Ocelopotamus

News, culture, and politics. Not necessarily in that order.

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Books: “Too Slow a Form of Information Delivery”

July 13th, 2007 · Books, Culture, Education, History, Internet, Lit, Mythology, News

bookshelfScary quote of the week: In an article from the LA Times about the sad passing of another indie book store owned by a wonderful old eccentric — which is kind of like losing one of the last 12 rare rhinoceroses or something – anyway, toward the end of that article, we read this:

Dowdy is the kind of avuncular guy who clearly enjoys friendships with younger people. This was, ironically, part of what led him to get out of the business.

Last winter he went to a housewarming party for some neighbors who were about 30 years old and was amazed to see no printed or recorded matter of any kind. No books, no magazines or newspapers, no CDs.

Another time, a customer browsing in the shop told him he was not interested in books because “they’re too slow a form of information delivery.”

“People under 30 do not relate to books,” Dowdy said. “We’re in the middle of a generational shift. It’s not my world at 70. I can tell talking to them that they’re every bit as intelligent as any other generation, but their focus is different. These books are invisible to them.”

And I wonder if that’s just anecdotal or a real sea-change truth about the under-30s.

Look, I’m as wired as anyone. I blog, I iPod, I Wi-Fi.

But a world without books? Or more precisely, a world without people who read? I mean, thanks to all that melting ice up north I’m scared enough about the decades ahead, without the thought of being trapped on a planet full of people who never once had the experience of getting lost in a book.

And as for the “too slow a form of information delivery” guy — are there really people who think information is all you’re supposed to get from books? It kind of reminds me of Willy Wonka’s “three-course meal” chewing gum — that 1950’s-ish idea that it’s possible to compress an experience into a fraction of the time necessary to really appreciate and absorb it. Reader’s Digest “condensed” books, anyone?

Someone needs to gently break it to these people that the map is not the same thing as the territory, and looking at pictures of the world on Google Earth is not the same thing as actually going places.

And yes, I know that the sages of the East have told us that it’s possible to know all things without setting foot outside your door. But saying a thing is possible is not the same as saying that many people manage to accomplish it.

You know what? Sometimes when I’m reading a really good book — one that’s inspiring me and making me think — I deliberately slow myself down so I can spend longer thinking about it, ruminating inside the world of that particular book.

In college, after I read the first half of The Mists of Avalon, I put it aside for about three years so I could read a bunch of other Arthurian literature and Celtic mythology before I read the rest of it. I read T.H. White, Malory, Tennyson, The Mabinogion, Robert Graves, T.W. Rolleston, Yeats, Lady Gregory, AE, Lyra Celtica and The Golden Bough. (And listened to a lot of Waterboys, as I’ve noted previously.) It was one of the best times of my life. Discovering that doorway into the world of British, Welsh, and Irish legend was intellectually momentous enough for me that I wanted to amplify the experience rather than condense it.

I have to believe there are people under 30 who have found or will find that kind of doorway themselves, and understand what it’s like to live inside a book for a year or more of your life. I hope so. But maybe there won’t be enough of them to keep bookstores open.

Dowd’s last word on his closing store:

“After ’50s coffee shops closed, people put up things like Johnny Rockets,” Dowdy said. “I have a feeling that places like this will be re-created as an act of nostalgia — after we’re all gone.”

What a cheery notion.

Oh, the name of his book store? Other Times.

Not too pregnant with irony.

Go read the whole article — it’s worth it just for the story of how Mr. Dowd’s landlord saved his life.

(h/t Norm Sloan.)

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Great Moments in Misplaced Modifiers

July 13th, 2007 · Culture, Grammar, Internet, Language

Spotted just now in an online customer review for a handheld vacuum:

We have a 2 year old daughter who loves to throw food and her five cousins who ride in the car.

… those poor cousins, being thrown around the inside of a car by a freakishly strong two-year-old!

I hope the grownups at least keep the windows rolled up, so the other kids don’t get chucked right out onto the highway when the throwing-around starts up.

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Update: Internet Radio Gets a Reprieve

July 13th, 2007 · Activism, Culture, Internet, Media, Music, News

Save Internet RadioFor those who’ve been following the “Internet Radio Is in Danger of Being Shut Down Forever” story (background here), there’s some good news.

According to Wired News, as a result of the massive outcry Congress heard from listeners, SoundExchange is backing away from the draconic royalty rate structure that would have put Internet radio out of business.

New rates will still have to be negotiated, so the story isn’t over, but this is a really good sign. Everyone who called or wrote their elected officials should pat themselves on the back. Go read the Wired News post for all the details. More info also at the SaveNetRadio.org site.

Thanks to Minnesota Malcolm for the tip!

Previously on Ocelopotamus:

      • Save Internet Radio Campaign Update — Day of Silence Tuesday, June 26

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The Mid-70s Bowie Video Vault: David, Dick, Dinah … and a Dentist

July 12th, 2007 · Culture, Music, New Wave, Performance, TV, Video

I think I must have died and gone to David Bowie video heaven.

