Subterranean Homepage News

By Sheila Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros

Off Monday, hope to (finally!) get rid of this summer cold. See you Tuesday.

August 1, 2003 5:07 p.m. -- (Last week's weblog)

The Prince of Providence: The True Story of Buddy Cianci, America’s Most Notorious Mayor, Some Wiseguys, and the Feds is Journal investigative reporter Mike Stanton's book about our former mayor, Vincent A. (Buddy) Cianci. Buddy has served seven months of a 64-month sentence on a federal racketeering conviction at federal prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey, where's he works in the kitchen -- perhaps appropriate for a mayor who has his own brand of marinara sauce.

Last Sunday, Brown professor and political analyst Darrell West reviewed the book ("An engaging, funny look at Buddy Cianci's dark side") for the Journal, and books editor Doug Riggs wrote a column about it (" 'Buddy' biography won't disappoint") (both reg req.).

Yesterday, it was the Providence Phoenix's turn, and they published an interesting quintet of reviews -- by Channel 12 investigative reporter Jack White, Phoenix news editor Ian Donnis, Cianci’s former chief of staff Artin Coloian, Phoenix contributor Christine Bevilacqua, and by former Journal reporter Brian C. Jones, who now contributes to the Phoenix. Donnis also interviews author Stanton ("The book on Buddy.")

It's a book that doesn't really need reviewing -- we'll all read it eventually, just to see what else we don't know about the mayor who nearly became mayor for life. But each of the reviewers offers insights:

White: "It is not precisely clear when Cianci fully embraced the Machiavellian philosophy that "the prince" is not bound by ethical considerations, that a ruler should only be concerned about power and achieving political goals.

"Federal prosecutors said that philosophy led to corruption. Cianci called it getting results."

Donnis: "The appropriation of mob values could be seen in the status afforded those who wouldn’t cooperate with the feds — an odd kind of alternate image of an American archetype, the stoic Western cowboy. As Frank Corrente had said during an earlier investigation of a city employee, "I don’t care if I have to go to jail — as long as it says on my gravestone, ‘He was a stand-up guy.’ " It was little surprise, perhaps, that Corrente became one of Cianci’s most-trusted lieutenants, refusing to cooperate with Plunder Dome investigators in the face of a prison sentence."

Bevilacqua: "Mike Stanton’s book filled in details I’d never known, reminded me of stories I’d forgotten, and often made me laugh, however uneasily, at the wild ride that was Buddy’s reign. But maybe because it has come out so soon after his banishment, it mostly brought back the queasy, angry despair I felt a year ago, when this independent and enduring city seemed irrevocably broken. It’s true that only a rogues’ gallery from City Hall was brought to trial, but by last summer, I felt like we were all unindicted co-conspirators in the decades of crimes against Providence."

Jones: " He could be the astonishingly nimble and funny Buddy, with an ear for one-liners, like the one he pulled out of thin air while debating two rivals during his 1990 comeback election. Frederick Lippitt and Andrew Annaldo accused each other of dipping into special pension deals, prompting Cianci to crack, 'I’m getting caught in the crossfire here between the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper.' "

But Cianci could also be mean and crude, Stanton writes, such as when he berated Alan Hassenfeld, chairman of Hasbro, one of the world’s largest toy companies and a leading Rhode Island philanthropist and government reformer. "Let’s get one thing straight," Cianci intoned. "You make fucking toys. I run a city. I have a police department, a fire department. You make fucking toys. And the only reason you do that is because your father left you the company, because you’re a member of the Lucky Sperm Club."

