By Sheila
Lennon
'Bottom-up' journalism from the pros
Dec 6, 2002 - (Last
week's weblog)
Geek chic for Sen. Chafee? From
Mark at Intricate Plot:
There's a unique parody of the Apple
- Switch ad over at WorkingForChange.
WorkingForChange is the online voice of Working Assets, a company that
funds nonprofit organizations by getting you to switch to their credit
cards, long distance, and online services. Their
switch ad is aimed at Senator Olympia Snowe, Senator Lincoln Chafee,
and Senator Arlen Specter, three moderate Republicans who are being
urged to "pull a Jeffords" and leave the Republican party.
Link
to this item | Comment
Caedmon:
Recreating the Moment of Inspiration NPR reports,
In 1952, Barbara Holdridge and her best friend, Marianne Roney, had
just graduated from college when they made a move that would forever
change the literary world. Looking for a way to get into the record
business, the two young women heard that Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was
due to give a public reading at New York's 92nd Street Y.
They decided they would go and record him.
This year is the the 50th anniversary of Caedmon,
the company Holdridge and Roney formed to record the spoken word performances
of Thomas, T.S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and other famous
writers.
The page contains several audio links, including Dylan Thomas reading
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" and "A Child’s
Christmas in Wales" from A Child’s Christmas in Wales and
Five Poems (Harper Audio).
Related: Lost
papers reveal Dylan Thomas's last days
Link
to this item | Comment
Homeland Security a hard sell: "Only 13
percent of Americans polled by the Gallup Organization say they have confidence
that the new department will make them "a lot" safer. Nearly
4 in 10 Americans expect that the new department will not make the country
any safer,"
writes Ann McFeatters of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Related: Feds
Label Wi-Fi a Terrorist Tool
Meanwhile: JD points
to Internet.com's account of Boingo Wireless
and Earthlink
founder Sky
Dayton's talk at the 802.11 Planet Fall 2002 Conference & Expo
in Santa Clara, Calif.: Boingo
Recruiting For Wi-Fi Hotspots. And...
Cometa is Intel and IBM
teaming with AT&T to push a
big-business version of Wi-Fi.
Link
to this item | Comment
Walmart backs down over Black Friday sales leaks:
From Donna Wentworth at Copyfight:
In response to FatWallet's letter demanding that Wal-Mart withdraw
its subpoena for identifying information about a poster or face sanctions,
the retailer backed down. Wal-Mart had sought the identity of the individual
who posted Wal-Mart Day After Thanksgiving sales information on the
FatWallet site.
Link
to this item | Comment
 Could
you read a blog on this? Hammacher
Schlemmer's 180 Computer Monitor is a hemispherical projection screen
that's 5'3" high by by 5'5" wide by 3'5" deep.
It weighs 150 lbs. and costs $20,594.95; the lower-res (800 x 600) SVGA
version is only $15,594.95.
Plus $650 for shipping.
Link
to this item | Comment
Long gray line: Tomorrow is the 103rd Army
- Navy game. My
big brother Frank -- a member of the West Point class of '63 -- sends
along a pointer to this ESPN column by Adrian Wojnarowski: A
game bigger than life and death
Through the telephone line, the words sound like they're tumbling down
off a distant mountain, a cadence and conviction that leaves your spine
tingling. Pete Dawkins was the captain of Army's 1958 unbeaten season,
the first Captain of the Corps of Cadets, the Rhodes Scholar at Oxford,
the youngest general in military history, a uniform decorated with voluminous
acts of valor in Vietnam. He has lived a most remarkable American life,
Heisman Trophy winner to war hero, Wall Street CEO to U.S. Senatorial
candidate out of New Jersey. But the man's mission has stayed strangely
simple: Beat Navy.
Link
to this item | Comment
Internet
spammer can't take what he dishes out by Mike Wendland of the
Detroit Free Press:
West Bloomfield bulk e-mailer Alan Ralsky, who just may be the world's
biggest sender of Internet spam, is getting a taste of his own medicine.
Ever since I wrote a story on him a couple of weeks ago (www.freep.com/money/tech/mwend22_20021122.htm),
he says he's been inundated with ads, catalogs and brochures delivered
by the U.S. Postal Service to his brand-new $740,000 home.
It's all the result of a well-organized campaign by the anti-spam community,
and Ralsky doesn't find it funny.
"They've signed me up for every advertising campaign and mailing
list there is," he told me. "These people are out of their
minds. They're harassing me."
That they are. Gleefully. Almost 300 anti-Ralsky posts were made on
the Slashdot.org Web site, where the plan was hatched after spam haters
posted his address, even an aerial view of his neighborhood.
