rebecca's pocket

.: 2005 --> may

may

@ Ray Materson spent 15 years in prison for carjacking. While there, he taught himself to embroider, and achieved public recognition for his work. [more...]

Ray Materson taught himself to embroider while in prison, where he was serving a 15-year sentence for drug-related offenses. By fashioning a hoop from a Rubbermaid top and salvaging threads from old socks, Materson was able to create intricate, multi-colored scenes depicting everything from prison life to football emblems to romantic sunsets. These scenes are only 2-by-2 inches, with 1200 stitches per square inch.

That's from the description of an All Things Considered interview with him. Here is his online gallery. (via layers of meaning)
[ 05/02/05 ]

@ I once heard that an educated man during the Renaissance learned less data than is contained in one edition of the Sunday New York Times. Can anyone confirm or debunk this factoid, and provide me with a reference for it?
[ 05/02/05 ]

@ Turn Me On, Dead Man Anecdotal thinking comes naturally; science requires training. (via my apple menu reader)
[ 05/02/05 ]

@ Goofus and Gallant in the 21st century. Note the dates as you move forward in time.
[ 05/02/05 ]

@ I just received three new copies of my book - it has been republished under the Basic Books imprint. I have to say, the book isn't nearly as nice as the older edition was: the paper isn't as good, the cover is shiny, not matte (I specifically requested a matte cover), and the color of the cover is off. Still, it's nice just to still be in print. It means that sales are still steady, and that speaks well for the continued relevance of the book. If you want a copy of the original (aesthetically superior) edition, now's the time to get it. Before long, the only ones available will be on the Basic Books imprint.
[ 05/03/05 ]

@ It's interesting, isn't it? The USDA subsidizes a different set of foods than it encourages Americans to eat in its Food Pyramid Nutritional Guidelines.

That disparity points out an awkward truth about the USDA: what it urges people to eat to remain healthy does not match what it pays farmers to grow.

In fact, fruit and vegetable farmers receive no subsidies from the government, though fruits and vegetables should make up the largest share of Americans' diets, according to the new pyramid.

Nor are there subsidies for organic farmers, according to my CSA. (via US food policy blog)
[ 05/03/05 ]

@ Oh, funny. Store Wars: Obi-Wan Canolli teaches Young Cuke Skywalker about Darth Tater and the Organic rebellion. May the Farm be with you! (via worldchanging)
[ 05/03/05 ]

@ It's a week before elections, and British voters are ridiculing the major parties' vague, verbless campaign slogans.

But amid the parodies by satirists and groans from grammarians lies a deeper concern. Analysts say the rhetoric, however deficient, betrays the growing insinuation of spin and professional marketing into British politics.

It's a development, they add, that bodes poorly for the civic health in a nation already struggling with the trustworthiness of the government.

[ 05/03/05 ]

@ I was gone when it happened, but in April, Rebecca's Pocket marked its 6th anniversary.
[ 05/03/05 ]

@ A fascinating email exchange between film critic Roger Ebert and actor Daniel Woodburn: You my midga. (via my apple menu reader)
[ 05/04/05 ]

@ Individual-i

The Individual-i - represents the rights of the individual.

It represents the right to privacy and anonymity in the information age. It represents the rights to an open government, due process, and equal protection under the law. It represents the right to live surveillance free, and not to be marked as "suspicious" for wanting these other rights.

It recognizes that a free society is a safe society, and that freedom is founded upon individual rights.

[ 05/04/05 ]

@ According to a new report by Reporters Without Borders, the Middle East, Africa and Asia are the most dangerous places to work if you are a journalist.
[ 05/04/05 ]

@ I'm catching up on my RSS feeds and so I wanted to point you to Bruce Schneier's post on the government's PDF redacting failure. And his post about the common situation of users disabling security. And the extremely cool news that his encryption algorithm was referenced in a recent episode of "24". And more. Go look for yourself. [more...]

