The Hackenblog

Recommended reading while I’m not around much:

Wood S Lot
B12 Partners
The Crone Speaks Go Crones!

Or really anything on the sidebar (proceed at your own risk).

See ya soonish.

“Less than three months ago at platform hearings in Salt Lake City, I asked the Republican Party to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV and AIDS. I have come tonight to bring our silence to an end. I bear a message of challenge, not self-congratulation. I want your attention, not your applause.

“I would never have asked to be HIV positive, but I believe that in all things there is a purpose; and I stand before you and before the nation gladly. The reality of AIDS is brutally clear. Two hundred thousand Americans are dead or dying. A million more are infected. Worldwide, forty million, sixty million, or a hundred million infections will be counted in the coming few years. But despite science and research, White House meetings, and congressional hearings, despite good intentions and bold initiatives, campaign slogans, and hopeful promises, it is — despite it all — the epidemic which is winning tonight.”

~snip~

“This is not a distant threat. It is a present danger. The rate of infection is increasing fastest among women and children. Largely unknown a decade ago, AIDS is the third leading killer of young adult Americans today. But it won’t be third for long, because unlike other diseases, this one travels. Adolescents don’t give each other cancer or heart disease because they believe they are in love, but HIV is different; and we have helped it along. We have killed each other with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence.”
A Whisper of AIDS, Mary Fisher, 1992 Republication National Convention Address, Online Speech Bank (text, audio and video [sorry about the pop-up, I guess they need the money])

Wow…sister. Thanks.

Nancy Pelosi, and why I kind of feel depressed now.

“Lawsuits will not solve the problem, which is: there is no easy way to identify who owns which rights in and to most pieces of music and there is no easy way to get a quote and pay them.

“If you don’t believe me, pick up the phone and call a recorded music company, publisher, performing rights society or someone else you think might administrate the rights you seek and tell the person who answers the phone you want to purchase public performance rights for a particular song. Good luck. Maybe, if you retain a special music clearance firm or seasoned entertainment attorney, you can complete the process of obtaining the rights to use a particular song in sync with a video you want to put online. But, even if you are successful, the process can take days or weeks and cost thousands in attorney’s fees (over and above the negotiated cost of the rights you seek).”
Lawsuit: Music Publishers v. YouTube Doesn’t Solve the Problem, by Shelly Palmer, August 11, 2007 (via Recording Industry vs. The People)

I have tried to get permissions to use lyrics in a story, finally gave up and just took them out. It’s not worth the effort. Also, if there’s an easy why to find out if a song, say, “Knockin’ Myself Out,” is in public domain (which I *think* it is), I’d like to know about it. Thx.

“And I’ve finally figured out why – and it came from a conversation I had last Wednesday, where the clerk (a man about my own age) said he was lucky he remembered my name. And I countered with ‘How many middle-aged women in headscarves have a pull-list here?’ He grinned and acknowledged that I was unique there.”
Comic book shops and me, Debra Fran Baker, August 19, 2007

Wearing headscarves, not wearing headscarves, personally I fancy ankle-length batik schmatas and rayon rebozos – Middle-aged women in comics shops do indeed rock the house.

These guys make you look like a yard dog:

And both Harold and Fayard Nicholas momentarily with Cab Calloway in “Stormy Weather.”

Still love ya, Fred, just not as much.

Ah, divorce.

“Dick Armey, the House Republican majority leader when Bush took office (and no more a shrinking violet than DeLay), told me a story that captures the exquisite pettiness of most members of Congress and the arrogance that made Bush and Rove so inept at handling them. ‘For all the years he was president,’ Armey told me, ‘Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we’d do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn’t like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president’s autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it.’ Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. ‘Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, ‘It would probably wind up on eBay,’’ Armey continued. ‘Do I give a damn? No. But can you imagine refusing a simple request like that with an insult? It’s stupid. From the point of view of your own self-interest, it’s stupid. I was from Texas, and I was the majority leader. If my expectations of civility and collegiality were disappointed, what do you think it was like for the rest of the congressmen they dealt with? The Bush White House was tone-deaf to the normal courtesies of the office.’”
The Rove Presidency, by Joshua Green, The Atlantic Online, August 14, 2007

I’d rather have a beer with Bill Clinton.

