Toddler-Friendly YouTube

Dutch is the kind of Dad who hates television programming for toddlers.

But he finds Youtube a good source for bite-sized chunks of entertainment for his little one, Sweet Juniper.

Lot of animals, muppet clips, and meta-clips of babies watching Baby Einstein videos. Also, his favorite obscure animation clips.

This extensive list is also 100% Tank Engine free!

Krrish!

If your whistle was wet by the NYT article from last month about the new Bollywood superhero movie Krrish, you'll enjoy even more this review by media theorist and fanboy Henry Jenkins.

Much like the original Superman, he covers vast distances through long leaps but doesn't actually have the ability to fly. He can scale a mountain peak as if it were a series of stepping stones. He can run faster than the local horses. He can reach into the river and yank out a fish with his bare hands. And he can speak with the animals and get them to do his bidding. And, in several sequences, he demonstrates his superiority, Gandhi style, by withstanding enormous physical and emotional abuse without resorting to violence.

Sadly, it doesn't appear to be playing in California. Yet.

But trailers and song clips are available at the official movie website.

Senator Ted Stevens on the internets

Senator Stevens' internets service provider.

Can't Touch This: Guild Wars vs World of Warcraft

I know you all have been wondering which MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) to join in your spare time.

This video may help settle the case, at least until D&D Online comes out of beta testing.



Or it might just get you dancing.

Pretty Woman (Remix)

Kal Ho Naa Ho - Maahe Ve

Bhangra remix of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman," featuring Sharukh Khan in, of all things, a Fourth of July parade.

With Spanish subtitles.

Taal

Apparently Roger Ebert got as big a kick out of Subhash Gai's 1999 hit, Taal, as I did, although he didn't have the benefit of subtitles. He likens Bollywood musicals to those of Doris Day... although I have to say, I've never seen a Doris Day musical.

Of course, I didn't have the benefit of Ebert's review when I walked into Reel Video. I chose it by the DVD cover. There's dancers on the cover. That's a good sign. A.R. Rahman's name is on the cover, that's a good sign (he's the gold standard for Bollywood songs). On the back, Alga Yagnik's name. She's the lead female vocalist. This could be a good sign, except I always get her mixed up with Asha Bhosle. Also, I look for cases from Eros International, which sticks to blockbusters and crowd pleasers. I don't want to accidentally bring home an art film.

For pure spectacle, I'm sorry to say, that Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Mohabbatein spoiled me. They're much more clip-worthy, and their internal milieus are more consistent.

The story in Taal is great musical love story fun: City boy (son of a multinational's CEO) meets peasant girl who teaches yoga. Girl follows boy to Mumbai, family quarrel separates them. She gets discovered as pop star by Mumbai's hottest DJ/orchestra conductor/producer/rapper and wins MTV International star of the year award.

But the effort to distinguish the two worlds of the country and the city are pretty jarring: the countryside scenes are nice, filmed on location, but apparently all the pop stars in Mumbai in 1999 were dressing like it's 1982, in spandex and leg warmers. If you don't want to sit through a three hour long subtitled musical, YouTube gives you the highlights. Here's "Taal se Taal," with Aishwarya Rai dancing to the country version and Anil Kapoor rapping the
Western remix.

Only clip that wouldn't invoke total guffaws from an audience unfamiliar with the genre might be the song "Ishq Bina," essentially the love theme from Taal. It's the requisite pre-wedding party song (I swear, there's a wedding party in all of these movies) and again, YouTube's got the clip, sans subtitles, of course.

Video: Hans Rosling at TED

Public health professor Hans Rosling uses wicked cool data visualizations to show how the developing world is not what it once was.

And explains why Swedish undergraduate students scored lower than chimpanzees on a global public health quiz.

Part of a collection of videos recently posted from the 2006 TED conference.

Dino, Orson, and Jack: a Little Sondheim

"Everybody Ought to Have a Maid"

(via YouTube)
I was looking for Orson Welles' frozen peas commercial, when I came across this clip, presumably from the Dean Martin show.
Dean Martin, Jack Gilford and Orson Welles doing a number from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. (Surprisingly, Gilford, who did the show and the movie, is reading his lines off cue cards).

The number is a lighthearted showstopper in the play. This version is kinda creepy.

SF CITYSCAPE: Democracy Inaction

A reflection on when "the community" might not mean "the community", in particular as it relates to urban planning.

But then last night, we were watching The Daily Show when Jon Stewart made this comment, one we found relevant to the matter at hand: Extremists get their way, he said, "because moderates have shit to do."

Meet Ayun Halliday

Ayun Halliday, NU alum, actor, zinester ("The East Village Inky"), author.
Her new book is Dirty Sugar Cookies, a self-mocking memoir of her culinary upbringing. She's visiting 30 blogs in 30 days to promote it.

I asked her about the connections between her theatre background and food. Results at my LiveJournal.

Try to avoid bringing dogs to meetings.

As a freelancer, I often find myself being included on the distribution list of many inter-office memos, while not actually ever having to pay much attention to what they say or having to worry about taking any action. These are excerpts from a particularly surreal one from my current client on the subject of bringing pets to work.

______________________________

As you know, we currently allow employees to bring pets (dogs or cats) to the workplace. To ensure that the workplace remains a comfortable environment for everyone-including those who may be allergic to pets or uncomfortable around pets--- we are implementing the following guidelines:

[[some boneheadedly obvious guidelines such as "make sure your pet is housebroken" appear here in the original]]


To the extent possible, Dogs should stay with their owner or caregiver at all times in their office/cubicle. If the caregiver needs to attend a meeting, an alternative caregiver should be appointed to take care of any needs while the primary caregiver is away.

