randomWalks

We always recommend that you drink 2 to 3 cups of hot ginger tea a day. Make it a habit. More info (and recipes) at The Chopra Center.

The Philadelphia Independent Media Center is a collective of journalists and independent media organizations providing alternative coverage of this week’s Republican Convention. Check this site several times a day this week for firsthand accounts of the action in the streets.

Hell-Raising in Philly - an activists guide to protests outside the republican convention.

Every once in a while, I’ll take a half-hour and comb my system folder for extensions and control panels that I don’t absolutely need for most of my daily Mac activities (i.e. http, smtp, a little ftp and maybe some irc. I’d like to deny the occasional MSFT, but I do dabble in Adobe) – anything that doesn’t pass the test is outta there. It’s time to rebuild. A restart, and Wow, that feels fast! Inevitably, I turn them back on, one-by-one, over the next couple weeks – but for a while, my computer no longer creeps. Things zoom again, almost like my first time on the machine. It’s a good feeling.

I listened to a lot of SquidRadio today. Good things are happinging in indie rock again. Or did they ever stop happening? Probably I just stopped listening.

The official Star Wars site has a good page about Urban Legends. I’m sure everyone who’s really interested in it has already seen it, but I wish someone had told me about it, so here it is.

Will my next portable be a YOPY, or a keyboardless Mac? Decisions, decisions… thanks, ubiquitous computing.

It’s not that I’m scared of the dark so much as I just think it’s a bad idea.

To fight police abuse effectively you need to know your rights. There are some things you should do, some things you must do and some things you cannot do. If you are in the middle of a police encounter, you need a handy and quick reference to remind you what your rights and obligations are.

The Washington Post is keeping an eye on how race is lived on the TV with an article on William Collins being kicked off “Big Brother” and one on upcoming DC-based police drama “The District”.

Do you remember when HTML seemed almost elegant?

It's not like black folks are putting their lives on hold to wait for parity or reparation or the cosmic balance of the universe to tilt. We are steering our lives, raising our children and, occasionally, raising our voices. We do not think most white folks set out to deny, or discriminate. ... It doesn't matter if the racism is intentional or not. ... The net effect is the same. ... Income disparity, housing, job, education disparities, infant mortality, disparities in health care delivery and incarceration rates. ... I don't understand whites whose default reaction is to deny that race plays any part in anything.

Hmm, why does this URL on Metababy point to me?

These people have worked hard. Y'all leave us alone here. Every coin has two sides, and you're not seeing our side. We've lived here all our lives. You've been here a day.

Housing is a basic human right. Here, we're using sweat equity to make a home for a family that needs it most. You'd get this in any neighborhood, no matter where you go

They literally tried to just take over our neighborhood, like we don't care about it ourselves. I'm not heartless; I know everybody needs a home. But this can't be the right way to go about it. If they're so concerned with the homeless, why don't they find them a home in their neighborhood or their parents' neighborhood? Why us?

I really enjoyed the X-Men movie. Nothing much to link to, though. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen an official Web site which managed to complement a movie in any interesting way. Why is that? I guess no one’s ever done it right. Perhaps I can write about this for restmyeyes.net (as soon as it launches). I did have a lot of fun at the View Askew (producers of Clerks among other films) site, though this was quite a while ago and I haven’t been back recently. Anyway, this write-up at Metafilter pretty much describes my experience of the X-Men movie, so go there if you want a review.

The power "button" on the top of the Cube has no moving parts. It's simply a spot with a logo on the plastic that uses capacitance to sense touch. When off, the power button turns on the Cube. When sleeping, the button wakes it. When on, the button puts it immediately to sleep.

In which Michael Moore declares himself leader of the majority party of Non-Voters until you say otherwise.

I saw “Cradle Will Rock” last night – it may be the best movie I have ever seen. The movie explores the revolutionary nature of art through the mostly true and truly incredible stories of a pro-labor play created through the Federal Theatre Project (a New Deal program which provided work for thousands of unemployed professional entertainers) and Diego Rivera’s commissioned mural for the new Rockefeller Center. Featuring consistently outstanding performances by an ensemble cast of known and less or unknown actors, the movie feels like theater. Offering profound layered insights into issues of class, power and art, the movie demonstrates the revolutionary potential of art.

The New York Times wraps up its “How Race Is Lived in America” series with a special issue of the magazine: “Memories of Race”. Lots of interesting reading – I wish I could stage an intervention for this kid… I’m sure he’ll develop spectacular insight into white racism which I hope he puts to good use – but I’m not too clear about why they thought it would be worthwhile to try to manufacture a “typical” Black and white kitchen based on demographics.

5 years after the Million Man March on Washington DC, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is organizing a Million Family March. I heard that the Million Man March was an amazing experience. Hopefully I’ll make it to this one.

its sad that one could walk through life with such inane views of people. i don't know if youre trying to be funny or serious sudama, either way, it's not fucking cool. it's people like you that keep our community, society, country, and world at war. try dealing on the real problem and come up with a fucking solution instead of using some lame cop-out of "it's not fair". fuck racism, and fuck you.

What a fine, fine poem.

Revolting, yet somehow mesmerizing! Once you’ve seen it, you never ever forget it, and everybody has seen one!

A lot of people ask me why American people love watching this show. I say that I'm doing a cooking battle, I'm not doing a cooking show. I don't need any gimmicks. I'm doing a very serious cooking battle. I'm a serious battler. It's like a gunfight [reaches for an imaginary six-shooter and fires].