morgan's vote of confidence in the Huffington Post -- if Morgan weren't willing to put her career on the line to endorse the blog's place in the media firmament -- Lerer's pronouncement could have been HuffPo's jump-the-shark moment.
[From Advertising Age]

First of all, arguably, it's the other way around: Despite Arianna's cable-news omnipresence, it's the excellent work of such regular bloggers as Harry Shearer, Nora Ephron and Bill Maher that gave HuffPo visibility, promotion and distribution. They lent their credibility and influence -- and their built-in audiences (Shearer with his radio show, Maher with his "Real Time" on HBO, Ephron with the fans of her books and movies) -- to Arianna and Ken. And for what? Bupkis now -- and bupkis forever! (Suckas!)

Second, the vast majority of the Huffington Post's bloggers get virtually no significant visibility, promotion or distribution simply because there are so damn many of them -- 1,800 at last count, which means that unless you're one of Arianna's favorites (and/or a scoop-slinging insider), you're probably rarely going to get on the home page -- and if you do, only fleetingly.

Third, the Huffington Post actually does pay some of its bloggers -- the ones it has on staff, such as "Eat the Press" media editor/blogger Rachel Sklar -- so the financial model is, well, what then? Pay some of the bloggers some of the time? Don't pay the bloggers who are wealthy enough from their real gigs not to care? That, to me, is not only not a real "financial model," it's a wacky, ad hoc, college-newspaper-esque compensation scheme unworthy of a self-proclaimed "great company."

Mind you, Lerer has also claimed that the Huffington Post will be profitable in 2008 -- after burning through at least $10 million in venture capital. If HuffPo ever gets a lofty valuation -- through an IPO or through the sale of a publicly valued stake -- the serfs will surely revolt as they watch Lady Arianna and Lord Ken and their backers get rich(er).

Hmmm. Eric Bangeman of ArsTechnica was following the RIAA copyright infringement trial against Jammie Thomas, and writes:

Perhaps the most damning bit of evidence was the username for the KaZaA share flagged by Safe Net, tereastarr@KaZaA. Thomas had a 13- or 14-year history of using that name online for everything from e-mail addresses to Match.com profiles. [From How the RIAA tasted victory: a perfect storm which might not be repeated: Page 1 ]

Not that I'm in any danger of being sucked up in an RIAA lawsuit, but I now would change my online name to something else before connecting to a P2P service. Also this:

The RIAA also made a point of showing that much of the music in the KaZaA share was likely downloaded from P2P networks. They did this with the help of Mark Weaver of SafeNet, who walked the jury through the company's investigative techniques and explained the significance of MP3 file metadata to the jury.


Highlighting the ID3 tags from a handful of the songs downloaded by SafeNet, Weaver made a case that much of the music offered in the shared folder came from illicit sources. One of the metadata fields from a Dream Theater tune downloaded by SafeNet contained the text "uploaded by 0ffs3+"; Weaver said that this meant that 0ffs3+ was "claiming props for being the one to upload the song."

Wild Cherry

"Parker's Wine Buyer's Guide 6th Edition : The Complete, Easy-to-Use Reference on Recent Vintages, Prices, and Ratings for More Than 8,000 Wines from All the Major Wine Regions" (Robert M. Parker, Pierre-Antoine Rovani)

Idiots in the legislature, State of Illinois edition

When the Supreme Court struck down state laws barring individuals from buying wine directly from out-of-state wineries, one lawyer called it "the best day for wine lovers since the invention of the corkscrew."

Though they enjoy a new liberty to buy from out-of-state vineyards, Illinois oenophiles will no longer be able to order directly from out-of-state wine shops and other retail merchants -- something they have been doing for the last 16 years.

It looks as though about 500 California vineyards that are not officially registered as wineries won't be able to sell to individual buyers here either.

Meanwhile, Illinois' largest vineyards, unlike their smaller counterparts, won't be able to sell directly to stores and restaurants: They will have to go through wholesale distributors. That rule is bound to increase the price of a drink.

What gives? The governor's office proclaims that the bill "represents an agreement between Illinois wineries and liquor distributors." State Sen. Ira Silverstein (D-Chicago), a sponsor, boasted that it will "advance our growing wine industry."

Notice anything missing from those pronouncements? Only the needs of ordinary wine drinkers. The clear intent is to protect the profits of favored businesses -- and never mind if consumers, and the state's most successful wine producers, lose out.

Even some of the retailers who are being protected from out-of-state competition have spoken out against the new barriers, fearing they will provoke retaliation from other states.