Try to avoid bringing dogs to meetings.

[[Note that they only ask that you TRY not to bring your dog to meetings. Perhaps you could explain to him that he might be bored, that he won't be able to read the slides, or simply sneak into the meeting before he sees you. "Look, snausages!"]]

Dogs/cats should be kept away from people with allergies.

Walk your dog outside the building and courtyard areas several times a day, and please clean up afterwards.

Bring a supply of toys or treats to keep your dog from getting bored or disruptive. Please avoid squeaky toys.

You are responsible for cleaning up after your dog inside and outside of the building. If your dog has an accident inside the building, please also notify Facilities, since additional clean-up may be necessary.

Any incident of aggressive behavior by a dog is unacceptable and the dog will not be allowed back at work.

Loud or repetitive barking is not acceptable and must be stopped right away. Dogs who bark excessively will not be allowed back at work.

Eating, or even sniffing, an employee's food by a pet is not acceptable.

Please be aware that pets also may make some feel uncomfortable. Therefore, please use common sense and common courtesy and respect the views of others at all times.

Based on business needs or the needs/comforts of other department members, a manager may, at their discretion, add more restrictions or limitations to these guidelines, applying to his or her department specifically. This may include restricting pets from the department.

Seeger Sessions in Concert

Bruce and his Pete Seeger tribute at Madison Square Garden. Today's NYT.

The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins

MIT professor and pop media culture fan Henry Jenkins blogs about media convergence, participatory culture, collective intelligence, and Robot Chicken.

Brilliant.

Hand over the phone and no one gets hurt

Case study: ignoring the problem may be your worst strategy. Except hiding behind your mom. That might be even worse than worst.

From Wednesday's NYT.

Um.... what?

Also available as a DVD from Rhino.

Al Agonistes

Communicating scientific information to a broad public is incredibly difficult. Especially if you can't separate the good guys from the bad guys. Or if the bad guys might be us. I'm hoping to get a little inspiration from this film when I write my next EPA press release.

Also: I cried through the scenes of Bush-Gore recount.

Also: Apple plays an uncredited starring role.

New Trends in Home Staging

When the smell of cookies baking and a half dozen well-placed throw pillows just aren't enough to make it seem like home.

A company is now hiring fake families to inhabit properties during open houses.

"Model homes are wonderful and give you an idea about the potential a house has, but what's really missing is the soul," said Jim Garfield, of Roddan Paolucci Roddan, the property public relations firm behind the concept. "It's a theatrical, interactive, experiential show that allows visitors to see a home's heart."

Like Past Present, the actors must improvise their interactions with potential homebuyers, pre-armed with knowledge about the features of the house or its appliances.

I only wish we'd thought of it first.

Federal Judge Orders Rock-Paper-Scissors

YouTube: "Indian Beatles"

via Boing Boing

From 1965, a two minute clip from Jaanwar, featuring four musicians in Beatles suits, singing a Hindi cover/rip off of "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

The comments note the title in Hindi is "Tumse Hai Dil Ko," but most other references to this cover song (on sites that cover either the Beatles, cover songs, or that track Indian film music plagiarism) call it "Dekho ab to."

Happy Birthday David Sedaris

Commencement Speeches from Cal

Excerpts from speeches made by geographers, writers, journalists, psychologists, and activists.

My favorite is actually from a Stanford professor, David Kennedy, addressing the Department of History graduates:

I know college has seemed hard — all those papers, tedious lectures, course assistants speaking an incomprehensible language, exams, labs, problem sets. But three things have made it easy: freedom, forgiveness, and indulgence. All three are about to disappear from your lives forever.

The "5-Second Rule"

Researchers at the University of Illinois weigh in on whether you can eat food that's been dropped on the floor..

Food Science Professor Peter Blaschek said, "I think all bets are off when you're talking about something like carpeting. That's an entirely different story and we haven't done that study yet.

A grudging acceptance

I take a breath and acknowledge, dear Reader, that I don't really like Stephen Colbert. Just.... find him tiresome and not .... really... worthwhile. Yes, even more so after the White House correspondants dinner. Whew. I'm clean now. But I find him less annoying having read his commencement address at Knox College:

So, say “yes.” In fact, say “yes” as often as you can. When I was starting out in Chicago, doing improvisational theatre with Second City and other places, there was really only one rule I was taught about improv. That was, “yes-and.” In this case, “yes-and” is a verb. To “yes-and.” I yes-and, you yes-and, he, she or it yes-ands. And yes-anding means that when you go onstage to improvise a scene with no script, you have no idea what’s going to happen, maybe with someone you’ve never met before. To build a scene, you have to accept. To build anything onstage, you have to accept what the other improviser initiates on stage. They say you’re doctors—you’re doctors. And then, you add to that: We’re doctors and we’re trapped in an ice cave. That’s the “-and.” And then hopefully they “yes-and” you back. You have to keep your eyes open when you do this. You have to be aware of what the other performer is offering you, so that you can agree and add to it. And through these agreements, you can improvise a scene or a one-act play. And because, by following each other’s lead, neither of you are really in control. It’s more of a mutual discovery than a solo adventure. What happens in a scene is often as much a surprise to you as it is to the audience.

Art of Science II

Revisiting an online exhibition I posted last year. Pictured: Hairpin Vortex.

Nitpicking Vista

Not simply because I work for Apple.

Not merely because Christa may take a contract to help a company make the Vista transition.