Here's the reaction
of the gleeful on Slashdot.
Link
to this item | Comment
Ms.
Magazine has a blog: It's written by Christine Cupaiuolo
of Chicago, who also edits the online magazine PopPolitics.com.
Cupaiuolo is assembling a list of female bloggers. Email
your recommendations.
Link
to this item | Comment
Rapture
Letters:
After the rapture, there will be a lot of speculation as to why millions
of people have
just disappeared. Unfortunately, after the rapture, only non believers
will be left to come up with answers. You probably have family and friends
that you have witnessed to and they just won't listen. After the rapture
they probably will, but who will tell them?
We have written a computer program to do just that. It will send an
Electronic Message (e-mail) to whomever you want after the rapture has
taken place, and you and I have been taken to heaven. via
Metafilter
Link
to this item | Comment
What
the World Thinks in 2002 by The Pew Research Center for the People
and the Press.
"Breast
scarves" are all the rage in Japan
Dec 5, 2002
Journal
/ Mary Murphy
HEADING OUT: Former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci
Jr. leaves the Providence Biltmore hotel, as reporters follow, for
his new home in a N.J. prison. |
|
|
| April
22, 1974: Then-Republican Vincent A. Cianci Jr. (he later became
an Independent) in 1974 becomes the first ItalianAmerican elected
mayor of Providence. Here he announces his candidacy for mayor. |
America's
longest-serving mayor
heads for federal prison
Cianci leaves city with 'a heavy heart'
By JACK PERRY
projo.com staff writer
PROVIDENCE
/ 1:25 p.m. -- Former Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr. waved goodbye as he
left amid the falling snow today for a federal prison in New Jersey, where
he will start serving his sentence for racketeering conspiracy tomorrow.
"I leave
with a heavy heart, but with a sense of accomplishment," Cianci,
61, told reporters outside the Providence Biltmore hotel, his home for
the past two years.
Cianci, credited
for leading Providence through a renaissance, is required to report to
the prison in Fort Dix, N.J., by noon tomorrow to begin serving his sentence
of 5 years and 4 months.
Cianci had
said yesterday that he might leave early because of the snowstorm hitting
the East Coast. Today, Cianci said he would spend the night at an undisclosed
location near the prison.
Cianci said
he had spent the morning accepting phone calls from well- wishers and
supporters. He said his mood was "very sad,'' and summarized his
incarceration as a journey, a new opportunity and a "learning experience.''
He said he
hoped people would ``reflect on the positive'' when remembering his years
as mayor: "No one's perfect. I certainly am not.''
Cianci told
reporters gathered outside the hotel that it felt "surreal"
to be leaving, especially in snow and with the city bedecked for Christmas,
a season he has always enjoyed. He wished everyone happy holidays.
"See
you around the campus,'' he said, an apparent reference to the federal
prison at Fort Dix, before climbing into a maroon minivan, driven by a
retired Providence police officer, for the trip around 12:20 p.m.
Unless the
1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Cianci's conviction in the
next year or two, he must serve at least 4 years, 6 months and 12 days
of his sentence.
The prison
at Fort Dix will be a far cry from Cianci’'s home at the Biltmore.
Classified
as low-level security, it has some 4,500 inmates. Most are assigned to
12-man rooms. Two lines of fencing and razor wire surround the prison’s
two compounds.
Like all
inmates, Cianci will be expected to work inside prison. He also won’'t
be able to wear his hairpiece.
As of this
morning, however, the hatless Cianci left with hair intact while casually
dressed in gray jacket and open-necked blue shirt. Earlier, a navy blue
jacket, several ties and food were brought into the van for the trip.
Cianci was
originally sentenced to serve his time in a federal prison in Lisbon,
Ohio, but his transfer to a prison closer to home in New Jersey was approved
last week after U.S. Reps. James R. Langevin and Patrick Kennedy lobbied
the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Cianci’'s behalf.
Cianci had
written letters to Langevin and Kennedy last month asking to be moved
closer to home. He cited his daughter, Nicole'’s, problems with
substance abuse as the reason. Cianci said he needed to be closer to Nicole
and her two children, ages 5 and 8. Nicole is in drug treatment in Exeter.
The prison
in Ohio is about 575 miles from Providence, while Fort Dix is about 210
miles away. Fort Dix is about 35 miles east of Philadelphia.
Cianci has
had a busy couple of weeks preparing for his incarceration. He said he
has established a trust to benefit his daughter and grandchildren if he
should die in prison.
In an emotional
send off, Cianci signed off his radio show on WPRO-AM last Friday. Supporters
called to wish him well. Many of them pledged to write and send cards.