Coloian's inclusion in the mix here was brilliant. (He was acquitted by the Plunder Dome jury of taking bribes from Christopher Ise in exchange for getting Ise a job with the city Planning Department.) Coloian's turn at the keyboard stands out, crackling with indignation at the book,

The Prince attempts to build a case that Buddy was really guilty of anything and everything that the Journal has printed about him over the past 33 years. Stanton takes all the "charges" thrown at the mayor since he took office and uses a host of discredited and disaffected individuals, who were all too eager to say what the author wanted to hear and "prove" to Providence’s voters that the Journal was right all along. How did Stanton do it? He searched for anyone who would attest to every piece of gossip, innuendo, and negative anecdote previously published, and tied it up in a nice, neat package.

and defending his former boss:

Buddy Cianci is many things to many people. A brilliant urban planner to some, a tough guy to others, a resilient personality, a smart politician, a controversial individual on some occasions, and often a warm and caring person. He is truly one of Rhode Island’s most memorable people and one of its most influential political figures. His fiercest adversaries respected his grit, his intelligence, and his determination to take on any and all challenges put before him.

Mayor Cianci never hid from the electorate or the media. Whatever battles he fought, he did so at the head of the line. I saw firsthand that leadership and courage as he carried out his responsibilities as mayor. I had the privilege of spending hours with him over the years. I marveled at his ability to bring people together, to jumpstart a huge economic development project, or settle a neighborhood dispute. He was always willing to put himself and his office in the forefront if it solved a problem or raised the hope of progress. He was willing to take the hits that came his way to fight the fights to improve the city.

Complete coverage of Cianci's trial is online at http://projo.com/trial/
Earlier stories about "Operation Plunder Dome": http://www.projo.com/extra/plunder/
Mike Stanton's Journal series on Cianci: http://www.projo.com/extra/buddy/ (all reg.req.)
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Plastic Balls is another new grabber.

For more of the sort of thing, check out AddictingGames.com.

Related: Free Glider Game:

Welcome. Since Casady & Greene Inc. went bankrupt, the rights to the game Glider have reverted to me, the author. To that end, Glider PRO and Glider 4.0 are now free and I am giving them away for free download on this web page. Casady and Greene were a wonderful company and I am sorry to see them pass into Macintosh history.

Mostly for Mac, but there is an older version of the game for Windows there, too. Haven't tried it, you're on your own.

PhotoDoodle turns a photo into a paint-by-numbers "canvas." Free, sounds like it might work.

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In Najaf, Justice Can Be Blind but Not Female: Depressing news from Iraq, where we apparently only "liberated" men. From the Times (reg.req.),

The swearing-in ceremony was scheduled for today for Nidal Nasser Hussein, a 45-year-old lawyer with a history of breaking precedent in Najaf. She was the first female lawyer to begin working here when she started 16 years ago. There are now 50. ...

... Outside, a group of about 30 male and female lawyers were chanting in English: "No No Women" and "Out Out Roe," referring to Specialist Rachel Roe, a Wisconsin lawyer serving as the adviser to the court system in Najaf. A lone Marine gunnery sergeant prevented them from storming the chambers.

"We refuse the appointment of a woman judge, because it contradicts Islamic law," said Rajiha al-Amidi, one of the women in the group protesting the appointment. "This is what the Americans wanted to achieve in the first place with their invasion, to undermine Islam."

A woman cannot be a judge, she explained, because "women are always ruled by their emotions."

... Ms. Hussein, a smiling woman wearing a head scarf — liberal clothing in a town where women drape themselves in black head-to-toe abayas — tried to argue.

"There were demonstrations against the first elementary schools for women, too, but everything needs a beginning," she said to the colonel. "Don't just talk to the people who are shouting, talk to sensible people."

No dice. Her appointment has been shelved.
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Tom Daschle has a weblog.
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Bill Maher has a weblog.
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Hack the Vote: How to stop someone from stealing the 2004 election. By Paul Boutin at Slate.
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Once you start shaking out the socks all sorts of toe fuzzies fall out: Shelley Powers (Burningbird) again exports her most original mind into her blog. She starts off addressing President Bush's stance against gay marriages -- which incidentally has Andrew Sullivan and other gay Catholics considering leaving the church -- and ends up at feminism:

Certain gay rights supporters might wince that I brought feminism and pro-Choice into a discussion of gay marriage; and there are feminists who will wince because I bring the topic of gay marriage into discussions about a women's body and her right to control it. However, at the root of both is the question of religion, and people using religion as a hammer to flatten diversity, to punish the different, and to beat down equality. Regarding feminism and gay rights, I can't see supporting the one without supporting the other -- not because I am a blanket liberal and therefore I have these issues that I must believe and support to stay a good stereotypical liberal; but because fundamentally I believe it's the right thing to do.

