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October 31, 2006

Minn. papers ream Vikings; Halloween mp3s for thinking folks: 'Outrage' at Bill Maher's Steve Irwin costume; Paper pumpkin patterns

AP
Minnesota Vikings fans watch the game during the fourth quarter of their 31-7 loss to the New England Patriots.

Updated 10:57 a.m.
Vikings' fearful symmetry: Coming off last weekend's 31-13 rout of the Seattle Seahawks, the Vikings bit the dust last night as the Patriots buried them, 31-7. QB Brad Johnson's three interceptions and a sack got him replaced in the fourth quarter by Brooks Bollinger, who suffered three sacks in a row ...and an interception. The hometown papers are not pleased. Gloat if you must:

Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Suds and duds
Patriots pass on running game to trample Vikings
Jim Souhan: Belichick takes Childress to school
QB Brad Johnson calls game embarrassing
Blog: What happened?

St. Paul Pioneer Press:
An aerial burial Stunned Vikings no match for Brady
Vikings unmasked as second-rate team
Brady on top of his game
More...

Next: Vikings no test for Pats, but Colts will be. MSNBC looks ahead to Sunday night in Foxboro, 8:15 p.m. on NBC.

6:00 a.m.
iPod candy: There's an excellent collection of seasonal recordings at scar stuff, each with its own background post -- and they're not just kitsch.

Among them,

Boris Karloff, Tales of the Frightened, parts one and two
Voodoo Drums "Voodoo Drums In Hi-Fi" (Atlantic, 1296, 1958)
MAD Magazine "Fink Along With Mad" (Big Top, 12-1306, 1962)
William Conrad "Spirits and Spooks For Hallowe'en Summoned Up by William Conrad" (Caedmon, TC1344, 1973),
Vincent Price "Tales Of Witches, Ghosts, And Goblins" (Caedmon, TC1393, 1972 (check the sidebar there for more Price)
Lionel Barrymore "Hallowe'en: A Musical Fantasy" (MGM, 10-A, 78 RPM, 1947)
Martha Wentworth "Terror Tales by the Old Sea Hag" (Liberty, LST 7025, 1959).

And there are lesser lights, too -- spooky sound effects and
US Air Force "Promotional Radio Spots" (Century Records, 1979)
Casper The Friendly Ghost "Haunted House Tales" (Peter Pan, 8131, 1975)
"Casper And The Demon Of Darkness - Book & Recording" (Peter Pan, 1976)
and the truly odd Kellog's "Snap Crackle Pop Tunes" (Kellogg's, SCP-83, 1983).

Keep moving backwards to earlier posts by clicking the bottom link on the sidebar.

You might start here, at a thumbnails page. Expect a slow server today.

Worse than what? Bad-taste Irwin costume sparks fury: From The Age, Australia,

American comedian Bill Maher has outraged Steve Irwin fans by attending Halloween parties dressed as the late entertainer and conservationist, with a fake stingray barb protruding from his blood-stained khaki shirt.

Irwin died last month in a freak accident when a stingray barb pierced his heart while he was filming a nature documentary off Port Douglas in Queensland.

Outrage? It's Halloween, and Bill Maher, who had a show called "Politically Incorrect." You expected a simple Transylvanian dripping blood?

Patterns: Build your own Jobs-o'-Lantern. A downloadable carving pattern will help put Apple co-founder Steve Jobs on your pumpkin. From the wags at Joy of Tech.

If this is too obscure, you might prefer the simple Jack-o-lantern Patterns">silhouette patterns at Hormel Foods.

Free paper toys at Ravensblight.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

October 30, 2006

Patriots tonight (8:30, ESPN): Air v. ground; NPR to ask FCC to recall interfering satellite radio, iPod modulators

I'm deep into coding a new events calendar using blog software -- including a 40-hour no-sleep marathon this weekend that caused my husband to ask if he'd lost his wife. I have lots of links for later. For now, two things:

The Patriots play at Minnesota tonight at 8:30 p.m. on ESPN's Monday Night Football. Here's the skinny from the Vikings' hometown paper, the Star-Tribune. The lead story today is about... the Pats' Laurence Maroney, formerly a U. of Minnesota Gopher: Nice spot for a nice pick.

.Here's their forecast for the game (Vikings gameday: The call)

The Vikings ought to control the ground game; New England ought to control the passing game. Hang on -- tonight's "MNF" matchup promises to be close.

And Doc Searls is deep into a discussion of the fight for the airwaves:

Baltimore Sun: Public radio seeks recall of FM devices used in cars:

Citing widespread interference on broadcast frequencies used by its member stations, National Public Radio has asked the Federal Communications Commission to order recalls of millions of FM modulators that drivers use to play satellite radios and iPods through their car stereos. A field study by NPR Labs found that nearly 40 percent of those devices have signal strengths that exceed FCC limits, enabling them to break into FM broadcasts in nearby cars with unwanted programming. A separate investigation by the National Association of Broadcasters found that more than 75 percent of the devices it tested violated the power limits.

And, alt-view 1 (Earth to NPR: Satellite Radio is Good For You): Here's Matt Murray on news that NPR is going after low-power personal FM transmitters (most of which are used either to bridge MP3 players to the FM band or to do the same for satellite radio receivers):

So the funding from Joan B. Kroc, is going to try and smite the FM modulators and satellite radio, instead of expanding a news department or two.

Where can I file a lawsuit saying that the NPR broadcasters are interfering with my Sirius Xact Stream/Jockey radio?

And alt-view 2: More on modulators: Bill Gerrard writes,

I can't comment on the technical merits of NPR's case, but I do know that it has become common for the NPR station on my car radio to be drowned out for a second or two by a completely different broadcast as another car passes by in the opposing lane. If that's an errant modulator, more power to NPR....

Interesting stuff. What do you think about all this? Is it Stern fans vs. foes?

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:42 AM | Permalink

October 27, 2006

Mass. man breaks Scrabble records; Worst political sites; Prehistoric bee; Geezer job search; Knitted garden; Game-day shin stew

Enlarge / Story

Quixotry? How a Mass. carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever by Stefan Fatsis at Slate.

(Quixotry n. Quixotism; visionary schemes.)

On Oct. 12, in the basement of a Unitarian church on the town green in Lexington, Mass., a carpenter named Michael Cresta scored 830 points in a game of Scrabble. His opponent, Wayne Yorra, who works at a supermarket deli counter, totaled 490 points. The two men set three records for sanctioned Scrabble in North America: the most points in a game by one player (830), the most total points in a game (1,320), and the most points on a single turn (365, for Cresta's play of QUIXOTRY).

In the community of competitive Scrabble, of which I am a tile-carrying member, the game has been heralded as the anagrammatic equivalent of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 or Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series: a remarkable, wildly aberrational event with potential staying power. Cresta's 830 shattered a 13-year-old record, 770 points, which had been threatened only infrequently....

Not to rain on his parade, but in our house they'd never get away with zas, nam, cor, vrow, kas or ara. We're simple folk.

Including the dog who blogs: At Cnet, the worst political websites.

Geezer jobs: Job search engine Simply Hired adds a specialized search: Search Jobs at Age 50+ Friendly Companies. They have a sense of humor, too: The type is bigger inside the search form than it is at the main search site.

The hundred-million-year-old bee. Not a put on -- it's the oldest-ever, found in amber, at National Geographic. They're also excited about Ancient Manure over there.

Your recording can talk to my recording: Prerecorded campaign calls don't work by Joseph Lisanti, formerly the editor in chief of Standard & Poor's weekly newsletter, the Outlook, in the Los Angeles Times.

OVER THE LAST few weeks, I've received phone calls from my congressional representative, one senator, a former governor and about a dozen other political heavyweights. I am neither a professional politician nor a kingmaker. I just happen to be a registered voter with a phone.

These political bigwigs were so eager to reach me that they called day and evening. When I wasn't home, they always left a message on my answering machine, but no one included a callback number. That's a shame. I might have enjoyed a conversation with some of these people. Many of them make decisions that affect me every day. But even when I was home to answer the phone, the calls were distinctly one-sided: They were recorded messages urging me to vote for particular candidates....

...Candidates who use recorded campaign messages must assume that Americans are easily swayed. I can't speak for the more than 142 million registered voters in this country, but my vote can't be influenced by a machine, either political or telephonic. Let me rephrase that: My vote can't be favorably influenced by a machine. I do maintain a certain bias against candidates who annoy me with junk phone calls....

The Knitted Garden: With instructions.

Game days: With the Patriots visiting old buddy Bethel Johnson of the Minnesota Vikings on Monday Night Football (8:30 p.m. on ESPN), it's going to be a casual Sunday at our house.

The choices:

1 p.m.:
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at New York Giants on Fox
Jacksonville Jaguars at Philadelphia Eagles on CBS
Gubernatorial Debate: Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) vs. Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty (D) on ABC

4:15 p.m.: Indianapolis Colts at Denver Broncos on CBS
8:15 p.m.: Dallas Cowboys at Carolina Panthers on NBC

Recipe for a kicker:

Melt-In-Your-Mouth Shin Stew

Olive oil
2 red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
3 sticks of celery, peeled and roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary
2 bay leaves
A small handful of dried porcini mushrooms
1 cinnamon stick
2 lb 3 oz (roughly) shin of beef, preferably free-range or organic, bone removed, trimmed and cut into 2 inch pieces
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 tbsp flour
1 28-ounce can of good-quality plum tomatoes
2/ 3 of a bottle of Chianti

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a heavy-bottomed ovenproof saucepan, heat a splash of olive oil and gently fry the onions, carrots, celery, garlic, herbs, porcini and cinnamon for five minutes until softened slightly.

Meanwhile, toss the pieces of beef in a little seasoned flour, shaking off any excess. Add the meat to the pan and stir everything together, then add the tomatoes, wine and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Gently bring to the boil, cover with a double-thickness piece of tinfoil and a lid and place in your preheated oven for three hours or until the beef is meltingly tender and can be broken up with a spoon. Taste and check the seasoning, remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary sprigs and serve.

-- From Cook With Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook by Jamie Oliver.

This is similar to the Beef Osso Bucco recipe we liked so much last year.

The power of words: Eric Lilius emails, "This recent post by Lakoff includes a link to the first three chapters of the book with more to come. " The book is Thinking Points: Communicating our American Values and Vision by George Lakoff.

Blog legal: Center for Internet & Society and the Center for Citizen Media team up on the Election Day Bloggers' Legal Guide. Stanford Law students eagerly await your questions.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments 2

October 26, 2006

Providence bakery transformed for Disney film; A day in Muslim garb; Photos: A NYC child from every country, Burning Man, shuttle launch from space; Amendment behind M.J. Fox - Limbaugh flap

Journal photos / Bob Thayer

Walt Disney Pictures rented Seven Stars Bakery at 820 Hope St. in Providence for 24 hours yesterday and transformed it: Bakery worker Ian Cappelano came by to see the fictional Yumm's coffee house, which sports stickers, skateboards, bikes, posters, cars and even trees that weren't there the day before, as well as New Jersey newspapers in coin boxes.