The radio station hired Cianci a few days after he was sentenced in September.
In public,
Cianci has faced his departure with his chin up and a sense of humor.
He appeared on the Today show Wednesday, trading quips with Matt Lauer,
co-host and a former Rhode Island television personality.
”Cianci
said, "“It's almost like dying without dying."
On Sunday
afternoon, a party was held for Cianci at Mediterraneo, the Federal Hill
restaurant that has been one of his favorite haunts.
On Sunday
night, the CBS news program 60 Minutes is scheduled to air a segment on
the former mayor. During the summer, reporter Morley Safer was seen driving
around Providence with Cianci.
Cianci told
Lauer that he didn't know what the future holds. He said that he would
write, try to quit smoking, and maybe learn something from the inmates.
Once he gets
out, sometime in 2007, Cianci said he would enjoy life and possibly embark
on a career in teaching.
-- With
reports from Journal staff writer Tom Mooney and Journal photographer
Mary Murphy
* *
*
Snow is falling at a 45-degree angle outside our windows, and the flakes
are getting fatter as the snow and ice storm intensifies. Everybody not
making the newspaper has been sent home.
I'm outta here.
We'll catch up tomorrow.
Link
to this item | Comment
Dec 4, 2002
The
DiIulio Letter to Esquire: University of Pennsylvania professor
John DiIulio, the former director of the White House faith-based initiative
office, "apologized yesterday after being quoted as saying a band
of 'Mayberry Machiavellis' is running a White House in which politics
trumps policy," The
Washington Post reports.
.A few hours after White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer called DiIulio's
comments to Ron Suskind of Esquire magazine "baseless and groundless,"
DiIulio called them "baseless and groundless." And then he went
on sick leave.
The core of the matter: "What you've got is everything, and I mean
everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry
Machiavellis."
After an
interview today with Suskind, CNN's Judy Woodruff said, "...
the White House said in reaction to this, good politics is good government."
Excerpts
from Suskind's story are on the Esquire
website. The story will be published in the January issue.We can't wait
for the full story.
Link
to this item | Comment
"The
Perpetual War Portfolio is an evenly weighted basket of five stocks
poised to succeed in the age of perpetual war. The stocks were selected
on the basis of popular product lines, strong political connections and
lobbying efforts, and paid-for access to key Congressional decision makers."
Link
to this item | Comment
New Scientist |
| The criss-cross
and straight patterns (left and centre) are strongest, but the bow-tie
pattern (right) is the most efficient |
Science
has determined you already tie your shoes the best way: New Scientist
reports,
The knotty problem of choosing the optimum way of lacing up shoes has
been solved by a new mathematical proof.
There are many millions of different possibilities but, reassuringly,
the proof shows that centuries of human trial and error has already
selected out the strongest lacing patterns. However, the pattern using
the least amount of lace possible, the decorative "bowtie"
lacing, is usually only seen in shoe shop displays.
...criss-cross came out on top for a short, wide set of eyeholes -
that is, when the vertical distance between eyeholes is low, and horizontal
distance is high. Straight lacing came out tops for a long, skinny set
of eyeholes....
There are 400 million different ways of lacing a shoe with only seven
pairs of eyelets.
Link
to this item | Comment
The Rendlesham UFO files: Read them yourself
(pdfs). Part
1 • Part
2 • Part
3 • Part
4 • Part
5
I didn't go too deep, but there's an interesting back-and-forth about
the level of radiation found -- .1 milliroentgens -- and a request
for an expert opinion on what normal radiation levels would be. That answer
that came back: .015.
More info is
here.
Link
to this item | Comment
Dec 3, 2002
A
Woman Blogger and Proud of It: South Carolina blogger Pamela Mack
turns me on to a page that subdivides feminists into a boggling variety
of stripes, and writes her own thoughts on a thread that began with a
NYT
story about women bloggers by
freelancer and Salon.com blogger Lisa Guernsey. (The story has drawn
criticism as having been under-researched, particularly given lines such
as, "Women want to talk about their personal lives. Men want to talk
about anything but.")
Simultaneously, one of the most amazing outward spirals I've seen online:
Halley Suitt at Halley's
Comment is blogging about "the
end of Feminism and the beginning of Girlism" followed by "Girlism
Revisited." Shelley Powers responded here
and here.
And Doc, then
Doc
reconsiders, and reconsiders
again. Meanwhile, women bloggers are finding each other because of
this thread, linking and emailing and introducing themselves.
Look for upheaval and expansion of my blogroll soon as a result.
