The Radical Lef

Yes.

2011-06-08T01:46:00.002+01:00

That's right.

I'm back again.

Hello?

[chirping of crickets]

"Rocked Me to My Core"

2007-09-27T16:26:00.000+01:00

And how.

Steer clear of the Westchester County Libraries; they've got at least one librarian with a serious empathy problem:

Even the dead apparently have to pay the fines on their overdue books at one Westchester County library. Elizabeth Schaper said she was charged a 50-cent late fee while turning in a book that her late mother had checked out of a Harrison Public Library branch.

"I was in shock," Schaper said. "This has rocked me to my core."

Schaper's mother, Ethel Schaper, died at the age of 87 on Sept. 16 after suffering a massive stroke. A few days later, Schaper said she found a library book, "The Price of Silence," by Camilla Trinchieri, that her mother had checked out from the library.

"My mother was an avid reader _ she read an average of two books a week," Schaper said. "She was a frequent patron of the library."

Schaper said she returned the book last week, and was stunned when the man behind the library counter told her of the 50-cent fee.

"I told him that maybe he didn't hear me right, that my mother had just died, otherwise I'm sure that she would have returned it on time," Schaper said. "His only reply was that, 'That will be 50 cents.'"

"I mean, you've got the 50 cents, right? Surely you inherited some money when the old broad kicked it? Huh?"

Great service.

A Close Shave

2007-09-18T16:06:00.000+01:00

Look, I'll be honest with you. It's hard for me to focus on the finer points of this AP article about eating locally grown food. I think the reason for my confusion is the first paragraph of the piece:

Dick Shave got a duck for dinner. It was firm, fresh and - this is very important when you're only eating food grown within 100 miles - raised nearby.

Hang on here; just one second, please.

What was it that was firm, fresh, and raised nearby?

Oh, right.

Ahem. But seriously. If your name was Richard Shave, would you go by Dick?

Operaführer

2007-08-21T15:56:00.000+01:00

You're using Opera, right? No? Well! You need to be.

Once you have used "Go to URL," once you have zoomed in 150% on the microscopic text of a webpage, once you have searched for text in your favorite engine or database simply by selecting it from a right-click dropdown menu, once you have used the Notes panel to paste in frequently typed text to an email . . . you will never use another browser again.

Mark my words!

Live Long and Prosper

2007-07-07T01:37:00.000+01:00

Interesting little side note in a NYT article today about "one-day university" programs, one of which features a psychologist:

To some, the thrust of positive psychology is misguided; people are no more able to change their level of happiness than their height. But while Mr. Achor agrees that each individual has a genetically programmed base line mood, he also says that people are able to shift that base line through a variety of tactics. So he talked about research with depressed patients that showed exercise was more successful in preventing relapses than medication; a study with nuns that demonstrated the life-extending benefits of keeping a journal that records positive experiences; and a study of monks that indicates how meditation increased insight-producing gamma waves in the brain.

Gotta remember that part; gotta make an effort to note and record the good stuff. I'll live longer!

Leniency for the Tycoon

2007-06-18T22:38:00.000+01:00

What a phrase. And what a fighter!

A South Korean tycoon on trial in a sensational assault case said Monday he punched bar workers after his son was hurt in a scuffle, but denied using a steel pipe and stun gun.

"I delivered several hooks," Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn said under questioning by the prosecution at Seoul central District Court, using boxing terminology to describe the punches.

Clad in sky blue jail garb, Kim, one of South Korea's richest men, said he chose the description for the punches because he was once head of South Korea's amateur boxing association.

Kim said it was he himself who "mainly beat" about half a dozen bar workers, although he added that his bodyguards were involved later, when "I got tired."

Well hell yes! When you get tired, you've got to have your minions step in, to do at least some of the ass-kicking.

Among charges the tycoon faces are illegal detainment and assault with dangerous objects over the alleged revenge attack after a March altercation at a Seoul karaoke club with his 22-year-old son, Kim Dong-won, a student at Yale University.

[. . .]

The dramatic details of the case, which media have likened to something out of a gangster movie, have drawn intense public interest in South Korea, where the heads of family controlled conglomerates wield great economic, political and social clout.

At one point Kim told the packed courtroom that he lightly hit one of the workers on the head with a steel pipe to scare them. He later retracted the statement and denied using a stun gun.

Kim's lawyers said the attack was not organized or premeditated in nature, and called for leniency for the tycoon. They said his prolonged absence from management could cause a crisis at the conglomerate.

And if anybody deserves a little leniency now and then, surely it's the head of a family-controlled conglomerate?

And while we're in Hanguk . . . what do you think your first public statement would be after finally getting the hell out of the world's most backward state?

A North Korean family of four arrived in South Korea on Saturday after leaving Japan, where they landed two weeks ago after a rare boat voyage from the communist country.

The family - a couple and their two adult sons - arrived at the international airport in Incheon wearing hats and covering their faces with masks.

"Liberty, democracy, human rights!" yelled one of the North Koreans at an airport gate, before airport security officials escorted the group away.

He couldn't hold it in; he had to shout it! Loud and proud.

Finally, ever wonder what W's Secret-Service codename is? Here's a hint: It fits, and on multiple levels.

Old Sparky . . . Works?

2007-06-11T14:52:00.000+01:00

Interesting article in the AP about recent studies claiming that the death penalty in the United States . . . prevents murders?

Among the conclusions:

- Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University. (Other studies have estimated the deterred murders per execution at three, five and 14).

Just for good measure, there's some academic snippiness too (the phrase "second-tier journals" is used).

Iraq in a Nutshell

2007-06-11T04:13:00.000+01:00

In a recent dispatch from the IHT covering the continuing horror of Iraq, John F. Burns provides (almost as an aside) a solid summation of what the deal is:

Shiites now hold power for the first time in centuries through the embattled Shiite-led, U.S.-supported government in Baghdad. They have been the principal targets of bombings by Sunni insurgent groups seeking to drive American and other foreign forces out of Iraq and to restore Sunni minority rule. But Shiites have also suffered increasingly in areas of southern Iraq, where most Shiites live, from internecine violence among rival Shiite militia groups.

I've never seen anyone spell out the situation that clearly and succinctly before.

I can never complain again about my personal life. No matter how "bad" things get for me, I do not live in Iraq.

What Humans Do

2007-06-08T16:07:00.001+01:00

Great article about wildlife in the 1100-square-mile contaminated zone around Chernobyl.

Also, archaeologists have found a passageway George Washington built, so his guests wouldn't have to look at the slaves coming and going. George was real hospitable like that.

"As you enter the heaven of liberty, you literally have to cross the hell of slavery," said Michael Coard, a Philadelphia attorney who leads a group that worked to have slavery recognized at the site. "That's the contrast, that's the contradiction, that's the hypocrisy. But that's also the truth."

[. . .]

The findings have created a quandary for National Park Service and city officials planning an exhibit at the house. They are now trying to decide whether to incorporate the remains into the exhibit or go forward with plans to fill in the ruins and build an abstract display about life in the house.

"fill in the ruins" . . .

After all, the guests didn't want to see the slaves then . . . why should they have to look now?