They're filming Dan in Real Life, a romantic comedy about a widower who finds out the woman he fell in love with is his brother's girlfriend. Actor Steve Carell (The 40 Year Old Virgin), at right, stars.

The Journal's Michael Janusonis writes about the shoot today: Hollywood comes to Hope and Fourth streets

Bonus link: The East Greenwich Pendulum reports, Eldredge school goes Hollywood: "The Eldredge School became a New Jersey high school for a day on Tuesday" as Disney shot scenes there.

Shroud for a day: The veil: too obviously hidden. In the L.A. Times, a Muslim journalist living in London buys her first hijab, and spends a day in the head-to-toe black garments. An excerpt:

After a few hours, I get used to the gaping and the sniggering. But what does surprise me is what happens when I head into central London. I have arranged to meet a friend at the National Portrait Gallery. In the 15-minute walk from the bus stop to the gallery, two things happen. A man in his 30s stops in front of me and asks: "Can I see your face?"

"Why do you want to see my face?" I ask.

"Because I want to see if you are pretty. Are you pretty?"

Before I can reply, he shouts: "You ----ing tease!"

I'm completely taken aback.

Just as I'm thinking about this, I hear the impatient beeping of a horn. A middle-aged man is behind the wheel of a van, leering at me. "Watch where you're going, you stupid Paki!" he screams. This time I'm a bit faster.

"How did you know I'm Pakistani, underneath all of this?" I shout at him. He responds by driving so close past me that when he yells "Terrorist!" I can feel his breath on my veil....

Toumani, from Mali, now of the Bronx.

Melting pot: NYChildren is a collection of photographs -- one child from every country on Earth currently living in NYC; 67 percent of 192 nations are currently represented, and the project continues.

Thanks to Travelers Diagram for the pointer.

The (proposed) long arm of Missouri law: Stem Cell Research, Michael J Fox, and Politics as Usual in Missouri: St. Louis blogger Shelley Powers goes beyond the Michael J. Fox / Rush Limbaugh smackdown to the essence of the proposed Amendment 2 that all the fuss is about:

The problem with debates of this nature is ... a local election that is being misconstrued at a national level. Let's look at some local facts:

There is an amendment up for election, Amendment 2, that would safe guard embryonic stem cell research in Missouri, as long as it meets federal laws and guidelines. Why is this needed, when such is not currently illegal? Because in the past, legislators here have tried to make this illegal. More than that, they've tried to make it illegal for a citizen of Missouri to get treatment based on embryonic stem cell research elsewhere....

...Think of it: Ten years from now there is a potential treatment for Parkinson's, but it's not available in Missouri. OK, you think to yourself, you'll just go to the state where the treatment is offered. However, you can't because even doing that would be illegal if you were a resident of Missouri. You lost that right because some bo-dunk, god fearin' state representative slipped this one in when we weren't looking. This is what Amendment 2 protects us against: nothing more, nothing less.

Shelley includes video and photos from the political ad war, and links to the Post-Dispatch's blog post on Ad checks for stem cell proposal. Definitely worth the click: Here's the link again.

Perspective: Shuttle Launch Seen From ISS at Warren Ellis Dot Com. Ellis writes, "These images came to me via a string of friends-of-friends-of-friends: shots of a Space Shuttle launch as seen from the International Space Station."

There's another, closer view at the link.

Hot pix: Burning Man 2006 or How I Spent my Summer Holidays: Superb photos of "the world's largest outdoor art gallery."

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:55 AM | Permalink

October 25, 2006

The Dissatisfied Voter Blues; Sirius radio free today, tomorrow; New punctuation: The 'irony mark'

The Dissatisfied Voter Blues: Watching the debaters who would succeed Jeb Bush in Fla., Tom Matrullo grumbles about the boring middle. Nobody does it better.

snake eyes

Apparently the Gubernatorial challenge for the chad-averse Die-bold crowd here in Florida is to detect which of two absolutely indistinguishable white guys, whose views of what is important appeal to the lowest, most self-serving instincts of a venal, ignorant and unconscionably uninformed electorate that cares about property tax, insurance premiums, bad Cubans, evil Mexicans, Terri Shiavo, intangible tax, Florida being a shining state (behind strong borders) upon a mountaintop [sic], comparative standing in high school statistics (Florida under Mr. Bush stands at 49th for lousy SAT scores and drop-out rates), boyscout rhetoric and nothing else.

Not disagreeing, Florida Today's coverage of last night's debate begins,

Republican Charlie Crist said a governor needs to show up. Democrat Jim Davis said it’s more important to stand up.

Where do you stand on that? Vote Nov. 7.

Howard who? Free Howard, writes Jeff Jarvis, but he's not using "free" as a verb.

It's not as part of a glowing tribute that paid-subscriber Jeff is happy Sirius is free today and tomorrow -- he uses the occasion to air some dissatisfaction and urge improvements.

But Howard Stern returns briefly from cultural exile, hence the headline. (This is "shock jock" Howard A. Stern, not Anna Nicole Smith's attorney husband, Howard K. Stern. Oops!)

Like Times Select, pay radio can be a career killer. It's reduced Maureen Dowd to writing cerebral fortune cookies.

Obscure punctuation rides again. The Web sure needs this: the "Irony mark":

Never mind that it looks like a nose. We do need ways to indicate statements with inflection.

If you think this is a newfangled thing, Wikipedia says it isn't:

This mark was proposed by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (alias Marcel Bernhardt) at the end of the 19th century. It was in turn taken by Hervé Bazin in his book Plumons l’oiseau (1966), in which the author proposes several other innovative punctuation marks, such as the doubt (), certainty (), acclamation (), authority (), indignation () and love () marks.

Indignation () is the only one that's self-evident to me.

The idea of a richer written language is appealing in this typing medium, though.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:13 AM | Permalink

October 24, 2006

Firefox 2.0 is released; Previously unknown Babe Ruth card found in R.I. estate; Free 411 calls; 'Second Life' explained; Stop the political phone spam

Updated 5:30 p.m.
Firefox 2.0 live: Download it here. If you want to join the hordes having a party to celebrate this browser (?!) this weekend, the Firefox folks will give you schwag for it, they say.

6:00 a.m.
Local news at Sports Collectors Daily, headlined Babe x 2: New 1914 Baltimore News Card Discovered:

A previously unknown 1914 Baltimore Orioles baseball team card featuring a young Babe Ruth has been discovered in the estate of a Rhode Island man.

The card was issued by the Baltimore News while Ruth was playing in the International League, not long after he signed a professional contract. It is slated to be sold next spring along with another card featuring Ruth from the same set, by Robert Edward Auctions, based in Watchung, New Jersey.

“It’s one of the most significant new card discoveries in the history of collecting,” Lifson said. “It is very rare to find any previously undiscovered baseball card of such interest and extraordinary significance that it could leave even the most advanced and knowledgeable collectors in the field stunned.” ...

But wait... there's more:

Incredibly, this card was found along with a 1914 Baltimore News Babe Ruth rookie card, only the tenth example ever discovered from the rare regional set. That individual Ruth card, considered Ruth’s “rookie” card is often considered to be the single most important baseball card in the world. This card features Ruth as an unknown minor league rookie straight out of St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys.

Regrettably, the story does not name the collector or his family, and doesn't offer "Lifson's" first name, but it wasn't difficult to find that Robert Lifson is president of Robert Edward Auctions. About the collector, the story says,

The cards were saved for decades by a Providence, Road Island-area family. The grandfather of the consignors was a collector who held a modest sampling of cards from several eras, ranging from a few 1910 era tobacco cards to 1970s TCMA collector issues, and a little bit of everything in-between. From his conversations with the family, Lifson learned the gentleman was a somewhat casual collector, not part of the organized hobby, simply collecting on his own for his own personal enjoyment. Though these cards were the prizes of his collection, their great significance to the card collecting world was unknown to him. The Babe Ruth rookie card was so rare during his collecting days that it was not yet formally documented, checklisted or even known to exist in the organized hobby.

The owner apparently had some connection to the Baltimore area and was a great fan of Babe Ruth. When the grandfather passed away in 1985, the family put his cards away. ...

Both cards are to be auctioned in the spring, with opening bids set at $10,000 each.

Free directory assistance: 1-800-Free-411 offers free directory assistance if you'll listen to a 15-second ad. (You can also use it online at free411.com without the ad.)

At Tech Crunch, the business story (Jingle Networks Has Now Raised Over $60 million):

Like Skype, the main attraction of Jingle Networks is to destroy a fat existing market. Skype gave users a way to bypass costly telephone calls by routing them over the internet for free. Jingle Networks, through its 1-800-Free-411 service, is helping to destroy the $8 billion U.S. 411 market by making those calls free as well.

So while carriers continue to charge an average of $1.25 for each 411 call, Jingle Networks is providing the same service for free and adding a fifteen second advertisement after you request a phone number but before you are given the results. Consumers don’t seem to mind the advertising - less than a year after launch they claimed to have taken 3% of the total U.S. market for 411 calls, with 450,000 calls per day (out of 6 billion total yearly 411 calls).

Today Jingle Networks announced a fourth round of financing - $30 million from Goldman Sachs and Hearst Corporation, at a valuation of around $150 million. This comes after a $26 million round in April 2006, a $5 million round in December 2005 and a small angel round of financing last year....

...Ultimately 411 is just another way for people to search for information, and Google will clearly be eyeing this space as the company matures.

Weird politics: The tackiest political ad ever? You decide: Watch it here.

WTVF in Nashville's report (Corker Calls for RNC to Pull Negative Ad) begins, "In a strange twist of events, Bob Corker is calling for an ad that attacks his opponent (Rep. Harold Ford D-Tenn.) to be taken off the air."

Here's how it ends: "The Corker Campaign has requested that Channel 5 take the attack ad off the air. By law, Channel 5 cannot remove the ad until the Republican National Committee makes the request."

When Real Life isn't enough: Rhode Island blogger Alan Fraser -- Phantasmablogia is the blog at his extensive My Duck Soup site -- challenges what he calls my "case on Second LIfe" (this post) and goes on to explain what the virtual world does for him:

In SL, I am a rock god. That aspect is fantasy but the people who come to my shows like the music or they wouldn't be there. I could present as an aging anachronism on a real life stage or I can do it through a rock god persona in SL....

If you want to get a taste of what SL is really like, come to Old Salt's Pub at 5:00 p.m. (Pacific Time) tonight and catch my act. It's hard rock and I don't waste a second dredging up cover tunes from the past. I don't care about the Beatles and didn't even like them that much the first time around. I call myself Silas Scarborough but it is Alan Fraser live and everyone who attends knows that. It is, by far, the wildest musical stage show in SL and, as soon as you can show me a way to present dancers with anti-gravity machines in RL then maybe I'll believe there's some benefit to trying to present this in a 'real' world.

