Out and About
More advice than you can shake a stick at
...sells
F train
Grand Central swirl
Same idea
:::
“...WHOA WE MAY EVEN FIND A SOLUTION
TO HUNGER AND DISEASE
WE CAN BOMB THE WORLD TO PIECES
BUT WE CAN'T BOMB IT INTO PEACE...”
-Michael
Franti & Spearhead
Heard this tune in a club last night, and it blew me away. [Couldn't resist
the pun.]
More snaps
The NYC Marathon will run right by here in a month
... don't say I didn't warn you ...
'Jersey looking like Manhattan – on a cloudy day
Today's fun Flash
Check out VectorPark
:::
“Almost all leak investigations are closed without having
identified a suspect.” - Janet Reno
An ABC-Washington Post poll found 69 percent of Americans, including 52
percent of Republicans, believe a special counsel should be appointed.
:::
What intent?
Rush Limbaugh says his comments weren't racist, because there was no “racist
intent” when
he
as
much
as asserted
that Donovan McNabb is a token quarterback on national TV. Funny
thing,
but
when you look
up “racist” in the dictionary, the definition makes no reference
to intent. (Surprise!)
Limbaugh's intent was to take this quarterback, and the press in general,
down a peg. Probably because he didn't have any other basis to diminish the
man (it certainly seems he didn't do his homework), he took the lazy route
of “playing the race card.”
The incident underscores the pervasive nature of certain forms of racism.
Leave it to Limbaugh to perpetuate the myth of “he only got there because
he's black.” Folks like Rush won't even recognize that they're doing
damage when it's brought to their attention. Rest assured, there are many
more people like Rush in positions of even greater influence. I suppose you
could
call
that reckless intent.
:::
Art + History
We already knew that ol' Dubya wasn't much for book-learning. I doubt that
he'd ever take a lesson from a history book, even the history of imperialism – I recently read that when Napoleon
invaded Egypt, he took along 175 scholars, linguists,
antiquarians,
and artists.
Contrast
that
with
Bush's
assault on
Iraq: seems we don't have enough translators, we guarded the oil wells and
not the nuclear sites, and we allowed the museums to be pilfered. I think
one of the museums was also flooded.
In case you didn't know, what is now Iraq was part of the region known as
Mesopotamia. In 3500 BC, the Sumerians settled the Tigris and Euprates valleys,
developed irrigation and flood control, the city-state, writing, math, law,
and architecture. You think, maybe, some extraordinary knowledge was lost
in this modern-day conquest?
:::
A poster on the subway for the School of Visual Arts reads “If
you enjoyed smoking in bars, study French Expressionism.” Makes me wonder if the French
are at odds with their cigarette makers the way we are. For that matter,
I wonder if the French let their cigarette companies get as out of hand as
we did.
Graphic Design's Direction?
Food for thought in an article called “Laptop Aesthetics” from Eye magazine:
...my guess is that when we come to look back at design in the first few years
of the new millennium ... we will see that this is the point that graphic design
finally lost the momentum that it had acquired in the 1980s abd 1990s ... Graphic
design appears to have settled into a complacent middle age, content to be
in the thrall of corporatism, branding, marketing, focus groups and quick-fix
makeover culture. Even in its more radical guises, design has become self-admiring
and masturbatory....
I wonder if this would be considered a radical perspective, and I wonder if
it isn't also a velied swipe at the design schools. I'm still exploring graphic
design from the point of view of fleshing out my own
aesthetic,
so it's a bit hard for me to identify clearly what he's referring to when he
talks about the momentum of the 1980s and 1990s. I'm not up to thinking about
graphic design in that kind of historical context. It'd be interesting to pick
up some debate on this in a design forum somewhere.
:::
Charitable film site to be upgraded from flash to html, plenty creativity
needed.
- ad on CraigsList
Um, switching to HTML is an upgrade? At least they're right about
how much creativity will be required.
