June 2002 Archives

So we went and saw it last night. It was pretty good: I liked Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker; Willem Dafoe did the Jekyll / Hyde thing without going completely over the top; J. K. Simmons (who plays the psychatrist on Law & Order -- that's why he looked so familiar) deserves a 2 Minute Oscar for his portrayal of news editor J. Jonah Jameson; the love story was not quite as bad as that of Attack of the Clones. Danny Elfman is a complete hack -- is that chorus he uses in every single score he's ever written real, or synthesized? And I found the beginning of the movie, in which he discoveres his powers and becomes Spider-Man, much more fun than the whole show-down with the Green Goblin. (Then again, you could probably say the same thing about the first Superman movie and the first Batman movie.) Plus, as Debbie pointed out, it's a bit hard to watch two actors face off if you can't see their faces at all.

So, in the middle of the movie, there's the first fight between Spidey and the Green Goblin, in an obviously fake Times Square. The Goblin starts throwing bombs; the buildings are exploding; people are screaming. And I started freaking out. Panic. My heart racing. I closed my eyes and saw the streets filled with smoke. I opened them and there were people turned to skeletons. And then she fell.... I very nearly left the theater. It's only a movie, it's only a movie, it's only....

A minute later and it had passed. I wonder though: I didn't have this reaction watching the CBS 9/11 special or the DVD that the Here Is New York project put together. Why this?

I wanted to cross-post (from Bleahh) the IMS/ISC bid to become the administrator of the dot-org TLD. It’s almost hard to believe some times just how awful Verisign is. Yet another horror story about a domain getting sold out from under the rightful owners appeared yesterday on Zeldman, and it makes me nervous that a domain for which I recently acquired high-level responsibility (private site, so no URL) is up for renewal in under two weeks. Which is worse: that it may have already been renewed and we’re stuck with them for another few years? or that it hasn’t yet been renewed and I risk having it sold to the next schmuck who thinks it’s a cool name?
Hence, I’m doing my part to spread the dot.

•

You can go and post a message of support, ideally after reading at least part of the IMS/ISC proposal.

There's also this campaign:

Flak Magazine

Beijing Newspaper Retreats, Apologizes for Capitol Gaffe

"Some small American newspapers frequently fabricate offbeat news to trick people into noticing them, with the aim of making money," the paper said. "This is what the Onion does."

Here's my post on the original gaffe. Found the retraction story on karlo.org.

Update:

Ennis sent this email exchange to me on the subject. Since I don't read Chinese I'll have to take their word on the content of these links:

From: David K________
For better or worse, the Chinese are not even close to the first to have taken the Onion too seriously. An example from Wired:

"A recent cover story, '98 HOMOSEXUAL-RECRUITMENT DRIVE NEARING GOAL was picked up by Fred Phelps, architect of the notorious God Hates Fags Web site, who listed the article as proof of a gay conspiracy."

From: Ben R_______
Subject: RE: what's chinese for "satire"

Thanks for that point, David. It should be kept in mind, too, that it's not a question of Chinese people not understanding satire, of which they have a rich tradition.

Rather, we're talking about a stodgy state-run newspaper trying hilariously to acknowledge a mistake while making it look as though it was the fault of a dastardly, irresponsible U.S. paper.
Beijing Evening News's "correction" talks in this serious tone about how it went and did follow-up interviews with congressional officials, etc. ...

Here, a Chinese online journal ridicules the Beijing Evening News for making an ass of itself twice.

Buy Dehydrated Water. They probably have a better business model than WorldCom.

Who-hoo! The New York Times has a piece on nycbloggers.com in today's Circuits. Check it out!

Created with Word Perhect.

"But there's no need to worry, as although they can escape they are perfectly harmless and won't be taking over just yet." It looks like Hawking was right about those robots.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
June 26, 2002
Filed at 2:31 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that the Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion and cannot be recited in schools.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1954 act of Congress inserting the phrase "under God'' after the words "one nation'' in the pledge. The court said the phrase violates the so-called Establishment Clause in the Constitution that requires a separation of church and state.

"A profession that we are a nation 'under God' is identical, for Establishment Clause purposes, to a profession that we are a nation 'under Jesus,' a nation 'under Vishnu,' a nation 'under Zeus,' or a nation 'under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion,'' Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote for the three-judge panel.

Further Reading:
Supreme Court decides that compelling a student to say the Pledge is not permissible.
Supreme Court mentions, in its majority opinion in a case not involving the pledge, that “There is a crucial difference between government and private speech endorsing religion”. Apparently, the court in this case found (rightly so) that having a class recite the Pledge constitutes government speech.

30 days to a more accessible weblog.

Can you hear me now? BAM!

Thanks to Sandra for forwarding this.

"We also have to admit that a cool-sounding, glowing spear-like blast does have dramatic appeal. However, such blasts are speculative if not outright silly from a scientific standpoint."

Lasers, machine guns, exploding cars, space explosions, and why getting shot won't hurl you backwards through the nearest plate glass window. This and other fun over at Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics. (Found over on the weekly link section of grrl.com, which has a review of nycbloggers.com too.)