Prior to discovering the other videos in this post on YouTube, I had seen the clip of Bowie performing “Young Americans” on the Dick Cavett show in December of 1974, because it’s on the Best of Bowie DVD set. (I missed seeing it at the time of transmission because I was in third grade, if you must know, and a good half a decade from having any idea who David Bowie was.)

It’s a wonderful clip — not only is it a brilliant performance of a brilliant song, but it’s also a joy to be able to see Bowie’s all-star lineup of backing musicians in action, including such luminaries as David Sanborn on sax and Luther Vandross singing backup. I get a big kick out of the Gerald Ford-era fashion, too. It’s a little like watching the cast of Barney Miller sing their hearts out. (You could probably make a full set of very snazzy curtains out of that tie Mr. Jones is wearing.)

 
Notice that Bowie doesn’t even try to go for the high note on “break down and cry” at the end. Apparently that’s the sort of vocal feat that requires 17 takes in a studio and is not to be attempted before a live audience, because they’d be scarred for life when it didn’t come off.

So while I’d seen that, I hadn’t had a chance to see Bowie’s interview segments with Dick Cavett from that same show, and they are jaw-dropping in an entirely different way.

Bowie made it very clear in later years that he spent the mid-70s with a snoot full of toot, and that this messed him up so badly that he had to move to Berlin and make dark synthesizer music with Brian Eno for several years just to recover enough to name an album Scary Monsters.

Still, it’s jarring to watch him fidgeting and sniffing his way through this interview, getting freaky with his cane, while you can see poor Mr. Cavett trying to figure out how to keep the interview somewhere in the vicinity of the rails, if not actually on them, without making his audience think he’s oblivious to the arty genius turned hyperactive powder gibbon in front of him.

Here’s the first part of the interview.

 
When I was a kid I thought Dick Cavett was the most boring grownup alive, but I’m gaining a new appreciation of him as an adult. That line about the draft board is sheer genius. He even cracks Bowie up with that one.

Here’s part two of the interview, during which Bowie settles down a bit and answers a few questions. Maybe they got some chamomile tea into him during the commercial break, or something.

 
But I’m just getting going here. After the jump I’ve got Bowie doing a medley with Cher, Bowie on Dinah Shore, and a hard-hitting historical report on Bowie’s teeth.

[Read more →]

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NYC Fire Fighters vs. Giuliani

July 12th, 2007 · Activism, Culture, History, Labor, News, Politics, Terrorism, Video

Speaking of unions … here’s what the New York fire fighters’ union has to say about Rudy Giuliani.

 
It’s a little slow to get going, but if you take a few minutes to watch the whole thing, it’s pretty damning. Rudy really made some incredibly bad decisions. For example, I hadn’t known about him deciding to locate the emergency command center on the site of the World Trade Center … after it had already been attacked in 1993.

From the video summary:

In this thirteen minute documentary, fire fighters, fire officers and family members give dramatic testimony about Giuliani’s leadership failures. Their dramatic stories tell how Giuliani failed to provide the FDNY with radios that worked, which led to the deaths of 121 fire fighters inside the World Trade Center’s North Tower because they were unable to hear orders to evacuate.

Fire fighters also point to Giuliani’s poor judgment in placing his emergency command center at 7 World Trade Center, a known terrorist target after the 1993 bombing.

This video documents the mayor’s lack of respect for the fallen when he called off the recovery effort at Ground Zero on Nov. 1, 2001, after $200 million in gold bullion was recovered.

… “The UFA participated in this video to correct the myth that Rudy Giuliani has perpetrated on the American public,” said Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, IAFF Local 94.

So much for the big 9/11 “America’s Mayor” media narrative.

Via Progressive Historians.

Related: the Rudy Giuliani Urban Legend site.

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Liking Norma Rae

July 10th, 2007 · Activism, Culture, Film, History, Labor, Media, News, Peoria, Politics, The Economy, Stupid

Norma Rae posterAfter reading this piece, which originally ran in The Nation, I bumped Norma Rae up on my Netflix queue and was very glad I did. I was really too young for it when it came out in 1979, and had somehow never gotten around to renting it in the years since.

And seeing Norma Rae now feels particularly timely, in the wake of the Employee Free Choice Act (which would have made it easier for employees to form unions without interference from management) being killed by a Republican filibuster.

Not to mention that guy I saw in Peoria holding the sign a couple of weeks ago.

Norma Rae, of course, portrays in vivid dramatic terms the human cost and effort required to organize a union, as corporate bosses use fear, intimidation, and every kind of obstruction they can think of to keep employees from making a free choice.

And as the Nation piece points out:

The situation has not improved much since … union organizers are battling adversaries as unyielding as any in the days of Norma Rae. According to the labor advocacy group American Rights at Work, last year more than 23,000 Americans were fired or penalized for legal union activity.