I love weblogs. I love the way the best of them consistently point me to interesting, things. But there is always a danger that the steady stream of weblog posts will become just one data point after another. Schneier's weblog is different. It's a serial education in security (which is more interesting than I imagined). It teaches me a new way of seeing the world. Far from adding to my info-overload, Bruce's blog actually makes me smarter.
[ 05/04/05 ]

@ Hey! 05/05/05!
[ 05/05/05 ]

@ The Treasury may re-introduce the 30-year bond.

The resurrection of the 30-year bond, which the Treasury stopped issuing in October 2001, comes as the Treasury confronts the enormous borrowing needs to cover the federal budget deficit. Treasury officials said today that the bond would help them be more flexible in their borrowing, which would lower costs for taxpayers.

[ 05/05/05 ]

@ Michael Ventura contemplates the changes that will occur when gasoline reaches $4 a Gallon.

Gas prices can only go up. Oil production is at or near peak capacity. The U.S. must compete for oil with China, the fastest-growing colossus in history. But the U.S. also must borrow $2 billion a day to remain solvent, nearly half of that from China and her neighbors, while they supply most of our manufacturing. [...]

China now determines oil demand, and the U.S. has no long-term way to influence prices. That means $4 a gallon by next spring, and rising - $5, then $6, probably $10 by 2010 or thereabouts. Their economy can afford it; ours can't. We may hobble along with more or less the same way of life for the next dollar or so of hikes, but at around $4 America changes. Drastically.

(via dangerousmeta)
[ 05/05/05 ]

@ More non-stops

Within the last 12 months, Delta alone has introduced 44 nonstop flights, and travelers can fly directly from Greensboro to Tampa. Northwest Airlines is also moving aggressively, adding 39 direct routes from cities like Indianapolis and Milwaukee.

And here in Pittsburgh, a traditional hub for US Airways, that airline's $730 round-trip airfare to Philadelphia has vanished. Starting Wednesday, Southwest is offering round-trip tickets as low as $58 for flights to Philadelphia, and US Airways has already cut its fares.

[ 05/05/05 ]

@ Picture This: People Who Really Care About Airline Food

I first heard of AirlineMeals.net six months ago at a dinner party, when the conversation typically turned to travel. David Telepak, an accountant who takes at least six long-haul flights a year to Asia from England, and considers hopping the Atlantic a mere puddle jump, mentioned the in-flight food site as "the best industry entertainment for people who travel."

Since then, I have become addicted to the site. [...] But it is the site's Forum, or message board, rather than the airport lounge reviews, crew meal photos or extensive gallery of menu photos (including several Air France Concorde menus from the 1990's given a rating of 10 by the collector for their "French bindings and ornamental leather inlays") where I spend the majority of my time.

(via a full belly)
[ 05/05/05 ]

@ A fascinating email exchange between film critic Roger Ebert and actor Daniel Woodburn: You my midga. (via my apple menu reader)
[ 05/04/05 ]

@ Individual-i

The Individual-i - represents the rights of the individual.

It represents the right to privacy and anonymity in the information age. It represents the rights to an open government, due process, and equal protection under the law. It represents the right to live surveillance free, and not to be marked as "suspicious" for wanting these other rights.

It recognizes that a free society is a safe society, and that freedom is founded upon individual rights.

[ 05/04/05 ]

@ According to a new report by Reporters Without Borders, the Middle East, Africa and Asia are the most dangerous places to work if you are a journalist.
[ 05/04/05 ]

@ Just a reminder: if you are in Australia (or anywhere nearby), Blogtalk Downunder is coming up May 19-22. They are starting to publish abstracts of the various papers, and they really do look interesting. Keep in mind that if you refer 5 attendees to the conference, your conference fee will be waived. I'll be delivering a keynote. Please come introduce yourself.
[ 05/06/05 ]

@ Don't miss this beautiful paean to a Grandmother's cooking: M is for the Many Meals She Made Me.

We would eat until we were bursting. No pretense was needed. No need to make small, polite conversation. No need to talk at all. You could just sit on a sofa and eat, and nobody would think you were rude. And when you became a teenager, you could eat, put your plate in the sink and leave without helping to clean up, and nobody would say you were wrong.

At Grandmother's house, it was always about the Food.

(via my apple menu reader)
[ 05/06/05 ]

@ Security hawks and environmentalists agree: It's time to cut US oil imports.

