randomWalks

Sainthood for Mychal Judge?

originally posted by daiichi

The first generation of the Internet — called the Arpanet — consisted of electronic mail and file transfer software that connected people to people. The second generation connected people to databases and other information via the World Wide Web. Now a new generation of software connects computers directly to computers.

And that is the key to the Total Information Awareness project, which is overseen by John M. Poindexter, the former national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. Dr. Poindexter was convicted in 1990 of a felony for his role in the Iran-contra affair, but that conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court because he had been granted immunity for his testimony before Congress about the case.

The notion that women are less competent before or during their periods was exploded in 1914 by Leta Stetter Hollingworth, who gave 23 women a battery of tests over the course of several months and found no discernible pattern to the results. Yet it persists. Women themselves constantly attribute clumsiness and bad moods to PMS, as if they would invariably be calm and cheerful and supercompetent were it not for the menstrual cycle.

originally posted by xowie

The Beast 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2002

originally posted by daiichi

FROM THE POETRY BLOTTER OF EARL S. STONAH, ESQ.

Taxicab, pouring
ass rain. I'm trying to meet
my sweet baby Jane.

Peer out the window
what do I see? Cupid's bow
pointing straight at me.

originally posted by daiichi

What I came to see I was writing about, which is something that's of great concern to me as a parent, is what I see as the lost adventure of childhood. I remember a childhood that was the kind of childhood that people had been having in the United States going back at least four or five generations before me. It was rooted in independence and freedom. I'd just go out in the morning on Saturday morning and say "Bye, Mom" and I'd be gone all day long.

She wouldn't know where you were.

She would not have the faintest idea where I was, and I'd come home for dinner. And I'd get into a lot of trouble, no doubt about it, and probably almost died a couple of times, but still that's the world. It dovetailed so completely with what I read, so when I went out to play I could go play in Narnia or I could go play in the Virginia wilderness of George Washington's boyhood if I was reading a biography of George Washington. There was a seamlessness between the world of literature and fantasy and the world that I was living and playing in. That really mirrored what was going on in the fantasy worlds themselves, where there was a seamlessness and a porousness between, say, England and Narnia.

Or even something like Tom Sawyer. Even though I wasn't a boy, there was a Tom Sawyer element to my childhood. Our mother didn't know where we were half the time and there was so much more undeveloped land to play on.

There was more undeveloped land and so much more free space. And now so much of the space we put our children into is created by adults for children. It's licensed by adults, patrolled and permitted by adults. There's nowhere for them to disappear into. They're under surveillance all the time. It's that idea of that lost ... that's the Summerlands, to me, ultimately. That this is imperiled, or probably gone forever, is a very painful idea to me. Maybe that ties into the idea of a lost innocence or a lost boyhood.

“Live Phish Downloads offers high quality, unedited soundboard recordings of select shows in the form of MP3 and Shorten digital music files.”

“Nintendo of America recently hosted an interview with two of the masterminds behind The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Producer Shigeru Miyamoto (who directed the original Zelda titles, including Ocarina of Time) and Director Eiji Aonuma spoke with members of the gaming media via video teleconferencing from Japan.”

Anti-war mp3: Jacob’s Ladder(Not In My Name).

originally posted by daiichi

Profile of “marijuana madonna” Renee Boje.

originally posted by xowie

The one upside to the fact that we no longer have any real leaders, only ersatz ones slavishly addicted to following public opinion, is that, at the end of the day, public outrage really matters.

originally posted by xowie

''They are good and courageous people, the sort of people who took great risks to save Jews during the occupation,'' Bromberger wrote to Summers. ''What you insinuated about them was sheer, crude calumny. You must have known that. You must know people like them. ... As a Jew, I found your statement to be slanderous. As a holder of a Harvard degree I found it embarrassing.''

originally posted by xowie

Rawhide Kid, Marvel’s leather-slappin' cowboy.

originally posted by xowie

In an apparent bid to become the office of Total Suitcase Awareness, the federal Transportation Security Administration is suggesting that travelers not lock their checked baggage, as such locks may require forcible removal.

I’d like to invite you to explore the randomWalks wiki. [Thanks to riley dog for that poor fucker with the scissors.]

Following Bush’s guidelines, Rooting Out Evil is demanding that his administration allow immediate and unfettered access to international weapons inspectors to search out their caches of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. If they refuse to comply, we will assemble as many volunteer weapons inspectors as possible at a major border crossing between the US and Canada and attempt to cross into the US on a mission of peace. We will be greeted on the US side by Americans who favour true global cooperation, an end to weapons of mass destruction, and a regime change in the US at the next election.

Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustable well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply part of your being that you, that you can't even conceive of your life without it. Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.

The L.A. ANSWER—organized candlelight peace vigil, the first of its kind to occupy a pedestrian-filled intersection, circulated steadily like a slow vortex around the four corners, blending imperceptibly with holiday shoppers, street vendors, and even the police, who appeared to be on hand only to pet all the dogs with peace signs hanging from their collars and make sure nobody got hit by a car.

originally posted by xowie

Touch Tarepanda for descriptions !

If you're actually able to handle the manuscript, you have a kind of contact with the author that you otherwise wouldn't get. At the risk of sounding too obscure, the most advanced physics teaches us that the moment you come into contact with something, it is part of you and you are part of it forever.

Alison M. Rosen on free tatt night at Luxx.

originally posted by daiichi

Eep opp ork ah ah.

Somewhere along the line, the actions of this government are the actions of me. And if there's going to be blood on my hands, I'm not willing to have it be invisible. I wanted to come to Iraq and see Iraqi faces -- children, adults, diplomats, anybody that implies -- and go home with some impressions that will not let me off the hook. . . . It's not abstract anymore.

If your local paper doesn’t carry it, you can finally read Lalo Alcaraz' new daily strip La Cucaracha at the uComics website.

“Spread the good word about Bagelhole.org’s collection of folklore, alternative energy methods, and low-tech sustainability articles.” Thanks to dangerousmeta.