If you don't catch any other part of the act, do stop by for the last one. That's when I set all the bombs off and light all the fireworks. It's always "Flying Without a Parachute" and it's a tune in which I turn off all the backing tracks and play, solo on the Stratocaster, whatever comes into my head. They've been calling me the Hendrix of SL and I'll never be so vain as to believe that but tonight I think I'll go for the title. I've been doing a jam that's kind of reminiscent of "Voodoo Chile" and tonight I may roll it out live. I love playing live and SL is the only practical way I can do it. I hope you can catch the show....

There's more, and it's all interesting. It's another chance at life, life as he would have it be, not the cards he was dealt.

Travel story: Tokyo hotel steals guests' towels.

Political phone spam: I was out in the yard planting garlic on a day off. The screen door was ajar, and the phone rang. It could have been several family members or someone from work stymied by code.

I headed inside, dropping a trail of soil as I tore off my gardening gloves.

It was a recording asking me to read bulk mail that had already arrived. Near the end, it named a candidate, but he had not approved the ad -- it came from a third party.

How do we stop this? I do not want to be interrupted and awakened by rude politicians or their supporters. Do they think disturbing me will somehow endear them, will win my vote?

Is there a Do Not Call List that lets you skip political marketing? How do we get politicians to outlaw their own spam?

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments 2

October 23, 2006

Firefox 2.0 due tomorrow; Wikipedia photos; Hartford looks at R.I. Senate race; Hometown paper beats up on Bills

I'm taking a day off to finish planting for next spring, and to do marathon loads of laundry as the last of the summer clothes are put away. A few links...

Firefox upgrade: Firefox 2.0 debuts Tuesday. Seattle PI previews the upgrade.

Firefox 2.0 hits FTP earlier than expected. Ars Technica spotted it on the Mozilla ftp site.

Related: IE 7 reviews mixed: good, not great

Eye candy: Featured Pictures in Wikipedia

This page highlights images that we find beautiful, shocking, impressive, and/or informative. ...

Thumbnails lead the way.

Neighbors peer over the fence: From the Hartford Courant, High Stakes In Rhode Island Chafee-Whitehouse Race Will Help Decide Which Party Controls U.S. Senate.

Cheering at the wrong times? If you were surprised to hear cheers on TV yesterday when scores and calls went the Patriots' way in Buffalo, you haven't tried to get tickets for a home game at Gillette lately. You can get tickets to Buffalo games, and many Pats fans were there yesterday. Buffalo News grumbled about how their hotel reservations displaced National Grid workers cleaning up after the recent snowstorm.

Buffalo Bills quarterback J.P. Losman
fumbles the football at the snap during the first
half of yesterday's home game against the Patriots.

Post-mortems at Buffalo News, after the Bills lose 28-6 to the Pats:

SMACKDOWN After another beating, theme is, 'That smarts':

"We were moving the ball, and we kept shooting ourselves in the foot, which has been the story the whole year," Bills quarterbacks coach Turk Schonert said. "As soon as we find a way to quit beating the Bills, then we can start competing against the other team."

COMMENTARY Bad day leaves onlookers uncomfortably numb:

They're boring. Unwatchable. I'd call them a train wreck, but a train wreck has a way of commanding your attention. These Bills have become a perfect excuse to shut off the TV and spend your Sunday afternoon hauling broken trees out to the curb.

Never satisfied, Patriots aim higher

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments 2

October 22, 2006

Pats vs. Buffalo Bills: W; HotSoup: MySpace for political junkies; Rocker Hall leading in NY race; High-rez cat tongue; Best free software

Originally posted at 5:20 a.m., updated later: Pats, 28-6. Sloppy, but the Bills were sloppier. Pats always play for the W.

Pats vs. Buffalo Bills: 1 p.m. on CBS. Pats are a tough team, just like always. I switched from Buffalo News reports to the Rochester Democrat, looking for a little more faith, hope or enthusiasm about the Bills. Best I could do was that tepid headline.

Later: Pats, 28-6. Sloppy, but the Bills were sloppier. Pats always play for the W.

Good and gone: We slow-cookedPork Stew with Apples and Turnips in Cider (link fixed) yesterday, using a family pack of pork chops, and figured we'd made enough for last night and today's game. Wrong. It was so good that three of us went back for seconds, two of us for thirds, and it's nearly gone. Oops. The aroma that filled the house all day was a bonus.

MySpace for participatory democracy: HotSoup is a bipartisan social-networking site founded by Bush strategists Mark McKinnon and Matt Dowd and Democratic strategists Joe Lockhart and Carter Eskew. Bill Clinton is there. So are Mary Matalan, Lance Armstrong, rocker Jon Bon Jovi and Bush aide Karen Hughes. You can join too.

Still the One: Long-shot Democrat John Hall of the band Orleans, (not of Hall and Oates), is now leading in polls by 49 to 40 percent in his attempt to topple incumbent (since 1995) Republican Rep. Sue Kelly in the formerly solidly GOP southern New York 19th District.

It probably didn't help Kelly that she was at one time chairman of the board overseeing the Congressional page program.

There's meltdown video of both candidates meeting with the editorial board of the Middletown Times Herald-Record, which today, perhaps unsurprisingly, endorsed Hall: For Congress: Hall over Kelly: The 19th District needs a new set of eyes, one that can see if the emperor is naked.

The New York Times also endorses Hall today, "enthusiastically."

Organic Velcro? Cat's tongue (detail). Click to see the entire photo. ("Forbidden" now -- see below)

Updated, 4:47 p.m. The attention to this cat's tongue seems to have overwhelmed the photographer's bandwidth allotment. You can see the photo, with viewers' comments, as part of the photographer's work at Flickr -- here's the high-rez version of this photo there.

The photographer, figuromo of shisso.org writes, "This image has recently won the first prize in the Animal/Nature category of the Digital Camera Magazine Photographer of The Year competition."

There, we learn that the photographer is an Australian, Billy CP Law.

poty2006.dcmag.co.uk/CategoryWinner.aspx?category_id=413">
His Flickr site has more photos of that white and pink cat.

Lesson in what? Be loyal, kind and don't steal Movies:

Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area will now be able to earn a merit patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies and music.

The patch shows a film reel, a music CD and the international copyright symbol, a "C" enclosed in a circle.

The movie industry has developed the curriculum.

Since when is it okay to use children to promote the music industry's failing business model? Is there a Critical Thinking patch as well?

Software alternatives: Geek to Live: Top 10 open source Windows apps

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:47 PM | Permalink

October 21, 2006

Sneakernet journalism; Last WaterFire tonight

Sneakernet journalism: A mysterious and bizarre internal systems glitch yesterday caused the projo.com staff to be unable to see our homepage or reach our blog server. They could not access the 7 to 7 News Blog from the newsroom, couldn't even see the blog on the Web, and couldn't see if its headlines had updated on the homepage even if they had been able to publish.

I work a bit later shift, and was still home at 11 a.m. when the call came asking what I could see. I could see everything, and had just updated this blog. The headline wasn't updating on the projo homepage, though. The timestamp of the new post published as text, no headline, no link.

I volunteered to stay home and take emails from reporters and editors. I would publish The Providence Journal's breaking news on the Web by myself all day from our home den, barefoot. I would email headlines, permalinks and timestamps back to the newsroom to be manually posted on the homepage. No one inside the Journal could see any of it.

I was too busy to take a live screenshot, but I found a tiny one at Alexa of an earlier day showing how this 7 to 7 News blog leads the homepage on weekdays.

Emails and comments from readers also came to me, as the author of every post. A reader whispered that one item had transferred a superior court judge to the federal bench. In the mailstorm, I'd whizzed past that error. This anonymous citizen wanted the news to be accurate, and was watching my back. (As journalist-blogger Dan Gillmor says, "My readers know more than I do.")

At dusk, the news editor asked me to write a couple of weekend preview posts, on Brown University's Parents Weekend and an advance on tonight's WaterFire. Since it's the last "fire sculpture" of the season, you may find it news to use. Here's the crosspost...

Season's last WaterFire tonight

Journal files
People line South Water Street in Providence during an earlier WaterFire.

Here's how Lifebeat Weekend put it yesterday:

The final WaterFire of this season takes place Saturday, with the full lighting of the bonfires on the river beginning at sunset, which is at 5:56 p.m., creeping before 6 p.m. this time, marking the earlier nightfalls of fall and winter.

WaterFire is urban conceptual art, braziers fed wood by people in boats at night on three rivers. It's the brainchild of Providence artist Barnaby Evans, each "fire sculpture," as Evans calls it, sponsored by a different local group or business. They have been a regular part of Providence's mild Saturday nights since 1997. (Sometimes on a Friday, or midweek too.)

WaterFire is outdoors, and it is free.

If you've never seen it, head downtown to catch the "classic" version -- recorded music (usually classical in some culture) and fires on the river; walk over bridges, around the rivers, see street art, shadows, flickering lights, reflections, relax.

Nobody knows what it is, but it works.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 12:10 PM | Permalink

October 20, 2006

Mp3s: Clapton, '74, '90; Pats clips on YouTube; Bills preview; Football food; Artists make 'cars'

Almost-the-weekend links:

ROIOs of the Week: BigO Singapore offers Eric Clapton Live at Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, New Jersey, July 7, 1974

Eric Clapton Orchestra Night [Mid-Valley, 2CD], Live at The Royal Albert Hall, London, UK; Feb 10, 1990.

Blondie, Late set at Old Waldorf, San Franciso, September 21, 1977

Pats are back: After a thumb-twiddling bye week, the Patriots face storm-struck Buffalo Sunday at 1 p.m. on CBS.

Patriots video clips on YouTube.

Buffalo news telegraphs a planned sack attack, but they don't sound exactly pumped up (Patriots getting up to speed):

Chances are Brady and the receivers will get on the same page and New England will keep winning. A victory Sunday and everyone in the AFC East will have to play catch-up. Again.

Football food: Low-fat chicken cacciatore: The Akron Beacon Journal takes a reader's favorite recipe and reduces it from 764 calories and 53 grams of fat to 265 calories and 5 gram of fat per serving.

White Chicken Chili at the Biloxi (Miss.) Sun-Herald looks light, too. To make it quick, they use canned chicken with their cheese, beans and salsa, but I'd rather pick apart a store-bought rotisserie bird.

Roast Spiced Pumpkin and Duck Linguine at Detroit News has only 16 grams of carbs, since it's made with Dream Fields pasta. If duck breasts aren't a staple at your grocery, use chicken breasts.

Pork Stew with Apples and Turnips in Cider at the Cincinnati Post sounds like fall in a crockpot.

Easy: From Small bites, big tastes at sfgate, one of several easy appetizers there.

Red Pepper Roll-ups with Herbed Goat Cheese & Basil

3 whole jarred roasted red peppers, cut in half (see Note)

3 ounces herbed goat cheese

2 teaspoons heavy cream

1/4 bunch basil, cut into chiffonade

Rinse peppers and lay out to dry on paper towels.

