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October 30, 2003
THE PERSISTENT MORON DOWD
Maureen Dowd thinks she's got a great theme for her column this
week: up is down, black is white. Unfortunately for her,
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/opinion/30DOWD.html">most of
what she writes makes no sense. She says that Bush claimed we
needed to invade Iraq because it was an imminent threat to our
security, when that is exactly the opposite of what Bush claimed--that
the U.S. couldn't wait until Iraq was an imminent threat. Dowd
also writes that Bush said that this would be an easy mission to
accomplish and wouldn't harm the economy. Andrew Sullivan points out
href="hhttp://www.andrewsullivan.com/index.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_1
0_26_dish_archive.html#106748766719045252ttp://www.andrewsullivan.com/i
ndex.php?dish_inc=archives/2003_10_26_dish_archive.html#106748766719045
252">numerous instances where Bush indicated that this would be a
long, difficult, and costly effort. And GDP
href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=568&e=2&u=/nm/200
31030/bs_nm/economy_dc">grew 7.2% during the third quarter anyway,
the highest rate since 1984. Her piece sees recent attacks against a
sparsely defended Red Cross center as evidence that the terrorists are
becoming less desperate than before. By this logic, terrorists
shooting children and blowing up old ladies will soon become Dowd's
indicator that the U.S. has been defeated and needs to go home. Dowd
labors to compare what is happening in Iraq to what went on in Vietnam.
There were 47,359 combat deaths in the Vietnam War. So far there have
been 232 combat deaths in Iraq. Combat deaths occurred in Vietnam at
the rate of 15.3 a day. In Iraq the rate is 1.2 per day. There were
many more troops in Vietnam, but at the current rate of casualties it
will be about May 2110--107.5 years from now--before Iraq equals
Vietnam. Maureen Dowd has won a Pulitzer Prize for her writing.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:28 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2003
TOUCH OF EVIL
Apparently, Gematria is kind of a cross between numerology and
the Bible Code. Developed by a Russian, Dr. Ivan Panin, in the late
19th century, it still seems like a hokey pile of nonsense to me today.
But someone decided to put up a
href="http://homokaasu.org/gematriculator/">Gematriculator on the
Internet to calculate different sites' levels of good and evil. Some
examples:
The New York Times: 23% Evil, 77% Good
The Washington Post: 33% Evil, 67% Good
USA Today: 53% Evil, 47% Good
New York Post: 36% Evil, 64% Good
Official White House Web Site: 31% Evil, 69% Good
Lexiphane.com: 1% Evil, 99% Good
So there you have it folks, the Gematriculator doesn't lie. As I've
always suspected, USA Today is by far one of the most evil
newspapers in the country, I suppose edging out the NYTs on the
pervasiveness of its non-words-based news conveyance format. But
Lexiphane is clearly head and shoulders above all the rest, consisting
of just 1% evil to keep things interesting.
Posted by Lexiphane at 5:34 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WORST HEADLINE OF THE WEEK
This item from the Scripps Howard News
Service wins the prize for this week's worst headline of the
week.
Young enlistees have highest death rate in Iraq
The article seeks to highlight that most of the U.S. forces dying in
Iraq are the younger members. Who knows what the reason for this is.
Perhaps they're trying to spin a story angle about lost youth and the
young dying for the wishes of the older generals and politicians. It's
a theme with a long history. If one bothers to read the article,
however, it mentions that while younger members are numerically dying
in greater numbers, proportionally to their percentage of troop
composition, they are faring significantly better than noncommissioned
and commissioned officers.
Commissioned officers such as Army Lt. Col. Charles
Buehring, who was killed Sunday in an enemy rocket assault on a Baghdad
hotel, have accounted for just 11 percent of the troops who have died
in Iraq and surrounding areas since the war began March 19. They also
were about twice as likely to die during the major combat of the war in
March and April than in the six following months.
Non-commissioned officers such as sergeants have made up 34 percent of
the fallen U.S. fighting force, while privates such as Guerrera,
specialists and other grunts comprise 55 percent of the toll.
That breakdown is more top-heavy than has been typically seen in past
conflicts, where non-officers - who commonly make up 85 percent of the
force - died in numbers more proportional to their number in the
ranks.
The article then goes on to wrap up by again emphasizing that
more young soldiers than old are dying. And also throws in that more
deaths are occurring in the ranks of the Army than in the Marines,
Navy, or Air Force. They do this without mentioning the relative
number of troops on the ground from each of those branches, thus making
that paragraph less than worthless for conveying useful information Tagged:
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 28, 2003
MIDDLE EASTERN REVIEW
My review of David Fromkin's overview of the Middle East during WWI and
the post-war years--A PEACE TO END ALL PEACE, The Fall of the
Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East--is
href="http://www.lexiphane.com/lex/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcon
tent&id=13">posted here.
Posted by Lexiphane at 7:50 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SAVE THE CHILDREN
Bill O'Reilly's got his
href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/col/oreilly/">panties in a
bunch because kids are seeing violent movies and listening to
degenerate music.
