The Hackenblog

Is there some kind of pubic topiary movement afoot? First there was this:

Now this:

(via)

I think the hairless pussy was a little overkill. And I think the line about “tulips on a mound” could be misconstrued as well.

You know, I don’t remember commercials about shaving your pubic hair on TV prior to 1987 when I quit watching TV. Of course, now I’m watching commercials on the internet, which is pretty odd if you think about it. Oh never mind.

I’ve always loved this show. Rest in peace, David, you were brilliant in “The Long Riders,” too.
(more…)

I wonder:

“Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel are among architects singled out by US-based organisation Human Rights Watch for the ‘abuse and severe exploitation’ of construction labourers occurring on their projects at Abu Dhabi’s luxury Saadiyat Island development.

“In an 80-page report published last week, entitled The Island of Happiness: Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, Human Rights Watch found that, despite slow improvements in timely payment of wages and labour conditions, abuses such as passport withholding and fines are still occurring.

“Under government developer the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC), Saadiyat Island (‘Happiness Island’ in Arabic) is being developed into a £17 billion tourism and cultural centre, comprising a Nouvel-designed Louvre, a Guggenheim by Gehry, Foster + Partners’ Sheikh Zayed National Museum and Hadid’s Performing Arts Centre, all yet to be completed.

“Human Rights Watch called on the architects, and institutions such as the Guggenheim and the Louvre, to obtain enforceable contractual guarantees that construction companies will protect workers’ fundamental human rights.”
Darkening Dubai. Architects named in human rights row, by Christopher Sell, Lebbeus Woods, 28 May, 2009

MichelleMauk.com rules so hard!

Laurel Sutton explains it all to you.

Catchword Video Cafe for people like me who are interested in this stuff, but too lazy to actually, y’know, read about it. The only thing that could make these videos better would be car chases and blues numbers, like The Blues Brothers, but, alas, it’s been done.

“After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon’s custody more horrific than anything made public so far. “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse,” Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.

“Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko’s media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:

“‘Debating about it, ummm … Some of the worst things that happened you don’t know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib … The women were passing messages out saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened’ and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It’s going to come out.’”
Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape, by Geraldine Sealey, Salon, July 15, 2007

This is old news, but I wonder if these are among the images the President Obama won’t let us see. I think we have to see them so we can know what our country did and, hopefully, never do again.

Yes, it’s been a while.

I have PTSD. I take medications for anxiety and depression. I refilled my anxiety medication prescription on April 15th. I noticed that the pills were a different color, called the pharmacy, and found out that the brand I’d been taking for more than two years has been recalled. Oh. Okay. All of my medications are generic. No big deal.

Within a week, I noticed constant, building background anxiety. Then irritability, unwillingness to exert myself, anticipatory anxiety, sleep difficulties, all slowly building towards a very bad place I don’t want to revisit.

Fortunately a tiny bit of my brain suggested I research this. What I found was bad.

About half the people who take the brand of anxiolytic I had on hand liked it. Half said it did nothing. This is pretty consistent through all psychiatric drugs; nothing works for everybody.

But I found information on what’s called the 80/20 rule. The FDA’s regulations on generic drugs allow for as much as 20% more active ingredient and as little as 80% of the brand name – a 40% spread.

http://www.fda.gov/cder/ob/docs/preface/ecpreface.htm

People are suffering because of it.

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/generic_drug_problems/report_generic_drug_problem.php

It appears to be a problem across the spectrum of medication. All kinds of doctors and patients, physical and psychiatric problems, complain of variable effectiveness.

I was able to call my doctor and get a prescription for the brand-name anxiolytic. It’s going to cost me money (it’s not on the Formulary, of course), but I can afford it. I hope it works. What if you can’t afford it? What if you don’t have insurance?

What if one of the medications I take for problems that don’t have immediate perceivable changes – cholesterol, blood pressure, glaucoma – isn’t working?

Celestine Arnold at psfk.com

A clip of Welsh shepherds who dress their sheep up on LED-studded vests and herd them in elaborate formations that resemble fireworks displays from above.

(via)

But who is this bald guy in the background? Even to a civilian like me, he’s obviously Secret Service.

I mean, does he have fangirls? Is his job cool or annoying? Does he have a code name? Could it be…Cueball?