Just some simple statistics about world income and inequality from the BBC
Click here

What happens when you rename your international consulting firm something stupid like Monday? And then forget to register the co.uk domain? Via monoki.

The movie is doing poorly, but ... [story taken from Rednations.com discussion of the Windtalkers]

Hasbro Re-Issues G.I JOE Navajo Code Talker Action Figure
By Newstream.com
Web, AZ, Wed,

June 2002 (Newstream) -- Hasbro, Inc (NYSE: HAS) has announced the re-issue of its popular GI JOE Navajo Code Talker figure. This "talking" action figure honors the more than 400 Navajo Code Talkers, whose unbreakable code was instrumental in Marine maneuvers that took place in the Pacific during World War II-from Guadalcanal in 1942 to Okinawa in 1945. To this day, the Navajo Code remains the only unbroken code ever implemented in the history of war.

This is the best Thai I've had on the east coast - they make the curries fresh for each dish so the flavors are clear and quite tasty !
It's called Temduang, at 644 Tenth Avenue @45th, 307-9388. I went there with Jay and Andrea a few weeks ago, it's #11 on Robert Sietsma's top 100 list of cheap Asian restaurants. YUM ! If you're in NYC, it's worth the trip. And cheap too !

Patrick writes:
While we are worrying ourselves to distraction about what the CIA, the FBI, and Arthur Andersen knew and when they knew it, nobody is asking "Who's watching the astronomers?"

Largest Asteroid in Years Misses Earth

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An asteroid the size of a soccer field whizzed by Earth at a distance much nearer than the Moon, the biggest such space rock in decades to get this close, scientists said on Thursday.

"It's a good thing it missed the Earth, because we never saw it coming," Steve Maran of the American Astronomical Society said in a telephone interview. "The asteroid wasn't discovered until three days after it passed its closest approach to our planet."

Actually, the NSA knew about it days before, but no-one translated it from Nerdspeak until after the fact.

So I'm in the middle of a double shift at the Park Slope Food Co-op (working off my time), working the exit door,and reading a copy of the Daily News that was kindly left there from the previous shift. The cover story, Fear Cop Cars as Bombs is about a recent (aborted) attempt by two Middle Eastern men to buy a replica ambulance with cash, launching speculation (80% of the article) that other rescue and police vehicles may be used to penetrate our defenses. An older man comes to get his receipts stamped, and nods at the paper's headline. "So are the police the terrorists?"

"No, not really," I reply, ready to offer a synopsis of the news.

"Well, then we don't have anything real to worry about then. We really should about . . . manipulation." And he gave me a Significant Look as he walked out with his tofu.

The Co-op is probably the place where you're most likely to get a conspiracy-theory lecture as you buy groceries. It's a good thing he didn't know about the recent suspicious attempt to infiltrate an Oscar Mayer Weinermobile into the Pentagon.

Patrick writes:

Overheard in the office today: "I need to go back home because I forgot 150 dollars worth of lingerie that I need this weekend and my roommate put it in the recycling. I need to get there before they pick it up." (I didn't overhear this really, she was actually talking directly to me)

"For the umpteenth time I repeat that those who plot and plan such barbarous attacks will have to answer before God," the pope said.

"I've mastered my life and traced it along the pages of Mark Twain and Jack London and all of the cynics and existentialists, the Kants, the Sartres. I've tried to pick out the best explorers and the best musicians, everybody from Miles Davis to Sarah Vaughan, from Led Zeppelin to The Beatles, and I want to be Ed Sullivan!"

Liz put my review of The House of Blue Leaves up in her brand-new, very cool book club section of her blog. That book still creeps me out.

The following is a live report from San Francisco.

If you're not already in the know, meet Emily Strange. She's the dark and dark-haired stepchild of, let's say, Wednesday Addams and, oh, I don't know, Derek Zoolander. (Though clearly it's her mother after whom she takes.) Part fashion statement, part macabre party-girl, Emily is all the rage (and I do mean rage) out here in St. Frank.

Gracing the taut tummies of hipster chicas' baby-Ts (and lunch boxes, and wallets, and...), Emily can be found everywhere from dive bars in the Haight to rural Guernville. She doesn't want to talk to you. She doesn't need your sunny optimism. She has a posse of 4 cats and a morbid 8-ball, so just back off. Irresistable, right? Right.

Can't say why we haven't seen more of her in New York yet, but personally, I can't wait. She's going to do terrible, terrible things to that damn Paul Frank monkey.

Colette sent this:
When you have a moment, please access Imagine New York to browse this summary document. It contains ideas from hundreds of NY'ers to help rebuild our city.

I was a facilitator for one of the Imagine New York Envisioning Workshops and for the Summit. It was a truly rewarding experience.

Check out the report. One thing is clear: we need to SLOW DOWN when it comes to making decisions about that space. It's far too important to do otherwise. I hope John Whitehead reads and heeds this report.

Holy Toledo, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Hostess advertisements from comix in one place. Perhaps this deserves its own special slot on the sidebar?
(found at Coudal)

MEL says: You can't miss the interview with Bob Rozakis, who wrote these tasty ads!