"Bills like these are bad for consumers," Brian Rosen, the president and CEO of Chicago-based Sam's Wines & Spirits, told Crain's Chicago Business. "If every state's borders were open to wine sales, we could sell $50 million in wine a year outside Illinois."
[From Corking the wine trade]

soon enough.....

Shoveling, originally uploaded by swanksalot. Blackbird employee opening duties, no doubt.

"Closer" (Joy Division)

Music to Brood by, Desolate and Stark:
Joy Division’s songs provide a harsh sound that lives up to the lyrics’ unflinching view of the human condition.
The Cult of the Lads From Manchester:
A documentary and a fiction film about Joy Division return a mythic hero to life size.

• Gapers Block : Airbags : Green with Envy
  including my photo - Do Not Oil Probe Shaft
  (tags: republished)

Even though I've been drinking gin recently....

Streams of Whiskey (trucks), originally uploaded by swanksalot. Everyone should have at least one slow-motion shot of traffic in their (flickr) stream, right?

(title in homage to Shane MacGowan of the Pogues, et al)

"Shakespeare Collection (Hamlet 1996 / A Midsummer Night's Dream 1935 / Othello 1965 / Romeo & Juliet 1936)" (Warner Home Video)

Joe Morgenstern points out two films to be on the lookout for

In a just world, the entire Warners publicity department would be on Burbank's ramparts trumpeting the arrival of the first DVD version (at least the first one playable on North American players) of Laurence Olivier's revolutionary and magnificent "Othello."

When this film version of the now-legendary production of the National Theater of Great Britain opened here in 1966, I was Newsweek's movie critic, and I wrote of it: "Laurence Olivier has set 'Othello' free. He has emancipated him from acting conventions that made the Moor of Venice an eagle scout with special merit badges for probity and innocence, that sentimentalized him into the gentlest of warriors who did in Desdemona only because of Iago's beastliness."

I went on to describe Olivier's athletic, ebony-skinned Othello -- yes, the actor defied political correctness by doing the film in blackface -- as a dangerous fool, even a monster. Since then, the film has been available here, if at all, only via VHS tape.

Now, on this pristine new DVD, Olivier's enormous portrayal is as heartbreaking as it is daring, partly because Frank Finlay's Iago is such a vivid model of modern malignity, and because Maggie Smith's Desdemona is so lovely. In this age of effortless celebrity we cheapen the currency of compliments by bestowing them too often. Olivier's "Othello" reminds us what it means for a performance to be great.

Recently I tracked down another relatively new and triumphant rendering of Shakespeare's material on DVD: Orson Welles as "Falstaff," a 1965 feature film, directed by Welles, which has also been known, mostly in Europe, as "Chimes at Midnight." I say 'Shakespeare's material' because the Bard scattered Falstaff's immortal remains throughout four separate plays. Welles, undeterred, pulled them together into a single film of operatic excess, bacchic camaraderie and, at its time, the greatest battle scenes since Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky." (The cast includes Jeanne Moreau as Doll Tearsheet, Margaret Rutherford as Mistress Quickly, John Gielgud as Henry IV and Keith Baxter as Prince Hal.)

Netflix has several versions of Verdi's opera "Falstaff," but the only digital version of Welles's "Falstaff" that I could find for use on North American (Region 1) players was via Amazon. The DVDs, imported from Brazil, aren't cheap -- I paid almost $40 -- and the quality isn't wonderful. Then again, neither was the quality of the original, which was underfinanced and problem-plagued throughout its sporadic production. No matter. The performance, and the achievement, are intact. "Citizen Kane" wasn't Welles's only masterpiece.
[From Morgenstern on Movies - WSJ.com]

I've heard/read plenty about both of these classic films over the years, now I just have to find copies.

"Falstaff Chimes At Midnight [Import]" (Orson Welles)

• MAKE: Blog: Theremin kits
  Oh, I want one....
  (tags: theremin music music_history Technology DIY)

another view of Progress Lighting the Way for Commerce
(PDF from NYT article dated October, 1900)
www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/1419724568/

ewww, that's a nasty thought. Don't they know not to oil the probe shaft?

The FBI is examining the ties between Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson and a friend who was paid $392,000 by Jackson's department as a construction manager in New Orleans, three federal law enforcement officials said Thursday.

Jackson's friend got the job after the HUD secretary asked a staff member to pass along his name to the Housing Authority of New Orleans, a spokesman for Jackson said in a statement.

[From FBI Probing Possible Sweetheart Deal For HUD Secretary's Pal]

Muncha Muncha

at a supposedly condemned house on Bissell.

