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Main page January 31, 200810 antique cat books get new lives at the Internet Archive
Kittens and Cats; A Book of Tales (1911), above, by Eulalie Osgood Grover, may have been the lolcats of its time.
-- Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Tom Kitten, full of her original watercolors; --Dame Trot and her Cat, author unknown, pictured at right; -- Edward Lear's Nonsense Drolleries: The Owl and the Pussy-cat; The Duck and the Kangaroo (1889); -- one with lovely endpapers. I've linked to the Flip Book option on these links, a quick way to browse each. Posted by Sheila Lennon Recipes for homemade Girl Scout CookiesHomemade Girl Scout Cookies: Do-si-dos. Nicole Weston at Baking Bites blog is making her own, which may sound heretical. Here's how she begins her recipe for Do-Si-Dos aka Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies:
The other day, I expressed some concern over the fact that (a) Girl Scout cookies still have trans fats in them because they are made with hydrogenated shortening instead of, say, butter and (b) Girl Scout cookies don’t taste all that great any more - especially considering that the price per box has gone up and the size of the cookies seems to have gone down. I mentioned that I wanted to make my own Girl Scout Cookies and decided that I would go for it! This week, I’ll be featuring recipes for three of my favorites - these, Samoas and Tagalongs - and (if you’re lucky) I might throw in a bonus recipe, as well, though you can find a Thin Mint recipe in the archives if you want even more... The FAQ at girlscouts.org includes this: While some "zero trans fat per serving" varieties of Girl Scout cookies were available in 2005 and 2006, this year all varieties will contain less than 0.5 grams trans fat per serving, which meets or exceeds the FDA guidelines for the "zero trans fat" designation. Whatever. Nicole's recipes sound really good. Use unsalted butter. (I might make the peanut butter sandwiches for the Super Bowl.) I went looking for "copycat recipes" of other GS Cookie varieties. The first one to pop up -- Shortbread Cookies -- begins with, 1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening Worse. Here's a better one. And if you'd rather buy real Girl Scout Cookies, the annual sale is under way now. they're $3.50 a box, come in 11 varieties, includng, new for this year, Sugar Free Chocolate Chips and Lemon Chalet Cremes. Each council keeps its own cookie money, so buy local. Posted by Sheila Lennon eBay to ban sellers from negative comments about buyerseBay "sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers. eBay's reputation system is so important to sellers that some will forfeit payment to make buyers happy; others apparently take the low road, and threaten negative feedback to a buyer even in the face of a broken or misrepresented item. Buyers don't seem to have a way of tagging bad-apple buyers any more -- eBay may just suspend them quietly. Hit that link for other new changes. The change goes into effect Feb. 20. Reaction: EBay's tweaks to feedback worry sellers. AP. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 30, 2008What the evicted leave behind; Google exhumes CueCat barcodes; Vivid 'shroom photosIt's a tale of misery and cruelty, broken lives, trashed pasts and compassionate recycling. Cleanup crews often can tell why eviction happened. Rick Armon of The Akron Beacon Journal finds the lives folks leave behind after the sheriff comes. And then there's, For whatever reason, they also find a lot of abandoned bowling balls.
Silicon Alley Insider reports, with a straight face,
People, if you're looking at a newspaper, do you want to go online to print out a coupon? Why isn't the coupon in the newspaper you already have in your hands? The technology aims to take readers to a specific page, overcoming the hurdle of long URLs. It's a marketing grail. They just haven't figured out a reason for readers to want to use it yet. Stunning: FungiPhoto.com. Over 4,000 high resolution image files available of Morels, Chanterelles, Boletes, Wild Mushrooms, Edible Mushrooms, Medicinal Mushrooms, Mushrooms Cooking, Mushrooms on the Cuttingboard and many more. Mushroom videos, too. Unfortunately, most of the specimens aren't identified, so they remain eye candy unless you're willing to browse a list of their botanical names, and click each name to go to its photo. It's the collection of mushroom photographer Taylor F. Lockwood. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 29, 2008Arlo Guthrie endorses Ron Paul
Here's the press release. I added the links. (PressMediaWire) ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – Republican presidential candidate and Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s campaign has been endorsed by legendary folk singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 28, 2008Trader Joe's: Can emails bring grocery chain to R.I.?