Wild Ride

2007-06-08T16:07:00.000+01:00

Dude got a wild ride, true dat.

What Happened to Oetzi?

2007-06-07T05:04:00.000+01:00

Now we know, and it ain't pretty. Dude got shot in the back. The AP's all over it, but the BBC coverage is deeper and more interesting. They even tell what he had to eat!

Now that we know so much about him, why doesn't someone make an Oetzi movie?

And All of Your Usefulness

2007-06-07T04:44:00.000+01:00

Best song of the past year or so, from Shara Worden, better known as My Brightest Diamond. I just tracked it down. Good God this woman rocks.

Listen to the song (courtest Team Clermont--scroll down to "Workhorse"), rock out, see her on tour this summer, buy the CD from Asthmatic Kitty.

Sugar?

2007-06-07T04:28:00.000+01:00

Stunning, memorable, horrifying and sickly hilarious. "The tortured lives of interrogators."

My friend Eb is right--this piece is wall-to-wall quotable quotes.

The best place to go to unwind, Sheriff said, was the municipal garbage dump. After work, he'd set up a beach chair on top of the landfill, under the Israeli sun.

Now Sheriff was high up on the dump, safe from vindictive prisoners, boiling water on a portable gas burner to make some tea. "Sugar?" he offered. Sheriff stretched, relaxed. "I've got a clean conscience because I rarely use it."

But Sheriff's got nothing on the American profiled in the story--the one who was encouraged by his superiors, IN OUR GOVERNMENT, to torture more or less at random. Cut a guy's fingers off because he stole a can of benzene? Why the hell not? That's just "being creative."

'Sup?

2007-05-30T22:44:00.000+01:00

'Sgoin'?

D-I-V-O-R-C-E

2007-04-01T07:43:00.000+01:00

Guess how prevalent divorce is in Japan?

No, lower.

Lower.

Much lower.

A Touch Like Glass

2007-03-30T02:50:00.000+01:00

The Cure at the Ultra Festival in Miami is, wonderfully, online. And they played "The Big Hand"!

And when the big hand speaks
It's like fireworks and heaven
So you listen, don't think
And wish for nothing at all . . .

But when the big hand holds up all your favourite things
And with a touch like glass starts to squeeze
You don't ask, "Why me?"
You just slip to the floor.

The Smith/Gallup/Cooper/Thompson Cure sounds very promising. Now if it were only Smith/Gallup/Thompson/Bamonte . . .

Damn!

2007-03-28T01:31:00.000+01:00

Yo, what up. I'm on a once-per-month blogging schedule now, apparently. Big thanks go out to "todos los fieles" who stop by once in a while to see if I'm still kicking.

Recently I started looking in earnest for good podcasts to listen to while I'm commuting, cleaning, cooking, sitting in seat 24C, etc. The only podcasts I had ever downloaded before were Tim Gunn's hilarious behind-the-scenes throwdowns from Project Runway. Mystifyingly, these aren't all available on the PR website; you have to get several of them from Yahoo, and even there the files are semi-hidden. That's too bad because these are easily some of the most entertaining shows you can find, podcast or otherwise.

Apart from Tim's genius tell-alls, though, I wasn't finding anything remotely worth the time and electricity required for the download. Most of the shows I saw listed on "best podcast" websites sounded like the shit you used to hear coming out of CB radios. I'm talking serious "breaker breaker"-level inanity here.

Then I stumbled, by accident, on the podcasts at NPR, and lordy do they have a lot there worth listening to. Damn! I had always wanted to listen to This American Life, since everyone raves about it, and since Sarah Vowell is always gut-wrenchingly funny on Letterman . . . but who has the time to get near a radio whenever some show comes on? Well, fret no more, my friend; you can just download that podcast. They'll let you have this week's episode free, and they say that you can pay for previous episodes at Audible, but . . . hallelujah . . . the "streaming" techonology they use for their previous broadcasts is just Flash mp3, so if you browse with Opera, it's easy as pie to keep the downloaded file as long as you want. Just be sure to move it out of your cache once the download is finished, and keep your cache capacity nice and high, like 200 megs. Thank God for Opera! It's the hoarder's best friend. Another example: Wanna hang on to that Flash movie from YouTube? Just watch it in Opera, move (or copy) the file out of your cache and rename it from .tmp to .flv, then open it in VLC.

Also check out American RadioWorks for some good hour-long documentaries on interesting topics. You can find the whole podcast directory for NPR here.

One thing you start noticing when you listen to these NPR podcasts, though, is how many hosts on these shows are tedious to listen to as time goes on, just because of the way they speak. If only they would talk like normal human beings--like the ones they're interviewing and talking about, say--the whole experience would be so much better. You can really tell it was their writing skills that got them the job, not the sonorous timbre of their voice. Apparently there is no audition (literally) for these people.

The main weirdness to me about podcasting is this business about "subscribing" to a particular podcast. I guess that's a great option if you're always using iTunes with an iPod, but since I'm waaaay too poor for an iPod, and waaaay too debauched to pay for music online, this is not a good option for me. Who needs a middleman? Shouldn't every podcasting site also just make the mp3s available as direct downloads so I won't have to hack the xml?

This has been your Podcast Minute with Lef. See you.

Long Time No See

2007-02-28T22:54:00.000Z

Lordy Lordy. Thanks so much to all of you who have been coming out to see us at the shows. The demo is finished and we're "shopping" it to all and sundry. We have been told by objective listeners that it "rocks."

Ran into Gordon Lightfoot the other day. Cool cat. Somehow, though, I felt like he was reading my mind. What a tale my thoughts did tell.

Anyway, we'll be unleashing a maelstrom of high-energy robopop at The Basement in Trenton next Thursday, March 8. Looking forward to seeing you there. Biff's Mom will be there, so be on the lookout. She's a mean drunk.

See you soon?

The World's Smallest Dog

2006-12-14T04:51:00.000Z

Today the AP answers the question, how small is the world's smallest dog?

. . . but(t) even more interesting is the story of artist Stan Murmur. This article is worth reading simply to see how many variations of the phrase "butt-printing artist" the journalist can devise.

Just a Question

2006-12-03T19:36:00.000Z

How can Pat Benatar not have aged in twenty years? She looks exactly the same! I would have thought the Batttlefield would have taken some toll, but no.

Slick Jet, Lost Pet, GWOT Vets

2006-10-12T20:26:00.000+01:00

A trio of neato stories today.

First up: There's going to be a Virgin America Airlines. Good news. And the first jet was christened the Jefferson Airplane by Grace Slick, whom I hadn't known to be a gifted graphic artist. You can see what she looks like now--and what she paints like--in this dispatch from San Fiasco.

Next, how the hell did a lost 47-year-old parrot get from Johnson City, Tennessee, to Long Island, New York? By car, of course:

"When I heard he was in New York I was skeptical at first," Kendrick said, "but then I talked with Buzzy on the phone and Josh sent [me] photos and it's no doubt that it's him."

Welcome home.

Finally . . . in a world of borderline pointless blogs (like this one), some have to be cool, and The Sandbox is actually worth a look-see. And I would never have known if not for the good folks at the AP.

See ya.