Yard Pests

somewhere south of Armitage.

click to embiggen

• The Intersection: Sex In My Inbox
  "I'm also overwhelmed by the sheer number of science related sex videos flooding my inbox"
  (tags: Youtube Science video sexuality)
• CRACKED.com - The 7 Most Gruesome Rock 'N' Roll Legends (And Whether They’re True)
  "rock star's day is two hours of playing music and 22 hours of sex, drugs and worshipping Satan."
  (tags: sexuality rock_snob urban_legends)
• Putting lazy basketball writers on notice
  Excellent post, and the concept applies to lots of journalists, not just sports journalists. Only the cliche is different, not the over-utilization of them.
  (tags: NBA sports journalism)

Remember that stupid wine bill we kvetched about a couple months ago? Well, it passed.

Another provision of the bill will permit Illinois retailers to ship wine to customers across the state. But Illinois residents won't be able to purchase wine from out-of-state stores (including online businesses), brokers or auction houses as before.
[From The Stew - A taste of Chicago's food, wine and dining scene | Chicago Tribune | Blog]

What a bunch of hooey. I wonder if the half a million dollars or so in campaign bribes contributions had any impact on Gov Blah Blah's decision? When I wrote to Wine.com (The Illinois legislature, in their infinite stupidity, has apparently passed a bill to ban out-of-state shipments of wine. Does wine.com have a local retail presence so as to avoid this inane nanny-state law? Is there anything I can do beside writing my nitwit representatives? Thanks, a concerned Illinois wine drinker.), this is what Wine.com said in reply:

Thank you for your inquiry. In order to serve our Illinois customers better, we are currently looking for a shipping facility in the state. However, you are also free to write a letter!

Oh yeah, that did a lot of good.

floor at Cafe BaBa Reeba

What exactly did Adidas think would happen? The reason folks such as myself read Mr. Arenas' blog is that isn't corporate-scripted, safe, full of focus-group tested phrases, but rather top-of-mind observations. You know, like a real blog.

Last month executives at shoemaker Adidas AG got a shock when they read the latest blog entry from their star endorser, pro basketball player Gilbert Arenas. He had seen the design of his second Adidas signature shoe -- which had yet to be revealed to the public -- and he wasn't impressed.

"I'm sitting there looking at the shoe like 'I hope you guys aren't serious. Because I'm not going to wear this shoe. ... Nobody is going to wear this shoe," said the blog post from the Washington Wizards guard. He said parts of it reminded him of a "ballerina."

Adidas executives learned that day what an increasing number of marketers have found -- that pitchmen armed with a blog can be tricky. Blog posts are typically candid and breezy, not the kind of safe, stock answers that athletes are often advised to give in postgame interviews, says David Carter, executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute in Los Angeles. Blogs "can either help elevate the status of the companies or it can wreak havoc on the brands they work with," he says.

Mr. Arenas is one of several star athletes writing blogs -- or in his case, phoning an National Basketball Association staffer who faithfully transcribes his thoughts for the NBA Web site every 10 days or so [From Companies Try to Score With Athletes Who Blog - WSJ.com]

Nobody wants to read inane press releases either.

Mr. Arenas has made his share of blunders online. He blogged about the scolding he got from NBA officials for making a $10 bet with a fan at a Washington Wizards-Portland Trail Blazers game in March. Soon after, the league removed the post from Mr. Arenas's blog. Mr. Arenas and the league said that he has agreed not to post on topics like gambling on NBA games.

Mr. Arenas has also complimented certain sneaker styles by Nike Inc. and Starbury, the line endorsed by the New York Knicks' Stephon Marbury -- despite his own endorsement deal with sneaker competitor Adidas.
...
An All-Star player known in basketball circles for his quirky sense of humor, the 25-year-old Mr. Arenas says he initially saw the blog as a way to show fans a "lighter" side of his personality. On March 18, for instance, he blogged about the birth of his son, Alijah Amani Arenas. "We're trying to get him sponsored by AAA now and get his diapers paid for," he blogged.

Other postings dish about everything from him dropping his baby daughter (he says she's OK) to arguments with his girlfriend. Mr. Arenas has also blogged about his salary.

Fans have responded. "Agent Zero: The Blog File" has drawn about three million page views since it started in October 2006, according to the NBA. That makes it the most popular athlete blog on the NBA's Web site, says the NBA. Mr. Arenas is the only one of the group from last year still posting, though he'll be joined this season by new NBA player bloggers -- the Utah Jazz's Morris Almond and the Chicago Bulls' Luol Deng.
...
Still, Adidas's experience with the blog has been bumpy. Aside from the posting about the new shoe design, Mr. Arenas used the blog to alert fans to a forthcoming "golden ticket" promotion with Adidas and EA Sports that would give winners a free shoe. But the promotion never happened. Neither did a collaboration with Adidas and Benihana Inc. that Mr. Arenas featured in his blog.