Definitely worth a read when you have time for more than quick hits.
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Playing "Gotcha!" with readers: So much for Doc Searls' (Cluetrain) mantra, "Markets are conversations." From Jon Dube at cyberjournalist.net:

Following up on CyberJournalist.net's note yesterday that CNN.com continues to link to subscription-only articles from Business 2.0, Rafat Ali reports on PaidContent.org that the free links only work for two minutes, which is why all the Business 2.0 stories have been broken into multiple pages. "If say you are on the second page of a 3 page story, and your two minutes are up, as soon as you click on the link for the third page, you will encounter a subscription wall," Ali reports. "The idea, according to [a] Time Inc source, is to catch the readers midway through the story when they are engaged enough in the story to pay up."

Read fast to outwit the snare.
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Science Friction: The growing -- and dangerous -- divide between scientists and the GOP. At Washington Monthly,

When required to seek input from scientists, the administration tends to actively recruit those few who will bolster the positions it already knows it wants to support, even if that means defying scientific consensus. As with Bush's inquiry into stem-cell research, when preparing important policy decisions, the White House wants scientists to give them validation, not grief. The administration has stacked hitherto apolitical scientific advisory committees, and even an ergonomics study section, which is just a research group and has no policy making role.

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Cyborg Liberation Front: Inside the Movement for Posthuman Rights. Whew. At the Village Voice,

Yeats's wish, expressed in his poem "Sailing to Byzantium," was a governing principle for those attending the World Transhumanist Association conference at Yale University in late June. International academics and activists, they met to lay the groundwork for a society that would admit as citizens and companions intelligent robots, cyborgs made from a free mixing of human and machine parts, and fully organic, genetically engineered people who aren't necessarily human at all. A good many of these 160 thinkers aspire to immortality and omniscience through uploading human consciousness into ever evolving machines.

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Hot issues: While I've been flatted by microbes, J.D. Lasica has been all over digital rights, RIAA and other interests we share. Go there for blanket coverage.

There's also a debate going on in the newly launched comments section of San Jose Mercury News reporter Dan Gillmor's blog.

The best response I've see to the copyright flap is in a PC Magazine discussion group:

I am SO TIRED of all the moaning and groaning about the DMCA and its ilk. There is only one way to foil the DMCA and all others like it: don't buy ANYTHING in digital format. Can't make a backup of your precious "Matrix" DVD? Too bad. DON'T BUY IT! We're not talking about food, clothing and shelter here.

Don't like their policy?

DON'T BUY THEIR CRAP!

Simple as that.

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The Siegal committee report from NYTCo on the Times' newsroom's troubles. (pdf)

R.I.P. Sam Phillips.

July 30, 2003

Jack Kerouac bobblehead doll: From the Lowell Sun,

... The Lowell Spinners, in conjunction with the UMass Lowell English department, are declaring Thursday, Aug. 21, Jack Kerouac Night at LeLacheur Park. The first 1,000 fans through the gates will receive a Kerouac bobblehead doll.

"What better than a Jack Kerouac bobblehead?" said Spinners public-relations director Jon Goode. "Not everyone gets the bobblehead made of them. It's quite the honor."

On that night, the Spinners, a Single-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox, will play the Williamsport (Pa.) Crosscutters, which is a member of the Pittsburgh Pirate's farm system.

Seats are sold out, but $3.50 "standing room only" tickets still are available. For purchasing information, call 978-459-1702 or visit www.lowellspinners.com

"The baseball team has turned literary on us who would have thought it?" said UMass Lowell English professor Hilary Holladay, director of the Kerouac Conference on Beat Literature.

... The bobblehead doll itself is about 8 inches tall. The figurine sports a full head of black hair and stands on a copy of On the Road, pen and notebook in hand.

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(CNN/Money) - The uproar over the Defense Department's plan to launch a futures exchange, where traders would speculate on the potential for such tragic events as terrorist attacks or assassination, has reached a fever pitch.