Trying to Work Offline

2006-10-12T20:01:00.000+01:00

Boy oh boy oh boy. For years I haven't understood why there was no "Work Offline" option under the File tab in Internet Explorer on my computer. Drove me crazy. It was a big problem because whenever I wanted to view a recently cached webpage--say while I was working during a flight--I had to go searching through thousands of temp files. Today I found the answer, thanks to the JSI FAQ here and here.

In short: Work Offline disappears if you have your homepage set to a file on your computer. I have a plain black screen as my homepage; this was the problem. Ctrl+N and Work Offline reappears like magic.

Thanks so much, Microsoft.

Positivity

2006-10-08T15:46:00.000+01:00

One of the most important things I have ever read. The whole NYT article is here.

[. . .] Dr. Levy and her colleagues decided try a method that was used to study the effects of stereotypes about race and gender. The idea is to flash provocative words too quickly for people to be aware they read them.

In her first study, Dr. Levy tested the memories of 90 healthy older people. Then she flashed positive words about aging like “guidance,” “wise,” “alert,” “sage” and “learned” and tested them again. Their memories were better and they even walked faster.

Next, she flashed negative words like “dementia,” “decline,” “senile,” “confused” and “decrepit.” This time, her subjects’ memories were worse, and their walking paces slowed.

If you need some positivity in your environment, call me. Let's keep it positive.

The Alliance for Prudent Bon Mot Use

2006-09-30T20:34:00.001+01:00

I have a bad cold right now, so I was interested by a story in the AP wire about how much rhinovirus people leave behind in hotel rooms. (Long story short: Those bastards leave virus everywhere . . . except the toilet handle.) But how does this apply to life at home?

Dr. Stuart Levy, a Tufts University physician who heads the Alliance for Prudent Antibiotic Use, advocates lots of hand washing and not going overboard trying to de-bug your home.

"How clean do you need to be? You don't go through with a blowtorch," he said.

Ahahahaha. Well, thanks a hell of a lot.

I got your Alliance right here, doc.

The Unknown Defendant

2006-09-30T20:34:00.000+01:00

You won't see this strategy on Law & Order. Boston Legal, maybe. From the AP:

A man accused of theft arrived for a preliminary hearing wearing a cardboard box on his head in an effort to conceal his identity.

Justin Michael Kalich, 26, wore the box at the suggestion of his lawyer while he waited outside a judge's office for an appointment Thursday morning.

"I'm trying to think outside of the box, so to speak," attorney Jeff Leonard said.

And his lawyer "made it go away," with no time. Just one question: Why "reel wire"?

Alles wär so klar

2006-08-09T09:59:00.000+01:00

Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein
Im kalten Polar
Dann müßte ich nicht mehr schrein . . .

Oder besser gesagt, einen Ice Bear haben. (From CNET.)

Brothers, But Not Family

2006-08-02T09:45:00.000+01:00

Great article about Basque arborglyphs in the American West, from today's Post. The closing thought may ring true to today's expatriates, whether or not they consider themselves "immigrants."

Projekt Runway

2006-08-02T08:53:00.000+01:00

If you aren't watching Project Runway, boy are you missing out. That show is addictive as hell.

It's amazing to watch Heidi Klum, because she has completely remade her personality since first becoming a public figure in the US a few years ago. Back when she first started appearing on TV, she used to embarrass herself with a painfully awkward Germanness, but along the line someone gave her some very good advice: Cool it. Now she's very suave. The geeky German only comes out occasionally, like when David Letterman asked her "Wie geht's?" She was totally caught off guard--after all, she lives in a world where no one speaks German--and the "SUPER!" that burst forth felt like it was coming straight out of the aisles of a Penny Markt. What a sweetheart.

An even better show, though, is Design Star on HGTV. This series has the most drama of any reality competition I've ever seen, and it is fascinating. Can't-take-your-eyes-off-the-screen fascinating.

Anybody who complains about the profusion of reality TV is either being disingenuous, or they just don't get it. These shows are popular because--ahem--the stories in them are better than most fiction. You can't make this shit up; it's too good. And it's real life! Give me The Amazing Race over the latest tome from John Updike any day. Who wants to see some eighty-year-old jizz all over the page? I'll be spending my evenings with Heidi.

Catch Him If You Can

2006-07-15T05:23:00.000+01:00

Often the best, most entertaining stories in The New York Times are the local ones, like the story today about the fugitive "folk hero" from Cassadaga:

Ralph Phillips was a 43-year-old car thief and a burglar with a record as long as his dark ponytail — and, it turned out, a little pluck, too, which everyone missed until the day he ended up in a jailhouse kitchen with a can opener and no one looking.

He was serving 90 days for a parole violation. After he escaped from the Erie County Correctional Facility near Buffalo, prying a hole in the ceiling with that opener, people in Chautauqua County, in the southwest corner of the state, just shrugged. Until it was disclosed that Bucky, as he is known around here where he grew up, had only had four days left until his release, and then they laughed.

But something else unexpected has happened: No one can find Bucky Phillips. [. . .]

Mr. Phillips is a Seneca Indian, and a dash of Native American mysticism has inspired some supporters.

“They say that some shamans can actually change shape,” said Joanne Wiles, 48, a former postal worker now on disability. “As crazy as it sounds, to me it’s the only reason he could keep getting out. He changes shapes. I don’t know how. He could become a bird, or a squirrel.”

I love that idea, but you know, if he could become a bird, why didn't he just fly out of jail a long time ago? He could have even flown to his grandchild's birth--the reputed reason for his escape--and then flown back to serve the rest of his sentence.

I'm just sayin'.

Silly Pills for Everybody

2006-07-12T07:05:00.000+01:00

Who could say no?

People who took an illegal drug made from mushrooms reported profound mystical experiences that led to behavior changes lasting for weeks - all part of an experiment that recalls the psychedelic '60s. [...]
Two months later, 24 of the participants filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five.

"The most spiritually significant experience of their lives." And you know they got paid for it.

Mais pourquoi?

2006-07-10T05:12:00.000+01:00

A film of a man throwing his future away.

Via YouTube.

In the Midnight Hour, Babe

2006-07-10T03:26:00.000+01:00

Ever since that dude from Toronto did "Rebel Yell" on Rockstar: Supernova, I've been compulsively cranking the original Billy Idol version several times a day. Jesus Christ that song rocks. The intro kills me.

There's a weird break in the song where Idol almost slurs the words out, like he's in a daze. I never had a clue what he was saying. Now that I've found the lyrics on his website, they really cast the song in a new light. I keep replaying this part over and over:

He lives in his own heaven
Collects it to go from a 7 Eleven
Well he's out all night to collect a fare
Just as long, just as long it don't mess up his hair

All this time I thought the track was about some groupie "pumping on the floor." Now I'm thinking it's about some elaborately coiffed cabbie picking up a copy of Hustler at the convenience store.

His Stone Cold Baadness

2006-07-08T04:00:00.000+01:00

I dare you to read this Onion classic without kickin it Kornfeld style the rest of the day. Word.

That's right. "Keep Your Fucking Shit Off My Desk."

Downtown.

Old Crow

2006-07-08T00:32:00.000+01:00

Meet Tata, a 59-year-old crow.