Adidas's Mr. Gonzolez says that while the golden ticket and Benihana promotions were discussed, no one later informed Mr. Arenas that the ideas were scrapped. Adidas executives eventually asked Mr. Arenas to clear information about coming shoe releases with them before he posts on his blog.

These incidents have given Mr. Arenas's marketing partners pause; they say they realize they can't control what he says and that he might criticize them. Jordan Edelstein, marketing director at EA Sports, says the company debated Mr. Arenas's blogging style before the company chose him for the cover of the game.

"We knew if there was something he didn't like, he would say so -- probably to everyone," Mr. Edelstein says. Ultimately the company decided that Mr. Arenas's honesty was a plus: "That's why his fans respond to him. ... We felt it was worth the risk."

Still, Adidas, EA and Spalding each say that whether an athlete blogs, and how they can work together with the blog, will be a part of future endorsement negotiations.

For his part, Mr. Arenas believes that readers are interested in unfiltered information. "For some reason everyone wants to be this golden boy, like you can't make a mistake," he says. "I don't think my blog would have been successful if I wasn't as real as I am and as willing to let people into my life."

Microsoft unveiled a new site, called HealthVault, that allows consumers to upload and store their medical records, part of its broader push into the health-care field. [From Microsoft Unveils New Health Site]

Not that we eat much of the freeze-dried faux meat involved in the recall, but as a signifying event, pretty disquieting. What percentage of the executives of the FDA are former food industry executives? How many plan on working for the food industry after their tenure at the FDA? Too many, I'm sure.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture waited 18 days after learning that millions of pounds of ground beef made by Topps Meat Co. could be contaminated with E coli bacteria before it concluded that a recall was necessary, an e-mail from an agency inspection official shows. The Topps hamburger recall, which is now the third largest hamburger recall in USDA history, was first announced Sept. 25. The Elizabeth, N.J., company initially recalled 331,000 pounds of hamburger, but last Saturday expanded the recall to include 21.7 million pounds of frozen hamburger.
[From USDA took 18 days to recall bad meat -- chicagotribune.com]

Yet at the USDA, tests confirmed the presence of the E coli bacteria strain O157:H7 in the Topps hamburgers on Sept. 7, according to an e-mail from Kis Robertson, an employee of the USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS).

Robertson, who declined comment, sent the e-mail to Scott Schlesinger, an attorney for Samantha Safranek, a Florida teenager who fell ill in August after eating a Topps hamburger.

Robertson's e-mail states: "The patties taken from the Safraneks were confirmed positive for E coli O157:H7 by FSIS on 9/07/07. The leftover product samples are still at Eastern Laboratory in Athens, GA. The decision to release these has to come from Agency leadership and I don't know what has been decided."

Safranek and her parents, Anna and David, sued Wal-Mart Stores Inc., where they bought the three-pound box of frozen Topps hamburger patties. In Newark, a lawyer representing four people who said they ate the Topps meat filed a class action lawsuit on Wednesday seeking unspecified monetary compensation for anyone who bought or was sickened by the Topps hamburgers and sold by Wal-Mart., Pathmark Stores Inc., ShopRite and Rastelli Fine Foods.

The USDA also announced its recall only as New York state published its own Sept. 25 consumer alert regarding possible E coli contamination in Topps hamburger. Claudia Hutton, a spokeswoman for the New York Department of Health, said that state investigators confirmed the E coli in Topps beef on Sept. 24 during tests in its Wadsworth Center Laboratories.

• albumartwork.org // itunes, walmart, buy.com and amazon album art finder
  Album artwork grabber for iTunes
  (tags: free MP3 Music search itunes)
• HBO's Side of the Story
  No Deadwood! Boooooooooooo! Cocksucker!
  (tags: Deadwood HBO television)
• Ashley Madison Billboard Draws Protestors | Our Cheating Ways
  "billboard was aimed at luring cheaters in West Hollywood and area to their site. "
  (tags: sex sexuality repression California)
• Season 5 theme song for ‘The Wire’
  Good for Steve Earle (who has guested on the Wire several times)
  (tags: television Music Wire)
• Thai Food Sparks Terrorism Alert in London
  Now, that'sa spicy meatball. "estaurant had been preparing Nam Prik Pao, a red-hot Thai dip which uses extra-hot chillies which are deliberately burnt."
  (tags: terrorism_theater London England)
• RIAA Copywrong lawsuits costing millions
  "why not call murder "theft of life," or jaywalking "rape of traffic?"
  (tags: BoingBoing copyright DRM RIAA litigation)
• The Chicago Geek Guide
  Wait a Geek guide doesn't already have an RSS feed? Lame. "An updated news feed is in the works, please check back shortly."
  (tags: Technology Chicago)
• On Five: 10/01/2007 - 11/01/2007
  "The ideal aspect ratio of film is 2.0:1 (so all future TV sets should be 18:9). Movie theaters in Europe project faster than theaters in America because of the differences in current. 50 kHz and 60 kHz? "
  (tags: film film_history film_snob Criterion)