The movie succeeds on a lot of different levels. For one thing, it truly is an amazing performance by Sally Field, a complete surrender on the part of the actor to a complex and charismatic character. Watching the DVD extras adds to the impact of the performance, because Sally makes it clear in the interviews that she had a hard time relating to the Norma Rae character when she first read the script — it wasn’t one of those natural and immediate connections that sometimes happens for an actor. The transformation into Norma Rae required a real investment of work and understanding.

The other thing that makes Norma Rae so compelling now is that we live in times when so many people have no understanding of the labor movement or its history, or why unions matter more than ever in this post-NAFTA age.

That once upon a time, we lived in a country where people worked 16 or more hours a day, six or seven days a week, in factories with blocked fire exits and all sorts of hazardous health conditions. And it took a lot of pain and struggle and sacrifice on the part of union organizers and ordinary working people to change all that.

One of my favorite bumper stickers puts it perfectly: “The Labor Movement: The People Who Brought You the Weekend.”

Considering how popular the concept of the weekend is in the US, you’d think unions would get a little bit more respect for having introduced it to American life.

And these days, partly because people have forgotten why unions were important in the first place, the progress they made is being chipped away as jobs continue to leak overseas to sweatshops where people work under conditions as bad as or worse than we ever had here.

This is part of what’s so frustrating about the media’s continued use of the dishonest “Free Trade” frame to discuss trade issues. “Free Trade” is a corporate code phrase for “Unfair Trade,” a devious way of suggesting that the unfettered power of corporations to abuse workers and despoil the environment is somehow related to the concepts of democracy and liberty.

So given all of that, I think Norma Rae, for those who still haven’t seen it, makes a nice crash course introduction to what all this union stuff is about.

As for Ms. Field, I thought this part of the Nation article was something of a revelation as well:

Since then, the entertainment community has kept its distance from the film. One indication of Hollywood’s indifference came six years later, at the 1985 Academy Awards, when Field accepted her Oscar as Best Actress for Places in the Heart. “You like me,” she said effusively, “right now, you like me.” The audience response was nervous laughter, as if Sally Field were so needy as to consider an Academy Award a sign that she was “liked.” This was, of course, not the case. Field had assumed, incorrectly, that most of her colleagues had seen her astonishing performance in Norma Rae. But in fact, many in the audience had no idea that she was referencing one of the picture’s most memorable pieces of dialogue–her character’s realization that her union organizer not merely respected her but liked her as a human being.

Considering how relentlessly parodied Ms. Field has been over the years for that moment, it’s fascinating to finally know why she said what she said, and somewhat chastening to discover that it wasn’t some kind of celebrity insanity — it was an allusion that went over the audience’s heads.

She’ll never live it down, of course. It’s a moment firmly entrenched in the language of comedy. But for me anyway, she’s been vindicated. I do like you, Norma Rae. I really do.

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I Font You To Font Me

July 9th, 2007 · Culture, Design, Lit, Typography

Hoefler TextNZBC linked to a recent Slate piece in which a gaggle of writers discuss their favorite fonts to work in.

I’m a heavy Times user myself, mainly because it’s the only font that doesn’t distract me while I’m working in it — to me it just looks plain and neutral without being hard to read. (I’d upgrade to Times New Roman if I thought about it, but since Times is the default in Word I usually just roll with it.)

I can’t work in sans serif fonts — they give me a headache. This can be difficult because a lot of my business clients gravitate toward Arial and other sans serifs, thinking that they’re “simple” and “clean.” (The reality, of course, is that while sans serifs are great for headlines and decorative type, when you’re working with large blocks of body text, you need the serifs to help the eye track the line. Reading comprehension goes down when you set long passages in sans serif fonts. It’s a shame that basic typographical fact of life isn’t more widely understood, but don’t get me started.)

Courier (the choice of a number of the “old school” writers sampled) always looks to me like you’re pretending to write on a typewriter rather than actually doing so. (Ditto for American Typewriter, though I think it looks nice on the OcPot masthead.)

I do like Hoefler Text a lot, which one of the writers chose, but it’s more something I’d choose to set writing in after I’d already written it. I tried working in it for a while, but found it far too pretty to let me concentrate. It kept making me think about whether what I was writing was elegant enough for the font or not. Who needs that kind of pressure?

Previously on Ocelopotamus:

      • Happy Fontiversary Helvetica, All About Arial, and Cooper Black: Behind the Typeface

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Roundup: Cannibal Cane Toad Edition

July 9th, 2007 · Activism, Blogs, Comics, Culture, Education, Food, Hate Crimes, Health, Human Rights, Internet, iTunes, LGBT, Music, Nature, New Wave, News, Organic Food, Pets, Politics, Restaurants, Roundup, Science, Tech, Vegetarian & Vegan