This is the address for the Trader Joe's location request form. My mother and her friends did it in pa and they got a store! Forward this to your other friends who might enjoy a local Trader Joe's store. Never heard of it? Wikipedia notes that "The October 2006 issue of Consumer Reports ranked Trader Joe's the second-best supermarket chain in the nation, after Wegmans." More: Trader Joe's describes itself as "your unique grocery store". Products sold include gourmet foods, organic foods, vegetarian food, unusual frozen foods, imported foods, domestic and imported wine, "alternative" food items, and basics like bread, cereal, eggs, dairy, coffee and produce. Non-food items include personal hygiene products, household cleaners, vitamins, pet food, plants, and flowers. Many of the company's products are considered environmentally friendly. There are nearly 300 Trader Joe's, in 23 states and Washington, D.C.; there are 16 in Massachusetts, none in Rhode Island. For more information, you might check out the Trader Joe's fan site, and reviews of the three Boston locations at Yelp ("Real people. Real reviews.). All three come in at 4.5 out of 5 stars based on dozens of reviews. One reviewer described it as "Whole Foods but cheaper." Browse the reviews: -- Cambridge Each store is different -- from the reviews, it's apparent the the Back Bay location has lots of heat-and-eat prepared foods, while the Brookline store lacks parking. They're generally rather smaller than other chain supermarkets' stores -- more the size of the original Whole Foods on Waterman Street at Butler Avenue, rather than the newer ones on North Main Street (in what used to be University Heights) and at Garden City in Cranston. The Cambridge Trader Joe's is the largest. If you want Trader Joe's to be one of your shopping choices here, you might follow the link to the form in the email I quote above. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 27, 2008Sunday Web tools: R.I. blog aggregator, tweaks for music, mail, grandmaBlogNetNews Rhode Island launched this week -- it aggregates RSS feeds and displays headlines and the beginning of the latest posts, with links, for each blog. It started with a group of largely political blogs, but that About page says, Those blogs that add BlogNetNews Rhode Island on their blogroll will get a permanent link on our front page as well. Here's some of what BlogNetNews editor Dave Mastio emailed in response to a few questions I sent this morning. I've been a journalist in DC for most of the last 13 years with USA Today, The Detroit News and The Washington Examiner, except for a stint as speechwriter for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Most recently I was an editorial writer for the Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk. In my spare time and using money from my IRA, a talented college student and I started BlogNetNews with the Virginia site in July 2006. We've been expanding ever since. I've been fitfully tracking blog births and deaths in the Greater R.I. Blogs list, but BlogNetNews does only this, in daily detail, in a growing number of states and metro areas. When I asked him how Rhode Island came on his radar, Mastio said he's working through all 50 states. We were simply next. "More voices heard" is a core potential of the Web, where every URL is equal. Letting these voices be found and heard is the hard part. BNN should be good for the Rhode Island infosphere.
Not just for Web developers: Easylistener Or to yourself. We all start somewhere, and the learning curve never ends. More at that link.
Posted by Sheila Lennon January 26, 2008Fab Faux performs live The Beatles' studio sound
'It's about the music': They don't look like the Beatles, but the The Fab Faux are attempting to replicate the studio sound of the band's later work in live performance. At NPR: Rebuilding The Beatles, Note by Note: Perhaps it was just as well that The Beatles stopped performing publicly, given the constant screaming and the limitations presented by the technology of the day. Much of the music they recorded after 1966 couldn't be re-created onstage anyway. They aren't impersonators -- you won't hear John Lennon's voice -- and the timing of some songs is slightly different, but they're good musicians, and the sound is very close to the Beatles records. The Fab Faux's site is full of information, photos and links, and you can hear lots of clips and tunes at the band's MySpace page. via Robot Wisdom Posted by Sheila Lennon Weird biology: Scientists create DNA, teenager acquires organ donor's blood type, immune system
Weird science: A step closer to creating life out of chemical soup. Los Angeles Times: Using off-the-shelf chemical compounds, scientists for the first time have constructed the entire genome of a bacterium, a key step toward their ultimate goal of creating synthetic life forms, researchers reported today. What jumped out at me was the language used by Dr. Hamilton O. Smith, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist who led the research team at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Md.: "...It's a matter of time before we have it booted up in a cell." Frankenstein is perhaps an old-fashioned way to view the outcome of this experiment. He's describing life as an operating system in a biological computer. The result may, of course, be the same.
CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian teenage girl has become the world's first known transplant patient to change blood groups and take on the immune system of her organ donor, doctors said on Friday, calling her a "one-in-six-billion miracle." Brennan seems to have acquired a new operating system. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 25, 2008Mp3s: Grand Funk '74, East of Eden '70; RIP John Stewart (Kingston Trio, 'Daydream Believer')
Curiosity: East Of Eden, BBC In Concert 1970. Violin-driven jazz -- from jig to snake-charmer vibe. Worth a listen, although I wouldn't have known what to make of it in 1970. Weaving Middle-Eastern elements into their music, the group had a hit song called Ramadhan. But what made East Of Eden stand out was their use of the violin as a lead instrument and their willingness to play their own blend of rock-fusion jazz. As mentioned on their website: "Their utilisation of jazz in a much purer form than their contemporaries was the prime element which defined their music. Also use of eastern scales, reggae rhythms and influences of classical composers such as Bartok crossed musical boundaries years before the term 'World Music' was coined." Too bad it's mono.