Mix goat cheese with cream to a spreadable consistency. With the long side of the pepper facing you, spread 1/6 of the cheese on top. Sprinkle evenly with 1/6 of the basil and roll tightly away from you. Cut into two or three 1-inch pieces, depending on length of pepper, and secure with a toothpick. Repeat with remaining ingredients.

Makes 14-16 rolls

Note: Depending on the brand of roasted peppers, they may not come whole. In this case, pick out the pieces that most resemble half of a pepper.

PER ROLL: 25 calories, 1 g protein, 1 g carbohydrate, 1 g fat (1 g saturated), 3 mg cholesterol, 97 mg sodium, 0 fiber.

Misc.: Make your own cheese. Or ginger ale. Or whole wheat bread. Ohio biology professor David Fankhauser makes a lot of things, but mostly cheese. Even Swiss.

Artists Are Making Cars of unconventional materials.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

October 19, 2006

Reports and video: Conn. 5-way Senatorial debate; Habeas corpus: Cornerstone of democracy crumbles; Iraqi blogger 'Riverbend' surfaces

The five U.S. Senate hopefuls in Connecticut take part in a 5-way debate in Hartford, Conn., Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2006. From left are : Concerned Citizens Party candidate Timothy Knibbs; Green Party Candidate Ralph Ferrucci; Incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who is running as an independent; Republican Alan Schlesinger; Democratic party-endorsed candidate Ned Lamont. (AP Photo/Bob Child, Pool)

5-way Senatorial debate in Connecticut:
Hartford Courant: "After a news blackout of 27 hours, WFSB plans to show the canned one-hour event Thursday at 7 p.m."
Updated: I can't find permalinks, but the two-part debate is here, for now at least.

The debate has been "liberated," however, and can be seen in six parts here at YouTube. And here's audio, courtesy of ConnecticutBLOG.

Connecticut Senatorial candidates

Alan Schlesinger Republican

Joseph I. Lieberman Connecticut for Lieberman

Ned Lamont Democrat

Ralph A. Ferrucci Green Party

Timothy A. Knibbs Concerned Citizens Party Of Connecticut

If the image above of five politicians vying for the last word already makes you giggle, the reports are even stranger.

The New York Times (Lieberman’s Iraq Stance Draws Fire in Debate) captures some of the flavor:

“We cannot and will not stay in Iraq forever,” he (Sen. Joe Lieberman) said. “My commitment to Iraq is not indefinite or unconditional. We need to stay there as long as there is a reasonable prospect with our help of building a free and independent Iraq, which will be a whole different path in the Arab world.” As he went on, Mr. Lieberman was cut short after his time ran out and Mr. Schlesinger (Republican candidate Alan Schlesinger) responded sharply:

“You see this is what happens when you spend six years running for president and vice president of the United States, you begin to believe you are actually in the executive branch of the government.”

When Mr. Lieberman repeated his recent call to replace Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Mr. Knibbs (Timothy Knibbs, the Concerned Citizens Party candidate) took a jab, suggesting it was because the senator had been on the “short list” to replace him.

But liberal blogger Matt Stoller, writing Debate Train to Crazy Town at Huffington Post (mirrored at Yahoo News), captures the truly surreal moments here in living color -- with video.

He begins,

You know you're in an incredible political environment when you're at an event where egomaniac Ralph Nader is wandering around, and not only is no one paying attention to him, but Ralph Nader himself doesn't even expect anyone to pay attention to him. That was the scene earlier today in Hartford, CT, where five candidates went at each other, or mostly at Joe Lieberman, for the Senate nomination in a debate. I wasn't feeling so good about this race a few weeks ago; it had stagnated, and the polling reflected that and will still reflect that for a week or so. Today, I think there was a decisive shift both in the dynamic of the race and in the tone of the political environment.

It's not that Lamont has overperformed, or that Joe has melted down, it's that Connecticut Election 2006 has gone off the deep end. It's not your normal white picket fence suburban election, with attack ad facing attack ad. No, this is more like a white picket fence election that suddenly gets bored with life and decides to live in the forest, take a bunch of LSD, trout-fish naked, and taunt a bear cub before ending its life suddenly and with total and inexplicable resolution on November 7. Well not really, but there's no analogy that I can think of summarizing what's going on. What has happened is that Joe Lieberman competed in a Democratic primary, lost, and is now competing in a Republican primary, and is losing again. Meanwhile, Lamont is finally picking up renewed steam and getting back on track as a candidate. There's energy here, real energy. ...

Connecticut has choices.

Habeas corpus suspended:

"...it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration.... freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected..." -- Thomas Jefferson: First Inaugural Address

New York Times editorial (A Dangerous New Order):

Once President Bush signed the new law on military tribunals, administration officials and Republican leaders in Congress wasted no time giving Americans a taste of the new order created by this unconstitutional act.

Within hours, Justice Department lawyers notified the federal courts that they no longer had the authority to hear pending lawsuits filed by attorneys on behalf of inmates of the penal camp at Guantánamo Bay. They cited passages in the bill that suspend the fundamental principle of habeas corpus, making Mr. Bush the first president since the Civil War to take that undemocratic step....

Denver Post editorial: Detainee bill a step backwards:

The legislation signed by President Bush providing for trial of suspected terrorists by special military tribunals should be challenged in court, and the sooner the better.

Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 law in a fit of pre-election cowardice, three months after the U.S. Supreme Court found that the administration was violating protections in U.S. and international law. The new law gives the president broad powers to "interpret the meaning and application" of international standards for prisoner treatment.

That's bad enough, but the new law also allows the indefinite detention of scores of detainees. It allows hearsay evidence during trial and prohibits detainees from having their cases reviewed in a U.S. court, a fundamental protection of U.S. law.

Keith Olbermann, MSNBC: 'Beginning of the end of America': Olbermann addresses the Military Commissions Act in a special comment. Transcript and video at MSNBC (one page transcript) . Mirrored, with other video choices, at Crook and Liars.

...And if you somehow think Habeas Corpus has not been suspended for American citizens but only for everybody else, ask yourself this: If you are pulled off the street tomorrow, and they call you an alien or an undocumented immigrant or an "unlawful enemy combatant" — exactly how are you going to convince them to give you a court hearing to prove you are not? Do you think this Attorney General is going to help you?...

Yes, anyone can not be "disappeared" at the pleasure of the President. This abrogation of the most basic right to challenge the legality of your detention is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court must overturn it.

How did America come to this point, where we watch a most basic human freedom be dismantled by something innocuously called a Military Commissions Act? The terrorists did not do this to us. Our own President has done this, with the acquiescence of a Congress that does not challenge him:

Senate Approves Detainee Bill Backed by Bush -- (The Senate vote)
House Approves Bill on Detainees -- (The House vote)

Americans have a chance to change this Congress at the polls Nov. 7.

Riverbend returns. The pseudonymous female blogger in Iraq (Baghdad Burning) makes her first post since Aug. 5:

The Lancet Study... This has been the longest time I have been away from blogging. There were several reasons for my disappearance the major one being the fact that every time I felt the urge to write about Iraq, about the situation, I'd be filled with a certain hopelessness that can't be put into words and that I suspect other Iraqis feel also.

It's very difficult at this point to connect to the internet and try to read the articles written by so-called specialists and analysts and politicians. They write about and discuss Iraq as I might write about the Ivory Coast or Cambodia- with a detachment and lack of sentiment that- I suppose- is meant to be impartial. Hearing American politicians is even worse. They fall between idiots like Bush- constantly and totally in denial, and opportunists who want to use the war and ensuing chaos to promote themselves. ...

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

October 18, 2006

Second Life travel guide; Rear windshield art; 'GooTube' changes; What's free at AllOfMp3; Polling from India; Fish oil pacifies?

Wired Travel Guide: Second Life: The virtual world into which many former bloggers have slipped gets the travel-writer treatment:

Getting There

Make your way to Secondlife.com and download the required software for free. No passport necessary, but you do need a credit card or PayPal account if you want to buy local currency. Your stay begins on Orientation Island, a secluded area designed to familiarize you with the interface. Then you can beam down to Help Island to let volunteer mentors assist you, or you can proceed straight to the bustling Welcome Area [above]. As with any port, this place is crowded with cheerful, often eccentric locals eager to tell you about their home. But beware of hucksters looking to separate you from your Linden dollars or entice you into the red-light districts.

Second Life is one tech trend I've skipped. It reminds me of The Matrix -- while you're sitting in your chair, your life is just a movie in your head. Meanwhile, bills pile up, dishes go unwashed, and your years slip away -- real life unlived.

Its best use would be to get you through a prison term.

Why stop at "For Sale?" A drought in Central Texas gave Scott Wade lots of dusty rear windshields to work with, and time to appreciate his creations. Scott Wade's Dirty Car Art Gallery gives new meaning to "ephemeral art."

The Good News About 'GooTube'. At Wired,

This time around, the labels are starting to cooperate with GooTube one by one, seemingly allowing content to go un-DRMed on the site as long as they get a piece of the action, and some control over what gets posted on the site. YouTube has pulled infringing videos on a piecemeal basis, but no one has delivered a massive list of infringing files to YouTube or Google, the way Lars Ulrich did to Napster.

This could be because one of YouTube's many cultural byproducts has been to act as a Noah's Ark for analog content. Videos from the analog era that have made it onto YouTube have been granted passage into the digital age without the actual copyright owners having to spend any money digitizing it, and content owners, online distributors and users seem to agree that that's a good thing.

What's more, these deals allow people to create their own music videos to upload to YouTube using copyright sound recordings. This amounts to the labels giving GooTube users somewhat of a blanket license to create derivative works out of their music videos.

Allofmp3 is giving away entire catalogue at P2P Blog:

There was a tiny little detail the folks from Mediaservices forgot to mention during their press conference yesterday. What's that, you ask? Well, only that Allofmp3.com is starting to offer their entire catalogue for free.

Allofmp3 started a new offering called "Music for Masses", which according to the International Herald Tribune will be officially introduced today. Music for masses gives registered Allofmp3 users the chance to download 128 kbps encoded MP3s files. The files are coming with the extension ".mp3x" and are using some special wrapper or custom header so they can only be played with the official Music for Masses player.

Treasure trove: Folkstreams -- A National Preserve of Documentary Films about American Roots Cultures.

Leading the page, Alan Lomax's The Land Where the Blues Began. More Lomax from Cajun Country, New Orleans, Appalachia. Pete and Toshi Seeger's Singing Fisherman of Ghana.

Thanks to Liz Donovan for the pointer.

Outsourced polling: We got a survey call last night from Delphi Research in Bangalore, India. The din of a big, busy room could be heard as the caller struggled through questions about referenda and -- mostly -- the casino.

We took pity on him and told him how to pronounce candidates' names. (No, it's not fo-GAR-ty.)

Oddly, the survey ended with the question, "Now that you've learned more about the casino, have you changed your mind?" We hadn't learned more, we just answered his questions. He learned more than we did!