But because technology blogger Chris Pirillo is a mad f---ing genius of detail obsession, he lists here 65 errors, glitches, disconnects, oddities, and other concerns in a recent Beta version of Microsoft Windows Vista he was asked to evaluate, including every instance he sees where a font resource is applying Tahoma and Microsoft Sans Serif (Windows XP fonts) instead of Microsoft's self-touted (and disputed) new font Segoe UI.

I once wrote a memo like this to a client seeking feedback on their digital brand asset extranet. The sheer volume of information presented in a single brain dump can cause seizures of anxiety and seething hatred in recipients who have never seen the need to do better than C+ work in either their school or professional careers.

But to detail-compulsives like myself (and, I imagine, Pirillo), it's an equivalent high to a first-person shooter videogame in which you switch to the special weapon and lay waste to roomful after roomful of enemy soldiers.

Pirillo, in fact, enjoyed himself so much, he spent his Memorial Day weekend piling on with a list of 65 reasons why Outlook 2007 will suck and an additional 67 Vista mistakes.

Baby Loves Disco

(via SF Gate's Culture Blog):
So you know how movie theatres are offering "Mommy Matinees" for parents with wee ones?

San Francisco's swanky nite spot, Ruby Skye, is importing the latest family-friendly dance craze from Philly and New York, Baby Loves Disco. It will host several toddler/preschool dance afternoons, complete with live DJ spinning disco and funk (no Wiggles allowed) for the whole family on its 15,000 feet dance floor. June 17, July 15, August 19, 2 to 5 pm, 10 bucks a head.

Site has videos, lots of press clippings.

ZeroOne San Jose

When I think of cutting edge contemporary art, and especially cutting edge contemporary performance art, I don't think of San Jose. I think of New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Amsterdam. Vancouver. Toronto. Maybe Minneapolis. Even Cleveland, Ohio (home to an annual performance art festival for nearly twenty years)

But now San Jose will host ZeroOne: A Global Festival of Art on the Edge & the Thirteenth International Symposium of Electronic Art (ISEA2006). (ISEA moves around the globe and is held a different city each year). It makes sense to bring the symposium to Silicon Valley, actually.

So what will a "Festival of Art on the Edge" be? Mainly an excuse to shell out $30 a ticket a non-narrative performances, chock full of eye candy (video projection, real time manipulation of data to create sounds/lights/images. You can see improvised cinema. You can see Peter Greenaway veejaying. Ironically, you can see all this 21st century cutting edge stuff in a restored 1927 theatre. Hilariously, Villa Montalvo is hosting the experimental/noise "Bleeding Edge" music festival within the festival.

But I can already tell you what is going to sell out first: Machines beating the crap out of each other. Mark Pauline's Survival Research Laboratories don't build robots. They build machines. Machines that are built to destroy other machines. Machines that shoot fire, wield 8-ton crushing mallets, or hurl molten metal at other machines, or sometimes even towards themselves. SRL is known for putting on the most dangerous shows in the world. I tried to see them in San Francisco about 12 years ago, out on some pier in Hunter's Point, since Randall was working the tech crew (He's known as "Blaster" in SRL circles). The line stretched out to 3rd Street, and I never got in (counterfeiters had xeroxed thousands of extra tickets... and the fire marshall ALWAYS knows when SRL is in town). It is so hard to get the permits to host an SRL show that they only do about two shows a year.

Edgy? Sure. Noisy as hell (they attached jet engines to some of the machines just for the purpose of making noise). Digital art? Not really. Some of the machines require electronics: remote control, so the flying sparks, molten metal, and fire don't incinerate or puncture their operators, and probably some kind of built in controls so that the machines don't operate at their full lethal capacity. But SRL isn't about digital information.

SRL are taken very seriously in the performance art world. And I get their apocalyptic vision of contemporary life as devoid of humanity with just industrial technology unleashed upon itself. I even wouldn't mind catching their show --bring earplugs--(alas, I'm probably out of town). But if, given the choice between shelling out thirty bucks to see "stunning video images of landscapes... gradually abstracted into pure data" or machines the size of backhoes pummeling each other to death with fire and electricity, I'm guessing the population of San Jose is gonna spend their cash on the machines.

Okay. I'm done ranting about the performance art.

The actual contemporary art exhibitions and installations look really fun.

Humor, Rhymes With Tumor

Miriam is written up in the Washington Post.

Plus on the same day she's featured up front in an article about cancer and humor in USA Today.

British "Queen of Iraq"

Reuters revisits the life of Gertrude Bell, the woman credited with drawing the boundaries of modern Iraq at the end of World War I, and who later came to
doubt her success.

"We have underestimated the fact that this country is really an inchoate mass of tribes which can't as yet be reduced to any system," she once said.

See also her .

Colbert beats the Red Hot Chili Peppers

The NYT revisits Colbert's White House Correspondents Dinner speech again, after the Audible audio recording tops the iTunes album charts.

Donald R. Katz, the chief executive of Audible, said it was not such a surprise, because Mr. Colbert's speech was in essence "a comedy routine," and in this case, "you had to not be there to get it — the people in the room were not willing to join in the merriment."

The Cube goes Web 2.0

Though Apple has been at the forefront of bringing digital content creation tools to consumers, it has been slow to embrace the Web 2.0 wave (WikiPedia, Flickr, YouTube, deli.cio.us, digg), in which the content of a website is created by users, not by the top-down corporation.

Today, however, an enterprising young fellow took the opportunity to hijack the 24-hour time-lapse sequence on apple.com of the comings and goings of people into, out of, and around the new 5th Avenue flagship store on its first day open, by standing still for several minutes in front of the camera while brandishing a message to his girlfriend.