Heads should roll, critics cry, beginning with the head of John Poindexter, the former Reagan administration official who runs the Pentagon office that cooked up the scheme. "The time has obviously come," wrote The New York Times editorial board Wednesday morning, "to send John Poindexter packing and to shut down the wacky espionage operation he runs at the Pentagon."

What are the chances that Poindexter is still around at the end of next month? About 70 percent according to the Poindexter contract that began being traded on Dublin-based futures exchange Tradesports. Yep, Poindexter is about to serve as an example of how accurately a futures market can predict future events -- the very idea that he was espousing.

Poindexter is also head of the Pentagon's Terrorist Information Awareness (TIA) program (initially named Total Information Awareness) and resigned over the Iran-Contra scandal, after he and marine Col. Oliver North set up a plan to sell arms secretly to Iran and funnel the receipts to Nicaraguan rebels.
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The Search For Osama: Did the government let bin Laden’s trail go cold? Jane Mayer in The New Yorker.

Which reminds me of a funny line in Bill Maher's current Comedy Special on HBO, Victory Begins at Home, based on a Broaday show he did with the same name. It's very funny. One joke (I'm paraphrasing here) goes, "We can't find Saddam Hussein, the guy we went after when we couldn't find Osama bin Laden. Now both of them are making tapes."

Which leads to ...
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Recalls Are for Cars, Not California Governors by Bill Maher in the L.A. Times last week (posted on his site, so no registration barriers apply):

New rule: No do-overs. Once you elect an official, unless he runs off with public funds or gets caught with kiddie porn, you're stuck with him.

He's the governor, not some dude you married in Vegas. ...

Related: Sacramento Bee columnist Daniel Weintraub's blog is tracking the California hat dance.
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Would your little girl like a $39,500 bed?
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Dead Butterfly: 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' guitarist: LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Erik Braunn, the Iron Butterfly guitarist who played one of rock's most recognizable riffs in the 17-minute anthem "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," died of cardiac arrest Friday. He was 52.

Braunn, who was born in Pekin, Ill., and raised in Los Angeles, was a violin prodigy who began his musical career at age 4. He joined Iron Butterfly when he was 16 and toured with the heavy metal band from 1967 to 1969, when the group was enjoying its greatest success.

Braunn, Doug Ingle, Ron Bushy and Lee Dorman left their mark on musical history with the psychedelic "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida," released in 1968. It went platinum and stayed on the national sales chart for two years; a three-minute version became a Top 40 radio hit.

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Bamboo Bicycle It's a beauty. From Bambucicletas, a story at the American Bamboo Society.

I am riding a bamboo bicycle through the main street of Christiania. Usually it takes quite a bit to make the roughies turn their heads - but this bamboo bicycle does the trick. It is beautiful, light and fast - and it is nice to touch.

As I park the bamboo bicycle in front of the Shop in order to have a black currant juice it feels almost as if I am dismounting a Harley right next to a café - several people come over to touch the frame and to check out how the bike is made.

"Where have you got that from?” they ask, here in the Paradise of Bicycles, the almost car-free town in the middle of Copenhagen.

So where have I got it from? - Well, from The Smithy next to The Grey Hall. The Smithy of Christiania has for the last 30 years been a furnace of innovation on the bicycle front. First came the Dursly-Pedersen bicycle whose rider feels like he is in a camels saddle. Then came the bicycle trailer, which became car free families way of transporting groceries on holidays and on weekdays, and at the moment The Smithy sells carrier bicycles for the transportation of children and many an odd purpose. And now the bamboo bicycle is being introduced.

Flavio Deslandes is the man behind the development of a bicycle made of bamboo. He is Brazilian and he is an industrial designer from the PUC-Rio University. I met him in his small workshop next to The Smithy.

- The bicycle is one of the worlds most brilliant inventions. It is hard to find a disadvantage (to the bicycle) - except the material it is made from. Light bicycles are made from aluminum, which is one of the most resource demanding materials that exist. My bicycles are made of grass, he says.