R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, [has] signed onto a 129-page blueprint from the newly formed Energy Future Coalition, which would use tax credits to push fast development of hybrid and other advanced vehicles and technologies that could make ethanol from corn stalks, prairie grass, or even sawdust.

Outside official Washington, which is laboring over an energy bill, energy-independence plans are popping up across the American political landscape. Liberals and conservatives, ecologists and former military brass have reached the same conclusion: The United States needs a radical change in energy policy. The way to do it, they agree, is through a mix of conservation and new-but-available technology that could quickly begin to reduce US reliance on some of the most volatile regions of the world.

These rumblings are the beginning of possibly the most radical rethink of energy policy since the 1970s.

[ 05/06/05 ]

@ Pump 'Em Up!
[ 05/06/05 ]

@ The Elephant Listening Project.

Because forest elephants live under the dense rainforest canopy, their numbers cannot be monitored via aerial counts as in the African savanna. Forest elephants can only be monitored using indirect methods. The current standard for forest elephant censusing relies on counts of dung piles.

The Elephant Listening Project is developing an alternative method for monitoring forest elephants based on their vocalizations. Elephants make powerful infrasonic calls (below the level of human hearing) which travel long distances, allowing researchers to identify the presence of elephants over large areas without visual sightings.

[ 05/06/05 ]

@ Commercial collector Lawrence Walker found something unusual while illegally collecting dinosaur bones on Federal land. And in spite of the consequences, he decided to show his find to paleontologist James Kirkland. [more...]

"I was overwhelmed," Kirkland recalls. "I put my hand on his shoulder and told him: 'I'll have to give a deposition if I'm asked to, but I am very grateful you chose me'" to see the site.

Grateful indeed. A team of paleontologists led by Kirkland announced Wednesday the discovery of a new dinosaur caught in the evolutionary act of shifting from a meat eater to a vegetarian.

[ 05/06/05 ]

@ Birdsource: Discriminating between chickadees.
[ 05/06/05 ]

@ Concentrating when studying (or doing anything else). (via 43 Folders)
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ Useful and Neat! Parafilm.
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ I told you she was masterful: "After receiving the largest number of requests ever for a single pattern, Lion Brand has created a new pattern to match the poncho that Martha Stewart wore upon her return home." The Coming Home Poncho.
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ The premiere issue of Studio 19 is online!
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ Always On and Technorati are seeking nominations for the Open Media 100: people and organizations who are driving the "Open Media" revolution. Who's doing the best work online? I suggest that you not be limited by the few categories suggested for "Trendsetters" and "Practitioners". I intend to nominate the people I think deserve wider recognition, no matter what their focus.
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ Schneier: Real ID

The United States is getting a national ID card. The REAL ID Act...establishes uniform standards for state driver's licenses, effectively creating a national ID card. It's a bad idea, and is going to make us all less safe. It's also very expensive. And it's all happening without any serious debate in Congress.

[ 05/09/05 ]

@ Prepare to be astounded: 20Q. Until you get your own, play 20 Questions with the neural net online. It really is a pleasure to watch this thing work. (via cooltools)
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ A 1999 overview of citizen science programs across Canada.
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ Earthquake Safe styrofoam homes.

Now comes word that a two-story test house (shown to the right) made of EPS clad with cement board (and fit together without wood framing or braces) has passed earthquake testing. But this wasn't just passing minimal structural requirements: the house remained fully intact after being shaken harder than the strongest earthquakes ever recorded.

I want one for the Bay Area!
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ My nominees for the AO/Technorati Open Media 100: [more...]

pioneers: Garret Vreeland of dangerousmeta. Garret has been maintaining his excellent filter weblog since 1999, and organized what I believe to be first international weblog project, Behind the Curtain, on September 17 and 18, 2000.

trendsetters: Rashmi Sinha, of Dialog Now. Rashmi created Dialog Now in the aftermath of the December 2001 standoff between India and Pakistan. Seeing that face-to-face communication was no longer possible between people in these countries, Rashmi created her website in order to keep them talking. Her rules are simple: state your opinion--then listen. Be civil. Break the rules, and you're booted off the site. The site is still going strong.

practitioners: My Apple Menu Reader is just a model of good linking. Every day, Singaporean Heng-Cheong Leong provides a few high-quality, thought-provoking links. And Leong has been doing it since 2000.

practitioners: Food Policy Weblog: A newcomer to the blogosphere, Parke Wilde focuses on the facts underneath the food policy debate, and the politics that drive it. Outstanding information and analysis.