Cane Toad

  • John Conyers tells it like it T-I-Is: Conyers says Bush spared Libby from jail to keep him from singing. This is patently obvious to just about everyone, but of course the White House immediately called the charge “ridiculous and baseless.” Which allows it to join the distinguished list of other ideas the administration considers “ridiculous and baseless,” including global warming, Iraq being in a state of civil war, the importance of habeus corpus and the Geneva Conventions, evolution, the earth revolving around the sun, and, of course, “down” being somewhat lower in position than “up.”
  • The same Guardian story quotes Republican member of the judicial committee Chris Cannon as saying: “I would prefer that we not waste our time in Congress on these witch hunts and frivolous activities.” Interestingly, Cannon wasn’t referring to the Republicans’ eight-year harassment and frivolous impeachment of Bill Clinton.
  • Boston Globe: Fred Thompson was a mole for the Nixon White House during Watergate. Via DKos.
  • THE PINK SECTION: More homophobic turmoil in Europe, as hundreds of skinheads and right-wing bullies throw eggs and smoke bombs at a gay pride parade in Budapest. This follows in the wake of a Hungarian cabinet minister coming out of the closet.
  • A fascinating look at what it’s like to be gay in India today, as members of the LGBT community gradually begin to make their voices heard while fighting against both traditional persecution and contemporary backlash. The Internet is playing a big role: According to the story, a Yahoo Group called Gay Bombay now includes 16,000 members from all over India, giving professionals like doctors and lawyers a way to connect.
  • THE GREEN SECTION: In an effort to combat the negative impact of cane toads on Australian biodiversity, researchers are now studying ways to trigger cane toad cannibalism: “They noticed that adults often wiggle their toes when around young toads, prompting the latter to hop towards them, apparently mistaking the toes for a juicy insect — their main diet. The adults then gobble up the youngsters.”
  • Running of the nudes: Activists protest Spain’s “running of the bulls” in the buff.
  • Why you shouldn’t let your cats roam outdoors, even if you live in a “nice” neighborhood: There are a lot of scary people out there, and a lot of them hate cats. Case in point: a Minnesota family’s pet cat was beheaded by someone in their neighborhood who doesn’t like cats, and the severed head was tossed in their yard. Their other cat has now gone missing as well. Words fail.
  • Another child dies of salmonella from exposure to a turtle. We need to get the word out: Turtles don’t make good pets. They’re beautiful animals, but they should be left alone in the wild.
  • HEALTH: A new study confirms that organic fruit and vegetables really are better for you. “A ten-year study comparing organic tomatoes with standard produce found that they had almost double the quantity of antioxidants called flavonoids which help to prevent high blood pressure and thus reduce the likelihood of heart disease and strokes.”
  • I’m a big fan of OrangeClouds115’s “Vegetables of Mass Destruction” series on Daily Kos: weekly diaries focusing on natural and organic food-related topics, every Sunday. Yesterday’s entry was a great look at food labels and how much we can really trust them.
  • MUSIC: An interesting analysis of the ramifications of Universal’s recent decision to change the terms of its contract with iTunes.
  • Chrissie Hynde is opening a vegetarian/Mediterranean restaurant in Ohio called — wait for it — VegeTerranean. (h/t Jim S.)
  • COMICS: Here’s a great one I just found in the Slowpoke archives. How to deal with the anti-evolutionists: Politicians who deny the benefits of science should be assigned medieval physicians. “While politicians who accept empiricism will get modern-day drugs, those who don’t will receive spins in a giant centrifuge designed to balance one’s humors.”
  • “Foolish surface dwellers!” Reuben Bolling peeks into the top secret files of Dick Cheney. Tom Toles: Maybe it’s the monkey. And here’s Bob Geiger’s most recent Saturday cartoon roundup. I especially love the Justin Bilicki entry, about midway down.
  • Opus’s dream candidate. (And cruel awakening.)

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Notes on Sicko: A Prescription for Change

July 6th, 2007 · Activism, Culture, Film, Health, Healthcare Crisis, History, Journalism, Media, News, Politics, Science

Sicko Glove PosterI saw Sicko Tuesday night, and it did not disappoint. The main impact for me is this: Watching this film makes it unavoidably clear that we as a nation have been completely duped, conned, and as the kids say, “pwned,” by those who’ve spent millions to convince us that universal healthcare is too expensive, can’t possibly work, and will result in a monstrous bureaucracy where we won’t be able to choose our own doctors, among assorted other scare tactics.

Sicko exposes those lies so cleanly and effortlessly it takes your breath away. I’ve talked with enough friends in the UK to know they’re generally happy with their health care system (and wouldn’t trade places with us on a dare), and the negative propaganda we hear about it in the US is mostly hokum. But still — the experience of watching Sicko is something like waking up from a hallucination.

I think that it will be hard for most people to think about health care the same way after they see it as they did before — even if they’re the sort of person who thinks Michael Moore is a big fat Fidel Castro-loving liar. Just the experience of sitting and confronting these issues for two hours will be enough to cause a sea change in perspective for many people, I think.

And for that reason I think that if enough Americans see this movie, it has the potential to completely reframe the debate in the US — because we as a country will be much, much harder to hoodwink.

