Politics
Telecom companies working harder to serve you better (by keeping internet access limited, slow, and expensive)
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- Tuesday 29th May 2007
Unaccustomed as I am to haranguing people to take direct action about anything other than downloading cute cat videos, I heartily recommend signing this petition being run by ActForChange about the upcoming airwave grab by Verizon and AT&T.
Save Our Spectrum has more details.
Do the words universal, affordable Internet connections make sense to you? They don’t to the FCC, which is about to…
Politics
Mark Twain’s “The War Prayer” as a a motion-control video
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- Tuesday 29th May 2007
Nicely drawn and produced version of the original; narrated by Peter Coyote and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, among others.
Still gut twisting, and will unfortunately remain relevant into the time when cockroaches rule the earth.
As far as I can tell, the filmmakers neglected to mention anywhere in the credits that it was actually written by Mark…
Politics
Cindy Sheehan withdraws for all the right reasons
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- Tuesday 29th May 2007
This weekend, Cindy Sheehan publicly withdrew from the US peace movement she did so much to help.
She wrote a sad, angry blog post explaining her reasons.
“The first conclusion is that I was the darling of the so-called left as long as I limited my protests to George Bush and the Republican Party. Of course, I was slandered and libeled by the right as a “tool” of the Democratic Party. This…
Thoughts on Life
I’ll have a double. Straight up, please
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- Sunday 27th May 2007
If you’re ever in Adelaide, Australia, and you wander into the Rocket Bar, please let me know how this tastes. Quite flattering to be up there between Herbie Hancock and The Egyptian Lover.
Thanks to DJ Food, currently killing it Down Under, and packing a camera on the…
Music & Sound
In the years P.D. (Pre-Dangermouse)
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- Sunday 27th May 2007
Hats off to Dangermouse, who’s turned out to be one of the most successful pop producers of recent years. That Beatles thing he rigged up with the Jay-Z accappellas was plenty clever.
However.
Successful and clever as he may be, let’s not run around with the idea that he started the trend of cutting up Beatles tunes for remixing and whatnot, or even that he did it best.
Allow me to hip…
Music & Sound
Cats listening to music
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- Friday 25th May 2007
Has everyone seen this already? I know I saw it myself several months ago, but that was before I had a blog where I could force my taste on the world.
Quite funny. Thanks to Michele and Beth for the…
Copyright
Gonzales proposes thoughtcrime legislation
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- Thursday 24th May 2007
Remember years ago, when you read Orwell’s 1984 for the first time? There’s a passage in it where O’Brien, the totalitarian thug, explains something to Winston; he points out that the easiest way to control a huge populace is to make sure that everyone is breaking a law – a society where every citizen is a criminal.
Cnet posted news of the latest brainstorm from Alberto Gonzales, who may be…
Music & Sound
Stein reappears on the airwaves, courtesy of WFMU
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- Thursday 24th May 2007
My show, A Rough Mix, will be returning to WFMU for the summer after a 10-year hiatus. If you’re in the NY/NJ metropolitan area, tune your FM receivers to 91.1 FM Thursdays at 7 PM. The show also streams live on the web from WFMU.org, and it’s archived there for later reference. There may be podcasts (I’m confused about this) and I may be able to link to it from this site as well, if not podcast…
Thoughts on Life
On second thought, send me a text message; I’ve got another one of those headaches
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- Wednesday 23rd May 2007
The latest print issue of the Columbia Journalism Review carries a paragraph about what might be considered an important story; one that’s running on the front page of newspapers in Britain, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Israel and Canada, but not, oddly enough, in the US.
In the US, a specialized newsletter called Microwave News, carried word of the findings of a 5 country study that showed…
Music & Sound
Chuck Jones, with sound effects
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- Wednesday 23rd May 2007
Witty, abstract, and completely psychedelic, Now Hear This is an apparently rare gem from director Chuck Jones of Warner Bros. fame. It’s an altogether stunning combination of gorgeous graphic design and the genius use of sound effects. And, quite possibly, drugs. Sound designer Treg Brown very much in the house.
Thanks to Rich H from WFMU, via Cartoon Brew….