When you create your own list, be sure to tag your entry with the words AOTechnorati100, or drop them into the comment threads at either nomination announcement.
[ 05/09/05 ]

@ Rafe is right: "I have come to believe that one of the simplest things the United States could do to improve the quality of our government is change the way Congressional districts are drawn." Me, too. The current scheme is a disgrace.
[ 05/11/05 ]

@ The Texas House of Representatives has introduced a bill prohibiting sexually suggestive cheerleading and drill-team routines in public schools. Controversy ensues. [more...]

"We are telling teenagers not to have sex, but are teaching them how to do it on the football field and applauding them when they do it," says Rep. Al Edwards of Houston, who sponsored the bill. He says that over the years, he has watched cheerleading routines get racier and uniforms get tinier - a "distracting" trend that in his view encourages teen pregnancy, boosts dropout rates, and increases the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

"We've got to clean it up," says the Democratic representative who, in past sessions, has battled raunchy song lyrics and advocated cutting off the fingers of drug dealers. "We teach children math, history, chemistry, science. Surely, we can teach them how to perform in appropriate ways and not be exploited."

Rep. Edwards correctly notices the contradictions, and I absolutely agree with his assertion that children should be taught to maintain their own, strong, boundaries. But what a crazy melange of assumptions and consequences that's all mixed up in. For example, has anyone ever done a study of the incidence of preganancy in teenage cheerleaders, or in high school students who attend sports events?
[ 05/11/05 ]

@ AIDS Now Compels Africa to Challenge Widows' 'Cleansing'.

Ms. Nsofu, the nurse and AIDS organizer, argues that it is less important to convince women like Ms. Bubala than the headmen and tribal leaders who are the custodians of tradition and gatekeepers to change.

"We are telling them, 'If you continue this practice, you won't have any people left in your village,' " she said. She cites people, like herself, who have refused to be cleansed and yet seem perfectly sane. Sixteen years after her husband died, she argues, "I am still me." Ms. Nsofu said she suggested to tribal leaders that sexual cleansing most likely sprang not from fears about the vengeance of spirits, but from the lust of men who coveted their relatives' wives. She proposes substituting other rituals to protect against dead spirits, like chanting and jumping back and forth over the grave or over a cow.

[ 05/11/05 ]

@ "Me" Culture. (Unless you are a subscriber, you will have to watch a brief ad to read the article, but it's well worth the time.)

De Zengotita...has mined 30 years of private study and writings to form a theory..of human behavior in a postmodern world overflowing with exhaustingly flattering media representations and endless choices about what kind of person you want to be, but also with the strange demand, always, to be yourself. The result, De Zengotita says, is that we are all mediated, all "method actors" -- again, not phonies, but experts at expressing our authenticity in a performative way.

Haven't people always been concerned with representing themselves?

Sure. [...] So many things I'm writing about now are no different than they ever were, except there's so much more of it. But the difference is important: It's like the difference between a breeze and a hurricane. As we get to the hurricane end of the mediation spectrum, we find unprecedented levels of reflexivity and self-consciousness. People have always played social roles and had some kind of image of themselves, of course, and the media have always catered to that in one way or another. But nowadays people are aware of all this. Media creators, in turn, know that people are aware of all this and address them accordingly.

[ 05/11/05 ]

@ Back in 2000, I was a a bit of an idealist: [more...]

We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions. I strongly believe in the power of weblogs to transform both writers and readers from "audience" to "public" and from "consumer" to "creator." Weblogs are no panacea for the crippling effects of a media-saturated culture, but I believe they are one antidote.