It is time for Americans to realize that your homes have
been invaded by insidious forces beyond your control. The harmful
music, movies, computer images and television will affect your kids, no
matter what you do. And yet the American media are celebrating this
very troubling turn of events.
If I had children, I'd be more concerned if I caught them
watching a show like O'Reilly's than seeing The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre. Hysterical scare-mongering just isn't for kids. Tagged:
When the Lexiphane was just a wee lad himself, he remembers
listening to all sorts of music that would have gotten Bill O'Reilly in
a lathered outrage. N.W.A. was singing "Fuck the Police" loud
and clear in my bedroom and Public Enemy was making videos about
a black militant hit squad going west to assassinate the governor of
Arizona. Those were heady days alright. My first semester at college,
I went with a bunch of friends to Cole Field House at the University of
Maryland to see the rapper Ice T perform. At the time, there
was a lot of controversy over his single "Cop Killer," which was
obviously about killing police officers. On our way into the venue, we
were met by a local news camera crew who pointed a mic in our faces and
asked us what we thought about the controversy. What happened next was
one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life.
One of my friends [who will go unnamed, because after graduating
Harvard Law he went to work at the Justice Dept.] stepped forward,
grabbed the microphone, and went into a profanity laced tirade about
how cops were always gunning for the black man, so they'd better be
ready when they come back shooting. My friend was a very white Cuban-
American from suburban Virginia who stood about 5'5". And he was
joking, of course. As we all were as we played the thug Greek chorus
muttering, "hells yeah" and "goddamn right!" throughout his on-camera
performance. I can't imagine it ever made it onto the air, but it
would have been a classic piece of television if it had.
My point is that kids are a lot smarter than Bill O'Reilly
thinks. Sure, every once in a while a kid confuses himself for a real
gangster after smoking too much weed and listening to too much Snoop
and Dre, but that kid definitely had a pre-existing identity problem.
If it was 15 years earlier, he'd have been wearing his hair in a Mohawk
with 38 safety pins stuck in his ear. There's a reason why most of
this shocking music is consumed (and targeted) at young people. It's a
way to break free from a pre-established identity and form a new one
for himself or herself. Sometimes a kid will go a little overboard,
but given the latitude and tolerance to try different things out,
they'll eventually settle on something that works productively for
them. Blaming this process of young rebellion on the artists du jour
makes Bill O'Reilly sound like a broken record of the hundreds of
scolds that have come before him.
Posted by Lexiphane at 3:47 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DEPARTMENT OF SELF PARODY
I imagine that when one is surrounded by nothing but kowtowing
bootlickers 24 hours a day, a celebrity gets the feeling that there is
nothing that he or she cannot accomplish. Everyone agrees with
everything they say, so why not apply that magical power where it
really counts, like solving the Middle East peace crisis between Israel
and the Palestinians? That's what
href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/10/26/w
brad26.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/10/26/ixportal.html">Brad Pitt, Jennifer
Aniston, and Danny DeVito want to do:
Brad Pitt, his wife, Jennifer Aniston, and Danny DeVito
are among the stars who aim to succeed where world statesmen have
stumbled.
"The past few years of conflict mean that yet another generation of
Israelis and Palestinians will grow up in hatred," reads a statement
from Pitt and Aniston. "We cannot allow that to
happen."
Others joining in this embarrassing foray include Seinfeld
co-star Jason Alexander and actor Ed Norton. Some might consider these
people's lack of "experience" or "knowledge" or "something to
contribute aside from glamour" to be a handicap. Not this crew.
The organisers admit that none of the actors has any
experience of the Middle East or of conflict resolution, but argue that
this may be a good thing as they will be considered non-
partisan.
Perhaps this is the trend of the future. Is there anyway we can
send simpleton singer href="http://www.mtv.com/onair/newlyweds/nick_and_jessica/">Jessica
Simpson and her eye-rolling husband Nick Lachey to North Korea for
nuclear disarmament talks?
We can only pray that Seinfeld co-creator Larry David stays out
of this type of thing though, or we'll have nuclear armageddon within
the month.
Read more for some fictitious and possibly offensive content associated
with this story. Tagged:
Despite their best efforts, celebrity peacemakers may have a hard road
to travel before collecting their Nobel Prize.
Initial meetings between Israelis and Palestinians got
off to a rocky start when Pitt made an effort to reach out to the
residents of U.N. refugee camps. "Look, I can tell you that having had
a long career in Hollywood working alongside a large number of agents
and producers, I know what it feels like to be jerked around by a bunch
of pushy Jews." His wife Jennifer Aniston added that although she was
relatively unfamiliar with the Arab situation in the Middle East, when
she lived in Manhattan she frequently took cabs. Aniston was then
asked to participate in a photo-op kissing a Palestinian baby, which
then exploded.