“Buried among prairie dogs and amateur animation shorts on YouTube is a curious little mini-documentary shot in front of an abortion clinic in north suburban Libertyville. The man behind the camera is asking demonstrators who want abortion criminalized what the penalty should be for a woman who has one nonetheless. You have rarely seen people look more gob-smacked. It’s as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations. Here are a range of responses: ‘I’ve never really thought about it.’ ‘I don’t have an answer for that.’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Just pray for them.’”

~snip~

“A new public-policy group, the National Institute for Reproductive Health, wants to take this contradiction and make it the centerpiece of a national conversation, along with a slogan that stops people in their tracks: How much time should she do? If the U.S. Supreme Court decides abortion is not protected by a constitutional guarantee of privacy, the issue will revert to the states. Some states, perhaps many, will ban abortion. If abortion is made a crime, then surely the woman who has one is a criminal. But, boy, do the doctrinaire suddenly turn squirrelly at the prospect of throwing women in jail.”

~snip~

“They never connect the dots,’ says Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. But her organization urged voters to do just that in the last gubernatorial election, in which the Republican contender believed abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. ‘We wanted him to tell the women of Iowa exactly how much time he expected them to serve in jail if they had an abortion,’ June recalled.”

~snip~

“There are only two logical choices: Hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place. If you can’t countenance the first, you have to accept the second. You can’t have it both ways.”
What would penalty for abortion be?, by Anna Quindlen, Chicago Sun Times, August 8, 2007 (via Mr. Dan Kelly)

I love YouTube. Where else can you see stuff like this? Defendez le YouTube.com!

“Why do we have any barriers to using buses and urban trains? The threat of global warming is no longer in doubt. The hue and cry of the traffic-jammed driver grows louder every commute. And politicians are getting the message. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has ordered his staff to seriously examine the costs of charging people to ride public transit. And Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, recently voiced to a reporter his top dream: ‘I would have mass transit be given away for nothing and charge an awful lot for bringing an automobile into the city.’”
Fare-Free Public Transit Could Be Headed to a City Near You, by Dave Olsen, The Tyee, Alternet, Posted on July 26, 2007, Printed on August 12, 2007 (via Social Design Notes)

It’s not like the Los Angeles MTA could actually lose any more money suck any more than they do now. At least they’d suck and be free.

I mean, when the bus or train is late and makes us crazy, our consolation can be that, well, we’re getting what we pay for. And when the system runs well, we will bless it. Just a thought.

Or make it a donation thing, I could see just dumping whatever change I had in my pocket in the fare-donation box thingy. That’s something I could feel good about. I’d ride the bus more if it was a donation deal.

…has the coolest samurai moves ever.

Ran, Akira Kurosawa, 1985, music by Tôru Takemitsu, which is a reason all by itself to see it.

This part is pretty good, too (and you get to hear some Takemitsu music).

Y’know, I think I like this version of “King Lear” best of all. (Too bad I keep seeing the performance Toshirô Mifune didn’t give.)

“So, I’ve left several comments over the course of Strikethrough, PolicyChange, and Boldthrough asking Livejournal for specific clarifications of their policies so that I know best how to moderate pornish_pixies. As this is the community that keeps getting hit by Livejournal in these purges, I don’t think that it’s entirely outrageous that I request further information. In fact, I think it’s imperative that I do so.

“Time and time again my comments have remained unanswered.”
An Open Letter to Six Apart and Livejournal, Femmequixotic, August 8, 2007

What is Six Apart trying to accomplish by not clarifying their policy? Does anyone know?

Related:

“I am not taking a stand on principle over strikethrough, boldthrough and other kerfuffles – the whole thing has got to a point of he said, she said such that I am sure I don’t like most of the snarryfic I’ve seen, would hate most snarrypics and resent LJ taking a stand on this issue but not eg anorexia sites or demented advocates of beating babies for the sake of their souls.”
The state of Roz, August 11, 2007

I still say it’s Six Apart’s doing. The original LJ management never did this stuff or created these kind of problems. Brad and his crew were nice folks and I, for one, miss them very much.

Related: 6A is pro-anorexia: If I GTFO, who else will answer your questions? Yes, I do work for LJ and I’m speaking officially.