Link
to this item | Comment
Greenbacks
to come in many colors: MSNBC reports,
Color is coming, and government money makers are hoping for a warmer
reception for the changes. The new $20, with its public unveiling set
for the spring, is supposed to be in circulation as early as next fall.
Jackson is first in line for a makeover. After the new $20 makes its
debut, the new $50 (Ulysses S. Grant) and the $100s (Benjamin Franklin)
will follow in within 18 months.
In the works is a five-year effort, costing up to $53 million, to educate
people about the changes. An important goal is to help distinguish between
genuine greenbacks and bogus bills.
... Green and black ink is now used on neutral-colored paper. With
the makeover, color tints will be added in the neutral areas of the
note. Ferguson (Thomas Ferguson, director of the Bureau of Engraving
and Printing) would not say which colors will be used, but said they
will vary by denomination.
Link
to this item | Comment
NYC events-calendar blog: JD
writes, "John Hiler has done something amazing: On Sunday he
launched a brilliant new site, CityBlogs.com,
which he explains at length here."
(JD, once an editor at the gone San Francisco city guide site Microsoft
called Sidewalk, applauds the concept's return.)
John is covering three categories of New York City events right now:
Cinema, readings and talks. The expert annotation he brings to the listings
-- as well as coverage of those he chooses to attend -- results in a handcrafted
calendar, a fan's notes.
"Bloggers can provide the sort of distributed coverage of local
events that newspapers can't even dream of" John writes.
I saw another microlocal NYC website the other day: The Soho/Nolita
Pratique is a guide to every store in these Manhattan neighborhoods
(SOuth of HOuston St, NOrth of Houston St., Little ITAly). Check it out
if you're going Christmas shopping in the City. via Nick
Denton.
Link
to this item | Comment
Eclipse on the web: There's a total eclipse
of the sun tonight -- visible only in the Southern Hemisphere. The eclipse
path begins in the South Atlantic, crosses southern Africa, the southern
Indian Ocean and ends at sunset in southern Australia.
The event will be webcast
live from the best viewing site -- Ceduna, Australia -- at 4:10 a.m.
EST, with totality at 4:40. (Totality lasts 86 seconds.)
If the pipe is clogged, or if you'd rather stay up late than get up early,
there's a pay alternative.
Melissa Milios, OnlineJournalism.com Managing Editor, reports
that AfriCam
will be live from 12:50 a.m. (EST) catching the path as it crosses Africa.
"A one-time payment of $9.90 covers access to the Live Eclipse Cam
as well as a subscription through January 31, 2003, to other AfriCam and
Magical Skies videos, stills and educational content related to the eclipse,"
she writes.
NASA
has a page with a computer simulations of the path, charts and links.
Eclipses have always been mysterious events. Modern astrologers say it
will take place at 12 degrees of Sagittarius, and offer
various takes on its meaning for world events now.
Link
to this item | Comment
Author
who claims 9/11 attack was faked coming to NYC: AP reports,
A French author who suggests that the Sept. 11 attacks were concocted
by a faction of the U.S. military is planning to promote his book on
a tour that will begin in New York City.
The English title of Thierry Meyssan’s book is 9-11, The Big
Lie, which also suggests that the Pentagon was hit by an American
missile, and not American Airlines Flight 77. USA Books, a subsidiary
of the book’s French publisher, says he could launch the tour
as early as this month.
Link
to this item | Comment
Artist
Hopes Dairy Herd Makes Poetry: AP reports,
PURCHASE, N.Y. - Any artist can paint cows. Nathan Banks paints ON
cows.
Banks, a 22-year-old student at Purchase College, painted single words
(from "a" to "existential") on the flanks of about
60 cows near his upstate New York home, then let them wander around
to see if they could compose poetry.
So Holsteins and Jerseys named Elsie and Maggie came up with phrases
like "eccentric art," "performance as cow environment"
and Banks' own favorite, "organic conceptual art as poetry."
Link
to this item | Comment
Volkswagen
1-liter Concept: (Photo is there, too)
The world's most economical car is being shown to shareholders attending
the 42nd annual general meeting of Volkswagen AG in Hamburg. It is a
'1-liter' car, that is to say covers 100 kilometers (approximately 239
mpg) on only this amount (that's 1.06 quarts, about a quarter-gallon)
of fuel.
It's cute, with its little bubble dome, but I don't think it'd survive
a run-in with an SUV.
Link
to this item | Comment
Standalones:
Mozilla 1.2.1 is
released: Seamlessly upgraded here.