UPDATE: It's back online.

Click to the time-lapse video and navigate to the 5:00 hour. He arrives about eighteen seconds in.

(At one point today the young lad's message had been excised from the time-lapse video by the top-down corporation.)

If you can't find it, go here to see a screen capture..

The Cube

It's finally open.

The link is to the the most interesting shots in the applestore5thave flickr pool.

And here is the NY Times feature, minus any photographs.

The bits I contributed to (the glowing wall graphics) are too bright for digital camera circuitry to reproduce. Enjoy the architecture (including the crazy glass plunger of an elevator) instead.

10 Things I Hate About Commandments

Charlton Heston goes back to high school.

Plumber number one sentenced

James Tobin, Republican campaign operative of New Hampshire, was sentenced today to 10 months in prison for illegally suppressing votes through a phone-jamming scheme aimed at Democrats in the 2002 senate race.

Questions as yet unanswered: who did Tobin call in the White House at the time of the elecation, and why did the Republican National Committee spend millions to defend him at trial?

How many slow moving icebergs does it take...?

[Video] Al Gore Opens Saturday Night Live

A presidential address from an alternate universe.

Meet Mr. Mucus

While watching a commercial for Mucinex, an expectorant, the other night, I asked Deirdre, "Why are there dancing potatoes in a cold medicine commercial?"

Then it dawned on us that we were not watching potatoes, but, in fact, dancing blobs of mucus in a respiratory tract.

Adams Respiratory Therapeutics, the number six brand c old/allergy/sinus relief product in the over-the-category last year has spent $35 million on this latest ad campaign for "Mr. Mucus," designed by Torre Lazur-McCann Healthcare Worldwide. Which is astounding, considering their sales in 2004 were only $54 million dollars.

Click here to enjoy all the Mr. Mucus commercials. The one we saw the other night is called, no joke, "Dance to the Mucus."

Or, just read the buzz on Mr. Mucus's animated feature debuting this summer.

NYT, USA Today Reverse Roles

The Columbia Journalism Review discovers that, at least online, the "real" news can be found where you might not expect it.

Bollywood + Narrow Gauge Railroad: That's Entertainment!

(YouTube alert: mediocre video quality)

What's more fun that Shahrukh Khan leading adorable moppets at summer camp in a musical number? What could be more fascinating than being introduced to the Hindu festival of Holi by Sharukh's "Dead Poets Society" homage?

A playback song on top of a moving train, that's what.

Check out the shot about 4:55 into this video where the camera moves into the lead couple, goes around them, and backs into the chorus dancers.

From 1998's Dil Se, directed by Mani Ratnam. Song by A. R. Rahman. The combination of electronic beats with the traditional instruments was new at the time. This song appeared again in the musical Bollywood Dreams and in Spike Lee's 2006 film, Inside Man.

Making Colbert go away | Salon.com

"Salon hit overall traffic heights over the last few days surpassed only by our election coverage and Abu Ghraib blockbusters. "

All over Colbert's appearance at the WH Correspondents' Dinner.

It's the top most emailed story over at the NYT.

But the MM is saying they didn't cover the story for days because it wasn't "newsworthy". Because he just "wasn't funny."

As Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow notes, "I've got a keyboard covered in nose-sprayed milk that says otherwise."

[Salon story; you gotta get the day pass to read]

Liam Makes the Sunday Times

Still under a 1000 views (837 at press time), but this feature on videoblogging in the April 26 online edition of the Sunday Times of London contains, not a link to the Matchbook Films home page, but directly to the page holding Liam's Speed Sock Skating video.

On a list of recommended videos, nestled between that lightsaber duel and the Chinese lip synching duo.

Is it time to cross-post to YouTube?

The History of Play-Doh

This month marks 50 years of the stuff.

As you attempt to clean your children’s Play-Doh out of the carpet, the car, and the bathtub; take a look back with us at how it all got started.

Colbert at White House Correspondents Dinner

In Editor & Publisher's version of events, the president is not amused.

Among attendees at the black tie event: Morgan Fairchild, quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, Justice Antonin Scalia, George Clooney, and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter of the Doobie Brothers--in a kilt.

Christa and I watched it online (click here for a growing list of links to the video), and it's clear at points that the majority of the crowd is not amused. At times, he's kinda bombing. A fearless performance, nonetheless. But watching the video's a little uncomfortable, like Stewart's airsuckingly awkward confrontation with Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on CrossFire.

Still, CrossFire was cancelled just a few weeks after that video blazed across the internets.

One can dream.

Ahoy Mateys! It's Captain Springsteen!

Okay, so Bruce Springsteen recorded an album of Pete Seeger covers. I knew that was coming.

Today, KFOG started playing cuts from the new CD.

This may very well be the biggest shift in the format since competition from the brief all-80's all-the-time formats circa 2000-2001 had Howard Jones, Madness, and Men at Work enter their playlist for the very first time (KFOG didn't play these guys in the 80s).

But with this new Springsteen album, AAA radio may never be the same.

It's not a mighty wind that's a blowin'. And I can't guarantee that "Old Dan Tucker" or "Froggie Went a Courtin'" are gonna bump Coldplay from the air.
Still, today I heard something I heretofore could not have imagined on commercial radio: a Sea chantey.

I thought I heard the captain say,
Pay me my money down,
"Tomorrow is our sailing day."
Pay me my money down.