Yeah, yeah, Michelle went to a place where they feed homeless people and dished up some food and looked completely fabulous the whole time. She’s a nice lady. I guess she has to do something to keep busy while the girls are at school. I, for one, think it’s wonderful. I can’t recall the last time I saw or even heard of a First Lady dishing up food in, well, anywhere, can you?

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging.

Ian, thanks for the call. We had a bad connection so I couldn’t understand your email address when you told it to me.

About the No on 8 list, if you click on a few links, you’ll discover that list came from the California Secretary of State.

If, as you said, you didn’t give any money No on 8, then I don’t know how your name got on there. I suppose you could track it down with the reporting organization.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blogging (such as it is).

“A comment from Sproing on io9 reminds us (and I forgot):Fun fact: [Voyager actress] Jeri Ryan dumped her husband to be with [Voyager producer Brannon] Braga, which led to the divorce filing that destroyed her husband’s Illinois senate candidacy — paving the way for Obama to become a senator, and then president. Thanks, Brannon Braga!”
Voyager was good for something, Superfrankenstein, February 12, 2009

Yes, that’s what I’m doing, blogging before breakfast (yes, I know what time it is):

“But there’s also politics. And this crowd believes that the only focus should be Israel, and many also believe that only Republicans care about Israel (and yes, a lot are plain scared of Obama. *Shakes head.*)

“I am focused on Israel. I think it is important. However, I also believe that the best protection Israel has is not a US that says, ‘We support you’ but a US that is strong militarily and economically, and is respected overseas.

“That is not us. That has not been us for a long time now. We are fighting two wars, our economy is falling and the rest of the world thinks we’re willing to attack on a whim. All bad things. All under Israel’s great friend Bush. Who actually doesn’t care about Israelis anyway – just his religious goals.

“Anyway, I heard praises for Fox News, I heard men repeating rumors (we don’t know anything about Obama, we don’t even know where he was born, we haven’t investigated the Ayers thing – all things that were, in fact, investigated. And found to be nothing.) One man thought that the Republicans have found a connection between Madoff and Obama and therefore Obama would not become president.”
I’m spending New Year’s weekend in a country inn, Left of Centerist, January 2, 2009

She’s right, of course.

I’ve been thinking for a while that maybe the U.S. should break up. We’re just too diverse and huge to govern as one country. Strangely, this wacky Russian guy thinks the same thing and his map looks sort of like I’d imagined, at least the continental breaking into four parts. Coincidence? I certainly hope so. Although my break-up is more legislative than martial. I also think the (former) Confederate states would be one country, and the rest of the country would break up around economic hubs. But don’t quote me (or do, with a disclaimer), I haven’t given it nearly as much thought as Professor Panarin has.

(via Pen Elayne)

“TOKYO (Reuters Life!) – Teens who skip breakfast as middle school students tend to have sex at an earlier age than those who start the day with a proper meal, a government-backed Japanese medical researcher said on Friday.”

~snip~

“The average age of first-time sex for those who said they ate breakfast every day as a middle school student was 19.4, while for those who skipped breakfast, the average age was 17.5.”
Japan teens skipping breakfast have sex younger, Reuters, December 26, 2008

Considering how young kids start gettin’ it on in the US of A, 17.5 sounds very mature to me. But I think the US needs a study like this. It could lead to state funded breakfasts from K-12 nationwide!

Oh, I might dream a thousand dreams

But how can they come true?

When there will never ever be another you?

Eartha Kitt 1927-2008

She rocked everything she did, so being the best Catwoman ever was probably a breeze for her and lucky for us.

Rest in peace, Ms. Kitt. I’ll miss you, but we’ll always have this:

No one before or since has but so much into the word “daddy,” and a grateful world salutes you.

And also C’est Si Bon.

“The group representing the U.S. recording industry said Friday it has abandoned its policy of suing people for sharing songs protected by copyright and will work with Internet service providers to cut abusers’ access if they ignore repeated warnings.

“The move ends a controversial program that saw the Recording Industry Assn. of America sue about 35,000 people since 2003 for swapping songs online. Because of high legal costs for defenders, virtually all of those hit with lawsuits settled, on average for around $3,500. The association’s legal costs, in the meantime, exceeded the settlement money it brought in.

“The association said Friday that it stopped sending out new lawsuits and warnings in August, and then agreed with several leading Internet service providers, without naming which ones, to notify alleged illegal file-sharers and cut off service if they failed to stop.

