randomWalks

Naked war protest in Marin.

originally posted by daiichi

Bulletin boards are choked with offers to watch your house, your pet, your kids, your shrubs. People are willing to cook your meals, haul off your junk, clean your eaves, repair anything you need, wire your computer. Some hold fine-print résumés, bold-faced headlines and clever hooks. But I was drawn to Alan's simple, straightforward offer to live in my house.

originally posted by daiichi

1. Google News
2. boing boing
3. Mac Net Journal

Suddenly Nina brightened. It was as if she grasped that her father couldn't tolerate the view of himself that her panic reflected. ''Wanna hear a song?'' Nina asked. Toney squinted, as if he had suddenly recognized her voice from far away. Then she sang. Her father was smitten by her performance until she said, ''That's Che Che's daddy's song,'' referring to the father of her half-sister, and puncturing the moment. Toney looked away stonily. Toney often smarted at reminders of Lolli's infidelity, but solitary confinement magnified his need for a reliable family.

originally posted by xowie

There are no condoms on the set. There's no toilet paper in the bathroom. The performers brought boxes of baby wipes. Soiled sheets litter the ground, creating a trail to the bed. For more than two hours, Taylor and Rain engage in unprotected sexual acts with a male performer. During a break, Rain asks director Thomas Zupko for her co-workers' HIV tests. Handed a stack of papers, she flips through the documents. One is missing--Taylor's. Rain asks repeatedly for her paperwork, but she balks. "I don't have [expletive] AIDS," Taylor finally says. "I am not [having sex with] you."

originally posted by xowie

Kokua Line: What does ‘Pu in Sai’ really mean?

originally posted by daiichi

You cannot have a war when the so-called enemy has done nothing to provoke you and is absolutely no threat to your national safety and has no significant military force and has negligible chance of even setting off a firecracker near your own overwhelming death machines, and whose only weapons of minimal destruction are the rusty short-range warheads and biochemical agents we sold him 20 years ago, and kept selling to him, even after we knew he was gassing his own people.

originally posted by daiichi

When boys sneer at a girl who won’t join in sex games on the back seat of the school bus, and call her frigid, it hurts; she wonders whether her revulsion means that something might be wrong with her. A woman who begins to dislike the sex on offer within an adult relationship, which may well be lukewarm and mechanical, and is told that the problem is hers and that it is called FSD, is being manipulated in the same way. The difference is that this pseudo-medical concern is presented to her as pro-feminist, caring, empowering, and all that jazz.

originally posted by daiichi

Ten Greenpeace activists, including John Passacantando, executive director of Greenpeace in the United States, and Rashida Bi, leader of the Bhopal Gas Victim Women's Union, unloaded 250 kilograms of the waste. Three activists abseiled down the Dow Benelux building and hung eight huge photographs depicting Bhopal and a banner which called on Dow to clean up Bhopal.

originally posted by daiichi

"There are so many issues facing the gay community I don’t think a gun club is the answer or is even something that automatically gives us respect," says longtime local gay activist Randy Pesqueira. "I don’t think you necessarily project strength with a gun. In a way, you lose something; you’re becoming like the fanatics who hate you." Then he paused and continued, "That being said, I absolutely understand where this is coming from. I mean, myself, part of me has always fantasized about gays having this really cool vigilante group that would take care of all of our enemies."

originally posted by xowie

My mom wrote to Courtney Joslin at the National Center for Lesbian Rights and told her the story. She told us to look in the handbook, and we did. And then she took it to the ACLU. That’s how the lawsuit got started.

originally posted by daiichi

CAUSA BELLI by Andrew Motion

They read good books, and quote, but never learn
a language other than the scream of rocket-burn.
Our straighter talk is drowned but ironclad:
elections, money, empire, oil and Dad.

originally posted by daiichi

Dude, where’s my California?

originally posted by daiichi

Questions about how one gets on a no-fly list creates questions about how to get off it. This is a classic Catch-22 situation. The TSA says it compiles the list from names provided by other agencies, but it has no procedure for correcting a problem. Aggrieved parties would have to go to the agency that first reported their names. But for security reasons, the TSA won't disclose which agency put someone on the no-fly list.