We were instructed that the heroes could never eat the cupcakes, Twinkies or fruit pies, because that could be interpreted as an endorsement of the product. So, we were always pressed to come up with some interesting way to stop a crime or a riot or something else using a dessert.

Mayor Bloomberg has made some very minor concessions to the people who argue that trashing New York's recycling laws is bad for the city. Bloomie only sees the numbers, of course. He'd rather burn the trash, have it hauled, and save what amounts to 1% of the city's budget. Only, there are hidden costs that we'll be paying elsewhere. Here's NYPIRG's take on the situation. (Ah, NYPIRG. Remember when Nader was helping?)

"The series was inspired in part by a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, which found that mistakes in hospitals killed 44,000 to 98,000 patients a year."
For more, read the NYT article here

Article excerpt:

"A new and questionable diversion is being offered to Israeli gamblers as a result of the spate of Palestinian suicide bombings - betting on where the next one will be, Israeli newspapers have reported.

Police have confirmed they are investigating reports of a betting ring based in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi.

Although prohibited under Israeli law, gambling thrives in illegal hideouts and aboard cruise ships picking up passengers from Israeli ports. There are even plans for an airborne casino.

Bookies taking wagers on Palestinian attacks give the best odds to places largely untouched by the violence, newspapers report. "

Via the fine blog Six Different Ways, a link to The Commercial Closet's roundup of the use of Lipstick Lesbians in advertising. Check out the rest of the site for homo-friendly ads.

Watch an hour of the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. Then watch an episode of Cowboy Bebop.

Intermittent Zen: Dilz and the Bone, National Heroes

Matt and I stand outside. He has a smoke while we wait for his baggage. Matt recognizes the middle eastern guy from coach. He was alone. "You're in 4F, right?"

"6F."

"Right. You know you were freaking the flight attendents out back there."

"I was?"

"Yeah, they said you had the 'look of death' in your eyes."

"Death? No way, man. I was pissed! This fat lady sat right next to me and she smelled like ass!"

"So, it wasn't the look of death, it was the smell of ass," I say.

"Yeah."

"I always get those confused."

Why is Home Depot refusing to do business with the federal government? The implication of the AP story is that HD doesn’t want to have to follow federal laws on discrimination, but that could be just trying to rouse a tempest in a teapot. TBC . . .

Sorry to be such a dreary poster of late. By way of a make-good, here's an old confection, bendypig, a millenium-era (ar[t)ext] love/hope note from Jessamyn, one of my favorite people in the world (to whom, randomly but inevitably, I suppose, Mike linked last week). It includes a little thing I did several years ago in a fit of Seattle-flavored pique.

Thundercats, Teddy Ruxpin, and of course, Masters of the Universe.

X-Entertainment's Tiki Hut. Yet another link from the Shifted Librarian. This is getting to be a thing.

The EFF is making activism fun again with a cool-o Flash animation designed to stir your conscience (and mousefinger) against the CBDTPA. Apparently Congress is planning to play the porn starlet for Disney once again.

On Monday afternoon, a man mistakenly shot his fiancee when she and her sister surprised him in his home. No doubt gun advocates have plenty of reasons why this particular incident happened (he/she should have known better, she/he's an idiot, etc.) but it seems logical to draw at least one conclusion: where there are guns, there are too often tragic accidents. (Same as cars and heart surgery? Sure, but cars and heart surgery aren't designed to kill people.)

So call me crazy, but I don't want more guns in angry hands on the streets of Brooklyn. Apparently the Mayor doesn't either. The head of the off-the-charts Jewish Defense Group, Rabbi Yakove Lloyd, who is organizing armed patrols in Flatbush and Borough Park scheduled to begin on Sunday says he's "100,000 percent ready... If we get arrested, we'll come out of jail and do it again." He apparently has between 50 and 200 volunteers, only some of whom have permits to carry shotguns and will, purportedly, only do so with weapons unloaded and in cases. Others will have baseball bats, which also makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Oh, and the cops will be watching them closely, too, which we hope is a good thing. (I'm sorry, but is this a Spike Lee movie waiting to happen, or what?) As a side note, I wonder how many of these people actually live in the neighborhoods they'll be patrolling. Lloyd doesn't seem to: at least according to the horrendously out-of-date Web site of the JDG (1997 was the last update), the Rabbi himself lives out in Forest Hills.

Iowa proves it only takes a gun and a game of peek-a-boo for someone to end up dead. Let's hope calmer heads prevail when the ultra-conservative, Arab-hating, shotgun-toting vigilantes hit the streets this summer.

The coffee at the local cart costs 75 cents, so if I'm not engrossed in a book, I'll sometimes take the extra two bits and buy The Post. Tuesday, I was expecting a good headline on Jose Padilla ("Dirty Bum"?) but the front page was devoted to the Dapper Don's demise. And inside? Gotti's death got a twelve page spread, not to mention laudatory blurbs from Liz Smith ("he always sent me white roses") et al. Gotti and Padilla were both thugs from Brooklyn. One killed a bunch of people; he gets the celebrity treatment. The other was planning to kill a lot more people. Somehow I doubt we'll be hearing Liz Smith wax eloquent when Padilla dies in prison. I admit, though, I really like the Sopranos. Why are some criminals turned into celebrities? What makes Gotti fascinating and Padilla revolting?