Testimony today in Capitol Records, et al v. Jammie Thomas quickly and inadvertently turned to the topic of fair use when Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was called to the stand to testify. Pariser said that file-sharing is extremely damaging to the music industry and that record labels are particularly affected. In doing so, she advocated a view of copyright that would turn many honest people into thieves.

... Pariser has a very broad definition of “stealing.” When questioned by Richard Gabriel, lead counsel for the record labels, Pariser suggested that what millions of music fans do is actually theft.

The dirty deed? Ripping your own CDs or downloading songs you already own.

Gabriel asked if it was wrong for consumers to make copies of music which they have purchased, even just one copy. Pariser replied, “When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song.” Making “a copy” of a purchased song is just “a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy',” she said.

Countless studies have shown that the majority of music on portable music players like the iPod comes from sources other than download services. For most people, that music is comprised primarily of songs “ripped” from CD collections to MP3 or some other comparable format. Indeed, most portable music players comes with software (like iTunes) which is designed to facilitate the easy ripping of CDs. According to Pariser's view, this is stealing.

[From Sony BMG's chief anti-piracy lawyer: “Copying” music you own is “stealing” ]

We've discussed Sony's strange view about converting CDs into MP3s in the past, but it still baffles me. By Sony's definition, one of Sony's best customers, me, is a thief because I like to keep my entire CD collection on my computer and on iPods. Assholes.

Previous Sony coverage:

Sony Screws Customers

Sony BMG and their Nefarious Plan

Music Industry Stupidity

Technorati Tags: copyright, iPod, RIAA, sony

Slightly overstated, but still interesting.

The Wal-Mart Era, the retailer's time of overwhelming business and social influence in America, is drawing to a close.

Using a combination of low prices and relentless expansion, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. emerged from rural Arkansas in the 1970s to reshape the world's largest economy. Its co-founder, Sam Walton, taught Americans to demand ever-lower prices and instructed businesses on running a lean company. His company helped boost America's overall productivity, lowered the inflation rate, and strengthened the buying power for millions of people. Over time, it also accelerated the drive to manufacture products in Asia, drove countless small shops out of business, and sped the decline of Main Street. Those changes are permanent.

Today, though, Wal-Mart's influence over the retail universe is slipping. In fact, the industry's titan is scrambling to keep up with swifter rivals that are redefining the business all around it. It can still disrupt prices, as it did last year by cutting some generic prescriptions to $4. But success is no longer guaranteed.

Now, the big-name brands that fueled Wal-Marts climb to the top are forging exclusive distribution deals with other retailers, or working to reduce their reliance on its stores. PepsiCo Inc., which favored mass-market campaigns a decade ago, recently skipped Wal-Mart when launching a new energy drink in favor of Whole Foods Market Inc. Consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble Co. gets 15% of its revenue from Wal-Mart, down three percentage points from 2003. Wal-Marts effort to expand internationally has had mixed success in affluent markets. Last year it exited South Korea and Germany after failing to adapt to local tastes and achieve economies of scale. In Japan, the companys low-price, high-volume approach has struggled in a country where low prices often equate to low quality. [From Wal-Mart Era Wanes Amid Big Shifts in Retail - WSJ.com]

blues club on Halsted

Street Art.

Contrasting Religions, originally uploaded by swanksalot. West Loop somewhere.