Well, not exactly. Political weblogs, in particular, have parroted the worst habits of what passes for civic dialogue in the media. Mimicking "Crossfire" style programming, they are predictably reactive, not reflective. Political bloggers read widely, comparing numerous accounts of the same event - not to construct the most complete and accurate narrative - but to cherry-pick the facts and even sentence constructions that most closely support their favorite interpretation. Facts and nuances that challenge their preferred intrepretation are explained away, or suppressed. Bloggers now receive press releases from organizations, and newsletters from political groups interested in spinning the debate. (My evidence for this is that I now receive those things.) Clusters of weblogs form echo chambers, each group reinforcing its own particular reality.

And these weblogs are among the most widely read. It is possible that, as a nation, we are becoming more ideological, and so this reflects a wider trend, but I'm not yet ready to draw that conclusion.

Internet and Web early adopters have tended to a certain personality type: technically-saavy, with a tendency to, shall we say, strong opinion. Text, especially hastily written text, is innately less expressive than face-to-face contact. There is no body language, no tone of voice, to convey intention or to layer meaning. Many a flame war has started over a misunderstood joke.

Current weblog culture rewards speed. Timeliness is of the essence. The blogs are talking about today's news, today. Tomorrow - or this afternoon - there will be something else to discuss. The format itself rewards frequent posting. New items are placed on the top of the page to instantly display the most current content. Readers come, and come back, when they can be assured there will be something new. Weblog posts could be written and edited over the course of a week before they are posted, but they rarely are. Prolific posting demands hasty writing. Blog culture rewards strong opinion. Bloggers link to other blogger's posts to argue with them. Sometimes to reiterate them, strongly.

For all these reasons, blogging often rewards aggression and knee-jerk reactions in a way that face-to-face discussions do not. Bloggers don't have to understand where the other guy is coming from, they just need to react to it. Bloggers who insult one another don't have to sit in an office with each other all day. They don't have to work together at a PTA meeting. They don't have to pass each other on the street, or have dinner together or pass legislation together, ever. There is little incentive for finding common ground.

Another possibility, of course, is that we, as media consumers, have come to expect a certain style of political discussion, and so we gravitate to the sites that most closely mimic the style we see on TV. These sites may not be particularly thoughtful, but they seem more "professional". We all like to hear our own world view affirmed.

I don't know. But I have been disappointed to see a form that would be equally suited to independent thinking and honest evaluation become the online equivalent of talk radio instead.

Note: This post has been edited. The 6th paragraph originally read: The weblog format rewards speed. Timeliness is of the essence. The blogs are talking about today's news, today. Tomorrow - or this afternoon - there will be something else to discuss. The format rewards frequent posting. Readers come, and come back, when they can be assured there will be something new. Weblog posts can be written and edited over the course of a week before they are posted, but they rarely are. Prolific posting demands hasty writing. The format rewards strong opinion. Bloggers link to other blogger's posts to argue with them. Sometimes to reiterate them, strongly.
[ 05/11/05 ]

@ The Netizen's Guide to Flame Warriors, especially the Centurion, the Ideologue, and the Tireless Rebutter.
[ 05/11/05 ]

@ Must read: Schneier asks Should Terrorism Be Reported in the News?

Modern mass media, specifically movies and TV news, has degraded our sense of natural risk. We learn about risks, or we think we are learning, not by directly experiencing the world around us and by seeing what happens to others, but increasingly by getting our view of things through the distorted lens of the media. Our experience is distilled for us, and it's a skewed sample that plays havoc with our perceptions. [...] The five o'clock news doesn't truly reflect the world we live in -- only a very few small and special parts of it.

Slices of life with immediate visual impact get magnified; those with no visual component, or that can't be immediately and viscerally comprehended, get downplayed. Rarities and anomalies, like terrorism, are endlessly discussed and debated, while common risks like heart disease, lung cancer, diabetes, and suicide are minimized.

The global reach of today's news further exacerbates this problem. If a child is kidnapped in Salt Lake City during the summer, mothers all over the country suddenly worry about the risk to their children. If there are a few shark attacks in Florida -- and a graphic movie -- suddenly every swimmer is worried. (More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good we are at evaluating risk.)

[ 05/12/05 ]

@ Giving Up on Books [more...]