Flones said Tata was still active and alert in his later years, to the point each spring that he called out from inside the house to crows outside, often loudly and beginning at 5 a.m.

Great story, and you can tell there's much more to it. I'm surprised they didn't turn The Life of Tata into a Sunday feature.

Hands Down

2006-07-06T18:16:00.000+01:00

Or should I say "pants down."

Best opening line of any newspaper article ever. Right here.

So where the hell . . .

2006-05-30T03:08:00.000+01:00

. . . have I been, you ask? Well let me tell ya!

Thing One was the new "rock" band I'm fronting, Det Leffard. Big thanks to all of you who have come out to see us play the clubs around Trenton and elsewhere in the tri-state. The songs you've heard are forming our first, real-live Studio Demo, which is taking way longer than we thought it would to complete, seeing as we're totally broke.

People keep saying we should get a MySpace page, but everytime I visit pages on that site--regardless of how cool the person is--I can't help but get overwhelmed by the whole "THANKS FOR THE ADD!!!" vibe they've got going. Something about it seems dangerously close to high-school-type popularity contests--like who's signing whose yearbook. Who the fuck has time for that shit?

Thing Two was a little case of food poisoning or norovirus (take your pick; they seem to be the same, according to WebMD). Word to the wise: If you're getting a bad feeling about the restaurant you've just entered, turn the fuck around and leave right away. Don't stay just because they have a great lunch deal, and the place looks busy, and you've eaten in restaurants way weirder than this anyway so it's probably fine. Just leave. And if you want a reason why, I'd be happy to share with you details of the hellish few days I've just spent. A personal highlight: No real distinction between the substances bursting out of my mouth and anus.

So enough about me. How are you?

Dateline Coeur d'Alene

2006-04-28T06:45:00.000+01:00

A nice story today from the AP wire, and the title says it all: "Goose Befriends Elderly Man With Cancer."

"Are You a Mental Patient?"

2006-04-12T06:17:00.000+01:00

I guess there's a reason that soldiers in both Vietnam and Iraq have nicknamed particularly dangerous areas "Little Detroit." A night terror from Motor City:

A boy who was scolded by a 911 operator while trying to get help for his dying mother is not the only Detroit resident whose emergency call wasn't taken seriously by a dispatcher, the boy's lawyer said.

In a series of calls in January 2005, a 911 operator questioned the sanity of a Detroit woman who reported she had been shot in the head. An emergency crew didn't arrive until after the woman called her son and got him to call for help, attorney Geoffrey Fieger said. [...]

In her first call, Lorraine Hayes calmly asked for an ambulance, gave her address and said she had been shot in the head. The operator asked if she was male or female and Hayes stumbled, first saying she was male and then correcting herself.

After some more questions, the operator asked: "Are you a mental patient?"

"My body is numb. I'm getting ready to die," Hayes said at one point.

The operator said she did not believe Hayes would be able to call if she was shot in the head and told her she would get in trouble if she was making a false report. [...]

Robert, then 5, was alone with his mother when she collapsed in the bedroom.

He called 911 and told the operator that his mother had passed out, but the operator asked to speak with an adult.

When he called back about three hours later, he repeated that his mother had passed out. Another operator said: "You shouldn't be playing on the phone." Later, she said: "Now put her on the phone before I send the police out there to knock on the door and you gonna be in trouble."

Police eventually arrived at the house after the second call, but Sherrill Turner was dead. An ambulance never came.

His mother collapsed. He did the right thing. At the age of five.

Attention dumbass operators: "You gonna be in trouble."

Some may remember the infamous story from the early 90s of the boy whose arms were severed in a farm accident. Though totally alone on the farm, he managed to get back to the house and dial 911 with his tongue, only to be challenged by the operator on how he was able to call for help with no arms.

Flav was right: Far too often, 911 is a joke.

The Ballad of Rosco

2006-04-06T13:09:00.000+01:00

Great story from the AP today about Rosco, American Bulldog. That boy wanted out:

An American bulldog that had escaped from a kennel by scaling a 7-foot concrete wall topped with barbed wire was found Wednesday night, Animal Control Bureau officials said.

Rosco chewed and bent the latch on his outdoor pen, enabling him to push open the door and escape over the wall on Tuesday. Police and animal control officers continued to search for Rosco Wednesday until he was caught at 6:30 p.m. in a lake about four miles from the kennel, said Wayne Gilbert, superintendent for animal control.

Gilbert said Rosco was captured without incident, was "extremely exhausted" and wasn't aggressive toward the officers.

Then comes the kicker.

A female companion American bulldog that was with Rosco at the time also was taken into custody and remained at the kennel, Snyder said.

What the hell?

Am I understanding this right? The dog chews his lock open, climbs over a seven-foot wall and through barbed wire, then picks up some bitch by the lake?

And he was finally captured "in" the lake?

"Extremely exhausted." Yeah, no shit.

High-Quality PDFs from OpenOffice

2006-04-06T08:33:00.000+01:00

For the past two weeks I've been going out of my mind trying to figure out how to make very high-quality PDFs in OpenOffice without having to use Adobe Distiller. Finally I've figured out how, and I'd like to share that information in case anyone else needs to know. Specifically I've been trying to make PDFs of a scientific article (in the page size A4) and a research conference poster (in A0).

Most important: You can't just "Export to PDF" with OpenOffice itself. That works fine for text, but for print-quality publishing, or for anything with imported, high-resolution images (especially in EPS format, the kind produced by many science programs for figures and diagrams), exporting directly from OpenOffice will lead to PDFs with badly flawed images, regardless of how they appear in your original files. The solution is to "print" to a PostScript file (ending in .prn) on your hard drive (not to paper), and then convert that PRN file to PDF using Ghostgum.

You'll need a PostScript printer driver on your computer; there are good, simple directions at the University of Sussex for how to find and install the free generic one from Adobe (which is here). Ghostgum is also free to download and use. Ghostgum wasn't entirely stable on my XP machine--the program crashed sometimes, seemingly for no reason--but it got the job done reliably enough to use again and again. Sometimes the size of the resulting PDF will appear to be 0kb in Windows Explorer; rest assured that it worked. Just "Refresh" to see the real file size.

Be sure to keep your image files as EPSs (rather than trying to change them to bitmaps, jpegs, etc.). Gary Steele from MIT offers a brief, clear tutorial about this topic here. The one jpeg I tried exporting looked okay in the PDF, but not great; getting jpegs to look perfect seems a bit complicated. However, EPSs look better in the PDF than in the original.

That applies to the rest of your document, too. It's interesting that the resulting PDF of your OpenOffice Impress presentation looks far better as a PDF than it did in OpenOffice itself, no matter how or where you're looking at the PDF. Lines are smoother and clearer, text is cleaner--everything looks more professional. Pictures you make in OpenOffice Draw (sxd files) come out terrific. Jagged, pixellated lines become so rounded and even that you'll wonder why you ever used OpenOffice itself for live slideshows.

Once you get used to making PDFs this way, you'll never present direct from OpenOffice (or Powerpoint) again, and you'll be able to share your work, either online or in print, much more easily and confidently. Everybody wins.