• Larry Craig's real crime
  "one the most powerful voices in Congress on behalf of the timber and power industries. Environmentalists have fought him for years on issues from endangered salmon to public land grazing"
  (tags: environment Republicans corruption)
• Cheat on the Need to Sleep / Wired How To's
  I sleep usually 6 hours a night, and take a 30-45 minute nap in the afternoon.
  (tags: sleep Science nap health)
• filologanoga: Neshvatljivosti
  not even sure what language this is, but they used a photo of mine.
  (tags: republished Swanksalot Chicago photograph auto car_wreck)

From the Department of News that Surprises Nobody, Yet Depresses Many

The Environmental Protection Agency's pursuit of criminal cases against polluters has dropped off sharply during the Bush administration, with the number of prosecutions, new investigations and total convictions all down by more than a third, according to Justice Department and EPA data. The number of civil lawsuits filed against defendants who refuse to settle environmental cases was down nearly 70 percent between fiscal years 2002 and 2006, compared with a four-year period in the late 1990s, according to those same statistics.

The actual number of investigators available at any time is even smaller, agents said, because they sometimes are diverted to other duties, such as service on EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson's eight-person security detail.
[From Bush's EPA Is Pursuing Fewer Polluters - washingtonpost.com]

When even the viewers of Fox News think your phone stunt is ridiculous, perhaps it might be time to drop the schtick.

The fact is that people inside the Giuliani campaign are appalled at the number of times their candidate has felt compelled to interrupt public appearances to take calls from his wife. The estimate from those in a position to know is that he has taken such calls more than 40 times in the middle of speeches, conferences and presentations to large donors. "If it's a stunt, it's not one coming from him," says one Giuliani staffer. "It's an ongoing problem that he won't take advice on."

And in trying to explain his odd behavior, Mr. Giuliani has only dug himself in deeper. On Friday he told David Brody of CBN News that since 9/11, when he and Mrs. Giuliani get on a plane, "most of the time . . . we talk to each other and just reaffirm the fact that we love each other." He admitted he had taken calls from his wife "before in engagements, and I didn't realize it would create any kind of controversy." That's hardly possible. Giuliani staffers say he has been warned over and over again that the phone calls are rude and inappropriate and have alienated everyone from local officials to top donors to close friends. [From OpinionJournal - John Fund on the Trail]

I am actually amazed that Giuliani Nine-Eleven is still a front-runner. Perhaps the Republican faithful are as dumb as advertised after all.

On Tuesday morning, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will hold a hearing on the U.S. military's use of private contractors. When Waxman announced plans for the hearing last week, the State Department directed Blackwater not to give any information or testimony without its signoff. After a public spat between Rep. Waxman and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department relented. Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince is now scheduled to testify at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

But the attempt to shield Prince was apparently not the first time State had protected Blackwater. A report issued by Waxman on Monday alleges that State helped Blackwater cover up Iraqi fatalities. In December 2006, State arranged for the company to pay $15,000 to the family of an Iraqi guard who was shot and killed by a drunken Blackwater employee. In another shooting death, the payment was $5,000. As CNN reported Monday, the State Department also allowed a Blackwater employee to write State's initial "spot report" on the Sept. 16 shooting incident -- a report that did not mention civilian casualties and claimed contractors were responding to an insurgent attack on a convoy.

The ties between State and Blackwater are only part of a web of relationships that Blackwater has maintained with the Bush administration and with prominent Republicans. From 2001 to 2007, the firm has increased its annual federal contracts from less than $1 million to more than $500 million, all while employees passed through a turnstile between Blackwater and the administration, several leaving important posts in the Pentagon and the CIA to take jobs at the security company. Below is a list of some of Blackwater's luminaries with their professional -- and political -- resumes.

Both Edgar and Elsa have been affiliated with the Council for National Policy, the secretive Christian conservative organization whose meetings have been attended by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer, and whose membership is rumored to include Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Dobson. The Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation gave the CNP $80,000 between July 2003 and July 2006.

[From Bush and Blackwater | Salon News]

During the trial, testimony by witnesses made the inner workings of the Garden, which like the Knicks is owned by Cablevision, appear dysfunctional, hostile and lewd. The Knick's star guard, Stephon Marbury, testified that he had sex with a team intern in the trunk of his car after a group outing to a strip club in 2005.

[From Jury Decides Against Thomas and Knicks Owner - New York Times]

What kind of tricked-out trunk does Mr. Marbury have anyway? Is there a bed in it? a futon? I'm curious.

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of a 2005 sexual encounter between Stephon Marbury of the Knicks and a team intern. Mr. Marbury testified that it took place in his truck, not in the trunk of his car.

Despite E. coli scare, Congress mulls easing law

As one of the largest meat recalls in history unfolds, Congress is considering legislation that would reduce required federal inspections for meat that is produced by small companies and then shipped to another state.

Because of a little-noticed legislative change buried deep within the 2007 farm bill approved in July by the House, only state inspections would be required for some meat products.

The measure was planted in the farm bill by Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), according to congressional staffers familiar with the bill. It would be a boon to small meat processing companies whose products must remain in the state of origin because they lack a federal inspection stamp.