[M]any of the professional readers I've interviewed - book reviewers, editors and booksellers - do give up on books. They have retrained themselves. They don't give up tentatively and regretfully but deliberately and decisively. And they consider it one of the most important reading skills they've learned. [...]

The wisdom of giving up on books is compelling. New York University professor Atwood H. Townsend wrote in his Good Reading: A Helpful Guide for Serious Readers, "Never force yourself to read a book that you do not enjoy. There are so many good books in the world that it is foolish to waste time on one that does not give you pleasure and profit."

Leveen attributes Good Reading: A Helpful Guide for Serious Readers to Atwood H. Townsend, but it would appear that Townsend wrote "Student's guide to good reading: A list of about six hundred books which are enjoyable, well worth reading, and inexpensive"; "Good Reading: A Guide for Serious Readers" was written by Olga Weber. Oh, wait! It appears that Townsend's book was retitled "Good Reading" in the 1930's. (Thanks, library bookmarklet!)
[ 05/12/05 ]

@ The 2005 summer reading lists to have not yet come out, but here are a few earlybirds if you're itching for suggestions:

Media and Democracy Summer Reading List
Sun Valley Writers' Conference 2005 Suggested Summer Reading List
And of course, Amazon's lists of Award winning books, from the Booker and the Pulitzer to the Bram Stoker and the Nebula to the Newbery and the Printz.

I'll put out a proper list of lists when they start coming out.
[ 05/12/05 ]

@ New Evangelism: Mini-loans.

These days, Christian and other religious organizations, both here and around the world, are lending more than just a hand. Microloans - of as little as $100 - have become as much a part of their ministries as preaching the gospel. While microlending for budding entrepreneurs has long been recognized among development experts as one of the best ways to fight global poverty - in fact, the United Nations has dubbed 2005 "The International Year of Microcredit" - religious organizations are increasingly adopting the Talmudic sentiment that the noblest form of charity is helping others to dispense with it.

[ 05/12/05 ]

@ More Citizen Science: Grunion greeters.

In an era of shrinking research dollars, the Pepperdine University professor has stretched her funds by training volunteers to do tedious data collection previously handled by bleary-eyed graduate students. [...]

Across the country, wildlife researchers are discovering the benefits of an emerging "citizen science" movement. In increasing numbers, amateur naturalists are collecting information for research projects spread over vast regions that would otherwise be too expensive to study.

[ 05/12/05 ]

@ Citizen Summits: I usually find these technology summits to be ineffably bogus, but doggone, I wish I had been invited to this one.
[ 05/12/05 ]

@ A little weekend reading: Do Parents Matter?. As it turns out, who you are matters much, much more than what you do.

Culture cramming may be a foundational belief of modern parenting but, according to the data, it doesn't improve early childhood test scores. Frequent museum visits would seem to be no more productive than trips to the grocery store. Watching TV, meanwhile, doesn't turn a child's brain into mush after all; nor does the presence of a home computer turn a child into Einstein.

[ 05/13/05 ]

@ New 'mommy wars': a fight against pop culture's excess.

What's really happening with American mothers of all stripes - from full-time homemakers to full-fledged workaholics, all income levels, all racial backgrounds - is worry about popular culture, and what feels like a tsunami of forces threatening parents' ability to impart positive values to their children, according to a new survey of more than 2,000 mothers. Moms report a cultural onslaught that goes far beyond Hollywood movies and TV, and into the world of the Internet, electronic games, and advertising.

"We heard mothers talking about the kind of hypersexuality that's out there, about violence and disrespect, about body image, all the things that are not exactly news, but cutting across a huge and diverse sample of mothers," says Martha Farrell Erickson of the University of Minnesota, lead researcher on the study, released by the Institute for American Values in New York.

The Motherhood Study is available online.
[ 05/13/05 ]

@ The Myth of Media Violence. (Unless you are a subscriber, you will have to watch a brief ad to read the article, but it's well worth the time.) [more...]