The main drawback to this process: Serious lack of useful documentation. It took me several days to figure all this out. Please write in with comments, questions or suggestions.

Viera vs. Couric

2006-04-06T07:40:00.000+01:00

Good news and bad news today for those of us who a) watch The CBS Evening News, and b) can't stand The Today Show.

The good news was that the insufferable Katie Couric is leaving Today to be replaced by the very cool Meredith Viera. Even though Viera is now most famous for hosting Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and shilling for Bayer, she has a real hard-news background; years ago she was a 60 Minutes correspondent. What really makes Viera stand out, though, is an astonishing capacity for self-effacing honesty--like when she revealed on national television that her husband sometimes bones her while she's asleep.

The bad news was that Couric is set to begin anchoring The CBS Evening News in September, taking over from the flawlessly classy Bob Schieffer. I've always liked the Evening News best of all the nightlies--no Brian Williams idiocy, no Elizabeth Vargas melodrama, no Lou Dobbs awkwardness. Just (mostly) good reporting. Well, those days are over. The idea of Couric anchoring an evening broadcast is repellent. Surely no one could or would seriously call her a "reporter"? Brainless perkiness in the dinner hour is the last thing anyone needs--and the last thing CBS needs is a further cheapening of the House That Murrow Built.

Then again, all CBS honcho Les Moonves cares about is money, and Couric is sure to bring in loads of it. In that regard she's an excellent investment. Rest assured: Edward R. is rolling.

A final irony is that, of all the possible candidates, Viera would probably have been the best choice to lead the Evening News.

Courage.

A Formidable Feline

2006-03-29T15:16:00.000+01:00

Okay, I admit it: I'm a sucker for cat stories. Today the AP has a "sensational" one (in two versions).

Residents of the neighborhood of Sunset Circle say they have been terrorized by a crazy cat named Lewis. Lewis for his part has been uniquely cited, personally issued a restraining order by the town's animal control officer.

"He looks like Felix the Cat and has six toes on each foot, each with a long claw," Janet Kettman, a neighbor said Monday. "They are formidable weapons."

The article mention's Lewis's "catlike stealth," and even the headlines call him "crazy," so I'm surprised the word "mutant" never appears, since he's polydactyl and all.

How It's Supposed to Be

2006-03-23T23:16:00.000Z

A nice treat: A beautiful story from the AP about truckstop ministries. And here's some food for thought:

"There isn't a product that you're wearing that hasn't been handled by a trucker," said Bob Hataway, a former truck driver who will lead Thursday's prayer at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky.

The ending is a killer.

God bless em.

Early Decision?

2006-03-23T22:59:00.000Z

More Bush inanity, except this time, it's from the one in Florida: "Fla. High School Seniors May Pick Majors" . . .

The Florida House passed a bill Thursday that would make Florida the first state to require high school students to declare a major, just as college students must do. [...]

Bush and others say that requiring high school students to declare a major and concentrate on a particular field could prepare them better for college and the working world and reduce the dropout rate by making school more interesting.

Show of hands: How many could have intelligently picked a "major" at the age of 16 or 17? Anyone? Bueller?

The "logic" behind this legislation is ridiculous on its face. Clearly these lawmakers have no experience with most European secondary school systems, where very early major selection produces students who have disturbingly little competence outside an extremely narrow range. Europeans intend their students to pick (or be placed in) a subject, then stick with it. The problem is that--ahem!--human beings don't work like that. Most of them need to be exposed to lots of different things before they know enough to choose.

A real solution here is obvious and long overdue: Allow high school students greater flexibility in course selection, and shrink the "core" that all students must take. That way, everybody's happy, and there's no bogus pigeonholing of kids in their mid-teens. The absence of early major selection is one of the few strengths of the American educational system, and it's no surprise that a Republican governor--and a Bush, no less--would try to destroy this advantage.

So Very Tiny

2006-03-23T18:05:00.000Z

Samsung is coming out with a new washer that uses silver to clean clothes, according to Reuters:

The South Korea-based manufacturer said in a statement that its new front-loading washer, which will start selling in the United States this month at a suggested price of up to $1,399, injects tiny silver ions into the tub during the wash and rinse cycles to sanitize clothes.

That's great, but "tiny" silver ions? Why not large silver ions? Wouldn't they get the clothes even cleaner?

I love that phrase, though--"tiny ions." It's very evocative somehow.

But surely the washer doesn't really "inject" the ions. The washer doesn't have an "ion injector," does it? Sounds like something you'd see at Los Alamos. They must mean that some part of the tub is just made of silver, right?

Don't Be Juicin'

2006-03-23T02:30:00.000Z

In the science news: It's not a good idea to mix your meds and your, uh, grapefruit juice, according to a report in The New York Times:

In 1989, a group of Canadian researchers studying a blood pressure drug were astonished to discover that drinking a glass of grapefruit juice dangerously increased the drug's potency. [...]

"People didn't believe us," Dr. Bailey said. "They thought it was a joke. We had trouble getting it published in a major medical journal."

Tell your folks.

"Coming Back to Haunt Him"

2006-03-22T05:14:00.000Z

The people continue to come around. From the Washington Post:

Three years of upbeat White House assessments about Iraq that turned out to be premature, incomplete or plain wrong are complicating President Bush's efforts to restore public faith in the military operation and his presidency, according to pollsters and Republican lawmakers and strategists.

The last two weeks have provided a snapshot of White House optimism that skeptics contend is at odds with the facts on the ground in Iraq.

Vice President Cheney said Sunday that his 10-month-old claim that the insurgency was in its "last throes" was "basically accurate" and reflects reality. Since Cheney's original comment, on at least 70 days there have been violent attacks that in each instance killed more than 10 people. [...]

Pollsters and some congressional Republicans said the administration's sunny-side-up appraisals, instead of lifting the public mood, may now complicate the task of sustaining support for a long-term military commitment in Iraq. The loss of trust, they said, is affecting Bush's presidency more broadly, as polls show his public support at a nadir. [...]

Perhaps the most famous rosy statement came nearly three years ago when Bush proclaimed: "We have seen the turning of the tide" under a banner that read "Mission Accomplished." Since then, more than 2,300 Americans have died in Iraq.

Maybe the American people are actually starting to have some kind of allergic reaction to the administration's bullshit?

Until recently Bush was a surprisingly adept manipulator. It looks like the suckers who bought what he was selling are now beginning, gradually, to realize that saying something does not make it so. Slowly, now, they're getting a taste of what's it's like to live and work in the reality-based community.

$13,888 Per Year

2006-03-22T05:02:00.000Z

From today's AP wire:

A man who spent 18 years behind bars for allegedly attacking a woman in her home has been released after DNA testing excluded him as the attacker.

"I don't know how to apologize. I don't know where to start, but I'll start with me and 'I'm sorry,'" District Judge John Creuzot said Monday as he released Gregory Wallis, now 47. Creuzot was not involved in the original trial. [...]

Wallis was a 29-year-old warehouse worker when he was convicted in 1988 of burglary with intent to commit sexual assault and sentenced to 50 years in prison. [...]

Like others wrongly convicted in Texas, Wallis is eligible for up to $250,000 in compensation for the years he spent behind bars. He said he was he looking forward to enjoying a steak dinner and going fishing.