LiveJournal does not support girls harming themselves. There is a line where we will suspend a pro-ana community or require removal of an entry. That line is when content is specifically instructing or inciting self-harm. Generalities aren’t against the ToS, but specificities may be. (if this post vanishes, let me know, I have it archived)

Scroll down to the comments. Jesus Jumping Christ…what are they smoking at 6A? Pro-ana sites have been a problem on LJ for years:

“The other day, I made some crack about a pro-ana site to a friend — and was met with a blank stare. After pro-eating disorder Web sites blew up in a storm of media controversy circa 2000, I thought everyone knew about this sadly sick and strange Web phenomenon. Guess not.

“In case you’re not familiar, the Web is the new terrain for those seeking support in their unhealthy and unnatural quest for thinness. These pro-eating disorder (pro-ED) sites provide motivation to starve yourself, in the form of “thinspirational” photos of models who look like Auschwitz victims, “ana-recipes” and message boards where girls can trade tips and tricks. They even give their disorders cutesy female names — ‘ana’ for anorexia and ‘mia’ for bulimia — as if personifying their sickness into a secret best friend.”

~snip~

“Georgette Gunther, the primary eating disorder therapist for View Psychiatric Hospital in Grand Rapids, says the sites will only exacerbate the disease.

“‘When you have this disorder, you can never be the best anorexic,’ Gunther says. ‘They’re not supportive, because they’re competing with each other.’

“She adds that she’s treated several patients who developed eating disorders solely because of pro-ED sites; girls who were normal and healthy until they logged on and discovered a new world.”
Through Thick and Thin, by Sarah Klein, Metro Times, March 30, 2005

So, 6A, it’s okay for you to delete and ban friends locked communities over fictional content, but you won’t ban site where minors and legal adults are given bad advice and encouraged in a frequently fatal eating disorder? Actually, it is illegal to give bad advice; that’s why malpractice insurance exists. I’m not a lawyer, but I think 6A can be prosecuted for promoting dangerous activities. If they had sites that promoted drinking bleach for any reason, wouldn’t those sites be deleted before they had a lawsuit on their hands?

And, of course, there was the breastfeeding icon uproar way back in 2006. Starvation, okay; motherhood, not okay. They got great priorities or no ethics at 6A.

Paging Mrs. Minna Trott and company: ARE YOU STUPID? OR JUST WICKED?

My suggestion: If you pay for an LJ, don’t renew, use the free service. $$$ is the only thing that gets 6A’s attention. Oh, and don’t buy Moveable Type, use Word Press.

Drama drama drama: Brad is leaving LJ/6A and Mena is knocked-up. Guess she won’t be posting any breast feeding pix, will she?

Also related:

“While Six Apart is well within their rights to delete content they feel is inappropriate, it does make me worry what might happen if a group with some real clout ever sent in a list of complaints. I’m sure many people remember last year, when Six Apart banned default userpics that featured women breastfeeding infants, which included not only photographs, but depictions in classic art, as well. In both instances, the law was on the users’ side: breastfeeding is protected from obscenity accusations by LAW throughout the US and Canada; likewise, this CNet article states that “Legal experts say LiveJournal is clearly not liable for fictional stories and related discussions posted by its users”. Despite this, in both instances, Six Apart’s knee jerk reaction was to pull content and side AGAINST its users. You can read more about the breastfeeding debacle at ProMom.org and in this post in the Boob_Nazis LiveJournal Community.”
The Value of Fiction, by Leigh Dragoon, Seq Tart, August 13, 2007

Knee jerk sums 6A right up.

“What happened in Selma, Alabama and Birmingham also stirred the conscience of the nation. It worried folks in the White House who said, ‘You know, we’re battling Communism. How are we going to win hearts and minds all across the world? If right here in our own country, John, we’re not observing the ideals set fort in our Constitution, we might be accused of being hypocrites.’ So the Kennedy’s decided we’re going to do an air lift. We’re going to go to Africa and start bringing young Africans over to this country and give them scholarships to study so they can learn what a wonderful country America is.