Fish oil pacifier? Omega-3, junk food and the link between violence and what we eat, in the Guardian (U.K.):

The researchers at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, which is part of NIH, had placed adverts for aggressive alcoholics in the Washington Post in 2001. Some 80 volunteers came forward and have since been enrolled in the double blind study. They have ranged from homeless people to a teacher to a former secret service agent. Following a period of three weeks' detoxification on a locked ward, half were randomly assigned to 2 grams per day of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA for three months, and half to placebos of fish-flavoured corn oil.

An earlier pilot study on 30 patients with violent records found that those given omega-3 supplements had their anger reduced by one-third, measured by standard scales of hostility and irritability, regardless of whether they were relapsing and drinking again.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 8:21 AM | Permalink

October 17, 2006

Halloween links: Sounds, patterns, stories, ghost photos, gross food, dogs, cats, effects

Halloween radio: Stream it online, play tracks at 13thtrack.com.

Forbidden Crypts Of Haunted Music! Albums from the past -- including the Addams Family and Munsters.

Reggae Halloween? Distinctly Jamaican Sounds is doing Halloween mixes. Yesterday's, Number 12, is Yellowman Versus The Evil Barnabas Collins

The Pumpkin Lady - Pumpkin Carving and Free Pumpkin Patterns Patterns. Simple printable patterns to carve. Six added each week till Halloween.

Black cat o'lanterns. Candles light up the eyes of Halloween cats made from stacked pumpkins painted black.

Walt's Pumpkin Carving Secrets include

For a real quick pumpkin carve, find a pumpkin that has a long stem.

Put the pumpkin on its side, and see where it settles. Stare at the pumpkin, pretending the stem is a nose. The creases around the stem add character to the pumpkin as if it is squinting.

Carve a mouth and eyes. Removing the skin and partially cutting exposes the pumpkin meat, allowing for teeth and whites of eyes. Beans and colored hat pins can be used for pupils.

This could be interesting -- although I haven't seen a hatpin for decades.

Horror Stories: A new classic horror story every night

Ghost Photographs.

Gross Anatomy: Extra disgusting food for Halloween from ReadyMade blog.

30 Ways to Eat a Pumpkin. Not gross at all.

Halloween Dogs: Those costumed pooches. And cats.

Geek effects: Doorbell-activated sound track; create an instant dark and stormy night at your house on Halloween with this photoflash strobe project; circuit slowly illuminates and fades a pair of red LEDs.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:28 AM | Permalink

October 16, 2006

Hawaii earthquake reports; Lamont supporter mirrors Lieberman blog; Conn. Senate debate, 1 p.m. today, C-Span

Updated 9:30 a.m. with some links to Hawaii bloggers' reports.

Smaller Big Island

KonaBoy posted three four photos at Flickr (He added last night's cinematic sunset"over the new and improved Kealakekua Bay.") :

This was taken this morning a few minutes after the big earthquake that rocked Hawaii. As you can see a large chunk of the pali at Kealakekua Bay gave way, and splashed down in the bay, sending up a huge dust cloud.

We shook very violently here, and our local hospital is damaged, the highway has boulders all over it, and our power was just restored. Everyone I know here is ok and I feel very lucky for that, although we sustained some minor property damage. My thoughts are with all of Hawaii, and I'm hoping no one was injured or killed.

Expect more photos to show up at Flickr under the Hawaii earthquake tag.

The Honolulu Advertiser site is up, and all over it. Readers with power respond to, Did you feel the quake? Tell us about it

KITV, The Hawaii Channel is streaming live.

When the power returns, blogs on the Big Island will, too.
Updated now:

Hawaii Metroblogging: Decent shake:

You folks outside of Hawai'i probably know more about today that we do.

We lucked out. This apparently was caused by a submerged landslide rather that being associated with any magma movement. Geologist know that there have been landslides in Hawai'i, circa 100,000 years ago, that generated a tsunami over 1,000 feet (305 meters) high. This will eventually happen again. When it does, ever city on the Pacific Rim will disappear from the face of the earth.

Ian Lind points to a photo gallery at West Hawaii today.
Geek News Central: Hawaii Earthquake a 6.6 with Sprint Ev-Do to the rescue!
Hawaiian Independence Blog: Earthquakes
Almost Paradise: Earthquake!

The gist: Whole lotta shakin', shaken people and frightened cats, no power, little damage. No fatalities or major injuries is good news after a 6.6 quake.

Intramural politics in Connecticut: One of the customs of blogging involves posting a portion of someone else's writing for readers to see and comment on.

Some blogs and -- especially -- news stories are closed to reader questions, comments and (uh-oh) "What I know about this that you might not know." If the source doesn't hand you the mike, the theory goes, port the posts to another site, turn on that blog's comments tool, and open the discussion.

In theory, this should work. News organizations may welcome feedback, but clunky publishing systems don't come with that capacity; there's not enough staff to monitor every story's comments for libel; flushing comment spam is a waste of time. Some controversial blog authors get heckled to death by snark and don't want to deal with it, but want their posts distributed widely and even discussed, but not in their faces.

So these satellite publishers credit and spread the original source; the reader gets to comment directly under the story, and many of the awkward issues above sort of go away. Maybe the one-way authors peek in to see what's said about them and their work in comments. Maybe not.

Do-it-yourself, open-to-the-public distribution is a brilliant meme. In spite of itself, sometimes.

Dan Gerstein, communications director for Conn. Sen. Joe Lieberman's independent campaign, turned off comments on the Lieberman site's Blog of Joe six days after it began on Sept. 5. because of "ugly, insulting and hateful comments that some Lamont supporters have been posting by the hundreds."

Last Tuesday, Bob Adams of Milford (Connecticut Bob), a supporter of Democratic nominee Ned Lamont, launched a blog called Joe's 2006 Blog WITH Commenting Turned Onthat mirrors (copies) every post from Joe Lieberman's official blog in its entirety and lets readers comment on them.

As you might expect, both sides are now sparring in those comments.

So it's sort of a win-win: Lamont supporters get to desconstruct Lieberman blog posts and the Lieberman posts get new readers. The jostling continues for all in the unruly commons, out of sight and off Joe's site. Is everybody cool with that?

A footnote: In Gerstein's post explaining his shutdown of comments, he notes,

Also, much to our consternation, a leading Connecticut newspaper printed one of the fake comments that someone posted under my name and attributed the quote directly to me.

Oof. Anonymous commenting has local customs: Be Anonymous Coward, Annie Moore Kwestions or pretend to be someone who wouldn't say what you're typing. All's fair. Sure you can quote a comment -- but doubt the moniker. Hedge it. (A commenter signing a post "Benjamin Franklin" wrote, "...") Consider them all signed by Ben.

Over at the official Ned Lamont blog -- which does allow comments -- there's mention of today's 1 p.m. debate with incumbent Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Democratic nominee Ned Lamont and Republican challenger Alan Schlesinger in Stamford,

To the best of my knowledge, there will be a live, online video stream available...

Update: Connecticut Bob reports, "NBC30 will carry the debate LIVE at 1:00 with streaming video (link), and will broadcast it at 7:00PM tonight."

C-Span shows the debate on its schedule. Here's the "Watch live" page.

Related: Connecticut Bob's first-person-with-camera coverage of the state's Democratic primary day is also worth a look. He's archived the day's posts in chronological order, as it unfolded.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

October 15, 2006

Freddy Fender; iPod alternatives; Talking Heads '78; Politically 'blue' mutual fund; Peer-to-peer lending; Lieberman's limbo

Freddy Fender - Wasted Days and Wasted Nights


Freddy Fender died yesterday at 69 in Corpus Christi, Texas. The McAllen (Texas) Monitor has a special section to honor the passing of the man whose 1960 Wasted Days and Wasted Nights blasted out of many a barroom jukebox, and thrilled teeny-bop rockers who just liked his sound.

From Fender's legacy lives on,

No matter how far music took Fender from the Rio Grande Valley, he always remembered who he was — Baldemar Huerta — and where he came from — the San Benito barrio of El Jardin.

San Benito never forgot Fender. The city named his old street after him. Last year, the city honored him by painting his likeness on a water tower along Expressway 77/83.

El Jardin is a small neighborhood, a triangle of homes bordered by a resaca on one side and Stenger Street and Business 77 on the others.

For Fender, the music started here June 4, 1937, and he rode the ribbon of notes around the world....

In 1959, he signed with Imperial Records, the label of "Fats" Domino. El Bebop Kid became Freddy Fender, named after his favorite brand of guitar and amplifier.

One night he sat at the bar of the Starlight Lounge in Harlingen and wrote a song, "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights."

"I was separated from my wife at the time," Fender said. "A lot of people think I wrote it about prison. It’s about days very wrongly invested in a love affair. You see, I’m a romantic and we romantics are more sensitive to the way people feel. We love more and we hurt more. And when we’re hurt, we hurt for a long time."

Alt-iPods: iPod Killers for Christmas 2006 at MP3 Newswire runs down the iPod alternatives. Patience is required to avoid dizziness in the face of so much choice.

(One, the Naf Naf Hyp, at right, even plays cassettes as well as CDs, includes an AM/FM radio and an alarm clock and a handle. Since it's 10 inches across and looks like a beer keg, "the Hyp seems designed for the side table next to the bed.")

More Talking Heads mp3s: Yesterday's 1977 live show was so nice, here's Talking Heads at The Boarding House, San Francisco, CA - September 16, 1978. Find 'em at the lovely and talented Jefitoblog.

The Blue Fund: Blue Is Green: At Slate,

On the campaign trail, Democrats are loudly claiming that they can outperform Republicans in Washington when it comes to policy. Now they're making the same claim about mutual-fund investing.

As Moneybox reported in May, the Free Enterprise Action Fund, a tiny mutual fund run by lobbyists, uses stock ownership to push policies associated with the Republican Party. Through the first nine months of this year, it was up 5.59 percent, lagging the 8.53-percent gain for the Standard & Poor's 500. Starting next week, The Blue Fund will try to demonstrate that Democratic principles aren't simply better for the country—they're better for investors.

The Blue Fund aims to funnel capital to companies that it believes have policies and worldviews that jibe with the Democratic Party. While there are plenty of socially responsible mutual funds that screen stocks for decent environmental and labor practices, "there was no fund available for someone who cared about the political aspects of corporate behavior as well," said Blue Fund co-founder and president Daniel Adamson, a former McKinsey consultant who has also worked in private equity. So, the Blue Fund is also monitoring political contributions to ensure firms really lean Democrat.

The "Blue Companies" in their portfolio.

Peer-to-peer lending: . Bypassing banks. Social networking for dollars. Zopa matches up borrowers and lenders in a peer-to-peer online lending service.

Interesting...: Joe Lieberman In No Man's Land. Hartford Courant:

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, a lifelong Democrat and student of politics, blanked when asked if America would be better off with his party regaining control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

A Democratic victory would immeasurably boost the influence of two Connecticut friends, U.S. Reps. Rosa L. DeLauro and John B. Larson, and provide a counterbalance to the Republican Senate and White House.