Sure, it's a little faster than you'd sing it while working the capstan, or hoisting the mainsail, and likely 19th century sailors didn't have the sound of cajun fiddle and Nawlins funeral horns and dixieland banjo to cheer them on. Springsteen's new roots band gives this rollicking song a ride, complete with two accordion solos (the first of which kicks the sea chantey into a tex-mex polka).

The music video gives me the idea that the whole album was conceived after a couple of bottles of moonshine got passed around at one of the Boss's jam sessions. It will be everywhere on the Internets soon. You can check it out at YouTube, Country music Television, or even Barnes and Noble: link

Actually, I prefer Dan Zanes' version, but Zanes isnt' reinventing AAA radio.

I'll never hear KFOG's foghorn the same way again.

Miriamengelberg.com

You know how you stumble across someone online, say, for example, via Cody's Books upcoming calendar of featured authors, and you suddenly realize you know that person in a totally different context?

For a long time, I only knew Miriam as a regular at Chris's annual film clip party. Last year, for the first time, at the clip party I discovered she was a cartoonist... and then I figured out that I'd actually read her comics for a while (she provided a regular comics feature, "Planet501c3," for CompassPoint nonprofit services).

Her new memoir-in-graphic novel form, Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person, is now out from Harper Collins.

Local booksignings here, including Cody's on 4th Street Saturday May 13.

Only in San Francisco

DSC03928
Originally uploaded by DrBrian.

I don't know who organized "Bring Your Own Big Wheel," but looking at the 450+ pictures on Flickr of these grownups racing down Lombard Street, many of whom wore bunny costumes, I have to say it sounds like a lot of fun. In theory. Looks like the rain made the bricks fairly slick.

Liam wants to know why there are no kids in these pictures.

And why people are racing down Lombard Street in big wheels.

Check out all photos here.

My waning passion for Cheetos

I love my Cheetos. But someone has come between us. Someone I don't want to share my Cheetos with.

(Please scroll down to ingest all the Cheetos art.)

Five suggested Flickr tags

From 5ives.com:
This is funny even if you don't understand what Flickr is, or what tags are. The snark comes through anyway:

Five Suggested Flickr Tags:

1. “Rows Of Seated White Men Typing At Conferences”
2. “My Underlit Dessert With One Bite Missing”
3. “My Defenseless Child In A Funny Shirt I Made Him Wear”
4. “Attractive Man In His Twenties Playing An Electric Guitar”
5. “The Photo From This ‘Impromptu’ Self Portrait Series That Suggests I Don’t Have A Dewlap”

Need an explanation? Visit the comments.

Video: Jann Pehechaan Ho

The swinging number featured under the opening credits of GHOST WORLD, minus the cutaways to Thora Birch. From the 1965 Bollywood film "Gumnaam."

[via Apollo Pony]

I pledge allegiance to product placement

Cribbed from the blog of Bill of Portland Maine:

iPod Allegra, Tootsie Fab, Fuji United Franco-American,
Banana Republic, Ford Chicklets Vans,
One Nathan's, Wonder BOD,
Disney Vagisil,
Wisk Listerine, Ban Jergens, Hormel.

---MAD magazine

Rob Corddry Hates You

Last week on the Daily Show, Rob Corddry presented a fast-moving list of all the people he, as a racist, hates. An intrepid blogger took the time to transcribe, frame by frame, what was on the list, including:

Moroccan
Unitarian
Penobscot Indian
Tlingit
TiVo List Pauser
NPR Listener
Sue Grafton
Seriously Stop Pausing This
What do you think this is Lost?
Narnian
Michigander
Michiganian
Homodontic

Is Iran next?

Looks like Iran's next. The following excerpt is Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker :

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

The rationale for regime change was articulated in early March by Patrick Clawson, an Iran expert who is the deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and who has been a supporter of President Bush. “So long as Iran has an Islamic republic, it will have a nuclear-weapons program, at least clandestinely,” Clawson told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on March 2nd. “The key issue, therefore, is: How long will the present Iranian regime last?”

When I spoke to Clawson, he emphasized that “this Administration is putting a lot of effort into diplomacy.” However, he added, Iran had no choice other than to accede to America’s demands or face a military attack. [Emphasis mine. d.n.] Clawson said that he fears that Ahmadinejad “sees the West as wimps and thinks we will eventually cave in. We have to be ready to deal with Iran if the crisis escalates.” Clawson said that he would prefer to rely on sabotage and other clandestine activities, such as “industrial accidents.” But, he said, it would be prudent to prepare for a wider war, “given the way the Iranians are acting. This is not like planning to invade Quebec.”

People I Know: Mortality

Dave Huth's contribution to Videoblogging Week 2006 was a seven-part meditation on death and mortality, pieced together from interviews with friends and neighbors.

After seeing the first part, I decided to wait and watch the entire series in one setting, which is either a good idea or bad idea, depending on your point of view.

Huth was able to put his subjects at incredible ease--and their unguardedness is key to the emotional honesty of the series. But on top of that his intercutting of the various recollections and reflections is, in a word, masterful, with a sense for breathing and pauses that brings to mind some of the best moments on This American Life.

By the brief coda to Part 7 I was sobbing, and I needed to be with my loved ones.

Frist's Southern Hospitality

Bill Frist's latest fundraiser invitation invites you to unbuckle a cowboy's pants and...

Er. Somehow that doesn't sound like the effect they were going for.

What I brought Liam from my trip

Sanrio's answer to Thomas the Tank Engine.

In paradise, a hard landscape

Honolulu is so very very ... paved. Small wonder a recent failure of piping and a pump led to uncontrolled sewage outflow and fecal coliform contamination of the entire Waikiki hotel district for the past week. Somehow an umbrella drink at sunset just isn't quite enough to satisfy.

