I will be one of approximately 143,215,697 people to mention this today or tomorrow, but this is as close as it gets to product-orgasm. Cell phones have sucked forever, and this is a whole new game. iPhone combines three products — a revolutionary mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and a breakthrough Internet […]
January 8, 2007
Black Tie Optional
Current students at Hannah and Sherry‘s alma mater are getting awfully hip…. The Pundits, founded in 1884 as a society of “campus wits,” have a history of rebelling against Yale tradition, often through elaborate pranks. They organize six to eight covert naked parties a year, which attract anywhere from 30 to 300 people to off-campus […]
January 3, 2007
Design Is Good For Business
DETROIT, Jan. 3 — The Chrysler Group was the only Detroit carmaker to report a sales increase for December, while the Japanese carmakers Toyota and Honda both saw their sales grow last month, figures from the auto companies showed today. I assert Chrysler gained sales because of design, with a capital-D. Of the US automakers, […]
January 2, 2007
Billionaire Divorce
A couple in their ’50s, worth about $2 billion, settled their divorce in a few hours over a bottle of wine. When they decided to divorce, they spent a single afternoon in the Beverly Hills Hotel, dividing it all up. With just two notebooks and a bottle of wine, the Blixseths — California real-estate tycoons […]
December 27, 2006
Cause of Death
BBC: A statement from Betty Ford said: “My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, has passed away at 93 years of age.” The statement did not give the cause of death. Um, at 93, the cause of death is probably “old age.” Does […]
December 25, 2006
Strong Medicine
Between the rampant consumerism, the killing carried out in the name of God, and your everyday garden-variety family dynamics, it takes a heckofalotof positive, weird, and funky energy to keep the cultural balance this time of year. In an attempt to stay sane, the past three days I’ve deep-listened to: * Frank Zappa’s, We’re Only […]
December 22, 2006
Coop Holiday Shopping
I went to the Coop at 1:30 PM today, three shopping days before Christmas, and the first day off of work for most people. I knew it would be a scene, but it was such a scene I got a photo pass from the store manager and took a few shots. When you arrive and […]
December 20, 2006
When You Act You Make New Facts
Important intellectual analysis from Jay Rosen on how the Bush administration has played the media. In Without a Doubt (subtitled “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush”) Suskind was not talking about an age old conflict between realists and idealists, the sort of story line that can be re-cycled for every administration. It […]
December 12, 2006
Eating Soy Leads to Homosexuality and a Small Penis
Really! That’s what this Christianist guy Rutz says over at the WorldNet Daily. Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and […]
December 4, 2006
Rich People Don’t Care About Gas Prices
Great essay, with attitude, on why Ford, GM, and Chrysler are sucking eggs so hard. We’re looking at two strategies here. Toyota: build affordable transportation for the masses at a quality level that slightly exceeds expectations relative to price. GM et al: build oversized, under-engineered and fuel inefficient cars for people who don’t care about […]
December 3, 2006
Know Your Cell Phone
Did you know that when you turn your cell phone “off” it is not actually off? Well, I had previously heard a rumor that the GPS (global positioning system) stuff was still available when a cell phone was “off,” enabling it to be used as a tracking device. But that was a rumor, and I […]
November 7, 2006
Axis of ’70s Campus Republicans
Whiskey Bar: Like everybody else, I don’t know what’s going to happen today, but this election has already illuminated one critical truth: The modern GOP — or, more specifically, the Axis of ’70s Campus Republicans now running it — really is just a criminal enterprise disguised as a political party. Dirty tricks, large and small, […]
November 7, 2006
Keep An Eye On the Situation
CNN: Bonds rally on election bets: Market surges on hopes of fiscal discipline created by Democrat-controlled Congress; dollar mixed. via Talking Points Memo, who’s doing a great job covering the election tampering… From the GOP handbook of Maryland politics: (1) Recruit homeless men in Philadelphia; (2) Bus them into Maryland; (3) Arrange for the Republican […]
November 7, 2006
Election Protection
Real-time tracking the election disruptions. EIRS or the Election Incident Reporting System is a sophisticated voting incident tracking system that will be an invaluable tool for Election Protection coalition partners and the public on Election Day and beyond. Voting problems reported through the Voter Hotline (1-866-OUR-VOTE) by coalition members or by poll watchers involved in […]
October 27, 2006
Related Links
CNN: The widening waistlines of Americans have increased the consumption of gasoline since 1960 according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Virginia Commonwealth University. A report by Laura A. McLay of VCU, concludes that Americans now pump 938 million gallons of fuel more on a yearly basis than they were in […]
October 20, 2006
Does the News Matter?
Aaron Swartz speaks for me: But finally, I’d like to argue that following the news isn’t just a waste of time, it’s actively unhealthy. Edward Tufte notes that when he used to read the New York Times in the morning, it scrambled his brain with so many different topics that he couldn’t get any real […]
October 19, 2006
Speaking of the Onion
Hadn’t checked in with them in a while. Christian Rock Band Cleans Up Hotel Room: Hotel staff at the Highway 82 Best Western found the suite occupied over the weekend by members of the Christian rock band Ruggid Krøss swept, dusted, scrubbed, and readied for immediate occupancy. Area Man Going To Go Ahead And Consider […]
October 19, 2006
A Genetic Upper Class and a Dim-Witted Underclass?
BBC: Human species ‘may split in two:’ The descendants of the genetic upper class would be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative and a far cry from the “underclass” humans who would have evolved into dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures. Men will exhibit symmetrical facial features, look athletic, and have squarer jaws, deeper voices […]
October 19, 2006
The Tao of Holding Space
Chris Corrigan has posted a great book connecting the Tao Te Ching and Open Space: It is a collection of interpretations of the 81 short chapters of the Chinese classic Tao te Ching as they apply to my experience of holding space. I started this book three years ago, when I began noting parallels between […]
October 16, 2006
Connect the Dots
The US election is November 7th. Three weeks away. Read this, then read this. Then, spend 12 minutes and watch this testimony under oath from a computer programmer who was hired to write software to flip the vote in electronic voting machines. Scary? Well, even worse is that he was hired by Tom Feeney, the […]