"Up to $250,000."

So he's eligible for "up to" $13,888 per year for each of the 18 years he wrongly spent behind bars, interest-free. At least Wallis's current judge said he's sorry.

That better be one hell of a steak dinner.

In Memory of Sir Humphrey

2006-03-21T03:51:00.000Z

There have been some really entertaining stories today about a kitty named Humphrey, recently deceased, who for much of his life lived at 10 Downing Street working as "chief mouser." The Times offers the following digest of his bio:

Humphrey, a long-haired black and white, was a stray before arriving in Downing Street in 1990

He was named after the fictional mandarin Sir Humphrey Appleby

While the cat resided at the Cabinet Office his food is understood to have been on its budget

His chosen vantage-point was atop a vent that pumped hot air from No 10

He narrowly avoided the wheels of President Clinton's two-ton Cadillac

"Pumped hot air from No 10."

Many of the stories are accompanied by a photo of Cherie Blair holding Humphrey. Though the pictures vary, there is a recurring theme: The painfully awkward expression they share. Apparently the pictures were staged and released to convince the British people that she did not have him killed, as had been alleged at one time.

There are many quite hilarious chapters to his story that are now being told, if you're interested:

The BBC mentions the "hostage-like" photos that were taken to prove that Humphrey had not been iced by Mrs. Blair.

Reuters remembers how the "fur flew" during the same affair, calling him "Humphrey, cat of scandal."

The Daily Telegraph is going all out, though. Today their writer George Jones has come clean in "Humphrey the cat: my part in his downfall." They're also linking to articles from their extensive, and free, archives. From March 2005, they have "Humphrey...the Downing Street dossier." From May 1997, they have "Trappings of family life threaten Humphrey's patch," followed in November of that year by "More questions over how No 10 handled the kitty," "Prove Humphrey is alive, demands Alan Clark," and "No 10 lets the cat out of the bag."

The AP article mainly just rehashes what the British press are saying.

Rest in peace.

800,000,000 Gallons

2006-03-19T22:08:00.000Z

. . . of water are wasted in the UK per day by the water companies themselves. See the full report from today's Daily Telegraph.

At least the UK is recognizing the full scope and nature of the problem; in most countries, water waste is put down exclusively to the negligence of users. I wonder how many hundreds of millions of gallons are quietly "haemorrhaging" elsewhere.

From the Gay to the Roaring

2006-03-19T21:19:00.000Z

Thanks to an article in today's New York Times, the Cylinder Digitization and Preservation Project at beautiful UC Santa Barbara is about to receive a well-deserved influx of new visitors. The Project is a treasure trove of great old pop tunes from the Gay Nineties to the Roaring Twenties, carefully recorded from the original cylinders, and almost all of it is freely downloadable and streamable. (One criticism: They really ought to offer the files in FLAC format instead of WAV; it would save everybody time and bandwidth.)

A word of warning, though: Approach the archive with care. Once you pop, you can't stop.

Pants on Fire

2006-03-19T04:31:00.000Z

From The Washington Post, "Advance Workers for Bush Impersonated Reporters":

A Mississippi couple whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina said two men who later identified themselves as Secret Service agents pretended to be Fox News journalists when surveying their neighborhood in advance of a March 8 visit from President Bush.

The men arrived on March 3 at the site of the beachfront home that Jerry and Elaine Akins are rebuilding in Gautier, Miss., Elaine Akins said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"They didn't show any cards or anything," Akins said. "They just came up and said they were with the media, and then they said they were with Fox. They just talked to us and asked us about rebuilding our house. Then, after everything was over with, they approached us and they were laughing, and they said: 'You know, we really weren't with Fox. We're government, Secret Service men.' " [...]

Tom Mazur, a spokesman for the Secret Service, said he did not know who the men were but they were not Secret Service officials.

"I checked with our people down there in Mississippi who were involved in the advance, and it was not Secret Service people who identified themselves as members of the media," Mazur said. "We wouldn't do that." [...]

Akins said she does not mind that the men temporarily misled her about their identities.

"What could they do?" she said. "They couldn't walk up and tell us who they were, because then we would have been a lot more suspicious about the president coming."

"We didn't know" about Bush's visit "until about an hour before the president actually got there," she added. "I think they handled it great."

Okay, so first they lied to this woman's face, then laughed in her face as they lied to her again--and she thinks they handled it just great. (Yup, sounds like she's a Fox News viewer, alright.)

Personally, I would mind.

The Tangled Web

2006-03-19T03:55:00.000Z

"Some folks overseas," like me, believe Bush to be criminally inept. Then again, I'm sure he would strongly disagree. Here's an interesting insight into the propaganda machine:

When the president starts a sentence with "some say" or offers up what "some in Washington" believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.

The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.

He typically then says he "strongly disagrees" - conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making. [...]

A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as "a bizarre kind of double talk" that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.

"It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people," Fields said. "All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff."

A painful, unspoken aspect of this report is that Bush likely doesn't even understand the nature or function of the rhetoric he's being told to spout. He's omitting nuances of debate which, given his past performance, he seems unable even to perceive.

A Million Wasted Years

2006-03-19T03:35:00.000Z

From the BBC, "Earth could seed Titan with life":

Dr Gladman's team calculated that up to 20 terrestrial rocks from a large impact on Earth would reach Titan. These would strike Titan's upper atmosphere at 10-15 km/s. At this velocity, the cruise down to the surface might be comfortable enough for microbes to survive the journey.

But the news was more bleak for Europa. By contrast with the handful that hit Titan, about 100 terrestrial meteoroids hit the icy moon.

But Jupiter's gravity boosts their speed such that they strike Europa's surface at an average 25 km/s, with some hitting at 40 km/s. Dr Gladman said other scientists had investigated the survival of amino acids hitting a planetary surface at this speed and they were "not good".

"It's frustrating if you're a microbe that's been wandering the Universe for a million years to then die striking the surface of Europa," Dr Gladman said.

Asked after his presentation by one scientist whether he thought microbes would be able to survive Titan's freezing temperatures, Dr Gladman answered: "That's for you people to decide, I'm just the pizza delivery boy."

These are interesting theories and all, but the whole idea of microbes' surviving a massive planetary impact, then surviving a launch into interplanetary space, then surviving hundreds of thousands of years at near absolute zero, bathed in radiation, then surviving atmospheric reentry . . . doesn't it strain credibility just a tad? I know life is tenacious, but microbes could colonize a planet after that?

An American Holocaust

2006-03-16T19:09:00.000Z

What other term could accurately describe the near-extermination of Native Americans, now almost completely forgotten? One count in the indictment:

President Andrew Jackson gave the order that started the Trail of Tears, the cruel removal of American Indians to west of the Mississippi River. Now Jackson's plantation home near Nashville, the Hermitage, has been named as an official site along the historic trail that commemorates the Trail of Tears.

Hermitage Executive Director Patricia Leach said the recognition Wednesday opens a new chapter in Jacksonian history by acknowledging one the darkest periods in his presidency.