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Rhode Island farmers' markets: Local produce, some organic, some not, all fresh, sold all over the state in ad hoc urban farmstands.

At the Hope High school outpost Saturday morning I found some yellow plums no larger than a ping-pong ball. By last night they were perfectly ripe and juicy.

Organic native tomatoes in two weeks, one farmstand worker told me. (My plants are far behind that.)
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BuyMusic selling tunes it has no rights to? In the wake of yesterday's blogger review of BuyMusic, this takes the cake. At MacSlash, a musician named Jody Whitesides writes,

I did a search for one of my old CD's that will be going onto iTunes and It turns out my CD was there on BuyMusic.com. As were the CD's of several other bands that I'm friends with. All of whom were not contacted about being placed for sale there.

Here's what I've deduced... BuyMusic.com (which I will refer to as BM) got their "vast" music library of 300,000 plus songs from a company called the Orchard. The Orchard is a distribution company that has consistently shafted artists by not paying them for CD's sold nor returning unsold CD's or cancelling contracts. So, without the express consent of what is likely lots of the Orchards catalog, BM has put it up for sale at the bargain price of $.79 a song.

So now, they can tout they're selling tracks at $.79 and they can say they have a library of music of over 300,000 songs. But what they don't tell you is that it comes from musicians/bands that were not asked for permission, and who will likely not see a penny of any sale made through BM. By their very own site policy they are committing copyright infringement. ...

Related: I can't try BuyMusic.com. When I go to the site, here's what I -- a Mozilla user -- see:

In order to take full advantage of BuyMusic.com's offerings you must be on a Windows Operating System using Internet Explorer version 5.0 or higher.

Which has spawned a parody site, of course (by Matt Haughey).
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Nailed by RIAA? Here's a blog for you:

Raffi Krikorian (and others) of the MIT Media Lab is setting up a webspace for those being subpoenaed by the RIAA to blog and publish their experiences. H

ow did you find out you were on the list? Did your ISP turn you over or did your school protect you? What are you planning on doing now? Talk about it all and let people know what is happening. Help others that are finding themselves in a similar jam, and let the rest of us know the effects of what's going on.

if you are interested in getting a blog, e-mail (copywrong.org@bitwaste.com), and I'll set you up with a spot. The weblog can be as anonymous as you want it to be. We're pushing the site live -- with much more fanfare -- once we get the mirrors all set up in the next day or two.

via Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing.
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Disposable digicams: Another BoingBoinger, Xeni Jardin, points to this week's edition of Michael Tchong's Trendsetter newsletter:

This year, digital cameras (digicams) will outsell conventional cameras, 12.8 million to 12.1 million, excluding disposable, one-time-use cameras. That?s a big exclusion because sales of disposable cameras will reach 214 million this year, up from 198 million in 2002. This week marks the introduction of the first disposable, two-megapixel digicam by San Francisco-based Pure Digital Technologies, which will be sold under the Dakota Digital brand through Ritz Camera for $11. While the Dakota sacrifices an LCD screen, which research says is the No. 1 reason people buy digicams, it's clear that the fate of film is written on the wall. Kodak announced this week it would slash 6,000 jobs this year due to slow film sales.

Enlarge image

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July 29, 2003 5:40 p.m.

I've rearranged the blogroll at right, and will keep making additions.

Petition to God: at PetitionOnline.com, you can sign the following petition called Stop it God:

To: God

Dear god,
stop making bad things happen, its not funny any more.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

As of now -- Tuesday afternoon -- 5,212 people have signed it.
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RIAA can't sue you fast enough: Via SlashDot, "According to an article in the Inquirer (the British tech publication), if the RIAA maintains its rate of lawsuit issuance, it will take more than two millennia for them to sue evey P2P file trader. The author accounts for many additional difficulties facing the RIAA in this daunting task."

Related: Record Industry Trade Group Names New Chief. Reuters reports,

The music industry's leading trade group on Monday named Mitch Bainwol, a former top congressional aide with contacts in the Republican party, as its new chief executive and top lobbyist in Washington.

Bainwol, a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, will start Sept. 1 as head of the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group said in a statement.