“This young man named Barack Obama got one of those tickets and came over to this country. He met this woman whose great great-great-great-grandfather had owned slaves; but she had a good idea there was some craziness going on because they looked at each other and they decided that we know that the world as it has been it might not be possible for us to get together and have a child. There was something stirring across the country because of what happened in Selma, Alabama, because some folks are willing to march across a bridge. So they got together and Barack Obama Jr. was born. So don’t tell me I don’t have a claim on Selma, Alabama. Don’t tell me I’m not coming home to Selma, Alabama.”
Obama’s Selma speech. Text as delivered.

SELMA, ALA.–From the pulpit of the historic Brown Chapel A.M.E. church, White House hopeful Barack Obama talks about the job of the “Joshua generation” and his own claim to a place in the civil rights movement.

“In 2003, Dianne Brimmage refinanced the mortgage on her home in Alton, Ill., to consolidate her car and medical bills. Now, struggling with a much higher interest rate and in foreclosure, she wants to modify the terms of the loan.

“Lenders have often agreed to such steps in the past because it was in everyone’s interest to avoid foreclosure costs and possibly greater losses. But that was back when local banks held the loans and the bankers knew the homeowners, as well as the value of the properties.

“Ms. Brimmage got her loan through a mortgage broker, just the first link in a financial merry-go-round. The mortgage itself was pooled with others and sold to investors — insurance companies, mutual funds and pension funds. A different company processes her loan payments. Yet another company represents the investors as the trustee.

“She has gotten nowhere with any of the parties, despite her lawyer’s belief that fraud was involved in the mortgage. Like many other Americans, Ms. Brimmage is a homeowner stuck in foreclosure limbo, at risk of losing the home she has lived in since 1998.

“As the housing market weakens and interest rates on adjustable mortgages rise, more and more borrowers are falling behind. Almost 14 percent of subprime borrowers were delinquent in the first quarter of 2007. Investors, fearful that these problems will hurt the overall economy, have retreated from the stock and bond markets, creating major sell-offs.

“And the very innovation that made mortgages so easily available — an assembly line process known on Wall Street as securitization — is creating an obstacle for troubled borrowers. As they try to restructure their loans, they are often thwarted, lawyers say, by strict protections put in place for investors who bought the mortgage pools.

“This impasse could exacerbate the housing slump, pushing more homeowners into foreclosure. That would lead to a bigger glut of properties for sale, depressing home prices further.

“‘Securitization led to this explosion of bad loans, and now it is harder to unwind and modify them even where it is in the best interests of both the borrower and the investors,’ Kurt Eggert, an associate professor at the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif., said in an interview. ‘The thing that caused the problem is making it harder to solve the problem.‘”
Mortgage Maze May Increase Foreclosures, by Gretchen Morgenson, The Ledger, August 6, 2007-08-07

Wait… you can sell off your bad decisions instead of living with the consequences of them? Hey, how do I get in on some of that action?

Oh, c’mon, America. Since when can banks just slough off their bad loans on someone other than the Fed? This is all kinds of stupid and immoral.

Related: Even I could understand this: How Credit Got so Easy, Brad Delong, August 8, 2007

And more:

“FRANKFURT, Germany — Central banks around the world injected more cash into the international banking system Friday as problems that began with U.S. subprime mortgages rattle the global economy.

“The ECB injected a further 61 billion euros ($83.8 billion) Friday morning, while the U.S. Federal Reserve later announced a three-day repurchase agreement to inject liquidity into the market.

“The Fed said it would accept $19 billion in mortgage-backed securities after its Fed Funds rate, the rate that banks charge each other for overnight loans, ticked above 6 percent — well above the Fed’s target of 5.25 percent.

“Later, the U.S. central bank said it would pump as much money as needed into the U.S. financial system to help overcome the effects of a spreading credit crunch.

“The moves did little to mollify world markets, with major indexes falling from Tokyo to London.”
ECB, Fed inject cash to ease fears, by Matt Moore, Aug. 10, 2007, 10:36AM, AP Business (via Dr. Delong)

The bail-out begins.