Is Christine Whitman the greatest patsy of all time, or did she know that part of her mandate as head of the EPA was going to be to gut anti-pollution law? Article in the AP, inter alia.
Let’s look at that one in slo-mo, shall we? The name of the agency is the Environmental Protection Agency. What part of environmental protection doesn’t this administration understand? Seriously, it’s crap like this that make me want to move to the moon.
In my moments of objectivity, I can understand the argument that there shouldn't be a cabinet post that is beholden to one political philosophy or another. (What would a peacenik president do with the Department of War Defense?) But the EPA does exist, it is supposed to be keeping the natural environment safe, and yet . . .

Read The Birth of the EPA at the EPA’s website for its founding purposes.

Much ink has been spilled (digital and liquid) on the relationship between blogs and journalism, but The Shifted Librarian is a great place for thinking about the relationship between blogs and libraries. Plus I found this excellent triva link there from another librarian, including 'This Day In History,' which of course made me wonder immediately if either of them have read The Gold Bug Variations....

Was I the only person in the theater who cringed when this big-schnozzed fellow showed up in AOTC as the representative of the Banking Federation? Or am I being overly paranoid? ("Dooku distinctly said to Kenobi, 'Would jew join the rebellion'....")

You can add this to the Jar Jar as Stepin Fetchit, those fish guys as Chinese, and other sundry ethnic-stereotypes-in-Star-Wars pile.

Just added to sidebar: a collection of online comics, and some freeware you can't live without. Suggestions for both categories welcome.

Debbie writes:

Humor appears in the unlikeliest of places. I wouldn't normally say that the experience of writing my dissertation is laugh-filled, but sometimes I come across humorous correspondence. The latest find is a letter from an English zoologist to his wife, describing NYC drinking laws in 1907, based on a trip to the Endicott Hotel bar. First, though bars were allowed, it was illegal to pass the drinks *across* the bar (there was even a curtain dropped down in front of the bar to prevent this from happening); instead they had to be carried around the end. But better yet, each table had a tiny sandwich on it, which legalized the drinks, since no drink was to be served except with a meal. The same sandwich legalized many "meals". It was called a Raines sandwich, after the politician who introduced the law.

The Online Books Page

While engaged in a completely unrelated search on imdb, I came across the details for the upcoming movie version of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Ennis turned me on to this Alan Moore comic book when I ran into him in a Cambridge comic book store, and each new issue was eagerly awaited in the Everett-Lane household (and not just by the boys, either). Moore's comic creates a super-hero team out of characters from Victorian literature, including Captain Nemo, Alan Quartermain, Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde, the Invisible Man, and Mina Harker from Dracula. As we have come to expect from Moore, it's a great read with amazing attention to detail, weaving together dozens (if not hundreds) of literary figures from the era. You could spend days just trying to spot the references to the fantastic, mysterious, and adventurous Victoriana in each panel.

Greg Pak just reminded me of one of my favorite weird 80s bands, The Judy's (yes, that annoying apostrophe belongs there). A minimalist garage-quirk band from small-town Texas -- they're way too polite to be called punk -- the Judy's cobbled up some of the strangest, funniest and most subtly cutting tunes this side of Jonathon Richman and They Might Be Giants (who actually have a pretty fun Flash-intensive site, I see). On a muffled, fuzzy-sounding tape, I enjoyed classics like the Calypso-flavored "Right Down the Line," the nihilistic "Man on a Window Ledge," and the innocent surf-beat stripper loveletter "Wilma A-Go-Go!" ("She's got a G-string that can hit high A!") Most of the songs are indelibly burned on my subconscious thanks to my freshman year roommate, a football-playing computer geek educated by Turkish monks in the barren backwaters of the Lone Star State. (Jon, if you're there, drop me a line.) So, if your musical tastes incline comic, tart, underfunded, peppy, and oh-so-80s-esque, spend a little time some rainy afternoon at theJudys.com and see if you like what they're dishing out. Moo.

From the folks who brought you the Disney Boycott, Creationism in public schools, and opposition to homosexual Boy Scout leaders, comes the latest ratcheting up of Muslim bashing in U.S. public discourse.

It seems speaker and former SBC president Rev. Jerry Vines blamed many of the country's problems on religious pluralism saying, "Islam is not just as good as Christianity...Islam was founded by Muhammad, a demon-possessed pedophile who had 12 wives -- and his last one was a 9-year-old girl." A spokesman for the SBC said that while he did not "want to give the sense that we are not sensitive or caring about this issue," the SBC wouldn't renounce the statement, which is seems to me does just precisely that. Taking the whole thing to another level, current SBC president Rev. Jack Graham asserted that, "[Vines'] statement is actually a statement that can be confirmed," which to me implies a level of literalist belief in ancient texts that only a radical fundamentalist could love.