Stewart died Saturday in a San Diego hospital after a stroke. He was 68. Here's an obit from the San Francisco Chronicle. Even better, at the Kingston Trio's news page, is a tribute letter from his longtime friend Tom DeLisle about John, revealing he had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's last summer. It's also published, with a very recent photo, at Stewart site Chilly Winds At YouTube, there's a 2001 video of John Stewart performing another of his songs, (People out there turning music into) "Gold." Other clips are available from that page. Posted by Sheila Lennon Microlocal neighborhood news comes to 3 citiesEveryBlock: A news feed for your block. has launched, created under a Knight Foundation grant by new-media journalist-programmer Adrian Holavaty. EveryBlock is a three-city demo of microlocal news -- Chicago, New York and San Francisco. Here's an example of one way to view it, from the New York version: Everything around 473-493 Kent Ave. Or, Browse news by type It would be nice if Flickr photos in Tribeca displayed thumbnails rather than a links list -- all that clicking to see what's behind the unhelpfully "Untitled" photos just highlights how labor-intensive it is to produce a useful index of the collective haul. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 24, 2008Davos blogs: Reports from the World Economic Summit; Red computer to benefit AIDS kids in Africa
The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland -- an annual gathering of the world's movers and shakers -- launched this week in a most interesting financial climate. There's lots of blogging -- U2's Bono and Al Gore get much virtual ink -- but it's a bit hard to see the forest in the many microposts at this one. British advertising magnate and serial Davos attendee Sir Martin Sorrell, engaged to blog for the Telegraph, hasn't had time: Sorry about yesterday. The schedule has become too crowded. Don't have time for blogs or even the new Nokia N82 mobile phone that was being trialed. There are too many "fringe" events - just like Edinburgh. Too crowded too, and that's with fewer of us CEOs than there should be...But he does offer, My random poll indicates about two thirds concerned about the inadequacy of FED and US government action. One third agreeing. To be fair they're probably damned if they do and damned if they don't.... The most interesting post I've seen -- by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meur -- is Dell and Microsoft about to announce in Davos a RED computer ?: Just heard in the corridors but apparently not being been disclosed yet that Dell and Microsoft will be announcing in Davos later today or this week a RED computer, part of the product RED initiative created by Bono and Bobby Shriver. "A percentage of each (PRODUCT)RED product sold is given to The Global Fund. The money helps women and children affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa." And indeed they did. Here's Information Week's story: Dell, Microsoft Join (Red) In Fighting AIDS In Africa.
Here are some entry points: Davos Conversation Group conference blog. Special Report: Davos 2008 - Forbes.com. Reuters. Lots of video. Davos08 is the search tag for more. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 23, 2008Mp3s: Bob Dylan & The Band, Isle Of Wight, August '69; Alaska's Eyak language now extinct: Last speaker dies
...Bob Dylan and The Band fired off Music From Big Pink and signalled a return to the "invisible republic" of the past when everything was simpler. This album more than any reportedly energised and inspired English musicians like Eric Clapton and George Harrison to look Westward and backwards. 17 tunes. The provenance is there, too.
This bit of anxiety copyright MSNBC
Anchorage Daily News republished a long 1993 profile of her yesterday, The Fighting Eyak. In later years she became an ardent environmentalist, but early on, "I was considered kind of wild," she says. "I had all the women in Cordova hating me because I got along with men. It was just the idea I felt more free with Dad than I did with Mom. I guess I just figured all women were the same. They were all strict." You can hear what Eyak sounded like in this video: Chief Marie Smith Jones delivers a prayer in Eyak in 1994. The photo is by Marc Lester of Anchorage Daily News: In 2001 Eyak elder Marie Smith Jones was honored at the Chickaloon powwow. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 21, 2008Dolphins play bubble games; Networking with nearby cars?; Sepia art -- with packing tapeA physicist would marvel at some of the play behavior observed in young dolphins at the Project Delphis laboratory. They blow underwater bubble rings by injecting air into water vortices, about the thickness of a straw and 1 to 2 feet in diameter. The rings don't rise to the surface! The babies play with these underwater toys by moving them around with their rostrum, or biting them. They even bounce the rings off the wall, and elongate them with a flick of their dorsal fins into 15 foot corkscrews. There's wonderful video of dolphins deftly playing with the rings of air they've created.
Under the scheme, cars would be able to use their onboard radios to exchange three categories of information: safe navigation (such as reporting on icy road conditions, traffic jams and possible collisions ahead), content distribution (locally relevant information, advertisements and videos of upcoming attractions) and urban surveillance (collecting information which could be used later by police for forensic investigations). Are you jumping for joy yet?