“The photo was taken on July 20, 2007 by Associated Press photographer, Khalid Mohammed, and it shows an Iraqi artist painting a mural on the steel and cement blast walls erected by U.S. occupation troops in downtown Baghdad, fortifications meant to protect government buildings from car bombs. Commissioned by the U.S. backed, Shiite dominated central government, the artist’s mural is part of a government funded ‘beautification project’, where non-controversial and colorful murals are being created and installed on bomb blast walls all across Baghdad. In painting the ramparts of a military occupation, does the Iraqi artist somehow make life better for his people? I don’t mean to say that art should not serve to ameliorate suffering and bring joy to the soul – those are, I believe, some of the main reasons why we create works of art. As Albert Camus once observed, ‘We have art in order not to die of life.’ But when we create art, who is it for, what is its purpose, and what are its ramifications?”
On Decorating The Blast Walls, Mark Vallen, August 3, 2007

We have art in order not to die of life.

Huh.

I’m glad Deadsy is on YouTube. I saw it a long time ago at an animation festival or something and never forgot it. Sorry there’s no embed, I guess they want you to read this:

“A graphic interpretation of novelist and writer Russel Hoban’s narration of mans fascination with weaponry and the sexual power of military aggression, via the story of the grim reaper acquiring additional weaponry after undergoing a sex change. Using a combination of live action, laser xerography, hand rendering, and model animation, the film is a companion piece to another Anderson/Hoban Collaboration, Door.”

“While music may soothe the savage breast, the brain thrills to the sound of silence.

“That’s a new finding by a team of Stanford and McGill University scientists who watched brain images of 18 volunteers listening to a series of movements within symphonies, each punctuated by frequent pauses.

“A one- to two-second break between movements triggers a flurry of mental activity, researchers found. When the music resumes, the action shifts to a different part of the brain, then subsides.

“‘The pause itself becomes the event,’ said neuroscientist Vinod Menon of Stanford’s School of Medicine, the senior author of a paper published in today’s issue of the journal Neuron. “A pause is not a time where nothing happens.”

“Skillful composers have long used silence to build a sense of anticipation. Some of music’s finest moments are spent in transition – waiting, in essence, for the other shoe to drop.

“Stanford’s snapshots of this pause may have implications beyond concert halls, nightclubs and honky-tonks.

“They shine a light into what neuroscientists call ‘segmentation processes’ – the techniques used by the brain to take a stream of sensory information and parcel it up into more easily comprehended pieces.”
When the music stops, the brain gets going, IN STANFORD STUDY, SILENT PAUSES LEND CLUES ON MENTAL PROCESSES, By Lisa M. Krieger, Mercury News, Article Launched: 08/02/2007 01:33:13 AM PDT (via KSJ tracker)

Ooooh! Brian video!

Feh! I was right! The Space Between the Notes, more like it at my site.

“After watching a young gray whale spend most of the day feeding in the channel of the Santa Cruz Small Craft Harbor, Leo Morelli, who owns a sport fishing business in the harbor, jumped on his jet ski and shepherded the whale out to sea late Tuesday night.

“The whale, which some believe was lost from its mother, was a big attraction among tourists and locals. Hundreds of them had been snapping pictures of it all day and getting what amounted to a free whale-watching tour on the rocks that line the channel.

“But under the cover of darkness and for the sake of what he thought was the whale’s well-being, Morelli rode his jet ski back and forth just enough to force the whale to swim out into the bay. For about 15 minutes, a game of jet ski and whale played out in the channel — with water being sprayed intermittently from both jet ski and blowhole.”
They’re calling him ‘The Whale Whisperer’, by Tom Ragan, Santa Cruz Sentinel staff writer (via KSJ Tracker)

Ah, Santa Cruz…

Last episode of The Traneumentary.

Back in 1981 when I was struggling with “Body and Soul,” the John Coltrane version on “Coltrane Sound” figured it out for me. I could post an mp3, but I’m not going to. If you have not heard this album, sorry, just go buy a copy, the whole thing is worth having so you can listen to it for hours and hours, if not decades and decades.