In the movie we listen to patients and doctors in Canada, the UK and France talk about how hassle-free and affordable their system is. We listen to American ex-pats talking about feeling almost guilty because they’re being so much better taken care of as guests in those countries than they would be in the US.

And in a particularly shattering moment, we watch an American — suffering from chronic illness she developed as a result of 9-11 rescue work — looking at the same inhalers she has to pay $120 apiece for in the States, and being told they go for the equivalent of five cents in Cuba. The look on her face is unforgettable. It’s the look of someone realizing that one of the worst ordeals she’s been through as a person didn’t have to happen. That she’s been conned.

Even those critics who go looking for factual flaws in Sicko generally conclude that Moore gets the most important things right. For example, this piece from the Dayton Daily News (warning — annoying registration process required, unless you click on a link from Google News like I did), which finds little faults here and there but grudgingly admits that the most important points in the film are correct. The piece concludes: “‘SiCKO’ got a lot of the little things wrong. But it got most of the big things right.”

I can’t remember who gets the blame for this one, but one of the standard scare lines we got in the 90s, during Hillary Clinton’s ill-fated attempt to reform health care, was that “if the government takes over health care, we’ll wind up with a system that has all the compassion of the IRS and all the efficiency of the US post office.”

It’s a funny line, but anyone who’s still buying into it needs to wake up to one important fact: THAT’S WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE RIGHT NOW. Right this very damn minute.

People are dying every day in this country because of the greed and negligence of the insurance and pharmaceutical countries. People are being denied the bone marrow transplants they need to save their lives; being kicked off their insurance for getting cancer or diabetes or failing to disclose a minor infection they had ten years ago; being told that standard treatments and medication can’t be paid for because they’re “experimental.” People are waiting years for treatment they need but can’t afford. People are losing their savings, their homes, their lives.

I myself spent three years earlier this decade waiting for needed surgery because I couldn’t afford the deductible on my own insurance plan. So don’t try telling me that single-payer healthcare is bad because “it will result in long waits.” I’ve already lived through that, buster, and I have plenty of friends who are or have been in the same boat.

Speaking of Hillary — another important point the movie makes clear is that she’s already lost this battle once, and she’s not going to take the powers that be on again. She’s now completely in the pocket of the insurance and pharma companies. If she gets elected, we get stuck with the same system we’ve got for four more years. If we want reform, we need a candidate who isn’t damaged goods in this arena. (And maybe, just maybe, an experienced and wildly successful trial lawyer, with a history of winning negligence cases against big corporations, might be a good advocate to have in our corner.)

Finally: there’s an interview in the film with a nice Canadian gentleman in a golf cart, who mentions that a man named Tommy Douglas helped Canadians see the light on the importance of universal health care. Like most Americans, my knowledge of Canadian history and politics is embarrassingly bad, so I looked up Tommy Douglas on the Wikipedia. You can read up on him here if you’re so inclined. As mentioned in the film, in 2004 he was voted “Greatest Canadian of All Time” in a contest held by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Mister, we could use a man like Tommy Douglas here in the States.

As I said in my previous post about Sicko, we need to stop listening to the people who tell us we can’t implement single-payer health care here. We as a nation can do anything we put our mind to. We’ve proven that time and time again. Where universal health care is concerned, it’s just a matter of getting to the point where we’ll no longer take no for an answer. I’d like to think Sicko will move a big chunk of the country closer to that point.

Previously on Ocelopotamus:

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Doctor Who: Catherine Tate Signs on for Season Four, and US Season Three Premiere Tonight

July 6th, 2007 · Culture, Doctor Who, Fantasy, LGBT, News, Science Fiction, TV

Doctor and DonnaIt was a big week for Doctor Who news in the wake of the Season Three finale on the BBC this past weekend. Some of the major revelations include the Doctor’s most recent companion Martha Jones taking a break from the TARDIS, and Catherine Tate (who appeared in the 2006 Christmas special) signing on as the Doctor’s new companion Donna Noble for all of Season Four.

Also, Kylie Minogue fans are all a-twitter about the news that she’ll be Minoguing her way onto the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas special, entitled “Voyage of the Damned.”

Here in the US, Season Three starts airing on the Sci-Fi Channel tonight, Friday July 6, with back-to-back airings of the 2006 Christmas special “The Runaway Bride” (featuring Catherine Tate) and the first proper episode of Season Three, “Smith and Jones,” wherein Season Three companion Martha Jones is introduced. As well as a lot of rhino-headed aliens. Season Two episodes are being shown during the day as well, in case you need to do some catching up. (Check your local listings or the Sci-Fi channel site for the exact times in your area.)

From there the show will settle into a regular Friday-night slot on the Sci-Fi Channel, running through the end of September with a week off for Labor Day. They’ll be airing the final two episodes, “The Sound of Drums” and “Last of the Time Lords,” back to back, which is thoughtful of them.