Studies in sepia: Packing tape art at roadside scholar: works crafted from packing tape by ukraine born, philadelphia-based artist mark khaisman. these large archetypal images are made from layer upon layer of translucent packing tape, applied to plexiglass and then placed in front of a light box to give the image shadow and depth. From an interview that pops up at the Library link on Khaisman's site, -Why are you using this technique? -It looks right Posted by Sheila Lennon The scene before the Pats took the trophy
Stephen Knudde of Providence worked the gate at Gillette Stadium today. He emailed this photo, taken after the Patriots beat the San Diego Chargers, 21-12, and before the presentation of the AFC Championship trophy. His comments: There was an unexpected mighty wind at times that froze my legs, but my extremities were pretty much taken care of (your toes get the worst of it at the gate). Worked the ADA gate tonite til close to 16:30, watched 3 ejections and 8 arrests. No tasering.
4:22. You get relieved from duty and go under the stand the warm stands to eat, and you get redeployed as an usher. No panic this week, but not pretty. Balmy Arizona weather for the Super Bowl should make for a better game. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 19, 2008Pre-game prep: Recipes, weather and what M.Charles Bakst will wear
I just posted a great gameday recipe for Spinach & Cheese Squares over on the Football Food & Spirits blog -- here's my photo of one step of it. (Hey, it's the most exciting photo of parboiling I've ever seen.) Meanwhile, from the meteorologists' discussion at the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass., here's the latest forecast for Sunday's Patriots-Chargers game: HIGHS SHOULD PRETTY MUCH REMAIN STEADY IN THE MID TO UPPER TEENS ACROSS THE HIGHER TERRAIN AND IN THE LOWER 20S IN THE BOSTON TO PROVIDENCE CORRIDOR. IN ADDITION...NORTHWEST WINDS OF 15 TO 25 MPH WITH GUSTS TO 30 OR 35 MPH WHICH MAKE IT FEEL BITTERLY COLD.  In Foxboro, players will be numb and passing will be dangerous, but Journal political columnist M. Charles Bakst will be comfy: Journal columnist Bakst shares his game plan for preventing hypothermia Sunday. Bakst is a layers man, but I've heard of folks slipping into sub-zero sleeping bags and cinching them so as to leave only a mummy's peephole.
Charlie told me yesterday that he once wrote a column about how a cold-weather Pats game looks like a costume party . "Some people come in diving gear," he said. Wet suits -- personal insulation -- makes some sense. But the rest of us just need the TV schedule: The New England Patriots play the San Diego Chargers at 3 p.m. Sunday on CBS; pregame show an hour earlier. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 18, 2008Chess prodigy Bobby Fischer, 64, dies in Iceland
AP says the Chicago native's cause of death was kidney failure after a long illness. In his final years, Fischer railed against the chess establishment, alleging that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches were decided in advance. More at fan sites: The Bobby Fischer Unofficial Home Page, BobbyFischer.net More from AP: "Chess is war on a board," he once said. "The object is to crush the other man's mind." A strange, ugly page that claims to be "the ONLY authentic Bobby Fischer website" -- and probably is -- more than explains why he is vilified. (Warning: There is much to be offended by here.) The AP thumbnail photo is Fischer in Reyjkavik on March 25, 2005. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 17, 2008Social bookmarking, phone tricks, art studios, violin CD, 5 strange instrumentsSocial Bookmarking in Plain English from Common Craft, which hosts several similarly useful intros.
Handy for times when you need a visual fix.
Tasmin invites you to download or listen to works by J.S.Bach, Paul Patterson and Eugène Ysaÿe. She introduces some of the pieces in a delightful British accent; you may add these audio introductions to the CD if you like. I wouldn't, only because I like uninterrupted music, and the stories really are only interesting the first time.
At Mental Floss, hear a Didgeridoo, Glass Armonica, Bonang, Tsabouna and Hang -- all at the same time, if you click quickly. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 16, 2008Fashion Week photos from Milan and Hong Kong: Like concept cars...
Posted by Sheila Lennon Manning up: The perils of being Peyton
Jeff Tydeman at Bleacher Report deadpans (Manning Coup: Eli Snags Peyton's Endorsements), In a bloodless coup, Eli Manning seized his older brother Peyton's TV and radio commercials this weekend, striking a blow for little brothers everywhere.
"Disappointed that your season ended so soon? Understandable. One-and-done is a bummer. But remember that you have a Super Bowl ring. Your legacy is secure. So use your extra free time to film some more commercials. I think there's a mortuary in Bloomington you don't yet endorse."
Peyton, his bro, Eli - the only Manning remaining in the NFL playoffs - and their parents, Archie and Olivia appear in a TV spot for the classic cookies where the boys have an Oreo lick-off! He did not make this up. Here's the press release.
Posted by Sheila Lennon January 15, 2008PGeeks tomorrow; Wired grocery carts; Scalping at eateries; Open your wifi; Scrapbooking scandal; Goofy NFL endgamesGeeks tomorrow: . Providence Geeks meet monthly at AS220, 115 Empire St., from 5:30-9 p.m. and Wednesday's the day. Nametags, beer and startuppers. Details at the link.