(more…)

I’m in a collage show at the Acorn Annex in Highland Park. The work actually has Los Angeles-ness in it. This is from the introduction to the book that goes with the show:

“Mayerson reads the city differently. In ‘Traveling Light 2,’ a time exposure night photograph of downtown Los Angeles turns the cars on the freeway into streaks of light in contrast to the office buildings whose lit windows form a black and white checkerboard. In the foreground a steer crosses the light streaked freeway. Standing on its back, a small Asian boy dressed in a ceremonial Japanese kimono so barely touches the steer as to almost float above it. The steer is plodding and tired while the boy is youthful, but serious. Thus, the powerful city of Los Angeles is pictured by Mayerson as the intersection of East and West.”
From the introduction to LA Collage, by Suzanne Siegel, 2007

Here’s the scoop on the show and opening reception:

LA COLLAGE
Opening reception August 11, 2007, 7-10 PM
Exhibition runs from August 6-20, 2002
Acorn Annex
135 N Avenue 50 (between Figueroa and Monte Vista, at the Metro tracks)
Los Angeles, CA 90042
Gallery hours: Saturday and Sunday, 12-4 PM
For other hours, directions and information, please call: 323-258-1435

Hm, tough choices, here are my top three:

See all the videos at Dump Dick Day
(via Skippy)

Memo to Nancy P: Impeachment is off the table because it’s on the front burner. Seriously, these guys have got to go before they invade another country. They’re so much worse than Nixon, it boggles the mind.

Can’t remember where I saw this other than at the Rialto in South Pasadena in the late 80s but I’m glad to find it again on YouTube. Am I going to doubt things ever existed if I can’t find them on YouTube? God, I hope not. Enjoy!

Now we have SAEACWB** in Los Angeles:

“The trials and tribulations of being a black man.

“Had a wrestling show today. My car was acting up again, so Steph dropped me off. After the show I walked to a gas station not far away to buy cigarettes, a bottle of water and a cookie and wait for her to pick me up. Just as I was standing around wondering what the hell I was going to use for my 365 days shot so late in the day, two cop cars pulled up next to me.

“‘What are you doing sir?’

“‘I’m waiting for a ride.’

“If my people have learned anything over the years, it’s to be as polite and cordial to the police as possible. I certainly wasn’t looking to have my ass Rodney Kinged tonight.”
on being a black man in a white man’s world…, Chris Maverick, August 5, 2007 (hat tip LJV)

We live in a world where Rodney King is a verb. If it’s this fucked-up, you know you’re in Los Angeles.

*Being pulled over by the cops for Driving While Black.
**Being questioned by the cops for Standing Around Eating A Cookie While Black.

Update 080807: Oops, this happened in Pittsburgh, not LA.

“Some poor kid took a short camera clip of the Transformers movie, and was promptly hauled out and arrested. The theater (Regal Cinemas Ballston Common 12, in Arlington, Virginia) is pressing charges that could land this 19yo in prison for a year for the 20-second film clip. She recorded the clip to show her little brother, because she thought it would get him excited to go see the movie, too.”

~snip~

“If you have any thoughts about the ludicrous nature of this prosecution, feel free to share them with the theater at (703) 527-9730; Regal Cinemas at 877-TELLREGAL (1-877-835-5734); or the Arlington, VA, Office of the Commonwealth’s Attorney at (703) 228-4410.”
Arrested for 20-second video recording, Laura Quilter, Sivacracy, August 2, 2007

Copyright Avengers go psycho! I say boycott the whole damn chain of cinemas until they drop the charges.

While I was in the UK, my pal Jane introduced me to the funniest show I’ve seen in a long, long time. I understand Alan Cummings has become very swanky since this aired in 1995.

The High Life – Episode 1: ”Feart”

Enjoy!

‘”‘august 9th is the 33rd anniversary of the historic day when president richard nixon resigned in the face of impeachment. please plan now to mark the day with ceremonies, solemn or fun. we need to remind america that the proper use of impeachment did not traumatize our nation, but healed it – everyone agreed “the system worked.”‘

“‘we’re holding a contest for the best video using the precedent of nixon to make the case for impeaching cheney. the winner will be determined by a popular vote and will receive a $1,000 cash prize.’”
we don’t know dick, Skippy, August 5, 2007

Punctuation, or lack of it, not mine (or Skippy’s).

“I can’t imagine what the Democrats could do to them that would damage them more in a general election than what they’re doing to each other.”
woops, Sisyphus Shrugged, July 30, 2007

Julia has some thoughts on the Vanity Fair piece on Judi Giuliani.

“Colbran – When it reportedly happened in Morocco five years ago, locals feared it signaled the end of the world. In Albania in 1994, it was thought to have unleashed the spawn of the devil on a small village.