Harold Schechter [is] a professor at Queens College in New York whose new book, Savage Pastimes, provides an eye-opening survey of gruesome entertainment throughout the history of Western civilization. Schechter's main point concerns what scholars call the "periodicity" of campaigns like Sen. Clinton's latest screed. Every time a technological shift occurs (such as from books to movies, radio to TV, movies to video games), he argues, it produces a new medium for gruesome entertainment aimed at adolescent audiences, and produces a renewed outrage among the self-appointed guardians of civilization. [...]

As Schechter says, there are two linked assumptions that underpin all the hysteria about purported media-influenced violence in the last 20 years, if not longer. Assumption No. 1 is that we live in an especially violent time in human history, surrounded by serial killers, hardened teenage "superpredators," genocidal atrocities and all sorts of amoral mayhem. Assumption No. 2 is that our popular entertainment is far more violent than the entertainment of the past, and presents that violence in more graphic and bloodthirsty detail. [...]

A longtime crime buff who has written several books about notorious murderers, Schechter mounts an impressive case in "Savage Pastimes" that, if anything, our pop culture is less bloody-minded than that of the past.

In making this comparison, subtext is important. I don't know enough about the history of pop culture to make a full comparison off the top of my head, but obviously a hanging upholds an ideal of law and order, just as the current shows "Cops" and "24" do. Violence that upholds the current status quo is different from every activity that undermines it. You will want to read the whole article.
[ 05/13/05 ]

@ I am in Australia for Blogtalk Downunder. If you are attending, please come introduce yourself. Internet connection here has been non-existent, and promises to remain upredictable. I likely won't be updating until my return. Get thee hence.
[ 05/19/05 ]

@ The first day of Blogtalk Downunder was fantastic. I got at least one good idea from every presentation. The room just came to life at the end of the day when the educators in the room started talking about using weblogs in their coursework. If you are here and haven't yet introduced yourself, please do.

I don't know when I'll be able to update again, but for now, here are two quick links.
[ 05/20/05 ]

@ Eeewww News: You knew airline food was bad, didn't you? But I'll bet you never envisaged the food processing plant with a "pink slimy substance dripping onto the conveyor of the pot washing machine"....
[ 05/20/05 ]

@ At this gym, members buff up pulling chains, lifting cement balls, and flipping tires.
[ 05/20/05 ]

@ Note to those on the other side of the date line: tomorrow is a very good day.
[ 05/20/05 ]

@ I would like to just come out very quickly to state that I am pro-penny. We have noticed that Sydney has no sales tax, which means that costs are rounded to the nearest 10-cents. We have seen 5-cent pieces, but so far no 1-cent pieces. My husband just commented on this as "sanity ruling" which leads me to believe that he may have joined the camp who advocates the US government outlawing the penny. [more...]

To which I say, "What's next, outlawing the nickel?" People who want to abolish the penny argue that it takes up space and isn't worth very much. This is a completely backward way of looking at it. My view is that more things should cost a penny. It's a small amount. I'd happily pay a penny for all sorts of things I now need to spend a quarter or a dollar on.
[ 05/20/05 ]

@ The summer reading lists are starting to appear. Here's an initial installment: [more...]

Associated Press: bookseller recommendations
NPR Best in Spy Fiction
Dolph Tillotson's (Galveston County Daily News) summer reading list
Jean Peerenboom's (Green Bay Press-Gazette) summer reading list
Ellen Goodman's summer reading list
ALA's Recommended Reading for all ages
UC Berkeley's 2005 Freshman Summer Reading List: Great Discoveries, Voyages, and Adventures (press release)
- UC Berkeley Past Summer Reading Lists: 2004: Now That's Funny, 2002: Banned Books, and 1989: Selected by the Chairs of Various Departments
Pitchfork Media staff's summer picks

For un-adults:

NPR's Adventures to Read All Through the Summer
The Association of Library Service to Children's All-Time Classics parents and children can read together
The ALSC's list of reading lists
YALSA's 2005 Alex Awards for ten adult books that will appeal to teen readers (all years)

Plus:

the canonical list of Alternate Histories
Syllabi and Other Course Materials for Literature Courses
Whichbook book recommender
Book Adventure will generate a list of book recommendations for grades K - 8.
and of course, Marylaine's list of Books Too Good to Put Down

[ 05/31/05 ]