AP: Video Ads Are Planned for Grocery Carts. As you get near the Oreos, a coupon will pop up. I'm inclined to drape a paper towel over it all. The carrot: No checkout lines. The cart will total and charge/debit your purchase. No word on who bags. (Robot baggers to come?) But wait, there's more: Customers with a ShopRite loyalty card will be able to log into a website at home and type in their grocery lists; when they get to the store and swipe their card on the MediaCart console, the list will appear. As shoppers scan their items and place them in their cart, the console gives a running price tally and checks items off the shopping list. Are you bowled over yet?
"I'm already down a hundred when you walk in the front door, and that's not something that I find palatable," Coraine said in reference to the fact that a site like Tablexchange means that people are spending money on a restaurant that the restaurant never sees. "I want to control the entire value equation." News.com blogger Caroline McCarthy (The Social) makes it read like the Times.
Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people -- and attracts the most criticism -- is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There's no password. There's no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet.... Craigslist CEO Jim Buckminster and his grilfriend, publicist Susan MacTavish Best, visited us in the newsroom a few years ago, and the conversation opened with a story about how they couldn't pick up an open wifi signal when they drove into Providence. In their hometown, San Francisco, you can pull over and connect pretty much everywhere, thanks to the kindness of strangers.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
The trouble in the land of foam stickers and glossy glitter glue all started in February, after Contes won a contest sponsored by one of the industry's most popular magazines, Creating Keepsakes. Her winning pages featured photos of her feet and her hairless terrier, Chloe. Her name went into the magazine's Hall of Fame and her work was published in a book of the top 2007 entries.
The forecast for Foxborough this Sunday calls for a high temperature of 18 degrees. But enough about the warm-weather site of the NFL conference championships. Pity the poor fans, who can't run to keep warm. Will they pass? Posted by Sheila Lennon January 14, 2008Baby & the pols; LPs are back; 1 Laptop Per (U.S.) Child?; Darwin Awards; Colts choke
Wonderful: The Baby Primary: Can I get my 5-month-old daughter photographed with every presidential candidate? Yes, she can -- Darren Garnick lives in New Hampshire -- and the slideshow, with captions describing each political encounter, is at Slate. Tech note: How to advance to the next photo in the slideshow is not obvious. At the bottom left of each photo, you'll see a variation of Beginning| < 1 of 11 > | End Click that ">" to advance the series. LPs generally exhibit a warmer, more nuanced sound than CDs and digital downloads. MP3 files tend to produce tinnier notes, especially if compressed into a lower-resolution format that pares down the sonic information. "Most things sound better on vinyl, even with the crackles and pops and hisses," says MacRunnel, the young Missouri record collector.
The One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC) plans to launch OLPC America in 2008 to distribute the low-cost laptop computers originally aimed at developing nations to needy students in the United States. Related: OLPC CTO founds own company, aims at $75 laptop Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Project, has formed her own company and hopes to produce a $75 laptop. Jepsen also plans to commercially market the unique multimode display technology that she developed for the OLPC XO laptop. Her company, which is called Pixel Qi, will work closely with the OLPC Project and provide hardware for the organization at cost.
What else could they have wanted, facing an eight-point underdog in their own building, coming in completely healthy while the opponent was beaten up, coming off a physical playoff opener against Tennessee? Peyton Manning, photographed above by AP at a post-game news conference, and posse lost 28-24 to San Diego. Nobody is more surprised than we Pats fans. So San Diego comes back to New England next week. (Pats beat them, 38-14, on Sept. 16.) Wonder how they'll like January here? Long-term forecast is for a "cold northwest flow."
If what your brain does when it thinks about an igloo is almost identical to what mine does, that suggests the possibility of a universal mind-reading dictionary, in which brain-activity pattern x means thought y in most people.
Spiritual healing: Unusual Pair Takes Over in Guatemala GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Guatemala's new president, Alvaro Colom received training as a Mayan priest. His vice president is a heart surgeon. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 13, 2008Sunday morning pigskin links: Jaguars awe, Dungy done?
This was the football equivalent of watching Michelangelo paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Or seeing the faces of four U.S. presidents chiseled into Mount Rushmore. Props to the Jaguars. They gave us an edge-of-the-seat game. They just made a couple of costly mistakes, and for that we are grateful. More Jaguars at jacksonville.com SI: Not nearly enough: Jags did what it takes to stop Patriots -- and still lost. Don Banks.