Jackson issued the order in 1830 to forcibly remove more than 16,000 Cherokee from their homes in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Georgia. Hundreds died during the trip west in 1838 to what is now Oklahoma; thousands more died after relocation.

Whether you're packed into a traincar in Poland or forced to walk a thousand miles from your home in Alabama--is there a real difference?

To this day the American government has never chosen to deal honestly or fairly with Native Americans. At least in the past few decades, they've started to be slightly more forthright about this choice.

American Pi

2006-03-16T18:56:00.000Z

Hey, I know three digits:

A high school student Tuesday recited 8,784 digits of Pi - the non-repeating and non-terminating decimal - likely placing him among the top Pi-reciters in the world.

Gaurav Rajav, 15, had hoped to recite 10,790 digits and set a new record in the United States and North America. But he remembered enough to potentially place third in national and North American Pi recitation and 12th in the world.

His ranking should be verified by the Pi World Ranking List within two months.

"I'm kind of disappointed, but I guess I did OK," said Gaurav, a junior at Salem High School.

Okay, two things:

1. That's right, the term is "Pi-reciter."

2. 10,790 digits would be a record . . . but only for North America.

God bless Gaurav, but I have to wonder if, when he's old and gray, he'll look back on this time in his life and be happy he spent hundreds and hundreds of hours memorizing digits of Pi. I strongly suspect he'll find himself wishing he had spent a bit more time and energy on "other activities."

A Dry "Well"

2006-03-16T18:46:00.000Z

The "President" has been meeting with seniors--taking on their tough questions.

Another audience member brought up disparities between hospital costs for patients with and without insurance. That got Bush going on a favorite topic of late - how health care consumers have much less information about the price of services in advance than with other types of purchases.

He got a bit tripped up when making the comparison to vehicle shopping - something he has not done for years.

"When you go buy a car, you know exactly what they're going to charge you," he said, drawing laughs - and then adjusting his remarks.

"Well, sometimes you don't know," he said. "Well, you negotiate with them. Well, they put something on the window that says price."

Well, they're telling you some rough estimates. Well, there are numbers involved.

Oh well.

They're Coming Around

2006-03-16T18:12:00.000Z

Slowly but surely. From Reuters, "Bush battered by US pessimism, leadership doubts":

Deep doubts about the Iraq war and pessimism about America's future have shattered public confidence in President George W. Bush and helped drive his approval ratings to their lowest level ever, pollsters say. [...]

Bush's approval rating dipped as low as 33 percent in one recent poll after a string of bad news for the White House, including uproars over a now-dead Arab port deal, a secret eavesdropping program, a series of ethics scandals involving high-profile Republicans and a bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. [...]

A majority of Americans, 56 percent, believe Bush is "out of touch," the poll found. When asked for a one-word description of Bush, the most frequent response was "incompetent," followed by "good," "idiot" and "liar." In February 2005, the most frequent reply was "honest."

"The transformation from being seen as honest to being seen as incompetent is an extraordinary indicator of how far he has fallen," Kohut said.

I suppose the moral of the story here is that the majority of Americans are--to put it gently--really, really slow.

Sign Here

2006-03-16T17:15:00.000Z

The Daily Mail does lean toward the sensational, but if this story is true--and it appears to be--it is terrifying indeed:

The doctor battling to save the lives of six men who took part in a drug trial said today he's never dealt with a case like this before, describing the set of symptoms as 'unique'.

The men suffered inflammation which had subsequently affected other parts of their body, including their internal organs. [...]

"We do not know exactly what triggered the reaction," he said. [...]

Dr Suntharalingam refused to comment on reports that one patient's head had swollen to three times its normal size but said: "This sort of condition does require fluid and that does cause swelling. That swelling does go away on recovery but it's very distressing for the families to see. It is one aspect of intensive care that gets better as the patients get better." [...]

A volunteer taking part in the trial who was given a placebo and therefore escaped the effects described the appalling scene on the ward. [...] "The test ward turned into hell minutes after we were injected. The men went down like dominoes. First they began tearing their shirts off complaining of fever, then some screamed out that their heads felt like they were going to explode." [...]

He had no idea he was putting his life at risk by volunteering. "There was nothing on the form saying, "this could kill you, sign here."

The "remuneration for inconvenience" the subjects received was a whopping £2000. For that amount, hell, I would have done it.

Complete story: "Drug trial doctor reveals 'unique' symptoms"

Decisions

2006-03-15T16:22:00.000Z

From Bruce Sterling's closing speech at SXSW:

"If I've learned anything from hanging out with the Eastern European dissident crowd," he said, "it's make no decision out of fear."

Damn straight. See the full report from CNET: "Sci-fi author laments state of world."

¡Siempre en nuestros corazones!

2006-03-13T03:17:00.000Z

It's fascinating to leaf through blogs with the "Next Blog" button up top; you get to see stuff you'd absolutely never see otherwise. I just found what appears to be an exhaustive look at a Chilean middle-school class; some of the photos are priceless. Also found an extremely sweet little baby looking at flowers. Talk about baby fat! That baby is adorable.

The other day I found a blog, I'm guessing from somewhere in Asia, written in the most fantastic English patois I've ever read--I just managed to track it down again. Here too, parts are priceless, like entry "004":

ooh, friday was great, i tell you, pure gossips. most the teachers in this school loveee to gossip! that's a good thing! i hope i get fun tutors, like miss chia hor elanornor! we had personal tutorials today. then tsk tsk miss chia. while having a 2:1 with miss huang, her students made her signed withdrawal forms for chemistry, urgh, they pointed to us their F F F, hell scaring us alright. oh man, after school went to plaza sing by forced AGAIN. what crap. we walked down to paradiz centre to shoot balls but it's so ballzz! cos it was freaking hot and sunny! i almost melted. well for the fun of it, like what lynn said this is "just some gathering to bitch about certain shit".

Ballzz indeed.

Your Cover's Blown

2006-03-12T17:10:00.000Z

And now, the most important reason for Americans not to put their lives on the line as covert agents: CIA ineptitude.

From today's Chicago Tribune article "Internet blows CIA's cover":

She is 52 years old, married, grew up in the Kansas City suburbs and now lives in Virginia, in a new three-bedroom house.

Anyone who can qualify for a subscription to one of the online services that compile public information also can learn that she is a CIA employee who, over the past decade, has been assigned to several American embassies in Europe.

The CIA asked the Tribune not to publish her name because she is a covert operative, and the newspaper agreed. [...]

When the Tribune searched a commercial online data service, the result was a virtual directory of more than 2,600 CIA employees, 50 internal agency telephone numbers and the locations of some two dozen secret CIA facilities around the United States.

Given the astonishing incompetence outlined in this article, normally you'd expect some heads to roll . . . because Americans won't stand for this, dammit!

But those days are gone. Unfortunately, as with so many catastrophes before, Americans will quite willingly stand for this, and the heads that roll will be those of the agents themselves, not their superiors'.

If I were to publish a US government affairs newsletter, I can think of no better title these days than The New Low. That's all we're getting: An uninterrupted stream of New Lows. So when will the country hit rock bottom? What qualifies for rock bottom now, anyway?

What's the 411?