George W. Bush was scheduled to address the SBC conference this morning. No word that I can find on whether or not he took a principled stand condemning Vines' statement, but I wouldn't put money on it.

Incidentally, among the SBC's strongly worded resolutions on matters of faith and public conscience (many of which, it must be said, are worth praising), was a rather mundane gem condemning second-class postage rate hikes and this one terming beauty contests and bathing revues "evil and evil only"(perhaps the only feminist issue in which the SBC is in agreement with NOW).

At first, when I saw the ad in the Times, I thought that PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting was waiting until Monday to announce their new name. Nope. Their name is Monday.

This sounds like the setup to a string of bad Who's-On-First style jokes. As Dan Rosenbaum pointed out, we'll now have to say that "the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will have its Academy Awards tallied by Monday. (Since the Oscars telecast is usually on a Sunday, that could be a problem.)"

So why Monday? The most hated day of the week? Debbie said, "Why not just call themselves 'Orange'?"

But PWC is probably on to something. The consultants over at Accenture are probably thanking both God and Mammon that they changed their name after their split with Arthur Andersen. And Philip Morris must be just itching to change its name to Altria. So, who else should change their name? Any suggestions?

While shopping for baby shoes in Park Slope. Mother is pointing to baby shoes that are shaped like animals:

"She likes to chew on them, so I'm looking for shoes that have kosher animals on them."

I lost my Palm. I least I'm pretty sure I did. So it looks like I'm in the market for a new one. Any suggestions on what to get? Is a color screen worth the extra bucks?

This guy's resume was automatically rejected because he graduated cum laude.

Build your own South Park character. Thanks to ashidome for the link.

Turns out the Bushies weren't sitting on their hands as much as they seemed to be over the last few months. In fact, they were planning -- in secret -- the most thorough overhaul of the federal government in 50 years. (Remember when Hillary Clinton tried to have private committee meetings, and the frothing conservative uproar about that? But now, everything Dick Cheney does is secret and we're "unpatriotic" if we have a problem with that.) It doesn't take much imagination -- just a decent memory -- to think why this might be a problem.

When this bill passes, we'll have a new, huge federal agency fingerprinting people, infiltrating organizations at their own discretion, and liberally monitoring phone calls and emails. (I thought the Republicans were all about "small government" and "getting the government off our backs.")

When the Homeland Security guys unexpectedly knock on your door and want to know why, say, you and your friends rented a car last weekend, where you went, what you did, who you saw, just remember that roughly a dozen people came up with this plan by concealing it from members of Congress and deceiving them to get information.

Like I said before, we all want the "government" to "do more" to "prevent terrorism." But how about fixing the problem rather than inventing a whole new bureacracy? (Gore would be eviscerated for trying something like this, of course; suddenly, Lott and DeLay would be noble defenders of civil rights.)

And, really, is it too much to ask the Bush people to do their jobs in the daylight?

Are we ready for groups of angry, racially charged people carrying concealed weapons on the streets of Brooklyn? Does this make you feel safer? Or less safe? What happens when Arab-American communities start arming themselves, too? Look for an official statement from the police later today, but I fear the phrase "the terrorists have already won" isn't going to be a joke much longer.

It's time for a little lunar espionage and negligee-fu! Check out Roman Coppola's first feature film "CQ" for a hilarious parody of late-60s sci-fi, excrutiatingly introspective art films, and the ungainly quest for truth (or, say, a job). Really fun, and very well made.

From Wired News:

BEIJING -- Beijing's most popular newspaper has unwittingly republished a bogus story about U.S. Congress threats to skip town for Memphis or Charlotte unless Washington builds them a new Capitol building with a retractable dome.

The source? America's celebrated spoof tabloid, the Onion.

Check out ESPN's Fantasy Fishing league! Link via Futility Insider.

After an eternity — but a worthwhile one — Mozilla 1.0 is out. The Mozilla.org site was down last check, but keep trying. You can also FTP, of course. Seriously, this is a stable browser, highly compliant with W3C markup standards (but still deals just fine with crufty old markup from 1997 or before), and reasonably slim to download (one-time 10M). There are plenty of web developer–centric bells and whistles if that's your bag, but if not they won’t get in your way any more than your current browser’s full range of capabilities do.

The Ramones seem to have reached their life expectancy. This time, it’s Dee Dee.

Lord of the Ph.Ds.

At least on welfare, the environment, and crime. Little stuff like that.

In reference to Ennis's post, I'd mention again that while some people are experiencing discrimination, others are still being held (if not downright secretly then at least secretively) by the INS and the DOJ.

Of course, we all want the "government" to "do more" to "prevent terrorism," so it poses some interesting questions. How much is too much? Do we trust Ashcroft et al to find the right balance? How much "humiliation" on the part of Arab-Americans is worth it? How about for other Americans? How about for you personally?

Here's one partisan opinion, with some interesting facts mixed in.