The Dungys kept their home in the Avila neighborhood, which is Gaither High School's district, after he was fired by the Bucs in 2002. Weiner believes they bought a second home in the Plant district. Tony Dungy declined comment through a team spokesman. Dungy commuted to Indy from Tampa when he started with the Colts after the Bucs fired him in 2002, and says he could do it again. (Irsay vows flexibility to keep Dungy). Oddly, the Indy Star published a profile of Dungy Thursday (How long will Tony Dungy walk the sideline?) that feels a little canned (pre-written). It refers only to the visit to Plant High School, without mentioning that Eric Dungy is gone. The timing is odd, since it's bound to be a distraction from Indy's pursuit of consecutive Super Bowl win number two against the San Diego Chargers at 1 p.m. There's a whiff of resignation in the story's subhed: "He has led the Colts to remarkable success, never straying from the values that define him. Yet other missions call him, too." One of the most successful coaches in NFL history wants to be so much more. Colts columnist Bob Kravitz Friday: If you ask me, Dungy's moving on. The Tony Dungy photo caption: Indianapolis Colts' coach Tony Dungy holds the Lombardi Trophy after the Colts' 29-17 victory over the Chicago Bears in Super Bowl XLI in Miami, Florida, on Sunday, February 4, 2007. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald/MCT) Today's divisional playoff games: 1 p.m. San Diego at Indianapolis, CBS Posted by Sheila Lennon January 11, 2008CSNY '70 mp3s; $1 million houses worldwide; jazz blogs; 2008 campaign ads; football party food
There's also a great blogroll -- much more than jazz -- at The Tofu Hut, which is dormant but the links live on. (Its last post, in August, is the secret history of Betty Davis, which begins, Miles Davis divorced Betty because she was too wild. She's known for that and less for her music, which is a shame, and even less for her cooking, which is another.With Betty tunes. Campaign 2008 Presidential Campaign Ads at Stanford's Political Communication Lab. It seems a few days behind. Here's our Football Food & Spirits blog's index with links to all the recipes we've put out there this season. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 10, 2008Why Hillary Won by Karl RoveWhy Hillary Won by Karl Rove at WSJ.com. (Yes, we're all down the rabbit hole now.) Posted by Sheila Lennon Web escapes: Jazzed Dylan, history blog awards, Audubon's birds, righteous Barney Frank, Expo design, the weekend's NFL TV scheduleIdiomatic tribute: At BigO, Singapore: More like a chamber trio for late night listening, for those who think they know their Dylan, the rasping singer will never be the same again. For jazz fans, with smouldering tracks that seem to build and build, this will be a delight. (BigO is down as I type this. I hope it will be back up when you click.)
When bearing down to get the links, I inadvertently scrolled farther down the page to The 2006 Cliopatria Awards. Neverthless, what's below remains true. If you're tired of Reddit's Ron Paul fanatics and the escalating political noise, you might want to sink into something like Axis of Evel Knievel by David Noon of the University of Alasked. Judges named it Best Individual Blog: Recently using an "on this awful day in history" format to highlight eclectic examples of the unforgivable, Axis of Evel Knieval employs its acidic wit with forensic precision. He memorizes all the dates so you don't have to.
Birdwatching: John James Audubon's ''The Birds of America" is online, with Audubon's original text and plates. This is the same title that the Providence Athenaeum went to court for the right to sell in 2005: Athenaeum's Birds sell at Christie's auction: 5 minutes, $5 million.
I think the best way to summarize my concern is that if you tell people that we should not be willing to refight the battles of the nineties -- including many very important ones that we are far from having won -- and if you tell people to refuse partisanship, you may be inviting people to leave the battlefield to those with whom we have the biggest differences. (If the race wasn’t about gender already, it certainly is now -- NYT)
Sat., 4:30 p.m., FOX
Posted by Sheila Lennon January 8, 2008Updated: Woman wins presidential primaryI just wanted to see that headline in my lifetime. As a kid, I would never have imagined I would write it. Squirming pundits and pollsters wonder how they got this one so wrong. Here's how Jonathan Alter of Newsweek led, The results of the New Hampshire primary help explain why politics is so fascinating for those of us who cover it, even though we all look more than faintly ridiculous right now. Crunchy bits: ...her angry outburst in the ABC News debate made some men think of shrewish ex-wives, it seemed justified to many women, who thought she had reason to be peeved.