“But on a Grand Mesa ranch, the once-in-a-million, genetically ‘impossible’ occurrence of a mule giving birth has only drawn keen interest from the scientific world. That, and a stream of the locally curious driving up from the small town of Colbran to check out and snap pictures of a frisky, huge-eared, gangly-legged foal.

“‘No one has run away in fear yet,’ laughed Laura Amos, the owner of the foal, along with her husband, Larry.

“The foal is being called a miracle because mules aren’t supposed to give birth. Mules are a hybrid of two species – a female horse and a male donkey – so they end up with an odd number of chromosomes. A horse has 64 chromosomes and a donkey has 62. A mule inherits 63. An even number of chromosomes is needed to divide into pairs and reproduce.”
Mule’s foal fools genetics. It’s an event so rare that the Romans had a saying, “when a mule foals” – the equivalent of “when hell freezes over”, by Nancy Lofholm, Denver Post Staff Writer, Article Last Updated: 07/26/2007 06:33:16 AM MDT

Meh, red heifers, mule foals, can’t the world end without all this livestock!?

09-19-07 Update: More on the mule that shouldn’t be.

“The people’s princess has been dead 10 years. Her sons have staged her memorial concert at Wembley, Tina Brown has written a memoir that is alternately gushing and malicious, and Prince Charles has married his mistress. Her sons are both army officers. By the end of the year William will be bald. William, every inch a Windsor, has turned into a dead-ringer for Princess Anne, Harry for Diana’s sister Lady Sarah McCorquodale.

“If Lady Diana Spencer had had a history O-level she might have learnt that marrying the Prince of Wales was a one-way ticket to misery.”

~snip~

“That Diana was desperately unhappy as Charles’s wife we cannot doubt; it is also clear that he never liked her much and ended by positively disliking her. Her supporters thought he made her neurotic, his supporters that she had always been neurotic. The story of how she emerged from her dowdy chrysalis to become the people’s princess is often told, but what is seldom assessed is just how much of a performance this was. Daily Express photographer Steve Wood, who took the famous picture of 19-year-old Lady Di standing against the light so her legs and thighs were visible in silhouette through her skirt, says that when he first saw her, “I thought she was quite plain … I advised her to look down so her face would always be in shadow.” The photographic record shows how sedulously Diana followed this advice; looking at the lens from under her eyebrows exaggerated the size of her eyes and minimised the size of her nose. The wedding, in a dress that was too big to fit into the Glass Coach, was the sign that Diana was now being coiffed, made up and costumed to play the part of media princess. Within a few months of her marriage, Diana was being styled daily by professionals, some of whom marvelled at how biddable she was. One stylist who prefers to remain nameless reported, “If they told her to wear red gloves, she wore red gloves. If they told her to wear blue shoes, she wore blue shoes. Let’s just say she doesn’t have a lot of imagination.” Diana was never a fashion icon; she dressed to the same demotic standard of elegance as TV anchorwomen do, plus the inevitable hat. It is precisely because she was basically anonymous that Diana’s public could so easily identify with her; it should surprise no one that they then transferred their feelings to her and chanted as one that she identified with them.”
The plain truth about Diana, by Germaine Greer, The Australian, July 28, 2007.

I’ve always been a bigger fan of Germaine than of Diana, but me-yow! Dr. Greer! Diana had everything and expected to be happy too. I go no sympathy for that, but she’s still dead and doesn’t need my sympathy at all.

“Radical feminism is a philosophy emphasizing the patriarchal roots of inequality between men and women, or, more specifically, social dominance of women by men. Radical feminism views patriarchy as dividing rights, privileges and power primarily by gender, and as a result oppressing women and privileging men.

“Radical feminists tend to be more militant in their approach (radical as ‘getting to the root’). Radical feminism opposes existing political and social organization in general because it is inherently tied to patriarchy. Thus, radical feminists tend to be skeptical of political action within the current system, and instead support cultural change that undermines patriarchy and associated hierarchical structures.

“Radical feminism opposes patriarchy, not men. To equate radical feminism to man-hating is to assume that patriarchy and men are inseparable, philosophically and politically.”
4th Carnival of Radical Feminists, Arooo, July 30, 2007 (via The Crone Speaks)