Back on the subject of Season Four, here’s what’s going on with Martha Jones:

Freema Agyeman, 28, who was rumoured to be facing the axe from the BBC One revival, will in fact only be absent from the first half of the fourth series.

… Agyeman will guest star in three episodes of Torchwood, the sci-fi spin-off on BBC Two, before returning to Doctor Who as sidekick Martha Jones.

The BBC says that Martha’s stint on Torchwood will “expand” her character, and if nothing else it will establish her among the few characters who can cross back and forth between the different shows within the current Doctor Whoniverse, like Captain Jack and Sarah Jane.

And while Martha Jones is away, Catherine Tate’s character Donna Noble will be taking over as Season Four’s main companion. We last saw Donna at the end of “The Runaway Bride,” standing outside the TARDIS and declining the Doctor’s offer to climb aboard for some further adventures — but apparently Donna will be having a change of heart about that.

[Tate] will join David Tennant for the complete 13-week run of the new series of Doctor Who, which is due to begin filming in Cardiff later this month. Tate will be returning to her role as Donna, the runaway bride who found herself transported into the Tardis as she prepared for her wedding on Christmas Eve.

… Doctor Who’s executive producer and head writer, Russell T Davies described Tate as an “absolute star” in The Runaway Bride episode.

“We are delighted that one of Britain’s greatest talents has agreed to join us for the fourth series,” he said. “Viewers can expect more ambitious storylines and a whole host of guest stars in 2008.”

Catherine Tate said: “I am delighted to be returning to Doctor Who. I had a blast last Christmas and look forward to travelling again through time and space with that nice man from Gallifrey.”

Finally, according to Outpost Gallifrey, the attempt to show the season finale at London Pride (which I posted about previously) turned into a major disappointment for gay Whovians.

Who fans who endured very wet weather in London yesterday were disappointed when the organisers of London Pride 2007 had to pull the plug on the season finale … Hundreds of people gathered in Trafalgar Square to celebrate gay pride and were looking forward to seeing the show on the big screen when, at approximately 7.45pm, an apologetic host told the crowd that the programme had been cancelled.

It was initially blamed on a faulty DVD player, but later transpired there was an 8pm curfew imposed on the event by Westminster Council and the police which meant there was no time for the broadcast … Altogether, a wet and disappointing day out in London for Who fans.

Ah, well. At least they have Kylie to look forward to.

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Roundup: Solar-Powered Wi-Fi Turtle Edition

July 5th, 2007 · Apple, Business, Climate Change, Comics, Culture, Film, Food, Hate Crimes, Health, Healthcare Crisis, History, HIV/AIDS, Internet, LGBT, Media, Music, Nature, News, Politics, Racism, Roundup, Science, Tech

NBC News in 1972

  • Nicole at Crooks and Liars puts it well: It’s ironic to be celebrating Independence Day during a time when we have a virtual King who defies the law with impunity, and is not held accountable to the people he governs. Revolution? What revolution?
  • Also at C&L, what a TV newscast looked like on July 4, 1972. One striking irony: In ’72, Nixon was busy laying plans for the Bicentennial celebrations, and fully expected to be presiding over them when 1976 rolled around.
  • Racism in the 21st century: black high school students in Jena, Louisiana threatened with lynching for asking to sit under a “whites only” shade tree.
  • THE PINK SECTION: OMG! Bill Gates helps bail out PlanetOut and Gay.com.
  • Via RubberNun, Egypt has finally banned all female circumcision.
  • After a weeklong boycott organized by the local LGBT community, Kroger reverses its previous decision to stop allowing a free gay newspaper to be distributed in its Nashville area stores.
  • The Guardian says that according to Polish gay organizations, “thousands” of gay people have fled to the UK from Poland in order to escape state persecution.
  • THE GREEN SECTION: An essay in The Independent addresses the elephant in the living room of global climate change: overpopulation. With between 8 and 10 billion humans expected by 2050, it’s time to start talking about it.
  • TurtleNet: Computer engineers and biologists at the University of Massachusetts have come together to create a wireless network just for turtles. By attaching postcard-sized, waterproof, solar-powered computers to the shells of snapping turtles, the biologists will track the turtles’ travels to learn more about them and their habitat, while the engineers get to try out some innovative new gadgetry.
  • I should have guessed this: It’s actually easier for Americans to get a drink of clean water from Fiji than it is for the people who live there. Here’s a fascinating and sobering look at some of the dirty secrets behind the bottled water industry. Via BoingBoing.
  • Big ol’ spongey moon: So if you’re at a party and someone asks you what Saturn’s moon Hyperion is like, you can say, “Porous. Like a sponge.” And then reach for the veggie tray.
  • HEALTH: Scientists discover a new “glimmer of hope” for curing HIV infection: an enzyme that attacks HIV’s DNA and removes it from infected cells. It’s a long way from being usable as a treatment, but still a very heartening development. Via Towleroad.
  • For those who are still trying to cling to the idea that secondhand smoke isn’t dangerous, give it up. A new study shows that after a single shift at a bar or restaurant that allowed smoking, nonsmoking workers had measurable levels of deadly smoking-related toxins in their bodies.
  • Like a surgeon … operating for the very first time: Authorities in India arrest 15-year-old boy who performed a Caesarian section in order to set a record as the world’s youngest surgeon.
  • MUSIC: A new Web site called slicethepie.com helps bands bypass major labels and fund their records by using fans as investors. One British band raised 15,000 pounds (US $30,000) for their debut album within 10 days of the site going live.
  • TECH: I’ve resisted adding to the iPhone frenzy, but this is something I was wondering about. Just for giggles, PC World beats up an iPhone; iPhone turns out to be tougher than I would have expected from looking at it, passing both scratch and drop tests. You can actually watch a video of the abuse taking place. (It’s like porn for tech-haters.) I’m still no-how, no-way going to switch to AT&T in order to use an iPhone, but if the day ever comes that you can use it with Working Assets or T-Mobile, I’ll be interested.
  • THE COMICS SECTION: This Modern World looks at standard conservative responses to health care reform. Mike Luckovich discovers which branch of the government Cheney really belongs to. And Tom Toles discovers burning ears at the White House.
  • Digital Turnip Twaddling: Opus gets an iPhone. And here’s Bob Geiger’s most recent Saturday Cartoon roundup.
  • THE SOCK DRAWER: From the NY Times, the six stages of email. I’ve been stuck in Stage Four for the last seven years.