Hillary has run the gauntlet of debates and hostile interviews with intelligence and guts. Grudgingly, perhaps, women give her props for strength and courage in the face of personal attacks that range from sneering dismissal to outright hate. The rest of us, almost to a woman, wouldn't want to break that ground if it meant hoeing that hard row. If Hillary Clinton actually makes it to the White House, nobody will doubt that she earned her place in history the hard way. Update: In Salon, Rebecca Traister calls out the old boys (The witch ain't dead, and Chris Matthews is a ding-dong: The glee with which Matthews and other angry male pundits prematurely danced on Hillary's grave made me -- for one night only -- a Clinton supporter): The five days between Iowa and New Hampshire were discombobulating for anyone who had begun to get comfortable with the apparent ease with which American history had weirdly, smoothly made room for a female candidate. A woman had led the Democratic nominees for nearly a year with barely a whisper -- save for the occasional unflattering wrinkled photo -- of serious double-standard resistance from a nation that has yet to break its streak of white Christian guys sitting behind the Oval Office desk. It had all been so deceptively easy. But here were the buttoned up white boys over at Meet the Press going all Lord of the Flies on her. Cintra Wilson called the spectacle "a little witch-burny," while Time's Michael Scherer blogged about a call he'd received from a conservative pundit who told him, "The witch is dead, and life is going to change." The pundits, Clinton's opponents, her colleagues -- they were making sport of Hillary's immolation. They were rolling in it. Exulting in it. It reeked of a particular kind of relief, relief from the guys who had thought they were going to have to hold their noses and get pushed around by some dame. They were behaving like men who had received a sudden and unexpected reprieve, and classily reacted by pulling down their pants and peeing on her.
Posted by Sheila Lennon Live streaming alt-N.H. primary coverage (liberal): Chat, videocast now, political bloggers live tonightI'm home with a bug, but feeling better now; had I been downtown, I wouldn't have found this ad hoc interactive New Hampshire primary news coverage: Caucus with Brave New Films & The Young Turks. Brave New Films* is the new media company serving as host Web channel. The Young Turks host a nationwide liberal talk show on Air America, on XM Radio and webcast. The page is clean and reader-focused, with no distractions, the main items all on one screen without feeling cluttered. The interface is efficient and simple. (The future of news...) A scrolling embedded live chat (pick a name on the fly and start typing) is, so far, attracting intelligent, thoughtful and civil posts; it's moderated, filtered. The embedded live video (Windows Media) works for me in Firefox. It's streaming Young Turk Cenk Uygur now, but here's the schedule of seasoned lefty bloggers and commentators offering live video coverage there tonight. So far, 7:10: Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films *(From Brave New Films' Meet us page: Robert Greenwald is a producer, director and political activist. Greenwald is the director/producer of several documentaries: Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers" (2006), an expose of what happens when corporations go to war; as well as "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" (2005), detailing the retail giant's assault on families and American values; and "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" ) Note: "Video problems? Yeah, we don't like windows media either, but it's what we have for now. On the PC, get the latest WMP, or Mac users can install Flip 4 Mac." The link again. (I'll look for a similar conservative site, and post it if I find one.) Posted by Sheila Lennon The 'Hillary tears up' video; New TV to get 2 Web sites; Tax rebates for all?Talking with a group of 16 undecided voters at a coffee shop in Portsmouth, N.H., Hillary Clinton showed another side.
If you haven't seen the primary source, there it is.
Bears beware. The New Deal of 2008 is in the works. The US Treasury is about to shower households with rebate cheques to head off a full-blown slump, and save the Bush presidency. On Friday, Mr Bush convened the so-called Plunge Protection Team for its first known meeting in the Oval Office. The black arts unit - officially the President's Working Group on Financial Markets - was created after the 1987 crash. If true, shouldn't this be in a U.S. paper? The Times today, reporting on President Bush's speech yesterday at the Union League Club in Chicago (Bush Admits Economy Faces Challenges), mentions a proposal that might be part of the Democrats' stimulus package: "...a $500 across-the-board rebate, possibly to be returned to taxpayers in their paychecks through the payroll tax system, as well as a plan to restore the $1,000 per child tax credit to many low-income families that currently do not qualify for it." But "aides to Mr. Bush say he will not make a decision about whether to offer a stimulus package, or what it should contain, until later this month, in time for his State of the Union address scheduled for Jan. 28."
...As previous posters pointed out, the US wins in terms of weather, standard of living, good service, affordable housing, outdoors lifestyle, and can do attitude. I've never lived in England, so I have no idea. As a tourist, I thought the pubs closed early and marveled at the age of some people's houses.
Matsushita's Net-enabled TVs will let users access YouTube's video-sharing site and Google's Picasa photo-sharing site by simply pressing a button on the remote control, the Nikkei said. An Internet TV that only gets two Web sites? Meanwhile, news out of the Consumer Electronics Show suggests the rest of the industry is going the other way: Cable TV plans to standardize technology Initiative could open door so TVs, gadgets work regardless of provider. From AP, PHILADELPHIA - Facing pressure from regulators, the cable TV industry plans to make good on a promise to standardize its technology and open the door to televisions and other gadgets that don't need cable boxes to receive video-on-demand programs and other interactive services.