"The Justice Department has been especially closed-mouthed about the largest group of detainees, the more than 725 people held on immigration charges. It refuses even to name them and has ordered them tried in secret, with proceedings closed to the public, the press, legal observers, and even family members. On orders from Attorney General Ashcroft, Chief Immigration Judge Michael Creppy has instructed immigration judges not to list the cases on the public docket, and to refuse to confirm or deny that they even exist. Not even during the Palmer Raids did the U.S. engage in such a wholesale practice of secret detentions and trials."

"Ali Maqtari, a Yemeni citizen, was picked up on September 15 when he accompanied his U.S. citizen wife to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where she was reporting for Army basic training. Agents interrogated him for more than 12 hours and accused him of involvement with terrorists. Maqtari took and passed a lie detector test, but was detained on the highly technical charge that he had been in the country illegally for ten days while changing his status from tourist to permanent resident. The government never offered any evidence linking him to terrorism or to crime of any kind. It merely submitted a boilerplate affidavit from an FBI agent arguing that Maqtari should be detained because the investigation of terrorism is a 'mosaic,' and therefore, seemingly innocent facts might at some future time turn out to indicate culpability. Two months later, Maqtari was released without charges. "

Then there are more mainstream stories as well, of course.

"Much of the Bush Administration's homeland war on terrorism has been entirely reasonable. Law enforcement has been criticized for rounding up more than 1,000 people in the course of the investigation; more than 500 are still being detained. The rap: that many are in for minor criminal offenses and immigration fraud. Since the vast majority are immigration detainees and their names have been withheld, it's a hard claim to evaluate. But it is clear, based on the cases of 93 people charged criminally and on the immigration violators whose names have been released, that at least some of the detainees are exactly the sort of people Americans would want the fbi [sic] to zero in on. "

So, um... which is it?

Thumb-jockey parody from McSweeny's.

"CHRISTIAN SOLDIER: Don't waste your Power Pamphlets on the punk rocker. Instead, slip them into the Hasidic Jew's pocket! His beard will disappear, and he'll change into colorful clothes."

[Exerpts from article below]

"A Sikh businessman has sued Fleet Bank for discrimination, claiming employees at the bank's Carteret branch refused to let him open a $250,000 certificate of deposit and then asked him to leave when he pressed them for a reason. [...]

"I feel it was a very clear-cut case of discrimination," said Chowdhary, 44, who is an American citizen and a former captain in the U.S. Merchant Marines. "I have never felt that low in my life. They humiliated me in front of so many customers." [...]

Chowdhary was filling out the paperwork with a teller when Carteret branch vice president Alicia Eagleston allegedly stopped the application process cold and called the teller to her desk, according to the suit.

When the teller returned, she told Chowdhary he was no longer allowed to open a certificate of deposit, according to the suit. When he pressed Eagleston for a reason, Chowdhary claims in his lawsuit, she told him the final decision of who can and who cannot open a certificate of deposit belongs to her.

"We look at the customer and then decide," the lawsuit claims Eagleston told Chowdhary. Eagleston then escorted Chowdhary to the door and asked him to leave. [...]

Fleet did not respond until late January, when Chowdhary finally hired an attorney, Ravinder S. Bhalla of the law firm Krovatin & Associates. [...]

Bhalla said none of the reasons cited by Fleet in its letter were ever raised on the day Chowdhary visited the bank, nor was he invited to return to the bank. "

Geez, lousy service and open discrimination. They're going to get skewered when this goes to court. I'm going to change my account in protest unless they make good soon .....

The City Council is currently negotiating with Mayor Bloomberg over the cuts in the city budget. Bloomberg has proposed 5% cuts across the board. When it comes to services for the homeless, these cuts are short-sighted. Cuts to the Department of Homeless Services will have a far disproportionate impact on the quality of life in the city. I urge you to do the following, now :

1) If you don't know who your City Council rep is, go here to find out.

2) Cut and paste this letter, or modify it yourself.

3) Email or fax it to your Council rep today! Remember, you're doing this for all New Yorkers.

Dear Councilman Yassky:

I'm writing to urge you to restore Department of Homeless Services monies cut from Mayor Bloomberg's proposed 2003 budget. Simply put:

* Demand for homeless services is at an all-time high
* There is no immediate end in sight
* The organizations who work with homeless New Yorkers are already stretched to the breaking point, between a 1.5% cut last year, more work, and no pay-raises for line staff in four years.

This is no time to cut services for the homeless -- this is a time to fund them.

I know these are tough times for New York financially, but they are even tougher on the homeless. The poorest New Yorkers have been hit from all sides: the loss of tens of thousands of entry-level jobs after 9/11; the continued lack of affordable housing; the end of welfare benefits; and a decrease in services to alleviate these problems.

Programs that help the homeless can provide more than temporary shelter. They are a means to escape the street, to control the addictions and mental illnesses that plague many of New York's homeless, and to become contributing members of the city, with jobs and stable housing. But these programs can't help people move out of homelessness if we have to make 5% cuts. Any decrease in service will mean an increase in homelessness. It's that simple.