Video: Gum

Canadian filmmaker Lukas Blakk kicks off Videoblogging Week 2006 with a static medium CU of himself... well... no easy way to say it: chewing gum.

For a long time.

1960s German New Wave Cinema long. Steve Martin pouring the coffee grounds long.

Your mileage may vary, but I thought it was awesome.
(Minutes later I'm still laughing.)

Chevy's 'Make Your Own Tahoe Commercial' idea not exactly going as planned

A co-branded contest by Chevy and The Apprentice in which users can create their own commercials for the Tahoe SUV. So of course the snarky users add their own anti-SUV text...

That whole user-centric Web 2.0 will so sneak up and bite you in the ass.

Condi's UK Mess

AFP collects what must be the most comprehensive tally of missteps and misfortunes that turned Secretary Rice's trip to Jack Straw's hometown of Blackburn into a "public relations nightmare."

I'd seen several of these in separate press mentions, but man. Just not her week.

Dictionary Flashback: Rafflesia

I recall a legendary game of Dictionary played in my parents' living room during my high school (or immediately post-) era, with so many players we had to double up in teams. My partner Nick Byram flipped straight to a word he already knew, and with it we quite crushingly stumped more than a dozen hyperintellectual college-bound knowitalls.

rafflesia (n) a foul-smelling, stemless plant native to southeastern Asia

The reveal of the true definition and the accompanying crest of incredulous laughter (rising still higher when Nick articulated--from personal knowledge--that the plant had been named for British explorer T. Stamford Raffles) was one of those ineffable moments of youth--indescribable to those who weren't present, uncapturable on film, that stands like a stone marker in one's emotional memory of the path traveled long ago.

Today I found photos--the first I've seen--and a feature post about Rafflesia, asserted to be the largest and perhaps rarest flower in the entire world, over at the Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society.

They take from 9 to 21 months to bud, and then the bloom lasts for just a week.

Question Hour: The Fat Controller's Railway

Economist Tom Bozzo of Madison, WI has a few questions about the Sodor Railway. There are links to other blog posts and comments of interest.

4. How is it that the bakeries only keep enough flour on hand to make a day's worth of English Muffins?

Playbill: Catching up with Stephanie D'Abruzzo

Playbill's "Diva Talk" columnist sits down with Steph to ask about her current Off-Broadway Show I Love You Because" and life after Avenue Q.

Scorecard on Iraq

821 words from Anthony Cordesman, Senior Fellow from the Center for Strategic & International Studies (who does not oppose the war and believes in staying the course), in which he assesses the progress of the war against its (stated) objectives.

Objective One: Get Rid of Iraqi WMD Threat: Happened before the war. The main stated objective of the war was pointless.

Objective Two: Liberate Iraq: Security for the average Iraq is now worse, and the new political freedom is essentially freedom to vote for sectarian and ethnic divisions.... We essentially used a bull to liberate a china shop, without any meaningful plan to deal with the consequences.

Knight Ridder: Iraqi police report US troop atrocity

Three Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondents contributed to this report. Their identities are being withheld for security reasons.

Knight Ridder has been such a tremendous resource of reality prior to and throughout this mad Iraq venture, but this account of an alleged massacre of civilians (including small children) by US troops leaves me feeling anxious and depressed.

Many critics of the newsmedia (from all sides--myself included) argue that its credibility is all too often a function of what the reader is willing to (or wants to) believe.

I don't want to believe this story; nor do I want to believe KR would send it over the wire uncritically. But for followup all I expect to find is uncritical echochambrage on the one hand or uncritical dismissal on the other. And of course on the third, largest hand of all there will be an uncritical silence, through unknowing or willful ignorance of the question at all.

I Am Not Keeping Up With Your Blog

NPR commentator David Weinberger officially releases you from having to keep up with his blog. Because he's not keeping up with yours.

And that's ok.

American Theocracy

NYT book review of American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips:

[T]hree broad and related trends — none of them new to the Bush years but all of
them, ... exacerbated by this administration's policies — ... threaten the
future of the United States and the world. One is the role of oil in defining
and, as Phillips sees it, distorting American foreign and domestic policy. The
second is the ominous intrusion of radical Christianity into politics and
government. And the third is the astonishing levels of debt — current and
prospective — that both the government and the American people have been
heedlessly accumulating. If there is a single, if implicit, theme running
through the three linked essays that form this book, it is the failure of
leaders to look beyond their own and the country's immediate ambitions and
desires so as to plan prudently for a darkening future.

David Foster Wallace: Host

The Atlantic Monthly is dropping this DFW article about conservative talk radio host John Ziegler outside of the for-pay firewall, since it's a nominee for a National Magazine Award.

Includes popup footnote windows.

Get it while you can.

Surviving a robot uprising

While Mommy is out on the second of two back-to-back all-night photo shoots at the Walnut Creek Safeway, evidence mounts that mechanical invaders want to devour the children of Planet Earth and make humankind their slaves.

NPR: O'Connor the Moderate?

Sandra Day O'Connor's speech yesterday at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast, but NPR has a cracking good report on it. I have never been so in love with Nina Totenberg.

Without naming names, O'Connor ripped into the rhetorical bullshit of Tom DeLay and John Cornyn, and the dangers of partisan attacks on the judicial system.

Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

Follow the link to hear the story, or click to read a transcript.

Video: Moving the Post Office

Minnesota Stories hosts this brief look back at a fascinating anecdote of civic engineering in St. Cloud, MN, when the town once spent eight weeks moving a two-story post office building through town on rails to a new location.