2006-03-10T15:39:00.001Z

Free directory assistance . . . gotta love it. From the NYT:

Already, two new services — 800-FREE-411 and 800-411-METRO — offer directory assistance free of charge, though users have to listen to advertisements.

Tell em Lef sent ya. And call me!

Bad News

2006-03-10T01:55:00.000Z

Governor Ann Richards is a real Texas hero. She's so easy to love--and respect. Many still remember her stunning, searing, utterly winning condemnation of Bush the Elder at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

So today's Chicago Tribune brought some very bad news. The last part is a real mindblower:

Ex-Gov. Richards has esophageal cancer
Published March 9, 2006

AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Former Gov. Ann Richards said Wednesday that she has cancer of the esophagus and will undergo treatment.

Richards, 72, received the diagnosis Tuesday, a spokesman said.

Richards, a Democrat, was governor from 1991 to 1995, losing a re-election bid to George W. Bush.

"I have a very treatable kind of cancer," she told The Dallas Morning News. "They know what to do. So I'm really pretty sanguine about it."

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society said that esophageal cancer will be diagnosed in about 3,300 women this year and that about 3,000 of them will die.

Get well soon, Governor. I'd much rather see a President Richards (talk about comeuppance!) than another President Clinton.

The End of Empire

2006-03-08T12:59:00.000Z

From the NYT: "Seeking a Willing Heir, an Aristocrat Turns to America"

Sir Benjamin, who has a head of snowy hair and a prosperous-looking, ruddy complexion, was not supposed to inherit the baronetcy or Maunsel House, which belonged to his uncle. [...] When he took possession of Maunsel House, it was a ruin, his surviving aunt confined to just two rooms.

"She lived on Mars bars and Milky Ways," he said. "She drank for Somerset. She had about 18 different driving offenses — hit and run, driving over a policeman's foot. When she died, she left £22.50, and she didn't leave it to me." Once, Sir Benjamin said, the aunt set the house on fire, hoping to collect insurance, only to have the fire fizzle out because of the pervasive dampness.

I love this story, but "she drank for Somerset"? I can find no other examples of this phrase in any form, anywhere.

Down with the Swirl

2006-03-07T17:18:00.000Z

My favorite episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is "Children of Time," in which the cast, while exploring the Delta Quadrant on the starship Defiant, find a planet populated by their own descendants. (The crew learns from their progeny that an accident will send the ship back in time hundreds of years, with no hope of rescue, and that they will then be forced to begin building new lives on this world.) It's a terrific story with all of the best that Star Trek has to offer--real character development, deep insight, rich humor, moving portrayals, thought-provoking science, etc. There's a major disappointment here, though: The descendants are somehow all-white or all-black. None appears to have a mixed racial background. Evidently, in the twenty-fourth century, skin color still plays a major role in the mating choices of even the most enlightened beings, under even the most difficult of circumstances. Thus the one descendant of Worf we see is very dark-skinned; the Siskos are obviously of African descent; the O'Briens still look very Irish. Instead, wouldn't it have been so much more realistic, and inspiring, to have some non-obvious casting decisions here--a light-skinned person named "Sisko," for example, or a dark-skinned "Bashir" or "O'Brien"? Or a "Dax" with some North African traits--anything to show us that race didn't matter to the crew when they finally started to pair off?

Actually, all of the Star Trek series suffer from this problem: Too few non-Europeans, too few people of mixed race. On Enterprise the situation is halfway understandable, given that the action is only a few generations removed from the present day. In the Next Generation era, however, the same situation is an insult to viewers' intelligence. We're to understand that poverty and inequality on Earth can be eradicated in a matter of decades, but that, for whatever reason, whites and blacks won't get their freak on?

If the producers feel they must have regular cast members who are apparently all-white, all-black, all-Asian, whatever, that's one thing--Hollywood is by no means known for its promotion of diversity. But in one story, one episode, dealing with an extremely limited genetic pool like the crew of the Defiant . . . for the crew's descendants not to be depicted as multiracial is pathetically short-sighted.

I love Star Trek, but it would be so much better if they had ever been down with the swirl.

Lawd, Lawd

2006-03-05T15:48:00.000Z

Oh Lawd.

"The Excel spreadsheet started off to working, with its hourglass running hard there on the screen," Broonzy said. "But old Wally Peters had his pencil filling columns, throwing graphite off like locomotive steam.

"It threw graphite like a smokestack throwing steam," he added.

From The Onion: "Modern-Day John Henry Dies Trying To Out-Spreadsheet Excel 11.0."

Where are the accents?

2006-03-05T14:34:00.000Z

Speaking of The Practice, why did so few people on there speak with a Boston accent? (Same goes for Ally McBeal, Boston Public, Boston Legal, etc.) Except for the occasional judge, or ruffian from Southie, nobody on there was dropping their R's. I wanted to heah some real cleah regional dialect, but no. Same deal with King of the Hill--ingenious show, except for the dearth of authentic American Southern English. Some of the actors are good at it--like Stephen Root (always excellent), and the incredible Kathy Najimy--but most couldn't pass as Southerners. A nadir was reached when both Hank and Peggy mispronounced "Vidalia" (the onion variety, of course) as though it were a Spanish word. For the record: It's vy-DAY-lee-uh. Surely any real Texan would know how to say "Vidalia"? Even I know how, dammit!

But yeah, I know why we don't get more "local color" from American TV, or any TV for that matter. Big Entertainment is afraid we won't "identify." Interesting to see the bias against certain areas, though: Jeff Foxworthy can't get on Letterman because he's "too regional," and The Sopranos is . . . a megahit.

Y'all take care, now.

The Google OS

2006-03-03T11:36:00.000Z

Why doesn't Google throw a few programmers at creating an in-house flavor of Linux that average Joes would want to use? (This would primarily involve spiffing up the woeful Linux GUI.) They could give the OS away for free and own many desktops, particularly in the developing world. Bundle in OpenOffice, Gimp, etc., and you've got a computer that easily rivals Microsoft in quality . . . at just the right price. Hell, I'd even use it.

I'm just sayin'.

Eastbound and Down

2006-03-01T04:36:00.000Z

From The New York Times, a doozy about long-haul trucking:

Mr. Adams, 47, said that before he began hauling bottled beer for the Abita Brewing Company last year, he drove chemical tanker trucks. "Now that's stressful stuff," he said. "One wrong move and you're in a traffic accident with a bomb at your back."

The Case of Ernie Sabella

2006-02-27T05:34:00.000Z

My girl and I are still addicted to The Practice, which may be the best television show ever made. Thank God the reruns aren't hard to find since, inexplicably, none have been released on DVD (so far). We recently caught a terrific episode in which the recurring character Harland Bassett--"the world's worst attorney"--takes on an insurance behemoth to fight for a seriously injured girl. Bassett is played by the wonderful Ernie Sabella; I got curious about his background and other work and looked him up at IMDB ( . . . he was the voice of Pumbaa), and at Google Images. Sabella must be one of the nicest guys in the world judging from the pictures of him there--mostly with fans, absolutely beaming. What a cool cat.

Welcome

2006-02-25T05:55:00.000Z

Welcome to my world . . . won't you come on in?

Hope you enjoy, my friends.