It's also worth noting that successful homeless programs save New York City taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars that will otherwise be wasted on preventable incarcerations, hospitalizations, institutionalizations, visits to the emergency room, etc. And an increase in homelessness will also make an impact on the New York economy, as residents, businesses, and tourists begin to avoid the city streets. Cutting DHS funding is a bad investment decision for the city.

I know you face very tough choices with this budget process, but I trust you will heed both your head and your heart and make sure there are no cuts to the already bare-bones DHS budget. A working system to combat homelessness helps all New Yorkers, not just those in the system.

Sincerely,

Mike Everett-Lane

If you know what it is, then you'll want to save the date: Saturday, July 27th.

The latest from my friend in Seattle who is a DJ. (The old-school kind, like, on the radio.) Bob's straight outta Bawstin, and you can hear it in this review:

Hey there:

It's been some time since I've passed on info on a CD(s) that I thought was worth putting some hard earned cash down for. I must admit that I've been avoiding the following two groups because every industry magazine is just in love with them and they seem to worship the very ground that they piss on, so why would why want to follow?! Well, they're right and I am following "The White Stripes" and "The Strokes". What can I say, The Stripes were on the listening station at Tower and it was a must have.

First of all, The White Stripes. OMIGAWD, their CD "White Blood Cells" is there is so much going here and its so refreshing to hear some good music because todays radio SUCKS. If I have to listen to another Blink, Lit, Stain or God Smack, I'm gonna have to puke on someone. The Stripes are a brother sitster team, Meg and Jack White. Meg is on Drums and backing vocals and boy she can pound the cans as good or even better than Mr Grohl. And Jack takes care of lead vocals, Guitar and Piano.

Where do I start with them......I've been listening to this cd non-stop for a couple of days and has become sort of "my bitch cd", I just keep playing it over and over. If you could take The Beatles White album and The Violent Femmes Hallow Ground album, you're half way there, also there's a big 70's rock influence here like Lou Reed and The Who.

Take track 9, go figure its track 9, "We're Going to be Friends" feels like it would fit on The White album. I can hear Paul or even better George taking lead vocals here. Then theres' track 11 "I think I Smell a Rat", this would be a perfect Violent Femmes song, it could fit on Hallow Ground or their self title album. Jack sounds a lot like Gordon Gano here, a lot. Then there's track 7 "The Union Forever" the mood swings back in forth, you'd would think that it was two different songs, but it works. Track 12 "Aluminum" is an instrumental track and that has this punk/grunge/classic rock thing going on at the same time. Deep Purple and Sound Garden could regroup if they got a listen to this track, all it takes is a little inspiration.

"The Strokes - Is This It", I'm still working on. They have this 80's pop-rock thing working for them. I just wish they didn't use the same "slight vocal distortion" on every track, and EVERYTHING is EVEN. I mean when lead singer, Julian Casablancas, changes vocal range, but it doesn't change. You can hear the strain in his voice but it doesn't get any louder or softer on any of the tracks, its the the same with all the instruments. But I'm betting they're a good live act. All I can say is that they're an upbeat happy version of The Cure or Iggy Pop. I think I'm a bigger fan of The White Stripes and I heard that they just played the MTV Movie Awards, and it should be shown sometime this week, check them out.

Aslo I just picked up everyones favorite white- vegan- techno-god, Moby's, "18" cd. Also a must have :)

One last thing, if you didn't get a copy of Tori Amos last cd, "Strange Little Gril", do get it. Its one of her best, its a cover album of all songs done by men, Lou Reed, Neil Young and Tom Waites to name a few.

Well it's midnight and I have to turn off the stereo and go to bed, na-night.

- b

Debbie posts:

Some super-sleuthing by concerned mom Jeanne Heifetz has led to the discovery that the writers of the New York State Regents English exam routinely censor passages from the works of well-known authors in order to remove all references to profanity, race, religion, ethnicity, sex, nudity, violence, and even alcohol. My favorite example of this new absurdity:

"A paragraph in John Holt's "Learning All the Time" is truncated to eliminate some of the reasons Suzuki violin instruction differs in Japan and the United States, apparently not to offend anyone who might find the particulars somehow insulting. Students are nonetheless then asked to answer questions about those differences."

Check it out: The Elderly Man and the Sea? Test Sanitizes Literary Texts

On May 7, 2002, The Plain Dealer featured an article on "a College Board statistical finding that ranked the SAT scores of college-bound seniors by their religion. Unitarians finished first, averaging 1,209 on the college-entrance exam. Jews averaged 1,161 followed by Quakers at 1,153 and Hindus at 1,110. The average SAT score for college-bound seniors is 1,020."
(May 7, 2002, The Plain Dealer, B2) [From the pluralism project's news section]

Over at randomWalks, which I've always highly regarded blog-wise, and wrote a quick, not well written review of over at NYCB, I found a link to Shill's Video Movie Title Screen Page. I'm not surprised that this has been around since 1997; it's old school web, a labor of love, simple design, obsessive content. As you might guess, it's a collection of screen caps of movie title pages. Many of them are interesting from a typographical standpoint, such as these:

A fine Saturday afternoon, and we're walking down 8th Avenue. I spot two older black women, ringing the buzzer of a brownstone. It's clear from a glance that they're Jehova's Witnesses, out spreading the good word. I can't hear what they say, but the reply broadcasts loud and clear: "No thanks, we're Satan worshippers."