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Music: Talk Talk, “Such a Shame”

July 4th, 2007 · Culture, Film, Internet, iTunes, Music, New Wave, Performance, Video

It’s My LifeI found an old posting I made to the Planet-Earthlings Yahoo Group several years ago, back when the group was new and we were talking about favorite videos from the New Wave era. Most of the ones I wrote about are up on YouTube, so I figured I’d work my way through ’em till I’ve gone through the list.

Last week when I posted about Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime,” I called it one of very best music videos of that time period. Here’s another one that has a secure spot in my top half-dozen or so: “Such a Shame” by Talk Talk.

Talk Talk’s videos, starting with their 1984 It’s My Life album, are noteworthy for their experimental sensibility, in addition to an entertaining sense of whimsy and of course, great songs.

But before I get to “Such a Shame,” I should mention the much more widely seen video for “It’s My Life” — which charmed its way into people’s hearts with all that Wild Kingdom-style animal footage. And yet, what I’ve always found most compelling about it is singer Mark Hollis’s inscrutable presence: the way he sabotages the viewer’s expectations by manipulating his facial expressions to introduce unexpected changes in mood into the video. He emotes so much, and in such a capricious and discontinous way, that the effect is to mask and make unknowable whatever it is he actually is feeling.

 
And of course, there’s the question of exactly what all this is about. With about 95% of the music videos ever made, you don’t worry about that, because the imagery is so obviously arbitrary and random. But with this one, there’s clearly something deliberate and compelling going on. In the midst of all of this leaping, flapping, running, flying, and swimming animal life, a man stands silent and still in the middle of the zoo, with what appears to be tape sealing his mouth, and a chaotic jumble of emotions passing across his face during the course of several minutes.

To me, it succeeds according to the aesthetic terms of haiku: it’s the juxtaposition that matters, the hidden and unstated connections you sense between the overt elements of the piece.

And although at least one commenter on YouTube doesn’t like Hollis’s wink at the end of the video, I always found it to be a nicely transcendent moment: a little tip of the cards, a slip of the poker face, like a sign from a generally remote and uncommunicative god suggesting that for all its cruelty and tempestuousness, life is worth living after all.

But back to the video I’ve been leading up to. “Such a Shame” takes Talk Talk’s experimental approach even further than “It’s My Life.” Again the video is anchored by Hollis’s peculiar intensity, as the video quick-cuts between him singing the lyrics in contrasting emotional and mental states — that same unpredictable jumble of emotions we saw in “It’s My Life,” but given more time and focus — with Hollis’s expressions ranging from rage to exhilaration to misery to something approaching autistic withdrawal, all interspliced with accelerated-motion outdoor sequences that remind me of the films I used to see at Chicago’s late, lamented Experimental Film Coalition back in the 80s. At one particularly eerie point, a speeded-up Hollis approaches the camera and peers forlornly at us over his own shoulder. I always get a little chill right there.

In fact, years later, I tried to get my frequent collaborator Kurt Heintz to recreate that effect for me, in the video he shot for my spoken word piece “Talking to Myself,” which was used in my 1997 solo show of the same name; but we didn’t really succeed. Too delicate a moment to imitate: the original is just perfect.

 
As a side note: there are a bunch of different postings of “Such a Shame” on YouTube and I had to click through at least three of them before I found one that wasn’t too cluttered with logos and other annoying screen junk. And with “It’s My Life,” I had to go with a logo-littered version. It’s great that TV shows and cable channels and whatnot want to play these old videos; but why do they have to scrawl corporate graffiti all over them so that it’s impossible to actually enjoy watching them? (That’s a rhetorical question, of course; I know why because I read this a few years ago.)