"Uh, I haven't thought about that enough to give an answer," Lieberman said, as though Democrats' strong prospects for recapturing the House hadn't been the fall's top political story....

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 7:53 AM | Permalink

October 14, 2006

Lynndie England prison interview; Free mp3s: '77 Talking Heads, Bill Evans' last gig; Winter clothes emerge

A Soldier's Tale. Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at The American Prospect, interviews Abu Ghraib poster child Lynndie England in prison, accompanied by England's mother, sister, 2-year-old son and attorney. England's words are guarded, on her attorney's advice, so there's nothing you didn't already know in this long-form piece at women's mag Marie Clare. Still, it's a sad, familiar tale, a dirtscrabble country song.

"In situations like Iraq, the first thing some young female soldiers look for is a protector — a senior male, let's say, who's sitting in a vehicle with her," says (England's onetime Abu Ghraib commander, former Brig. Gen., now Col. Janis) Karpinski. "She says, 'I'm really afraid.' And he says, 'Don't worry.' A closeness develops. It's intentional on his part. And naive on hers. (Pvt. Charles) Graner is a big, hunky guy. He can probably put his arms around England and still touch his shoulders. Does she feel safe with him? Yes. And all she has to do is be sexually wild with him."

And pose for more pictures....

At Abu Ghraib,

...Graner put the strap around his neck, led him out of the cell, and handed the strap to England. Then he took a picture — and sent the jpeg to his family in Pennsylvania.

"Look what I made Lynndie do," Graner wrote in the email.

England is serving 36 months at the Naval Consolidated Brig Miramar in San Diego. Charles A. Graner Jr. was sentenced to 10 years in a military stockade at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Weekend mp3s: Talking Heads Jabberwocky, Syracuse, Live on January 26, 1977., and Bill Evans Trio, Last Note -- jazz pianist Evans's final performance, live on September 10, 1980 at Fat Tuesday's in New York. He died five days later.

They're ROIO of the Week [Recordings of Indeterminate Origin] at BigO, Singapore.

Later: Talking Heads' MySpace Music site, with signature tunes, locates them in Providence.

"Guitarist/vocalist David Byrne, drummer Chris Frantz, and bassist Tina Weymouth met at the Rhode Island School of Design in the early '70s. they decided to move to New York in 1974 to concentrate on making music. The next year, the band won a spot opening for the Ramones at the seminal New York punk club CBGB."

Perfect to listen to during today's nonstop laundry marathon...

The changing of the clothes: The temperature dipped into the 30s last night, and I can't put off the rites of autumn any longer. The cottons need to be stored under the bed where the velours, corduroy and woolens spent the summer.

I live in a very old house with small rooms, apparently built before people wore clothes, since there's just one closet in the whole place. Its shelves step up the curved back of a fireplace chimney, a natural cat terrace if the door is left ajar. Later residents seem to have discovered wool and feared moths -- they planted a cedar tree near this closet.

So this useful advice from perfect people with abundant storage and closet room for rows of fat hangers is oddly fascinating: Summer-to-Fall Closet Rotation.

I've never had such detailed thoughts about clothing storage. I get stuck at "Where?"

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 9:06 AM | Permalink

October 13, 2006

Sweden to put little red cottage on moon; Corey Lidle: '...come up with me'; Steve Martin interviews cartoonist Roz Chast; Chocolate peanut butter cheesecake

Sweden plans to put little red cottage on the moon:

Not content with having them dotted all over the countryside, Sweden is now considering putting a little red cottage on the moon.

The idea, first conjured up by the artist Mikael Genberg seven years ago, may become reality with the help of the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), according to N24.

The state agency SSC has carried out a technical study showing that it is indeed possible to put a little red cottage on the moon.

"If we manage to do this Sweden will be the third country to occupy the moon", said SSC's Fredrik von Schéele.

A competition has been arranged for students to construct a little red house that is suitably sized for placement by a moon landing device. The construction may not exceed eight square metres and can weigh a maximum of four kilos.

Inflatable, that is, as Four Corners makes clear (The future is near: First house on the Moon):

Inflatable shell

By tradition cottages in Sweden are built of wood but the moon cottage will be constructed of a very light weight material and be both collapsible and inflatable.

'The cottage is really a machine designed for landing on the moon. The moon-landing-machine will fly "as usual" to the moon and during the journey different scientific experiments will be carried out. Thereafter the machine lands on the moon and is covered by an inflatable shell which will make it look like a detailed house', says Fredrik Bruhn from The Ångström Space Technology Centre (ÅSTC), one of the organisations involved.

The inflatable house will be made from a material that hardens under the influence of ultraviolet light, which comes directly from the sun. 'When our spherical robots roll around the house and film the moon landing machine will actually be inside the house but won't be visible', says Fredrik Bruhn.
click here to see bigger picture of spherical robot

Fredrik Bruhn also explains that apart from being a very interesting challenge for (ÅSTC) to develop the inflatable house, the project is also a unique opportunity for them to show off their spherical robot .

So even though this is an art project in Mikael Genberg's mind it is also a big challenge for scientists...

This is a grand idea. Homey human architecture on the moon. When aliens land, they'll see evidence that humans bridged the gulf, and offer shelter to others. When we look at the moon, we'll know this house is there. Boggling.

Playing for keeps: As weird goes, that cottage is so much funkier than a Yankee pitcher dying when his plane crashes into a Manhattan building. You can't make this stuff up.

Recalling a now eerie conversation by Alan Schwarz, a column at ESPN:

About three weeks ago, I was talking with Cory Lidle about his newest hobby, flying. My tape recorder was off. Cory and I chatted about a lot of things over the years. Playing poker. Shooting pool. His newest cell phone. We even occasionally talked about baseball. But not that often. Similar ages, similar hobbies; whenever we ran into each other in Oakland or Philly or now in New York, we'd jabber about anything but work. On this afternoon, in the Yankees clubhouse, we started talking about his new Cirrus SR20.

"You want to go up with me?" he asked.

I was a little flummoxed at the offer but intrigued enough to see if he was serious. He was.

"Where do you live?" he asked me, knowing I lived in Manhattan.

"Upper East Side," I said. "90th and Third."

"Dude" -- Cory was from Southern California -- "you should really come up with me. We can fly right past your apartment building. You've never seen Manhattan 'til you've flown right up the East River. It's beautiful. We can do it one day before a game..."

Video from The New Yorker: Steve Martin interviews longtime cartoonist Roz Chast, at right, -- who attended RISD once upon a time.

I'm so down: Cox Cable can send me marketing emails, why can't they notify me of a planned data outage from midnight to 5 a.m.? Just as I was about to push the button on this post a few minutes before midnight, I'm offline.

All the phone lines were busy at the help desk. When I finally reached a human -- in Ohio -- she said a lot of people were down, and were asking her why Cox couldn't have sent an email last night that this was coming so they could have planned for it.

Cheery commercials don't make up for being kept in the dark about an outage they had scheduled.

I couldn't save this post to my Web-based blog software, so I copied it to a textfile and tried to read, waiting for the Web to come back up.

I need a backup Net connection.

Detached football Sunday: The Pats have a bye week, so we get to gather and palaver, without the tension.

Your choices:
Sunday, 1 P.M.

New York Giants at Atlanta Falcons, Fox
Houston Texans at Dallas Cowboys, CBS

4 p.m.

Miami Dolphins at New York Jets, CBS

8 P.M.

Oakland Raiders at Denver Broncos, NBC

Forget the name: Buckeye cheesecake is game-day dessert. The Cincinnati Post garnishes this with candies the resemble "the glossy, dark-brown buckeyes that fall from buckeye trees in the Buckeye State," but doesn't tell how to make them.

It also took me a while to figure out why this recipe is part of a cheesecake brochure available at the Ohio Poultry Association, (It calls for four OHIO eggs.) Just look at the photo, read the ingredients, and preheat the oven.

Buckeye Cheesecake

1 (8x8-inch pan size) package brownie mix
3 (8-oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
1 (14-oz.) can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1 (10-oz.) package peanut butter chips, melted
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter-flavored shortening (or butter!)
Yield: 10 to 12 servings

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions. Spoon batter in a greased 9-inch springform pan. Bake 20 minutes. Cool. Reduce oven temperature to 325.

In large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in the sweetened condensed milk. Mix in the melted peanut butter chips, eggs and vanilla. Pour filling over baked brownie. Place pan in a larger baking pan with 1-inch hot water . Bake at 325 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes or until center is almost set. Turn oven off; remove baking pan with water. Let cheesecake cool in oven 30 minutes. Remove cheesecake from oven; chill 1 hour. Remove side from pan. Melt chocolate chips with shortening; stir smooth. Spread this glaze over top and sides of cheesecake. Chill 3 hours. Garnish with buckeyes.

Okay, here are some "buckeye" recipes. this one sounds good to me, but it includes graham crackers, so it's not traditional. The classics seem to break down into "with flour" and "without flour."

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments 5

October 11, 2006

Twisted Sister: The Christmas album; ProvGeeks meet tonight; Women's health blog

A Twisted Christmas is Twisted Sister's metal versions of holiday classics -- "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" and all that. Due Oct. 17, you can preview some of the tunes at the MySpace site of the band that officially broke up in 1987. (See, MySpace isn't just for kids!)

I heard the tune yesterday on the radio, making this the earliest in the fall I've ever heard a Christmas song. Halloween is only on my radar because of the candy display in the drugstore. The leaves on the trees haven't turned, tomatoes are still ripening, we just spent the weekend on our screened porch and we haven't hauled out our winter clothes yet. But Twisted Sister is dreaming of a white Christmas.

Here's background on the band, if you missed their earlier metal moments. YouTube has the videos, including one of guitarists Jay Jay French and Eddie Ojeda rehearsing "I'll Be Home For Christmas."

Road trip: Providence Geeks' monthly meet moves to Brown tonight, 5:30pm – 9:30pm+:

October’s Geek Dinner will be the first one that we take on the road. Brown’s Computer Science Department and the Brown Forum for Enterprise have graciously volunteered to host us at Brown’s CIT. (And no, we are not abandoning AS220 as our unofficial clubhouse.)

Brown CS Professor and Providence Geek, Shriram Krishnamurthi, and his team of researchers will be unveiling for the first time publicly their reactive programming language for the web -- Flapjax. You do not want to miss this.

Flame on: From NASA.

Am I good enough? How Not to Apply for a Job via NPR:

You're about to graduate from Yale. You want to be an investment banker. It is recommended not to put on your resume A.) a fake company to which you've appointed yourself CEO B.) a fake charity you claim to have founded or C.) a claim to have written a book, which you publish online, plagiarizing all its content. Oh, and don't make a video that is so laughably funny that the banks you apply to send it around the investment community as the most, idiotic, self-absorbed, cliche-ridden awful thing people have seen in weeks.
Aleskey Veyner took none of that advice. The video was released to the public on Ivygate, a blog that covers the Ivy League.

