randomWalks

hello, 28!

The firing of the mellifluous Edwards, my morning companion through all these years, portends bad things. The telling sign was not just that he was axed as the program's host but that no one can tell you why.

Poynter Online - “USA Today Scandal A Threat To White Privilege, Mediocrity” in which Dr. Ink asks will Jack Kelley’s sins be visited upon other white journalists?

In the 21st century, having leaders who don't really think the Earth is warming is a little like having leaders who don't really think the Earth is round.

<a title=“Boing Boing: Send-up of “Respect Copyright” PSAs” href=“http://www.boingboing.net/2004/03/18/sendup_of_respect_co.html">Boing Boing: Send-up of “Respect Copyright” PSAs

I don't know why anyone would ever steal a movie. Unless of course it's to avoid this commercial which we now play in front of every single movie you could possibly go to, telling you you're bad for stealing even though you just spent $11 to see some movie and instead you have to sit there and listen to me whine at you and accuse you of being a thief.

Rocks Can Help Create a Natural, Low-Maintenance Garden (washingtonpost.com)

This is the perfect time to design and place landscape stones. Plants are just breaking out of dormancy, so you can see the bones of the landscape. Early bulbs are just appearing, so you can arrange rocks around them.

The main focus of my art is currently the exploration of the infinite ever-changing worlds contained within the subconscious mind. In Heaven and Hell Aldous Huxley wrote:

"Like the giraffe and the duckbilled platypus, the creatures inhabiting [the] remoter regions of the mind are exceedingly improbable. Nevertheless they exist, they are facts of observation; and as such, they cannot be ignored by anyone trying to understand the world in which he lives."

The worlds inside the mind are just as real as the world outside, but describing and documenting the inner worlds can only be done by using similes and symbols from the outside world. I see my work as symbolic representations of subconscious landscapes, creatures or events. Each work is a piece of an infinite puzzle representing my subconscious mind.

Update 2023/04/22: Link above just goes to the homepage now, but Ben Tolman is on Instagram

The Fog of War is currently playing at AMC Courthouse; AMC Hoffman Center; Bethesda Row Cinema; Visions Bar Noir.

As far as I'm concerned, music is not a commodity. It's something that people have earned by being human. They have a right to hear it, and a right to share it, as they always have in churches and parties. That's how music happens.

Why do both WeatherPop and iPhoto display dates in the form “9:30 AMAM”?

Chicago Tribune | Jack Kerouac in Orlando

I want people, especially young people, to embrace the idea of history in the suburbs. I call it suburban archaeology. This idea of Kerouac as the precursor of the hippies — he was Catholic, he was conservative, and he lived with his mother in the suburbs.

So says Bob Kealing, a reporter for WESH-TV and the author of a new book, Kerouac in Florida: Where the Road Ends. Read an excerpt in Orlando Magazine.

Cancer Anxiety Study - Easing the Anxiety of Death: “The Research & Education Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is conducting a study designed to measure the effectiveness of the novel psychoactive medication psilocybin on the reduction of anxiety, depression, and physical pain.”

Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies: “This is the first study of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy ever approved in the 18 1/2 years since MDMA was criminalized.”

Mars wiggles!

Aktion Reinhard Camps.

originally posted by daiichi

The picture of him playing soldier suit on an aircraft carrier, the helmet under his arm like he just got back from a run over Baghdad, marks him as exceedingly dangerous. He believes he is a warrior president. He is not. He is a war dodger. Therefore, it is preposterous for George Bush to be a commander of anything. He doesn't have the right to send people to war.

originally posted by xowie

Beat waves by Lisa Bornstein, Rocky Mountain News:

6,000 hours of lectures, performances and classes featuring some of the greats of American arts and literature, particularly the beat poets, have been recorded at Naropa over the past 30 years.

Those voices include writers Gregory Corso, William S. Burroughs, Amiri Baraka, Michael Ondaatje, Andrei Codrescu and Ken Kesey; cultural agitator Timothy Leary; musicians John Cage and Philip Glass; and spiritual leaders Ram Dass and Chogyum Trunpa Rinpoche.

Already, Naropa is setting up a listening station in its library, and by summer plans to have part of the collection available to the public on the Web. It is also producing a boxed set of four CDs - Taylor calls it a "virtual workshop" - with poets Diane DiPrima, Ginsberg, Burroughs and Waldman.

Since McKinley returned to the United States in April, the vision of the dead marine’s face has sat in her mind like an elephant blocking the road. ‘‘When I first got home, the nightmares were him basically calling me selfish, asking why didn’t I help save him,’’ she said, her voice so grave and quiet that it was nearly inaudible. ‘‘And now it’s changed to he’s asking me why I didn’t go with him.''

originally posted by xowie

Did the President have to take time off from National Guard duty to do community service as a sentence for a crime?

originally posted by xowie

32. Which of these figures are of African-American descent:

a) George Herriman, creator of the Krazy Kat cartoon strip. b) Best-selling novelist Frank Yerby. c) Carol Channing, actress and stage performer. d) Johnny Otis, 1950s rhythm and blues star.

originally posted by xowie

We wonder why, four days after, a glimpse of a hood-ornamented nipple warrants in-depth coverage in every section of the Los Angeles Times; why the FCC will spend tax dollars investigating so-called ‘indecency’ and not the free-speech-chilling effects of media consolidation; why it was Janet’s breast, and not general depravity, that persuaded parents in Laguna Beach that MTV should no longer infiltrate their high schools. Rarely does it occur to any of us that this outrage might be a healthy reaction to the systematic depreciation of an enchanting aesthetic feature peculiar to human females.

originally posted by xowie

CBS and Viacom said an ad featuring children to make a political statement was over the top. Yet a male entertainer stalking his female prey was not. The president was spared by the media moguls. Not so lucky were America's girls as CBS and Viacom told them it was just fine for boys to sing, "I'm gonna have you naked at the end of this song."

I am hoping to hear bell hooks on the story of the Super Bowl, but until such time I am hearing a lot of sense in Derrick Jackson's words.

Making fun of Asians and Asian-Americans is still perceived as socially acceptable in a lot of places.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) is withdrawing its previously announced support of Howard Dean’s presidential bid.

AFSCME’s brilliant associate general counsel, Robert D. Lenhard, was nominated to the Federal Election Commission last summer.

originally posted by xowie

I've learned recently that some folks in the hip-hop community respect what I'm doing, and it's such a thrill. [One hip-hop guy's compliment] is like five pop guys telling you that your music's doing it for them. I like being myself and kinda sticking to that. Maybe that's kind of the part to be respected. I think also I'm a 'beat' guy. I'm a rhythm guy.

John Mayer plays electric guitar.