• Both “Such a Shame” and “It’s My Life” are from the album It’s My Life — a late New Wave masterpiece, IMHO — which you can find on Amazon or download from iTunes.


Talk Talk - It's My Life

 

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Ceci N’est Pas Une Vice President

July 2nd, 2007 · Comedy, Internet, Politics, Science

Flag CheneyThe award for the best Cheney post of the past week goes to Bob Harris, hands down.

It starts out good:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the last six and a half years would make a lot more sense if the GOP were actually performing a sophisticated Dada art exhibition.

This Cheney character would actually be pretty tolerable if he weren’t actually real. You could just say, OK, I see what they’re doing here — this is clearly modeled on the fictional Bob Rumson from Aaron Sorkin’s The American President. Then give him two drunk driving convictions, a lesbian daughter, and a wife who writes soft-core erotica, just so everyone knows the reactionary moralizing is all just a put-on. Then give him five Vietnam deferments and a continuing income from Halliburton so absolutely no one can find him credible on defense issues. Oh, and get his office involved in the outing of a covert CIA employee involved with monitoring the proliferation of WMDs in the mideast, and then have him claim national security as his keynote issue.

And then Mr. Harris delivers a couple of really excellent one-liners:

So now Dick Cheney is back in the executive branch. Until he decides he isn’t again. He’s like Schrödinger’s Cat, and Congress can’t open the box.

Ceci n’est pas une Vice President.

… and then the whole thing just goes off the chart with this list:

While we’re at it, here are a few other things Dick Cheney is and/or is not:

• A half-human gill-breather, allergic to sunlight, and hellbent on global domination
• Able to dematerialize at will, reassembling his atoms at an undisclosed location
• Bionic, with a titanium heart encased in cesium which cannot be stopped by anything short of atomic blast
• Careful to mark and catalog even his own bowel movements as Top Secret

… there are quite a few more items in that list of Cheney’s special characteristics, but for some reason, this is the one that made me laugh till I just about choked:

• Able to connect to the Internet simply by raising his hand and shouting, “Cheney online!”

I bet he doesn’t have to pay for broadband access, either.

I laugh to keep from crying.

Note: Bob Harris is not to blame for the LOLCheney caption above. That’s all Ocelopotamus. But is Flag Cheney wearing a metric buttload of Maybelline cosmetics in that picture or what?

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Sicko Mini-Roundup: “We Can Do It.”

June 30th, 2007 · Activism, Culture, Education, Health, Healthcare Crisis, Human Rights, Media, Politics, TV, Video

Michael Moore on LenoIn case you haven’t seen it yet, Crooks and Liars has the video of Michael Moore’s appearance on Leno from earlier this week, with some great interview and a clip from the film.

Meanwhile, Daily Kos had a diary a few days ago about the more than 15,000 nurses from across the country who have mobilized in support of Sicko and health care for everyone.

And earlier today, Michael Moore sent out a letter to his mailing list (surprise, surprise, I’m on it) saying:

Thank you so much to the hundreds of thousands of you who went to see my movie last night and this afternoon. The studio tells me that we are on track to have the second largest opening weekend for a documentary in the history of the movies! (“Fahrenheit 9/11” was first.) Many theaters have been selling out. The Bush administration’s investigation of this movie is certainly not keeping people away.

I myself won’t get a chance to see Sicko for a few days, but I’m pretty sure the theaters here in Chicago are packed this weekend. Moore goes on to say:

There’s a moment in “Sicko” when the former British MP, Tony Benn, says, “If we have the money to kill people (with war), we’ve got the money to help people.” That line always gets the loudest applause in the theater. It is estimated that, before Bush’s War is over, we will have spent two trillion dollars on it. Let me say this: I NEVER want to hear again from ANY politician that we “don’t have the money” to fix our schools, to take care of the poor, to provide health care for every American. Clearly, the money IS there when we want to illegally invade another country and then prolong a disastrous occupation. From now on, we have to demand that our tax dollars be there for the things we need, not the things that make us one of the most detested countries on earth.

Yeah, I agree. The idea that it’s somehow “too expensive” to take care of our own citizens needs to be taken off life support for good. One of the many lessons of the last few years is this: We can afford to do any damn thing we want to do, if we decide it’s a priority.

We can keep social security running without cutting benefits for anyone. We can give everyone in the country the basic healthcare they’re entitled to just for being born into the human race. We can even make sure our public schools have enough money so kids can have books and paper and play in a marching band, even if they live in a poor neighborhood.

And we can do all of those things for a tiny fraction of the money that we’ve poured down a pointless drain over the last five years.

All we have to do is put our mind to it. We have to decide, as a nation, that saving sick people’s lives is more important than giving ginormous tax cuts to billionaires. And we have to stop listening to the blowhards on Fox News who tell us we can’t do it, not because we actually can’t do it, but because they don’t want it done.

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