originally posted by xowie

The most striking part of the structure is a tilted wall of windows -- to be installed later this month -- measuring roughly four metres by 10 and facing south. Below the windows will be a wide planter that serves as an indoor garden. It will be irrigated from water from the laundry room. The kitchen and living area, in particular, will be like a liveable greenhouse. "It's supposed to be like a ship, designed to supply your every need, including food," said Lefebvre.

originally posted by xowie

It’s really hard to pick a cell phone and a service, as I don’t have to tell you. All I have to offer on the topic are these couple of sites, the most helpful that I’ve found: the WirelessAdvisor.com forums and CNET’s Editors' Wireless Top 5s. I hear Verizon is the only provider who has service on the DC Metro – that’s as good a reason as any, I think.

"There's a terrible irony in the John Ashcroft Justice Department investigating the alternative press when, in fact, they have allowed far larger corporate entities to get away with transactions that have certainly raised a lot more antitrust issues than the LA Weekly-New Times deal has, and which had far greater effect on society...I don't think it's too paranoid to say that they're looking into the alternative press for political reasons."

originally posted by daiichi

At cheesedip.com: many links re Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s recent decision not to run for re-election. Also: blowing up the big Marcos head.

originally posted by daiichi

Marijuana possession is lawful in Canada, maybe.

originally posted by daiichi

Rees has no illusions about the strip's importance; in fact, he almost gave it up altogether after the summer, but started again when the Bush administration made the staggeringly vulgar decision to hire Henry Kissinger to investigate the events of September 11. "When that happened," Rees recalled, "I sat down and said to myself, 'Okay, let's see if I've still got it.'" He did: "Does Bush even know who these motherfuckers are?" asks one of the strip's generic office workers while talking on the phone. "Didn't he get suspicious when he saw Kissinger and John Poindexter licking the blood off each other's hands?"

originally posted by xowie

"As a working-class guy I kind of accepted long ago that I wasn't going to make a fortune or anything like that. What I figured was that if I worked hard, if I became a cop or I joined the phone company or something like that, at least I would have a regular working-class or middle-class life. At least you'd make your 50 grand or 55 grand a year. The government would take out your taxes, but you'd have something left over."

A Lost Eloquence

When I ask students early in the semester if they know a poem by heart, I usually hear the names Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss and occasionally Robert Frost. They often say that they can't memorize long poems, but then I ask them if they know the lyrics of "Gilligan's Island" or "The Brady Bunch," and my point is made.

McDonald's Tarnished Arches

Fast-food joints are losing market share to a growing niche of more expensive, and possibly healthier, "fast casual" eateries, like Panera Bread and Cosí, that offer more customized selections. McDonald's itself is expanding its successful Chipotle chain of Mexican-themed restaurants.

Spiritual Connection on the Internet

"Is it much different than kneeling next to your bed at night? The idea is to connect with God anywhere. In the moment you are typing, it's another form of devotion"

Who Owns the Internet? You and i Do

Joseph Turow, a professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, studies how people use online technology and how that affects their lives. He has begun a small crusade to de-capitalize Internet — and, by extension, to acknowledge a deep shift in the way that we think about the online world.

WP: interrogations at Bagram.

originally posted by xowie

After a year of trepidation, unease, and malaise both at home and abroad, the media types who three years ago wouldn’t shut up about what to name our nascent decade now have an answer: the Uh-oh’s. It’s certainly more fitting than the Naughties, the Zeros, the Aughts, or the M&M’s; at least "uh-oh" communicates the sense of threat Americans have endured since 9/11. Uh-oh describes the moment after something precious has dropped, right before the damage has been checked. A person who’s previously been robbed might utter uh-oh after awakening to a thump in the night. Uh-oh often precedes a scream or a sigh. Uh-oh sounds a lot like now.

originally posted by xowie

Sainthood for Mychal Judge?

originally posted by daiichi