Bainwol is also a former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Music industry executives had said the association was looking for a well-connected Republican to increase its leverage with Congress as it battles digital piracy. ...

...Speculation on the replacement for Hilary Rosen, who stepped down earlier this summer, had centered on a number of high-profile Republican names, including members of Congress like Mary Bono and Billy Tauzin, and former Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke.

A few weeks ago, Slate did a fascinating pair of stories about Why Congressmen Want To Be Lobbyists (Part 1), (Part 2) that includes this:

...click here and scroll down to the rap song Reps. Billy Tauzin, R-La., and Mary Bono, R-Calif., performed, by video, at (outgoing RIAA chief Hilary) Rosen's party. "We know the House rules don't allow us to apply for the job," Tauzin began, "but there is nothing wrong with auditioning for it." The two then rapped a song that began, "Who wants the job of Hilary Rosen?/ How 'bout the dream team of Bono and Tauzin?"

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BuyMusic.com review: In the wake of the launch of BuyMusic.com (a legal pay-to-play music-download site), blogger Jennifer at ScriptyGoddess does a first-person consumer review:

First problem. After you buy an album, you need to download it. Sure, I knew that. What I didn't know is that you have to download EACH SONG INDIVIDUALLY. One click per song. With two large sized albums with many songs on it - it can be just a LITTLE annoying. ...

Second problem. Before each song plays - it has to download and verify your license. ...

Third and VERY big problem. Since I'm using Windows200, they force you to use a windows media plugin made by Roxio. ... This plugin CRASHES consistently EVERY time I try to burn a CD.

And here comes problem number four.
The "Main" license is the one I downloaded the first time to *my* machine (the windows 2000 box with the defective Roxio plugin). Subsequent downloads are "secondary licenses" from which you are not allowed to transfer to a mobile device, burn a cd, or do ANYTHING with except listen to them on that one machine.

In walks problem number five.
Here's their oh-so helpful (probably computer generated) form letter to me...

Go there for all the juicy details. (Readers' comments follow her text.)
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Edible Food Wraps Can Keep Kids' Sandwiches Fresh And The Environment Cleaner: From Science Daily,

A food wrap is an edible film cut in pre-formed sheets or into envelope-like shapes. It looks like a piece of paper, except that it's made from a highly concentrated puree of a fruit or a vegetable, not from a tree. While a wrap made entirely from fruit or vegetables keeps air from reaching the food, it isn't very water-resistant. This is good because it will dissolve in your mouth. But you don't want it dissolving into your food in the freezer.

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Rat-brained robot does distant art: BBC reports,

Working from their university labs in two different corners of the world, American and Australian researchers have created what they call a new class of creative beings: "the semi-living artist".

Gripping three coloured markers positioned above a white canvas, a robotic arm churns out drawings akin to that of a three-year-old. Its guidance comes from around 50,000 rat neurons in a petri dish 19,000 kilometres away.

The "brain" lives at Dr Steve Potter's lab at Georgia's Institute of Technology, Atlanta, while the "body" is located at Guy Ben-Ary's lab at the University of Western Australia, Perth.

The two ends communicate with each other in real-time through the internet.

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Thunderbird prototype released: The Mozilla browser may be cutting edge to most, but there are more innovations coming out of Mozilla.org: Firebird (originally called Phoenix), an even faster, leaner standalone browser, and Thunderbird, a standalone redesign of the Mozilla mail and news client:

Our intended customer (despite this word, all the Mozilla products are free) is someone who uses Mozilla Firebird (or another stand alone browser) as their primary browser and wants a mail client based on mozilla that "plays nice" with the browser.

I had hesitated to do much with Firebird because I didn't want to browse with Phoenix and have to open Mozilla to do mail. But Thunderbird is now released, making it easier to play with these two together. I haven't tried it -- a summer cold that won't quit has me in zombie mode -- but they're on my list.

Thunderbird is not ready for the average user: version 0.1, available for Mac Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, is really for testers. But as long as you don't throw out your current reliable mail client, test it if you're feeling adventurous.
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I'm crawling off to nurse a wretched summer cold.

Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com