Photos and quotes from most of the usual suspects, all but one dead. (Harry Crews) is in there, but not Dorothy Parker.) Posted by Sheila Lennon January 6, 2008Last night in New Hampshire: The 'Facebook debate'ABC News/Facebook/WMUR debate: It's the Facebook part that stops me here. Google News was full of wire reports about the debates themselves, but I was looking for background on Facebook's entry into the branding bonanza that leads to college football games named Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl and Roady's Truck Stops Humanitarian Bowl ("stops" is a noun there). Google itself landed me at an August post at a Dublin blog pointing to an October real-world discussion of Facebook: The Facebook Debate. (Sorry if this link leads you to "You must log in to see this page." Facebook is like that.) The agenda: Some of the views expressed so far include: It knows who you are. Eventually, I found today's NYT Caucus blog post: Youth Enter Debate Through Facebook -- it provided a realtime focus group. As for the debates themselves, The Two Debates Tonight Were Eye-Openers: Republicans Can't Even Get Along With Each Other! at OpEdNews and Instapundit's links wrap Vaguely related: Which of the Presidential Candidates would you rather have a beer with in 2008? This might have been an Onion-like satire on likability trumping ability, but it's a promotion by the National Beer Wholesalers Association. Posted by Sheila Lennon Voting machines finally get mainstream scrutiny; Colo. news blogger, an Army major, killed in Iraq; NFL playoffs: who you rooting for?Can You Count on Voting Machines: What matters here is that the New York Times is finally writing about this. Computers have always been controllable by those with the (hardware or software) keys. Reporters didn't understand this in earlier elections despite many bloggers' attempts to explain. Now everybody can. Just in time. The earliest critiques of digital voting booths came from the fringe — disgruntled citizens and scared-senseless computer geeks — but the fears have now risen to the highest levels of government. One by one, states are renouncing the use of touch-screen voting machines....
He had left that "final post" to be published in the event of his death. It's here as well. In it, he asks that his death not be used to further anyone's political position on Iraq. Sometimes going to war is the right idea. I think we've drawn that line too far in the direction of war rather than peace, but I'm a soldier and I know that sometimes you have to fight if you're to hold onto what you hold dear. But in making that decision, I believe we understate the costs of war; when we make the decision to fight, we make the decision to kill, and that means lives and families destroyed. Mine now falls into that category; the next time the question of war or peace comes up, if you knew me at least you can understand a bit more just what it is you're deciding to do, and whether or not those costs are worth it. NFL Playoffs: Who to root for? In the AFC, Jacksonville (#5) beat Pittsburgh (#4) last night. Later today, San Diego (#3) meets Tennessee (#6) -- 4:30 p.m. on CBS. Next Saturday, the Patriots (#1) will meet the lowest-seeded survivor of this weekend's games, Indy (#2) the highest-seeded survivor. San Diego is #3, so if they beat the Titans, they play Indy and Jacksonville plays the Patriots. If San Diego loses, Jacksonville plays Indy and Tennessee plays the Patriots. I'd like to see the Jaguars blitz Peyton Manning, (although Indy beat the Jags Oct 22, 29-7), so I'm rooting for Tennessee later today, although the smart money is on San Diego. I hope I don't regret that next week. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 4, 2008N.H. paper collects candidates' family recipesDeirdre Ashe at the Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph asked the presidential hopefuls of both parties for their favorite family recipes, and published the results in three parts: Ballot Box to Recipe Box
Candidates share some of their favorite family recipes - U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.: Tancredo Family Spaghetti Sauce. "Repeated attempts for recipes through the local and national campaigns of Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter by both phone and e-mail went unreturned." Dodd's chowder is white, Edwards' "pizzas" use party pumpernickel and Velveeta, Jeri Thompson's grandmother's cookies call for lard or Crisco, McCain's ribs are basted with lemon juice. Ann Romney's Welsh Skillet Cakes (made on a pancake griddle, with currants) are the most unusual; Janet Huckabee's Corn Casserole (canned corn, creamed corn, Jiffy corn muffin mix) is probably the least appealing to me, although he says it's in demand for family parties. Tancredo's marinara and Obama's chili are straightforward and safe.
Posted by Sheila Lennon January 3, 2008Ex-Patriot tells a little; More Google tricks; 'Can Atheists Be Parents?'; Fractal art winners...
During my time in New England I worked as a backup lineman and often had to snap to Brady while playing center. In spite of all of the other chaos that he had to sort through, he always found the time to look me squarely in the eye and say, "C'mon Ross, me and you, let's get a great snap first." The tagline at the end of the story reads, Ross Tucker has played for five different teams in his NFL career and is currently on Injured Reserve with the Washington Redskins. He has joined SI.com as a regular |
Google's efforts to get into the newspaper ad business have yet to yield much. One tool it hopes will eventually change that: Small, square barcodes, like the one at the right, at the bottom of print ads. When a person scans the barcode with a compatible camera phone, it takes their phone's browser to a mobile Web address encrypted in the graphic.
Peyton Manning's loss along the way to the Super Bowl has pumped up the wags.
Colts choke: 
Dungy done? The Tampa Bay (Fla.) Tribune reports, 