[From Bill would reduce meat inspections]

Alleyways are life, part 5 (or 6)

• A.J. Jacobs - The Year of Living Biblically
  so many jokes, so many jokes....
  (tags: Religion funny)
• Virtual painting sold!
  "My first Second Life painting sale!"
  (tags: Arts software virtual_world)
• Blue Monday « STEVENHARTSITE
  lead song of one of my fave Dylan albums is eminently skippable. "Lester Bangs who called it “the ‘How Dry I Am’ of the hippie generation"
  (tags: Dylan)
• Oxford American.com - Mystic Nights: Blonde on Blonde
  "Blonde on Blonde borrows from several musical styles, including ’40s Memphis and Chicago blues, turn-of-the-century vintage New Orleans processionals, contemporary pop, and blast-furnace rock & roll."
  (tags: Bob_Dylan culture history music_history)

with bonus spider web if you examine closely.

"Tampopo" (Juzo Itami)

This guy stole my dream!

When New York chef Ivan Orkin opened a Tokyo restaurant specializing in ramen -- a hot noodle soup that is Japan's ultimate comfort food -- he thrust himself into a competitive corner of Japanese cuisine.

From Trying to Out-Noodle the Japanese]

Well, more power to him, I'll have to check out his restaurant one of these days, when I'm next in Tokyo. Totally stole this idea from me (and everyone else who loved Tampopo, and/or mourned the recent passing of Momofuku Ando). Since Mr. Orkin cites Tampopo as a reference, I'll cut him some slack, he probably came up with the idea on his own.

The main items on its simple menu are homemade egg-and-wheat noodles served in salt- or soy-sauce-flavored soup beneath beautifully arranged toppings -- a mound of sliced leek, slender strips of pickled bamboo shoots, and slabs of succulent braised pork. The piping-hot soup -- hot enough to fog up eyeglasses -- combines long-simmered chicken broth with seafood broth for an added layer of complexity.

In opening Ivan Ramen, Mr. Orkin has thrust himself into one of the most competitive corners of Japanese cuisine. There are an estimated 80,000 ramen restaurants across the country. Ramen is a national obsession in Japan -- akin to burgers or barbecue in the U.S. Almost all Japanese have strong feelings about every detail, like whether the broth should be made of bonito, sardine or pork bones, and how many slices of pork should be in the soup. Television quiz shows dare self-professed experts to "name that ramen" just by looking at a fraction of a picture of a bowl of noodles. There are guidebooks focused entirely on the best ramen restaurants and bloggers who hunt down and critique new ramen joints the minute they open.

The biggest challenge facing Mr. Orkin is that unlike most of his competitors, he's not Japanese. "I know that I am a big attraction. I'm a gaijin [foreigner], and I'm from New York," Mr. Orkin says. "But what I really want is for people to sit down and taste my ramen and say, 'Man, this is some of the best ramen I've ever tasted.' "

Early press reviews are encouraging. Hiroshi Osaki claims to have eaten more bowls of ramen than anyone else in Japan -- an average of 800 bowls a year. He says Mr. Orkin's ramen is tasty, if a bit ordinary. But he credits Mr. Orkin for paying attention to details, such as warming each slice of pork before gently placing it on top of the noodles.

Mr. Orkin's decision to take on Japan's iconic dish in Tokyo can be traced back to his first wife, and to a series of personal changes triggered by her death in 1998. He met Tamie Nagano while teaching English in Japan in the late 1980s. They lived in New York and had a son together. After she died, Mr. Orkin returned to Japan yearly with their son to teach him about the culture -- and to eat plenty of ramen.


... Ramen was first introduced to Japan in the late 19th century by Chinese merchants who served Chinese-style noodles at restaurants in the port city of Yokohama. Over the years, the dish was adapted to meet Japanese taste buds, and spread to every corner of the nation with regional variations.

Mr. Orkin, who grew up in Syosset on New York's Long Island as a son of a copyright lawyer, studied Japanese in college. After graduating, he taught English in Japan for a few years. Inspired in part by the movie "Tampopo," a story of a man's effort to make a perfect bowl of ramen, and in part by the dish's affordability, he ate a lot of ramen.

Apologies to John Lennon.