Time wasters: FWDitOn.com collects those forwarded emails of jokes and oddities we all get from friends, the ones with dozens of forwarded addresses before you get to the funny parts.

Post-Ms.: Christine Cupaiuolo, once Ms. Magazine's blogger, is on her own now with Our Bodies, Our Blog, devoted to women's health news.

Like weeds: Bloomin' Gardens: Deceptively simple-looking game really isn't.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:25 AM | Permalink

October 10, 2006

Grudge Report: U.S. vs. John Lennon; YouTube founders mug for YouTube

Grudge Report: Imagine Matt Drudge's layout, with every link about John Lennon (who would have turned 66 yesterday were he still alive).

The site was built for a documentary about the government's surveillance of Lennon, The U.S. vs. John Lennon -- these links go to the movie site and trailer.

Starring Walter Cronkite, Mario Cuomo, Angela Davis, Ron Kovic, John Lennon, G. Gordon Liddy, George McGovern, Richard Nixon, Yoko Ono, Geraldo Rivera and Gore Vidal.

Review links at IMDB.

It's currently playing around Boston, we'll see if it gets wider release and drifts south.

It's the interface: A Message From Chad and Steve: YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen giggle their way -- on a YouTube video clip, natch -- through the announcement of their 17-month-old video site being bought by Google. It's a $1.65 billion windfall, all in Google stock, for the kids.

YouTube's history, at WikiPedia.

Why not? John Lennon on YouTube.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:00 AM | Permalink

October 9, 2006

Big-guy ballet: Miami fans more angry than sad over loss to Pats; James Dean, photographer; SikhiWiki; Ramones mp3s

Monday update:
Patriots 20, Miami 10, Saban 0: Nick Saban, Miami's coach, gets chewed up and spit out in a column by Greg Cote of the Miami Herald.

''I feel like we're a lot better football team today than we have been in a long time,'' added the coach, seeing the glass half full but evidently not noticing it is half-filled with a liquid that is bubbling, smoking, smells like sulfur and is about to explode. ``I almost feel like we became a team out there.''

In fairness, he didn't say a good team.

Sunday, it was Joey Harrington mostly not scoring instead of Daunte Culpepper mostly not scoring...

At Cote's blog, readers blame Saban and the offensive line. A sample:

With this O-Line, we will continue to to see Culpepper takes sacks if he is in the lineup and Harrington throw INT's. Pick your poison.

Sunday morning
I'm pushing away from the computer a bit this weekend. (The 9-year-old is doing a games marathon with it.) A few quick hits...

Dolphins dissed by hometown papers: Miami Herald: Dolphins at a loss:

AP:

The Patriots' five touchdowns against the Bengals matched the Dolphins' total for the season. And this Sunday, Miami goes against a much better quarterback than the first four it faced: Charlie Batch, J.P. Losman, Kerry Collins and David Carr, who combined for a passer rating of 93.8.

Belichick, of course, shrugs that off.

"Don't tell me about records. Don't tell me about streaks. Don't tell me about last week," New England coach Bill Belichick said. "None of that means anything. It doesn't mean one thing in a football game. The only thing that matters is which team goes out there and plays better on Sunday."

We're settling in here for a full day of big-guy ballet: Dolphins play the Patriots at 1 p.m. on CBS.

Dallas at Philadelphia at 4:15 on Fox is what SI.com's Michael Silver calls, Game of year ... so far.

If you're still glued at 8, Pittsburgh meets San Diego on NBC.

Photos of...james dean: photographer.

Great name: SikhiWiki: a free Sikh Encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Free mp3s: Ramones Judy's In The Basement - The 914 Sessions.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 2:10 AM | Permalink

October 6, 2006

Video: 1966 'Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown'; Olbermann's latest; Newspapers 2.0; Stinky feet study, Teen Buzz win Ig Nobel prizes; Game-day dips

Almost the (long) weekend...

Video reruns:

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The 25-minute 1966 special, online at YouTube, any time you want to smile.

Or you can watch it by appointment, on ABC, Friday, Aug. 27 at 8 p.m.

Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment: Video of the the most recent CountDown editorial, and a transcript. No punches pulled.

"Mr. President, these new lies go to the heart of what it is that you truly wish to preserve.

It is not our freedom, nor our country — your actions against the Constitution give irrefutable proof of that.

You want to preserve a political party's power. And obviously you'll sell this country out, to do it."

Reader writes...Newspapers 2.0: Doc Searls' advice to the guys at the top. It starts,

...the LA Times has a monetary value of $2.5 billion and "a balance-sheet-engorging 20% margin". So why does Wall Street hate it?
Simple: Because newspapers are a rusty industry. They have tail fins. They print lists of readers every day on the obituary page. Worse, as a class they are resolutely clueless about how to adapt to a world that is increasingly networked and self-informing. And Wall Street knows that.
So, to help the papers out (as I did for public radio on Tuesday), I immodestly offer ten hopefully helpful clues...

For the rest of us... Stinky feet, annoying noise top IgNobel prize list Reuters.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Research into stinky feet, a study on the sound of fingernails on a blackboard and a device that repels teen-agers with an annoying high-pitched hum on Thursday won IgNobel prizes -- the humorous counterpart to this week's Nobel prizes.

Hey, that last is the Teen Buzz Ringtone, the most-clicked-link ever from this blog.

Game-day dip: Spinach, Artichoke and Bacon Dip with Crispy Pitas.

If you don't like artichokes or bacon in spinach dips, some alternatives:

Onion and Spinach Dip

Spinach Vegetable Dip

Curried Spinach Dip

Feta Cheese Spinach Dip

Hot Fiesta Spinach Dip

Salmon-Spinach Party Dip

Spinach dip with mushrooms

Warm Spinach-Parmesan Dip

Crockpot Spinach Dip

Also weird: The Executive Coloring Book, long out of print, lives on online.

Nonverbal game: Fungus

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 7:11 AM | Permalink

October 5, 2006

R. Crumb's stranger brother; An Iraqi 'Daily Show'; Hide the kids?; Treehouses; Songs for your funeral?

Maxon Crumb: Still in the shadows, an artist in his own right. We visit with cartoonist R. (Robert) Crumb's stranger brother. With podcast (an mp3 audio interview).

Occupied humor: Satirical Iraqi TV show provides insight into Baghdad's mood. A refreshing change from war stories, this McClatchy profile begins,

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The year is 2017, according to the opening credits of the fake news broadcast, and the last man alive in Iraq, whose name is Saaed, is sitting at a desk, working as a television news anchor. He sports an Afro, star-shaped sunglasses and a button-down shirt.

The Americans are still here, the government is still bumbling, and the anchor wants his viewers to drink their tea slowly so they don't burn themselves. "You cannot go to the hospital during the curfew," he warns.

For Iraqis, the remark is outrageously funny, if only because it's so close to being true.

After a summer of the worst violence since U.S. troops toppled Saddam Hussein's regime, tens of thousands of Iraqis are finding solace and amusement in a new television show whose dark satirical humor makes it an Iraqi version of Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show..."

Read more at the link above.

Hide the kids? An editorial in the Boston Herald (GOP witless vs. D.C.’s clueless) deserves mention:

In the Alice in Wonderland world that is Washington, it is now the congressional page program that is endangered - not congressional predators and their enablers in the House leadership.

Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) said in an interview with CNN, “Some members betray their trust by taking advantage of them [the pages]. We should not subject young men and women to this kind of activity, this kind of vulnerability.”

Therefore, LaHood insisted it’s the program that should be shut down, presumably until Congress finds a way to keep its more predatory members from preying on them.

Yes, within the Washington Beltway, up is down and down is up. Let’s blame the victims for being victimized and send them all home where they will be safe. ...

Jonathan Turley, a former page now a law professor at George Washington University, yesterday proposed in a column in The New York Times that Congress create a board composed of former pages to ride herd over the program.

That would be a start. But what a sad commentary on the kind of people we elect to Congress.

A comment on yesterday's Foley post here suggested abolishing the program, too. This would be a shame. The page program is an internship, a very special high school, and a terrific opportunity for a bright young person with an interest in government and politics.

Activities for young people -- including high school sports, Scouts and summer camp -- can attract hypocrites whose intentions are solely to gratify themselves. Would Rep. LaHood abolish teams, clubs and camp because of them? Other adults have to call them out, weed them out, and keep them out.

The takeaway for teens from this sordid situation must not be that outing the creep will kill the program.

If it is, the predators will have won, to paraphrase a presidential phrase.

Fairy aerie:Super Tree Houses packages (in Flash) 10 slides from Business Week. Some are bound to match your whimsy, if not your budget.

The 45-foot spire in Fife, Scotland, at right, with cedar shingles and copper turret, would cost "about $93,6000."

In My Time Of Dying: James Blunt ballad voted most popular at funerals. This is a British list:

1. Goodbye My Lover, James Blunt.
2. Angels, Robbie Williams
3. I've Had the Time of My Life, Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley
4. Wind Beneath My Wings, Bette Midler
5. Pie Jesu, Requiem
6. Candle in the Wind, Elton John
7. With or Without You, U2
8. Tears from Heaven, Eric Clapton
9. Every Breath You Take, The Police
10. Unchained Melody, Righteous Brothers

What music do you want for your funeral?

(Me: Rhapsody in Blue.)

For Count Blacula? Black vodka. Slick.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:00 AM | Permalink

October 4, 2006

Foley: It's about power; Palm Beach Post reports on his personal life, society reaction

While the big national papers look at the political impact of former Rep. Mark Foley's (R-Fla.) resignation and ongoing revelations about his inappropriate behavior with teenage pages, the Palm Beach Post is maintaining a special section about the former chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children’s Caucus. (Link goes to the Google cache -- the page has been purged.)

What? Power discrepancy the problem, psychiatrist says

...Dr. Carole Lieberman, a Beverly Hills psychiatrist, said, "The essence of pedophilia is the adult uses his power to psychologically or physically molest a child. Foley was doing the same thing, regardless of the fact it is an adolescent technically and not a child."

Foley's contact via e-mail and instant messages were with 16-year-old congressional pages.

"He was still using the large disparity in power to seduce or manipulate the adolescent. That's the key. And he also has the sexual fantasies and desires," Lieberman said...

Why? From AARDVARC.org, Inc. -- a "Florida-based non-profit organization dedicated to combating family and relationship violence, sexual violence and child abuse" -- on offenders:

As far as what "causes" sex offenders to become offenders, there are a myriad of theories. Some of the major ones include:

-- That offending is a learned behavior. Most sex offenders have been victimized at some point in their youth and thus they learned that it's better to be the one to HAVE the power than to be the one SUBJECTED to the power of others. Since they know what it's like to be the victim, they can appreciate being the power holder on the other side of the equation more keenly.

--That offenders have arrested development especially in the areas of empathy. This prevents them from feeling and relating within contexts - from understanding what their actions cause others to feel - because they can't "relate" and so have not learned to inhibit their own actions...