Fun with Lenses

magnify4
Originally uploaded by ereneta.

When I showed L what I looked like holding the craft lens in front of my face, he was eager to try it himself.

More fun lens shots if you click through to Flickr.

NYT: The Dames of Beef

"They're midcenturyists."

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report hit iTunes

$1.99 per episode, or $9.99 for an entire month (16 episodes at $.63/each) using iTunes' new "Multi-Pass" feature. Even buying both shows each month that's half what we're paying for satellite service, and right now we frequently miss episodes.

On days after big news events, you know they are going to make so much money.

For Trader Joe's, a New York Taste Test

The NYT previews the opening of Manhattan's first Trader Joe's later this month, with a glimpse of the secretive food development process and its attempt to create "addictive" food products.

"Before we got our Trader Joe's I used to drive up to Chicago every couple of months to stock up on those pretzels," said Kevin Messina, a lawyer in Creve Coeur, Mo., near St. Louis. "It's about five hours each way, but hey, it's a straight shot."

NYT: Home Economics

More food for thought from the NYT Sunday Magazine's special on Real Estate, this time at the macroeconomic level of urban development and housing supply. A profile of iconoclastic economist Edward L. Glaeser.

Homeowners, he points out, have a strong incentive to stop new development, both because it can be an inconvenience and also because, like any monopolist, stopping supply drives up the price of their own homes. "Lack of affordable housing isn't a problem to homeowners," Glaeser says; that's exactly what they want. "The thing you want most is to make sure that your home is not affordable if you own it. And for that reason, there's absolutely no reason to think that little suburban communities with no businesses that are run essentially by their homeowners will make the right decisions for the state as a whole, for the business in the area, for the country as a whole."

NYT: Who Needs the Mortgage-Interest Deduction?

An intriguing reframing of the mortgage-interest deduction, with a lucid explanation as to why Bush's specially commissioned bipartisan tax panel was unanimous in suggesting eliminating it.

What the article fails to include is any data or perspectives on the secondary mortgage industry and to what extent the refinancing binge during Bush's first term was responsible for propping up the economy (or not).

Monster Kid Home Movies

Awesome DVD compiling homemade monster movies from the 1950s through the 1980s.

Click on "Screaming Room", then "Trailer" to see a sampling.

John Carroll: Honor the divine spirit within Dick Cheney

A reflection on the challenge of compassion.

We celebrated Martin Luther King's birthday last month. Did we reach out to our enemies last month? Did we employ the power of love last month? Did we understand the power of peace last month? Yes, yes, I know they didn't, but what they do is outside your control. Did you do it?

...

All Gandhi had was the British Empire, whereas we have -- what, the Patriot Act? We're such whiners.

No criticism of Deirdre's post from yesterday intended. Because: what an asshole that guy is.

Cheney Scolds Americans for Lack of Savings

``The American dream begins with saving money and that should begin on the very first day of work,'' Cheney told a conference here exploring how to encourage people to boost savings and be better prepared for retirement.

Too often, workers are living paycheck to paycheck and are not saving sufficiently, Cheney said.

This from the man who cleared $1,328,678 in the 2004 tax year.

Post by SusanG in DailyKos.

Events to Debut in Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics

Hoppity Horse SnoBoCross:
Starting position: Stand at starting gate uphill of Hoppity Horse, feet apart and paralell, arms extended out at the shoulders. Turn head and gaze down your right arm. At the sound of a clap of the hands, leap towards Hoppity Horse and land astride in a single jump. Ride Hoppity Horse to the finish line.

4-Man Hoppity Horse Bobsled:
Starting position: Assume a runner's crouch next to Hoppity Horse at starting line. At the sound of a clap of the hands, driver grabs Hoppity Horse's ears and begin running in place. Once Hoppity Horse has attained theoretical momentum, driver mounts Hoppity Horse and crouches low to minimize wind resistence. The remaining 3 men are presumed to find a place on the horse but are not provided additional attention or instruction. Penalties are awarded if driver's feet touch the living room carpet. If Hoppity Horse sled topples over, the team usually overcomes this disaster and makes up for lost time to win the race.

4-Man Hoppity Horse Backwards Bobsled:
Same as 4-Man Hoppity Horse Bobsled except that driver mounts Hoppity Horse backwards and drives by holding onto the tail.

Craving Buc-Wheats

The message board over at The Empty Bowl, "The Definitive Source for All Your Cereal News" has a topic listing for Buc-Wheats, the long-defunct maple-tinged wheat/buckwheat cereal that was always my favorite.

Forum user "Discomurf" wrote to General Mills, who bought up all of Ralston Purina's cereals when Ralston divested itself of its cold breakfast products.

He received this reply.

Thank you for contacting General Mills.

We appreciate that you have taken the time to tell us about your product flavor preference. Our research and development group relies on the data collected during market research activities, in addition to the feedback we receive from our consumers, to identify potential new products and packaging. Before any new product is released to market, they conduct extensive analysis and testing to determine if it will meet our quality standards, and ultimately, the expectations and preferences of our consumers.

We hope you continue to enjoy our products.

Sincerely,
Kristi Goodman
General Mills
Consumer Services

Cat Piano

Apocryphal mention of an instrument played by poking cats.



Clearly an Italian ancestor of Marvin Suggs.

Fred Phelp's latest campaign

You may remember him as the "pastor" who organized protests at the funerals of various AIDS victims, Matthew Shepard and others. Now he is protesting at military funerals claiming that soldiers are dying in Iraq because God is punishing America for harboring homosexuals.