“It credited the lawsuit campaign with raising awareness of piracy and keeping the number of illegal file-sharers in check while the legal market for digital music took off. With two weeks left in the year, legitimate sales of digital music tracks soared for the first time past the 1 billion mark, up 28% over all of last year, according to Nielsen Soundscan.”
Music industry stops suing song swappers. The RIAA shifts its anti-piracy efforts to working with Internet service providers to cut abusers’ access, LA Times, December 19, 2008

Hmmm….

Corporate finance chiefs prefer McCain: survey.

As if anyone needed more proof corporate finance chiefs are blithering idiots, well, there’s a survey now.

Neil Young cancels picketed L.A. concert because he won’t cross the picket line.

Good on Neil.

“Eighteen months into our own financial crisis, Cursor is suspending publication.”
Cursor, October 10, 2008

Damn, the best link blogger ever has gone away. I signed up for a email if they ever get funded again. Hope springs eternal, eh?

“Americans, both young and old, play video games at an ever-growing rate. Today’s adults, unlike those who dropped game play in the 1980s due to public shame (Williams, 2006a), play more than previous generations. 40% of adults are now regular players, compared to 83% of teenagers. The average player age is now 33, propelling the industry to $7.4 billion in U.S. sales in 2006 (Entertainment Software Association, 2007). The result is a population engaging in this medium as an acceptable mainstream activity. And as the Internet has become a larger part of everyday life (Wellman & Haythornthwaite, 2002), so too have networked games. 67% of teens now regularly play some game online (Rideout, Roberts, & Foehr, 2005). Online games bring people together as they use their cell phones, their computers and their gaming consoles to access not only games, but other people. The most social and high-profile of these spaces are persistent virtual worlds—games that are always on, in which players maintain a regular character who grows and changes, and in which many players participate in long-term social groups (Griffiths, Davies, & Chappell, 2003; Yee, 2006). These worlds, called “massively multiplayer online games,” or MMOs, are vibrant sites of community (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006). Yet even as participation in them rises to several million players in North America alone, research on their players and their impact has remained relatively scant. Ethnographic and experimental investigations of player ‘guilds’ and communities have explored the social dynamics and relationships that exist (Taylor, 2003, 2006; Williams, Caplan, & Xiong, 2007), but systematic and generalizable research has remained elusive, largely due to the difficulties of securing access to players within the walled gardens of for-profit companies. The current investigation represents the first case of access to proprietary in-game player data. With the active cooperation of a major game operator, the current study surveyed players and unobtrusively collected in-game data on their behaviors. This combination of demographic, attitudinal and behavioral data generated a true player census of a virtual world. The paper presented here explicates players’ demographics, their playing patterns as related to those demographics, and their motivations for play. Many of the results defy both stereotype and theoretical predictions.”
Who plays, how much, and why? A player census of a virtual world, Dmitri Williams, Nick Yee, Scott E. Caplan. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Volume 13, Issue 4, Pages 993-1018, Published Online: 2 Sep 2008 (via Gamers Play Against Type, USC news, which has this in it: “In addition, while women made up only 20 percent of players, they logged more time in the game than their male counterparts. ‘The hardcore players are the women,” Williams said. “They play more hours, they’re less likely to quit.’” Take that, fanboys. )

Man, I was anywhere near this Portland Zine Symposium thing, I’d so be there.

Oh, well, there’s always next year.

“BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese man stabbed to death the father-in-law of a U.S. Olympic coach at a Beijing tourist spot on Saturday before taking his own life, casting a pall over the first day of sports action at the Games.”

~snip~

“Tang Yongming, 47, from the eastern city of Hangzhou, attacked the trio shortly after midday at the centuries-old, 45-metre-high (148-ft-high) Drum Tower in central Beijing. He died after leaping from the Tower, police said.”
Father-in-law of U.S. volleyball coach killed, Reuters, August 9, 2008

Yikes.

“NEW YORK (Reuters) – Presidential hopeful Barack Obama listens to hip-hop, knows many of the genre’s moguls, such as Jay-Z, Russell Simmons and rapper Ludacris, admires their business acumen and has been endorsed by them.

“That support could be a blessing for the 47-year-old Democratic candidate as he appeals to young voters.

“Or it could be a curse, with links to hip-hop’s ‘gangsta’ image and offering ammunition for the supporters of Republican rival U.S. Sen. John McCain.