Protection: Steve Lopez of the L.A. Times sees a parallel between some Catholic bishops' response to accusations about priests and the Republican leadership's response on learning of Foley's inappropriate emails. Lopez writes, (Foley on the Prowl: 2 Creepy 2 B 4Gotten),

As the L.A. Times reported Tuesday, Foley was known around town as a guy who had an unusual interest in approaching "young male pages, aides and interns at parties and other venues."

You'd think it might have occurred to congressional leaders that given his reputation, Foley, at the very least, was not the best man to head up that children's caucus, even if he did introduce legislation in July to protect kids from Internet perverts.

Hello?

Anybody awake there?

AP Rep. John Boehner, left, and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert during a statement Friday about Foley's resignation.

Yeah, (Speaker of the House Dennis) Hastert might have known something, but he's not sure. And House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) at first said he told Hastert, but then he wasn't sure, and I don't even want to know how to pronounce Boehner's name.

"First there's the minimizing," says David Clohessy, another victims advocate who was struck by the similarities between church and state. "By that I mean defining sexual messages as 'overly friendly.' And then there's the buck passing. 'Well, I informed so-and-so who informed so-and-so.' It seems to me Hastert is working overtime to talk, talk, but do little, which is the classic bishop's PR response."

Ironically, if Foley was himself molested as a teen by a clergyman, as his lawyer said yesterday, and the perpetrator suffered no consequences, he may have expected the same protection for his own advances toward young men. (While the clergyman's denomination was not specified, the Naples Daily News reports that Foley, a Catholic, attended Sacred Heart School in Lake Worth. )

Reality check: While much recent writing has focused on predatory strangers in cyberspace, a 2004 issue of Safe Kids/ Family Net Newsletter ends with news for parents to use (Family Tech: Rethinking 'stranger danger' for teens):

Here are the online-safety tips we're generally giving teens now: "Don't give out personal information"; "People try to deceive you"; "Don't get together offline with people you 'meet' online"; "Tell us if something or someone you encounter online makes you uncomfortable."

Based on what we know now, the tips should be more like these: "Caring and responsible adults do not proposition kids, and doing so is a crime for adults - they can go to jail for it"; "Don't be a sucker online - kids who became victims of these crimes feel betrayed"; "The feeling of being understood and appreciated that an online 'friend' might give you could be a ploy or manipulation"; "If you pose for nude or sexual pictures, they may come back to haunt you" (they're impossible to delete once circulated around the Net).

One more, for teens: If you're uncomfortable, don't let the creep intimidate you with, "Nobody will believe you. I'm a responsible ________ and you're just a kid." Responsible adults will believe you. Many have run into earlier generations of creeps, and know exactly how they try to play and shame you.

And if you have IMs, voice mails, or emails from your unwanted friend, keep them.

Sidebar: While one story notes, Foley's sexual orientation a not-so-secret secret, the society columnist publishes a file photo of Foley and his partner, and reports (Betrayed upper crust likely to cut off Foley):

...one subject keeps coming up in conversations: What about the ex-congressman's longtime partner, dermatologist Layne Nisenbaum?

Nisenbaum is somewhat of a star with the society set. The Gatsby-esque dresser is the local facial-peels and Botox king who made a career of trying to make elderly ladies look younger in time for the social season.

"Well, I (emphasis on I) didn't do anything," Nisenbaum told Page Two. "Why are you calling me?"

Asked if he and Foley had been in contact since last week's revelations, Nisenbaum simply said: "You know I can't comment on this."

Several gala chairwomen told Page Two it was customary for Foley to accept two tickets to parties: one for him, one for Nisenbaum. Yet the politician went all out to make it seem they weren't together.

"You knew not to put Mark and Layne at the same table," said a gala chairwoman, who asked to remain anonymous.

Foley and Nisenbaum often arrived at functions in the same car, but they had pretty women on their arms. In pictures, they never stood side-by-side. They sometimes didn't say a word to each other during the entire evening....

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments 1

October 3, 2006

Photos from Square America; Bagvertising; Big bluegrass bash Oct. 22; R.I. garden news blog; Keyboard shortcuts

At Square America -- "A gallery of vintage snapshots & vernacular photography" -- don't miss the section on Love.

Context art: Bagvertising. Snopes.com, usually a debunker of urban myths, stretches its format to put the title of this photoessay into the form of a question ("Claim: Photographs show shopping bags adorned with clever artwork. " Well, d'oh...) but we see why:

More cleverness at the link above.

The previous two items both come via the minimalist Traveler's Diagram, who has abandoned narrative and now autoblogs his public bookmarks at del.icio.us.

Mark your calendar: If bluegrass makes you happy, you'll want to know about a concert on Sunday, Oct. 22, at the Assembly Theatre in Harrisville at 5 p.m.

Northern Lights (at right) -- with 11 albums and 30 years of music under that name -- will headline a bill that includes The Pegheads, a RI based
band featuring two Northern Lights alumni, along with The Worcester County Bluegrass All-Stars, and the duo Blue Around The Edges, who mix Appalachian folk songs with contemporary folk.

The Pegheads feature former members of the Neon Valley Boys (Karl Dennis and Jeff Horton), former members of Northern Lights (Jeff Horton and Mike Kropp), a member of the Cajun band Magnolia (Martin Grosswendt), and young mandolin player Ben Pearce.

Nick DiBiasio of Worcester's WICN (90.5 FM) public radio is putting it together. More at his site.

Citizen (gardening) journalism: The Providential Gardener: The meeting space for the growing community that cares for the fruitful earth in Providence, RI.

Less a personal garden diary, more a collection of news items of interest to local gardeners, this is a more than welcome addition to the local scene. I've bookmarked it -- and added it to the ever-growing Garden Blogs list, along with a few more late-season entries.

For your wall: XP Keyboard Shortcuts is a printable cheat sheet. More such lists of keyboard shortcuts are linked at TechCheatSheets.com. Here's a Firefox one.

I regularly run dozens of open tabs in a single Firefox window, going back and forth between the blog tool window and whatever page I'm blogging, quoting and linking, so Ctrl-Tab is a lifesaver for me -- it takes me back and forth between the last open tab and the current one.

The Mother of The Year: "A zoo in California attempted something that has never before been documented": A mourning, lactating tiger and orphaned suckling piglets in tiger suits. (The photos are real, but the context turns out to be different.)

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 11:20 AM | Permalink

October 2, 2006

E-Hobo; Atonement; Animal Sense Humans Don't Have; Free 512mb USB Flash Drive

Random links for a Monday morning...
700 Hoboes Project at E-Hobo.com:

This site is inspired by the writings of author John Hodgman and his book Areas of My Expertise. It is meant as an homage to the wandering men and women who chose to ride the rails during and before The Great Depression, and not the contemporary urban (or rural) poor.

Master list of names / Latest illustrations / About the project

David Weinberger:

Yom Kippur is the day of atonement so: If I've done badly by you, please let me know how I can make it right (beginning by apologizing to you).

No, I'm not kidding.

The Top 10 Animal Sense Humans Don't Have at LiveScience.com

Free 512MB USB Flash Drive from SunUSB

"Please fill out the following form to receive a complimentary 512 MB USB drive and our product catalogue."

Text Twist: Word game at Jay is Games.

Eyelash Creatures

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 4:38 AM | Permalink

October 1, 2006

Bengals fear Brady; Death-defying photographer; New media panel

Respect from Bengals Zone:

If you put a gun to my head and made me choose an active quarterback to play a game that would decide whether I lived or died, I would probably take Brady. I would take him over Peyton Manning, Bret Favre and even Carson Palmer. I’m terrified of what he is capable of in this game. I know the Pats receiving corps is suspect, but Brady is the type of QB who can take over a single game and dominate. If the Bengals give him the ball with a short field like they did last week, Brady will not toss three interceptions and miss open guys like Little Ben. No game against a team quarterbacked by Tom Brady is a “gimme.” The D-line needs to step up and pressure him, or he will absolutely kill the Bengals.

Pats play in Cincinnati today at 4:15 on CBS.

Peak experience: Professional photographer Hans van de Vorst shot this Grand Canyon sequence in three photos. He writes of the first, above,

I was simply stunned seeing this guy standing on this solitary(!!) rock IN the Grand Canyon. The canyon's depth is 900 meters here. The rock on the right is next to the canyon and safe.

Watching this guy on his thong sandals, with a camera and a tripod I asked myself 3 questions:-

1. How did he climb that rock ?
2. Why not taking that sunset picture on that rock to the right, which is perfectly safe?
3. How will he get back?

The leap and landing photos follow.

Great photos, and a lingering curiousity about the danger the daredevil photographer seems to build into making his art.

I wonder where we can see his photos. (I'm looking for them.)

Amazingly, another photographer captured him a little earlier sunbathing on his perch with a six-pack, below.

Reports from the trenches: I was on a new media panel on buzzwords yesterday at the NEAPNEA (New England Associated Press News Executives Association) fall conference with Damon Kiesow and Ernesto Burden, managing editor and new media manager, respectively, of the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph and technology editor D.C. Denison of the Boston Globe.

Nashua doesn't have a developer, and our programmer is busy with large content management issues, so Damon and I both talked about making do, me with third-party-assisted mashups while Nashua is crunching databases.

Besides that beachmap mashup, I also showed the assembled journalists del.icio.us (public bookmarking and the "folksonomy" of making up your own tags, vs. assigned tags like news, weather, sports) and the New York Times' River of News, created by Dave Winer, who describes it (What is a 'River of News' style aggregator?) as,

...like sitting on the bank of a river, watching the boats go by. If you miss one, no big deal. You can even make the river flow backward by moving the scollbar up.

(There's also a BBC River.)

We panelists all agreed that readers don't find things that are not on the homepage, the higher the better. How a large site gives all its worthy work a turn in that spotlight remains a problem, but (imho) a scrolling River of ProJo might be a start.

D.C. showed a Globe experiment with local Wi-Fi entrepreneur Michael Oh of NewburyOpen.net that puts Globe news and microlocal information, called Pulse Points, on the homepage of wi-fi hotspots at cafes. Citizen journalists aren't taking them up on the invitation to add their own information, he notes.

Panel moderator Ernesto Burden showed a video he'd created in a half-hour Friday, during the print-media day of the conference, when NYT editor Bill Keller said, "I'm a chew toy for the left and the right." You can see it here on his blog.

Later... Bonus: At the much slicker OMMA conference, Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 reports that keynoter Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo, called out the language we hear from media execs:

User Generated Content: Since when did I become a heroin addict?

Consumer: I create, I retransmit, I edit, I share — I’m not defined by your stupid brand.

People, that’s what we need to think about.

People, person, human.

Via Doc, who also offers a video link to the speech.

In Texas, Little Support for Putting Up Fences. L.A. Times.

Political phone spam update: So far, the political calls to my Rhode Island home are all from pollsters.

Posted by Sheila Lennon  at 10:48 AM | Permalink