Last week, his group showed up at my family's former church in Anoka.

Get Out!

So the Fresno Bee's free weekly entertainment guide, Get Out!, lists me as the only out-of-town pick for the upcoming Rogue Festival. There are 70 acts over two weeks, mostly local, but there's a musician from London and a powerhouse monologuist from Minneapolis.

And I'm even quoted in the general article on the Festival, although my picture only runs in the print version, and for some reason the web editor decided to remove all traces of paragraph breaks, making it very difficult to read.

Charge it to the McGee Avenue account, please.

So.... what do these people do when their local housing market goes from boom to bust?

Why you should continue to date me

A series of graphs and charts. I especially like the Venn diagram.

I really hope this guy finds a suitably appreciative girlfriend.

Marimba Ponies

[Via BoingBoing]

Japanese kids ages four to twelve playing a kickass Sabre Dance.

Love the four year old on cymbal.

PressThink: The Press No Longer Matters

NYU prof Jay Rosen uses the microcosm of the Cheney/press notification hubbub to articulate a thesis he's been moving towards for years: that the Bush administration has walked away from the established concensus that the White House and the press have a relationship at all. They've unilaterally changed the game, and the press hasn't yet learned (and may never learn) to adapt.

Other White Houses had a “line of the day” they wanted to push. None had a spokesman like Scott McClellan who, no matter what the question, will mindlessly repeat the line of the day as a way of showing journalists that they have no rights to an answer. That isn’t “spin,” although it may superficially look like spin. That’s shutting down the podium and emptying out the briefing room without saying you’re doing it.

Valentine's Day Wrap Up

This morning, the day after Valentine's Day, Elizabeth's mom tells me knowlingly that everyone else in the class received a store-bought valentine, but Elizabeth insisted on hand-drawing one for Liam.

That's some rabbit you got there.

News of... um...
this rabbit, see. It's real big.
I mean really big.
His name is Herman.
He's German.

You probably don't need to see this,
but I mean, this rabbit...

Via the BBC.

(click on "Enlarge Image")

The Daily Show: Cheney Shoots a Guy

Don't know how I could have forgotten to tune in last night.
Thanks to Crooks and Liars for having our back on this.

Rob Corddry:

Hindsight is 20/20, John. As was, ironically, the shotgun the vice president used to shoot his friend, a 78-year-old man, in what can only be described as: his face.

Ten ways Dick Cheney can kill you

Via Boing Boing.
From back in March 2005, before he shot anyone
(that we know about).

The Buy-Nothing Year

The Compact: "About 50 teachers, engineers, executives and other professionals in the Bay Area have made a vow to not buy anything new in 2006 -- except food, health and safety items and underwear. "

Casualties of the War on Sanity

Snapshots of officials within the Bush Administration who at various times have stood up to the president and vice president as advocates for truth, reason, competence, the public interest, and the rule of law.

And who've mostly resigned or been fired since.

Third in a series that began with Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill, and continued with Sibel Edmonds and John J. DiIulio.

This one leads off with Jack Goldsmith and James Comey, whose struggles against the NSA domestic spying initiative and the president's torture authority were recounted in a recent issue of Newsweek.

Ask A Ninja

Making its way up the iTunes podcast charts, and across the blogozoidosphere.

The concept is brilliant in its simplicity. No script, one backdrop, one costume. Guy in ninja suit improvs as many responses to an emailed question as possible, and an aggressive, machine-gun editing style keeps things moving quickly enough that the clunkers have no time to register.

The site is starting to fill up with "fan art", which will probably help accelerate its ultimate demise. Because one can only exhaust the finite supply of possible ninja jokes so many times.

Check out Question 9, "Ninja Love" for the best execution of the style.

But his eyebrows. The guy's got Nathan Lane eyebrows.

Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society

Blog of curious objects, named for a 17th century Jesuit inventor, composer, geographer, naturalist, historian, and proprietor of a famous Wonder Cabinet (cf. Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, re David Wilson of the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which is currently hosting an exhibit on Athanasius Kircher.)

Blogging: What it looks like

From Dadahead: "For a limited time only, a sneak-peak, behind-the-scenes look at the making of this blog."

I didn't mean to say we'd cut our OIL imports...

There is nothing in the history of absurdist fiction to compare to this administration.

One day after President Bush vowed to reduce America's dependence on Middle East oil by cutting imports from there 75 percent by 2025, his energy secretary and national economic adviser said Wednesday that the president didn't mean it literally.

Lenny Bruce played here.

So did Mort Sahl. The Kingston Trio. Richard Pryor. The Smothers Brothers.

Guess who just got invited to tell stories for their Friday night Variety show?

Mary Potter, Peckerwood, WV

I backed into this four-part video documentary about a rural artist, her work, and the creation of an iron chair, and in fact the episodes sat unwatched in my FireAnt queue for months.

This is not a portrait of an outsider hillbilly artist, nor does Potter engage in capital-a Art. She creates because it is what she does, inseparable from who she is, embedded in the objects and environment around her. She evokes for me memories of Christa's grandmother Edith in her garden, or of her aunt Jean making batch after batch of cookies and hard tack at holiday time, or of the new "angry pillow" Mom made for Ben this week.

The rhythm of the editing matches its subject, so set aside a half-hour to tag along as Potter collects wood in the forest, buys a case of beer for her alcoholic blacksmith, and gives a tour of her basement gallery (where "the cats pee").

Hosted on Deep Maps, a thematic exploration by videoblogger Will Luers (Taylor Street Studio) of video encounters with place.