An
Exit Interview With WSJ.com's Neil Budde: Carl Sullivan at Editor
& Publisher talks with the departing publisher of Wall Street Journal
Online
Free
Wi-Fi in British pubs
Putting
course materials online, the university faces high expectations:
The Chronicle of Higher Education in depth on MIT's OpenCourseWare.
Dec 2, 2002
Antiwar
Effort Gains Momentum: Growing Peace Movement's Ranks Include Some
Unlikely Allies
The Washington Post reports,
...Having lived through the Vietnam antiwar movement, which took years
to build, the Mothers Against War are buoyed to find themselves part
of a fast-growing movement of people from every walk of life, from every
political stripe.
The extraordinary array of groups questioning the Bush administration's
rationale for an invasion of Iraq includes longtime radical groups such
as the Workers World Party, but also groups not known for taking stands
against the government. There is a labor movement against war, led by
organizers of the largest unions in the country; a religious movement
against the war, which includes leaders of virtually every mainstream
denomination; a veterans movement against the war, led by those who
fought Iraq in the Persian Gulf a decade ago; business leaders against
the war, led by corporate leaders; an antiwar movement led by relatives
of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; and immigrant groups against
the war.
There are also black and Latino organizations, hundreds of campus antiwar
groups and scores of groups of ordinary citizens meeting in community
centers and church basements from Baltimore to Seattle.
It has reached a point where United
for Peace, a Web site started by the San Francisco-based human rights
organization Global Exchange for groups to list events commemorating
the Sept. 11 anniversary, has morphed into a national network coordinating
events for more than 70 peace groups nationwide.
Link
to this item | Comment
Related: "Mothers
of draft age sons - should we organize?" is the first post
in a discussion thread at democraticunderground.com:
Oct. 11 2002:
I don't know how many posts I've seen lately saying, "No matter
what I have to do, I won't let them take my child." I suspect there
are a lot of us here. (Unless, of course, it's all been the same person
and I just haven't noticed.)
I have a 20-year-old son myself, and the more I look into conscientious
objector status, the less of a viable option it seems. I'm not sure
Canada is going to work this go-round, either. So what do we do?
Let's get together and talk.
One of the many responses:
"how do you propose we kick off the DUBYA GOES FIRST campaign?
This has to become a nation-wide mantra."
My prediction: The more Bush and Cheney re-create the Nixon administration
with appointments such as Henry
("The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a
little longer." -- The New York Times Magazine, Oct. 28, 1973)
"Kissinger to chair the
911 inquiry, the bigger the peace movement is likely to become. "Mayberry
Machiavelli" Karl Rove, who will be 52 on Christmas Day, should
be old enough to understand this.
Link
to this item | Comment
 The
Trained Eye Gallery: "All of these images are from the sides
of boxcars, coal cars, miscellaneous freight cars and a caboose. These
cars have been scratched, gouged, painted, scraped, rusted, and repainted
over the course of their lifetimes. From a distance they appear uniformly
colored, neat, and tidy. But, up close, with their context removed, they
have become the gallery you see here."
Terrific photos by Tim
Davis.
via Picto
Blog
Link
to this item | Comment
Infinity
mirrored: As kids, we all tried the two-mirror trick, trying to
see increasingly tiny reflections as they bounced between two mirrors
we stood between. Your head gets in the way. So it's with admiration a
little crowd of editors gathered around my screen to watch this awesome
Flash demonstration of what we could never see before.
Watch the frame.
Link
to this item | Comment
No
More Fanaticism as Usual by Salmon Rushdie:
A couple of months ago I said that I detested the sloganization of
my name by Islamists around the world. I'm beginning to rethink that
position. Maybe it's not so bad to be a Rushdie among other "Rushdies."
For the most part I'm comfortable with, and often even proud of, the
company I'm in.
Link
to this item | Comment
Brian
Walker, Rocket Guy: He appeared on Conan O'Brien's show Thanksgiving
night. ABC
News covered him. He' s serious: he plans to blast off from the black
rock desert in Nevada, without benefit of NASA.
Link
to this item | Comment
Standalones:
Dave
Barry's Holiday Gift Guide
The 3rd
Annual 20 Worst People, Places, And Things On The Internet For 2002
Scientists
condemn new gene technique ("Researchers have developed a
technique to speed evolution by inserting human cancer-causing genes into
animals and plants.")
How
the Three Card Monte is done
Tell
the FCC to Serve the Public, Not Hollywood! (by New Yorkers
for Fair Use)
And if this isn't enough, there are a few weekend items and new pix (snow!)
at my personal site at
lennon2.com.
Subterranean Homepage News
by Sheila Lennon
features & interactive producer of projo.com
|
Ch-ch-ch-choices:
How come "Choose Life" is 