Hey, amigos.

My good friends and colleagues Peter Olsen and Josh Apter co-directed a movie called "Kaaterskill Falls" which opens this coming Wednesday, June 5, in New York City. I didn't work on the film (although I designed their first website and lent 'em my camera for pick ups), but I highly encourage everyone to go see it. Here are the deets:

"Kaaterskill Falls"
Wednesday, June 5 through Thursday, June 11, 2002
The Pioneer Theater
155 East 3rd Street (at Avenue A)
212-254-3300

Wed. - 8 and 10 p.m. (Q&A with directors after the 8 p.m. screening)
Thurs. - 5:15 and 9:15 p.m.
Fri. - 8 and 9:45 p.m.
Sat./Sun. - 6:15, 8, and 9:45 p.m.
Mon./Tues. - 6:15 and 10:15 p.m.

Inspired by Roman Polanski's "Knife in the Water," the film tells the story of a bickering couple from Manhattan who pick up a hitchhiker on a trip to the country. Sexual tension, physical danger, and moral quandries ensue. The film was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards, including the John Cassavettes Award (for a film made for under $500,000) and the Debut Performance Award (for the entire three person cast).

So you should pay money to see the film for its quality and entertainment value.

But you should also pay money to see this film to keep hope alive for truly independent and original storytelling in America.

The independent movies which get featured treatment in the "New York Times" and NPR and cross-marketing opportunities with "E!" and "MTV" tend to be larger pictures with established movie stars in them. Those are the independent movies my mom reads about and goes to see in her local arthouse theater. And they're often great, just as big budget Hollywood movies are often great. (I have nothing but love for "The Matrix," for example, which clearly rocks). But there's a wealth of truly independent movies, made with miniscule budgets by enormously talented filmmakers with few connections and no access to stars. These pictures are often remarkable and surprising in ways big entertainment products can't afford to be. Occasionally they'll break through to a mass audience (Robert Rodriguez's outstanding "El Mariachi" is probably the most famous example). But most of these smaller films never get distribution deals from big companies. So they do the festival circuit and slowly fade away.

So I exhort you to go see "Kaaterskill Falls" to make a point -- if we want more varied choices in art and entertainment, we need to get proactive with our recommendations and our dollars. There should be a way for good, truly independent movies made on small budgets to make their money back. But it depends on grassroots efforts and networks -- mass market newspapers, magazines, and television programs are as driven by the need for mass audiences as are the movies they cover, which means they'll tend to cover the pictures with the biggest stars or controversies. And filmmakers like Pete and Josh can't afford to take out ads in the "New York Times" to plug their screenings.

So here's my plug: Go see "Kaaterskill Falls" on Wednesday. If you like it, email a hundred of your New York friends and tell them to go see it on Thursday. Etcetera etcetera. Everyone gets an interesting evening's entertainment. Pete and Josh pay rent. You feel good. Artists survive. Good triumphs.

Love and kisses,

Greg

Just in case anyone happened to miss the comments on Mike's recent update about NYCBloggers.com, check out our man Mariano's blogger community in Argentina. A Nueva York shout-out to, in his words, "Argentina (yep, the southest country in the world and a big headache for institutional investors in Wall St.)."

Mariano, drop us a line and practice your English anytime! We even have a few Spanish-speaking bloggers here in NYC!

"So Mel Brooks, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jerry Springer walk into a bar," Mr. McIndoe said. "No, seriously. Mel Brooks, Kurt Vonnegut and Jerry Springer walked in last week. It's torturing me. I mean, it's the greatest setup line of all time. If I could only finish that joke, I could retire."

I hate it when people leave me hanging like this. Challenge - finish the joke ! Takers ? (Oh yeah, the rest of the article is here)

Once W's "Waving at Stevie Wonder" story was, thankfully, debunked, it didn't take long for truth to catch up to fiction. Here is the original Der Spiegel article reporting on W's question to Brazillian President Cardoso: "Do you have blacks, too?"

(This, of course, on the same European Tour where W mocked an American reporter at an international news conference for addressing the French President in French.)

So, according to Jane's (one of the world's top military information-retailers) not only are plenty of Al-Queda operatives still kickin' it live in Pakistan, they're also gearing up to help destabilize an already pudding-like political situation in that country's potentially nuclear set-to with India. Here's a loose analogy: Imagine a stare-down between two people who hate each other. One has a gun. The other has a much bigger gun. Now imagine Quentin Tarantino bursting in.

Al-Qaeda prepares for war

"As both India and Pakistan continue to prepare for war, there is mounting evidence that many of the Al-Qaeda militants who fled Afghanistan have regrouped in Pakistan with the aim of destabilising relations between the two states through a series of high-profile terrorist attacks in India and Kashmir. If so, then concerns that Al-Qaeda could gain access to nuclear weapons may be realised."