Utah's native people recognized in Olympic ceremonies
They know about us, but they think we're in a museum. The man you see riding the horse in the museum is not dead. I'm actually alive.Tribes to Get Their '15 minutes' (nytimes.com)
They know about us, but they think we're in a museum. The man you see riding the horse in the museum is not dead. I'm actually alive.Tribes to Get Their '15 minutes' (nytimes.com)
Bush’s Sickening Super Bowl Propaganda (AlterNet)
U2 first rose to fame off a breakthrough album in the early ’80s called “War” – the band, born of a country plagued by war and terrorism, was against it, and later songs like “Bullet the Blue Sky” specifically ripped U.S. military adventurism and its impact on poor countries.
Yesterday, Bono finished the band’s short halftime show with the inevitable tribute to 9-11 victims, literally wrapping himself in the American flag, as though honoring 9-11’s dead – many of whom weren’t Americans – somehow required solidarity with the U.S. flag and with the waging of yet another war, or three, or five. Permanent war, reduced to emotional spectacle and a brandable moment. (…)
It’s not drugs that fuel political violence throughout the world – it’s their prohibition, and the forcing of drug transactions into the black market. There, as the CIA well knows, lies the world’s most efficient system for funneling large amounts of untraceable money.
The effort to eradicate certain popular drugs – including the War on Drugs touted by yesterday’s TV ads and the Drug Czar office that paid for them – has literally created, and perpetuated, the very black market now accused of being a source of cash for al Qaeda’s jihad. Ending drug prohibitions would do far more to thwart terrorism than the War on Drugs ever could.
Faults Suggest a High Calling for Delphi Priestesses (washingtonpost.com)
Evidence is growing that the priestesses, known as pythia, were ripped on hydrocarbon gases, especially ethylene, a sometime anesthetic which, taken in modest doses, can induce lively conversation of a somewhat incoherent nature.
The entertainment industry executives who decide what goes on television can't seem to grasp the reality of a Hispanic experience in America that transcends that of the domestic servants who tend to their Malibu mansions. On television, we see the maids and the gardeners, but we rarely catch a glimpse of the families they support with their scrubbing or lawn trimming.PBS series displays complexity of Hispanic family life (dallasnews.com)
"Sesame Street," which was loosely modeled after the old variety show "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In," is essentially becoming a series of individual stories. "I've never seen `Sesame Street' get worse through changes," said Peggy Charren, founder of Action for Children's Television.Lorraine was at the doctor Monday morning, so naturally I turned on the television to watch "Sesame Street" with my 14-month old son. I found myself thinking the show had changed a lot over the years -- what I didn't know was that we'd happened to catch most of the first episode of a completely re-worked "Sesame Street".
Damn, why did Slashdot’s Rob Malda have to turn out to be an over-the-top asshole?
The huge challenge is making these things "directable"... Suppose the director wants [a mug dropped onto a table] to land upright, but in an accurate physics simulation, the vessel always ends up on its side. By adding subtle unevenness to what had been a perfectly flat table top, the scientists showed that they can create conditions in which the mug bounces a few times and then settles upright.Calculating Cartoons is a substantive, accessible look at how animators and game creators program physics simulations to acheive ever-more realistic special effects.
I’ve mentioned Bee before because it’s one of the best online comics, but I bet you didn’t know Bee’s creator, Jason Little, is (according to Boing Boing) married to Myla Goldberg, author of the bestselling Bee Season.
Most people pull off the interstate and expect to find a bumpkin town, not a good piece of chocolate, a good cup of espresso, a good theater and streets lined with art galleries and interesting shops.There is apparently more than one reason to visit Lexington, Va.
George W. in the Garden of Gethsemane: An Open Letter to George W. Bush from Michael Moore
Motorola says listing Palestine as country was error (Yahoo) Shrug.
You just gotta be true to your lifestyle. I mean, if you come from a place where you got space around you, don't pretend and act like you squooshed up. Or if you come from squooshed, don't front and represent, like you spaced out. Just be who you are. If you from Kansas, you know, represent...wheat or whatever. I got respect for that. Be yourself.Danny Hoch as Emcee Enuff.
Romanticizing the De-Evolution of the State (The Thresher)
Non-hierarchical networked societies are a grand ideal. I’m no fan of nosey and anal governments poking their fingers into every act, regulating away all vitality. But a total de-evolution of the state at this time would be M.A.D. Over-optimistic fantasies aside, the techno-libertarian reality is a grim Social Darwinist one. We’ve already seen how this oligarchy functions, with its networked corporate drone-hives, their virtual trillions circulating the globe out of the grasp of the Job-like-masses, who’ve been permanently downsized and temped (pimped) out, suffering for their faith in the market. And far-left/anarchist fantasies about the potential perfection of wo-man (alleged to have lived in harmonious hunter-gatherer, agrarian or even Neolithic golden ages), after the corrupting state is removed, demonstrate an even more unsophisticated form of wishful thinking. Anarchist devolutionists don’t only ignore most of the historical and evolutionary evidence, they fail to explain how we could get there from this far away, without killing off the several hundred million people who really want to go shopping at the mall.Sigh.
Dining Out With Babes – babies, that is – in and around DC.
Monkeyfist’s WEF Protests News and Chronology links to a report of five women arrested in lower Manhattan for a banner drop (“Bush and big biz agree that people with AIDS drop dead”).
If you want to follow the WEF news at one site, this Monkeyfist page is probably your best bet.
Fuck Corporate Groceries: “so i decided to spend the next [while] not shopping at corporate grocery stores, living instead on food purchased at neighborhood places. i figure this way i’ll save money, explore chicago’s independent food sellers, eat better(?) or at least, more interesting food, and i won’t be supporting the man.”
Lance Knobel is blogging Davos from the inside at DavosNewbies.com.
Did you know?
The WEF is a private member organization comprising representatives from 1,000 of the world's largest corporations including Microsoft, Monsanto, Nike, General Motors and, until recently, Enron. Originally formed in 1971 as the European Management Forum, the Swiss-based group has grown into a major global agenda setter and a leading proponent of corporate globalization. Until this year, the organization held its annual meeting in the Swiss mountain resort town of Davos.Indymedia's Guide to the World Economic Forum
The exclusive meeting is open to members - who pay upwards of $30,000 in annual dues - as well as selected politicians, journalists and academics. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are both expected to be among the 3,200 in attendance. While the WEF helps set global economic and trade agendas that affect the entire world, the group predominantly includes European and American businesses.
The World Social Forum is a gathering of the international left meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil this weekend. Indymedia is covering both the WEF and the WSF, and ZNet has backgrounders on some prominent WSF attendees.
The Nation and the Nation website will be featuring reports from the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil; from the expected protests in the streets of New York City; and from the suites of the Waldorf hotel in New York, where the World Economic Forum will be meeting. Watch this space starting January 31.
Wil Wheaton swept the 2002 Bloggies. This is, somehow, appropriate.