:::
The bookstore as mirror
A bunch of books lie on tables right as you enter the B&N on Court Street. Steve
Martin's new book “The Pleasure of my Company” is among them. A bunch of books
are about how either the liberals or the conservatives are lying / have hidden,
stolen, or distorted the truth. Others deal with politics and world affairs,
while some are just well... Taken as a group, they might just say something
about the current state of mind of the country. Here's a sampling:
Why
Orwell Matters - Hutchins
Squeeze
my Lemon: A Collection of Blues Lyrics -Poe
Skipping
Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness
in America - Savage
The
Boys on the Bus - Crouse
The
Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O' Reilly - Hart
Secrets
of the Tomb: Skull and Bones, the Ivy League, and the Hidden Paths
to Power - Robbins
The
Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception - Corn
Big
Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and how it Distorts the Truth
- Carson
Imperial
America: The Bush Assault on the World Order - Newhouse
Thieves
in High Places - Hightower
Outspoken: Free Speech Stories - Levinson
:::
I checked out my log files recently. One of my referrers was alittleglitter.net,
the blog of a 19-year-old “spoiled” Chinese girl who “has
major issues,” living
in Singapore, and attending Nanyang Technological University. A little glimpse:
lost my mobile at zouk a couple of days ago. im so so so so sad. i lost
all my contacts n photos! and oh how my life depends on my mobile's organiser
function! for a split moment, i felt like my life's empty. i've forgotten
all the appointments n plans i've made coz everything's in my mobile. it's
funny how reliant i am on that lil gadget. argh! i gotta go remove my wisdom
teeth next week. my dentist is a fucking ripoff! $750 per tooth and $300
to be knocked out? like excuse me??? and i gotta remove 2 next week. gosh.
i feel so bad for my parents. maybe i'll go to another dentist but it's
like so damn troublesome. oh and fuck. i gotta remove them next week which
means i cant pierce my tongue tomorrow! gotta delay it for another 2 weeks.
like fug it man. all my plans are being disrupted. i better get my tongue
done asap. i must i must i must!
are women really BAD n ROTTEN drivers? i feel like im in no position
to rebut. photo updates laters. i swear ting trudy n chris r never
gonna ride in my car ever again. hahahha
:::
Arlen Specter was on NBC this morning, trying to explain why an independent
investigator is not needed to look into the outing of that CIA operative
by someone in the White House. He took every opportunity to point out why
the call for a special prosecutor is politically motivated. I'd like to know
where he stood on the matter of investigating Clinton, first over Whitewater
and later over Monica Lewinsky. Seems to me, he's a bit disingenuous to bitch
about political motivations in this case.
This, by the way, is the same Arlen Specter who helped Judge Clarence Thomas
act out his “high-tech lynching of an uppity nigger” defense during his Supreme
Court nomination hearings. It's also the same Arlen Specter who came up with
the infamous “zig-zag bullet” theory to support the finding of a lone gunman
in the assassination of JFK.
Zinc Talk/Reading Series in October: Hear the best on your day of rest
Creative promotional copy for the long-running reading series at Zinc Bar,
90 W. Houston St, Sundays at “6:59PM SHARP!” Now, I don't mind getting e-mails
like this!
..."Zinc-TRS presents perhaps the most forward-thinking writers of
our age, granting
them the opportunity to present both brilliant poems and gripping talks
in a format more inviting & rigorous than we've seen in a long time. A
sheer delight!" according
to a cut-up of The New York Times 9/29/03*
Zinc-TRS was rated safest** in rollover crash tests 3 years in a row according
to J.D. Powers & Associates.
Zinc-TRS will never*** use antibiotics or growth hormones in any of our
poets.
Zinc-TRS will either leave you with a sense of hope or with the critical
acumen to better cope with our current political climate
Zinc-TRS, once the
hottest reading series, has since repaired its air conditioner & will
henceforth be perhaps the most perfectly comfortable reading series.
Zinc-TRS gives you 240 monthly minutes of talktime plus generous anytime
minutes you can use to chat with friends nationwide about your experience****
– at no additional charge.
...
* Words collaged from from several articles including "New Agenda for Midwest
Miners", "Housing Starts Sag for Second Quarter" and "Breakthrough a
Bust for One Medical Center" and an ad for carpet cleaners.
** Safety during
lecture portion of the series has not yet been established.
*** Except in those poets who look like they could use it.
**** 60 minutes every Sun. Nite. Some restrictions apply. Minutes spent grousing
about, trashing or badmouthing zinc readers are not included in package.
:::
What credibility?
Somebody in the White House seems to have given the name of a CIA agent (the
wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who challenged Bush & Co.'s claims
of Iraqi WMDs) to the press. It's the kind of thing that gets people killed,
or can badly damage the career of a spy. Would Karl Rove himself get caught
red-handed in this kind of thing?
At issue is whether White House officials deliberately leaked the name to
syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other selected journalists last July
in retaliation, and in an attempt to blunt Wilson's criticism. Novak wrote
that he got the name from "two senior administration officials." -
A.P. story
No Dialogue!
Want to see a story told with nothing more than pictures and music? Naoke Mitsuse's
“Adieu”
is a treat.
:::
World outage competition?
57 million lost their lights in Italy yesterday,
compared with the 50 million that lost their lights in the US and Canada in
August. Who's next? Warren joked that this one started in Ohio, too...