“‘Hip-hop’s public image makes it a hot potato,’ said Bakari Kitwana, of the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago. ‘People don’t know what it is so they equate it with hyper-sexuality, violence and drug culture.’

“‘People on the right can always say this doesn’t represent family values and they can make these negative associations with hip-hop that then Barack or any other candidate is put in a position to defend,’ said Kitwana, who is publishing a book in September on organizing a hip-hop voting bloc.”
Hip-hop could “big up” or burden Obama, by Michelle Nichols, Reuters, August 9, 2008

Republican family values are sending young men and women to die for oil and murdering civilians and calling it Shock and Awe. I think we’re safer with even the worst of Hip Hop. The body count alone is considerably lower. So, shut the fuck up, Republican family value assholes.

Prop. 13 property taxes in the voters’ hands, John Wildermuth, Chronicle Staff Writer, Friday, June 6, 2008 (via)

Bookmark for me. Might be interesting for you. The comments are instructive and depressing.

You can buy the 8.5×11″ version at Lulu for $7.00 or the 6×9″ version at Amazon for $9.00.

The Journal of Bloglandia, volume 1, issue 1, is a collection of the following blog essays: On Essays by Paul M. Rodriguez, Liberal Fascism: An Interesting Moral Question by Steve Gimbel, Paint Splatters & Pixie Dust by Dan Kelly, Ten Dates of Christmas? Ten Lords A Leaping: The Gallant Mariner by Deborah Teasdale, Vanity by Susan O’Doherty, The Pillory of Hillary by Becki Jayne Harrelson, Reparation… by TJ Bryan, Richer Than The Sum Of My Skirt by Birdie C. Jaworski, The Music’s Between Us by Kathy Moseley, How to Scare People With Statistics by Tom Good, Red Lipstick by Eva Lake, Barbarella: A Woman of her Time? by Patti Martinson, An Invert’s Manifesto by Chad Denton, Roadtripping by Molly Kiely. Enjoy!

And I’m already working on Issue 2, so if you like what you see here, and you or someone you know would like to have a blog essay in Issue 2, please refer to these guidelines and send the essay on in. Feel free to get in touch with me at editor AT j-bloglandia.info if you have any questions the guidelines don’t address. The deadline is when I have enough pages to publish. Thanks!

April 19 – Finally, photographic proof I was in Texas.

April 14 – I’m back, it was great, and I’m very tired. I’ll post a link when the video of the whole show is up. I was very pleased with everything they did. It was amazing. Also, Texas bbq is fabulous.

To see a theatrical interpretation of “Darkness at Sunset and Vine.”

I’d like to thank the fabulous Dr. Kelly S. Taylor for bringing my angry novella to the wider world and Arkansas, where, I am told, it was a big fucking hit.

Also of interest: The production concept and the Darkness at Sunset and Vine Trilogy (Kelly’s only doing part I, but doing it extremely well) if you run out of things to read while I’m gone.

“‘Charlton Heston is an axiom. He constitutes a tragedy in himself, his presence in any film being enough to instill beauty. The pent-up violence expressed by the somber phosphoresence of his eyes, his eagle’s profile, the imperious arch of his eyebrows, the hard, bitter curve of his lips, the stupendous strength of his torso — that is what he has been give, and what not even the worst of directors can debase. It is in this sense that one can say that Charlton Heston, by his very existence and regardless of the film he is in, provides a more accurate definition of the cinema than films like Hiroshima Mon Amour or Citizen Kane, films whose aesthetic either ignores or repudiates Charlton Heston.’

“So goes the most notorious passage of one of the most controversial piece of film criticism ever written, ‘In Defense of Violence’ by Michel Mourlet, published in Cahiers du Cinema #107,m May 1960. One cannot but recall this signal work by the MacMahonist High Priest now that Moses, Ben-Hur, Michelangelo, El Cid, NRA president et.al. has bought the farm.”

~snip~

“Back in 1941 he had little to offer but his babe-a-liciousness in Peer Gynt, an exceedingly low-budget rendition of Ibsen in which director David Bradley (soon-to-be auteur of the ineffable They Save Hitler’s Brain) decided that the best thing to do was have Chuck wear as little as possible (hubba-hubba.)” Hear hear!