“At a well-attended rally in front of his new ground zero headquarters Monday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani officially announced his plan to run for president of 9/11. ‘My fellow citizens of 9/11, today I will make you a promise,’ said Giuliani during his 18-minute announcement speech in front of a charred and torn American flag. ‘As president of 9/11, I will usher in a bold new 9/11 for all.’ If elected, Giuliani would inherit the duties of current 9/11 President George W. Bush, including making grim facial expressions, seeing the world’s conflicts in terms of good and evil, and carrying a bullhorn at all state functions.” - The Onion

Like all good satire, the story made me both laugh and cry, because it reflected something so true — how much, since 9/11, we’ve become “The United States of Fighting Terrorism.” Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but there’s no rule against saying who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11. We don’t need another president of 9/11. We need a president for 9/12. I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate.

[From 9/11 Is Over - New York Times]

Little Tommy Friedman is on to something here, actually.

A fairly low-key launch for the Smart Car. Though if I had a car, such a small, urban vehicle would be my first choice.

Smart USA has no plans to spend money on ads in 2007 or 2008 to support the U.S. launch early next year of the Smart car. Whether or not that is smart remains to be seen. But what already has been shown is that the car's pre-arrival word-of-mouth buzz is extensive and praise from international owners borders on legendary. Since its introduction in 1998, more than 700,000 have been sold in 36 countries. "We haven't spent anything and we have no plans for advertising in 2008," said Ken Kettenbeil, a rep for Smart USA, Bloomfield Hills, Mich., a subsidiary of Penske Automotive Group, which is handling U.S. distribution. Smart is from Mercedes, a division of German-based Daimler.

[snip]

Smart also is tying into a growing movement among consumers to go "green." Gas mileage is expected to be around 40 mpg. MSRP starts at $11,590. Its minuscule size—8-by-8 feet—means it needs a lot less room to park. Smart was a sponsor at the Live Earth concerts in July, which enabled it to reach a targeted audience with its eco-friendliness. A supporting two-page ad in Rolling Stone, paid for by Smart's German colleagues, offered a simple tag, "Open your mind." The Live Earth appearance saw the micro-car feted by such celebrities as Snoop Dogg and Jon Bon Jovi eager to garner green credibility among their fans. In addition to Penske Automotive Group, Smart's arrival in the U.S. is being headed by Smart USA president David Schembri, an ex-head of marketing at Mercedes-Benz USA.

[From Advance Buzz Has Drivers In U.S. Anxious To Get Smart]

These photos are from 2005, when the prototype was first displayed

or there will be consequences....dammit!

Cool, Radiohead is attempting to build upon the research of Jason Kottke's coffee and donut man, Ralph, with the equivalent of putting a tip jar next to the company coffee pot. Except in this case, it is downloadable music from an innovative band who isn't under contract with any major label.

In an unusual test for the music industry's transition to digital sales, the top-selling British rock band Radiohead said its new album will initially be available only as a digital download on the band's Web site, with fans choosing the price they are willing to pay. The plan, announced on Radiohead's Web site last night, appears set to challenge numerous aspects of established music-industry business models. Fans are free to name their own price for a digital-download version of the 10-song album, "In Rainbows." "It's up to you," a message reads when a user clicks on a question mark next to a price box that has been left blank.

A subsequent screen adds: "No really, it's up to you." By letting consumers dictate what they will pay for a digital copy of the album, the band will test theories of online pricing that have been the subject of much speculation in recent years -- most notably, the notion that fans will pay a fair price for downloads if given the freedom to do so on their own terms.

... The move could answer a question that has hung over the music industry for four years: How would the band release its music now that it has fulfilled its contractual obligation to EMI Group PLC, the major label company that released its first six studio albums? The 2003 album "Hail to the Thief" was the last studio release required under that contract, and the music industry has been abuzz with speculation about how the band would release its music once the deal was up. Radiohead's Web site didn't explicitly say that no record company is involved in the process, but a person familiar with the situation said the process of creating, manufacturing and selling the album was being done without any record label's involvement.

[From Radiohead to Let Fans Set Price of Downloads - WSJ.com]

Facts are dangerous, part 2342.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - Drought and mild temperatures have pushed Lake Superior's water level to its lowest point on record for this time of year, continuing a downward spiral across the Great Lakes. Preliminary data show Superior's average water level in September dipped 1.6 inches beneath the previous low for that month reached in 1926, Cynthia Sellinger, deputy director of NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, said Sunday. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which uses a different measuring technique, calculated the September level at 4 inches below the record, said Scott Thieme, chief of hydraulics and hydrology for the Detroit district office.

[From Lake Superior Sets Record for Low Water -- chicagotribune.com]

Lakes Huron and Michigan are about 2 feet below their long-term average levels, while Lake Superior is about 20 inches off. Lake Ontario is about 7 inches below its long-term average and Lake Erie is a few inches down.