~snip~

Re: slashy backstory in Ben Hur

“No surprise there. And no surprise that he agreed to go along because ‘anything is better than what we’ve got.’ And so Boyd was told about his motivation, but not Heston. For Wyler cautioned ‘Don’t ever tell Chuck what it’s all about, or he’ll fall apart.’ One can only wonder why Heston, who began his acting career under the direction of David Bradley, and continued the better part of it running around half-naked, would ‘fall apart’ over the notion of an off-screen, backstory love affair with Stephen Boyd. But then how could the man who marched with the embodiment of non-violent protest Martin Luther King turn around and head the NRA?

“Perhaps clues can be found in the last act of Heston’s film career which is climaxed by Planet of the Apes, in which not only his heroric demeanor but physical self is brought low, and continues with the dystopian horror of Soylent Green.”
Death of an Axiom, Fablog, April 6, 2008 (The only Heston obit you’ll ever need!)

I can’t help it, Charlton Heston was sex on legs in “Ben Hur” and I love the whole galley slave rescuing the Roman admiral and making him row scenes. Woof. Subtext anyone?

Yeah, Gary Cooper was also a rightwingnut, and I like him, too. What is it with these beautiful men? Does it go to their heads? (Hey, write your own jokes.)

Enjoy!

Clark’s Picks (mmmmm, I sure like this guy’s taste in music)

The Real vs The Spiel

The Velvet Grindstone

Cartoon Brew

“Everyone’s an art critic when it comes to a $195,000 mural for the LAPD’s new Hollenbeck station.

“The tile mural was meant to depict a quaint Sunday in Boyle Heights. Many angry residents say it makes their neighborhood out to be a crime-ridden dump filled with fat women, stray dogs, beer-swilling men and illegal street vendors. And don’t get them started about the piñata.

“‘There’s no American flag. There seems to be a rule against that,’ said Rosalie Gurrola, born and raised in Boyle Heights, to rousing cheers and applause at a recent community meeting. ‘We need an American flag!’

“The 4,000 tiles are glazed, fired and ready to be installed next month, but public outcry threatens to keep the artwork from ever going up.

“The 100-foot mural by artist Sandow Birk has unwittingly tapped a raw nerve below the surface of a seemingly homogenous community, widely considered L.A.’s mothership of Mexican culture.

“Residents complained about the unleashed dogs, about the ‘illegal’ street vendors, about a man holding a can they guessed was beer. They complained about what wasn’t shown — historical figures, children reading books, more war veterans, positive images of cops — and about what was.

“‘This one lady has clothes drying on bushes,’ said Vera Del Pozo, 56. ‘I’ve seen that in Mexico. Not here.’”
Mural sparks outcry from residents of L.A.’s Eastside. To some in Boyle Heights, a work made of tiles proposed for the Hollenbeck police station contains too many Latino stereotypes, by Hector Becerra, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer, March 20, 2008

When is Cultural Affairs going to wake up in, y’know, Los Angeles? When? Idiots.

Here’s a pdf if the LAT removes the article.

“Using the wayback machine, I was able to compare Livejournal popular interests from May, 2007, with those of today. In order of size, these are the interests 6A/SUP has disappeared from the daily popular interests report:

“Sex, Boys, Guys, Girls, Fanfiction, Yaoi, Hardcore, Porn, Bondage, Faeries, Pain, Depression, and Bisexuality.

“Thanks to silver_ariel at InsaneJournal, I’ve viewed the raw data, confirmed those interests were censored, and I have their real numbers.

“I included many non-censored interests for the purpose of comparison.”
Circle the one that doesn’t belong: (Porn) (Hardcore) (Bondage) (Faeries), Stewardess, March 16, 2008

I’ll be glad when everything I care about moves off LJ and the rest I can read on Bloglines.

Update March 19, 2008: SUP head really hates LJ users, says so in very creepy interview.

“On February 27th, one of Lori Earley’s drawings was swiped right off the walls of Jonathan LeVine in NYC.”

“‘All reports confirm that the suspect in question is a white male, approximately 6′2″ tall, in his mid-to-late thirties. He was seen wearing a blue baseball hat with a navy blue backpack, and he spoke with a very heavy New York accent.’ If you or anyone you know has information as to who might have committed this theft or leads on possible location of the stolen drawing, please contact the gallery immediately at (212) 243-3822 or info@jonathanlevinegallery. They are offering a reward for its return.”
Special Circle of Hell, i feel it too, March 1, 2008

Going to hell is optional, just return the drawing, whoever you are. There’s enough suffering in the world already.

Update 031708: Could whoever return this one, too? Reward offered.