Posted by Lexiphane at 12:38 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
BOMBING AT THE THEATER
HBO recently premiered a documentary called
href="http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/terror_in_moscow/index.html">Ter
ror in Moscow about the October 2002 seizure of more than 700
hostages in a Moscow theater by 41 Chechen terrorists. Demanding that
Russia withdraw from Chechnya, the terrorists held their captives
inside the theater for 57 hours. Sitting among the Russian men, women,
and children, were almost 20 Chechnyan women with explosives strapped
to their waists and instructions to blow up the theater and everyone in
it if resistance was met. A full review is available
href="http://www.lexiphane.com/lex/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcon
tent&id=12">here.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:38 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
COME ON DOWN!
One of the most enduring voices of the last two generations was
"The Price is Right" announcer Rod Roddy. His booming voice would
invite selected contestants to "Come on down!" to participate in Bob
Barker's show. He would also describe what contestants could win
throughout the show, such as "A new car!" or "A pontoon party boat with
accompanying jet skis!" Roddy
href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=494&e=3&u=/ap/obi
t_roddy">passed away yesterday after a long battle with breast and
colon cancers. He presumably is now in that great Showcase Showdown of
the everafter. Tell him what he's won God.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:12 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 27, 2003
DIGGING THEIR OWN GRAVES
I imagine that Iraqis have had it just about up to here with
foreigners interfering in their affairs; and I'm not talking about the
coalition forces that deposed Saddam Hussein and are now currently
rebuilding the country and creating a more representative system of
government. This weekend, a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/27/international/middleeast/27CND-
IRAQ.html">wave of suicide bombers attacked a Red Cross aid
facililty and a number of other locations, leaving scores dead and
hundreds injured. Whether these are remanants of Hussein's former
regime or foreign agitators, the assailants have apparently found the
destructive yield on attacking coalition military targets too low and
are now targeting Iraqi civilians.
Shortly after the bomb at the Red Cross facility, four
more suicide attackers struck at Iraqi police stations across Baghdad
nearly simultaneously with powerful car and truck bombs.
The attacks left a trail of devastation from Saidiya, in southern
Baghdad, to Shaab, about 10 miles to the north.
At least 15 people were killed, and more than 100 were wounded,
including 30 seriously, according to doctors at the Yarmuk hospital,
which received most of the casualties. The dead were both Iraqi police
officers and civilians, including a 12-year-old boy and a 25-year-old
woman and her infant daughter, according to witnesses. One American
soldier was also killed, according to a statement from the
military.
The fact that these attacks are occurring at the start of
Ramadan, a month-long holy period of fasting in the Muslim calendar,
further undercuts any possible sense that these attacks are waged in an
international spirit of pan-Islamic solidarity against infidel
infiltrators. Whether Iraqis like the presence of coalition forces or
not, fedayeen terrorists are creating a large incentive for the
indigenous population to point out foreign terrorists and cooperate in
their arrest or destruction. The stark contrast between the actions of
coalition forces and terrorists that slaughter Iraqi civilians has
never been clearer. Tagged:
Posted by Lexiphane at 3:43 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 24, 2003
NO LAND, OR ELSE
According to The Jerusalem Post, the al Aksa Martyrs' Brigade of
Yasir Arafat's Fatah organization has promised to
href="http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/S
howFull&cid=1066888262810">publicly execute any Palestinians found
to have sold or facilitated land to a Jewish person or organization.
This is interesting because it pertains closely to how Jews came to
acquire land in Israel in the first place. In the post-WWI 1920s,
Winston Churchill was preparing to enact the Balfour Declaration.
Originally, the declaration proposed the formation of a Jewish state in
a region known as Palestine. In the process of segmenting the middle
eastern region of the defunct Ottoman Empire, Churchill reduced the
portion of Palestine to be apportioned to indigenous and immigrant Jews
to what makes up most of Israel now, excluding the land that is now
known as Jordan.
In enacting this policy, Churchill was insistent on explaining to
indigenous non-Jews that they would not be displaced and that any land
to be acquired by Jewish people would have to be purchased from current
owners.
In the Middle East, things rarely were what they seemed
to be, and the land issue in Palestine was a case in point. The Arab
delegation to London did in fact understand what Churchill meant about
Arabs wanting to sell land to Jews, for Musa Kazim Pasha, the president
of the delgation, was himself one of those who had sold land to the
Jewish settlers. So had other members of the Arab delegation that he
brought with him to London in 1921-2 and in succeeding years.
Prince Feisal and Dr. Chaim Weizmann had agreed in 1918 that there was
no scarcity of land in Palestine: the problem, rather, was that so much
of it was controlled by a small group of Arab landowners and usurers.
The great mass of the peasantry struggled to eke out a bare lviging
from low-yielding, much eroded, poorly irrigated plots, while large
holdings of fertile lands were being accumulated by influential
families of absentee landlords.
The Zionist plan, as outlined by Weizmann to Feisal in 1918, was to
avoid encroaching on land being worked by the Arab peasantry and
instead to reclaim unused, uncultivated land, and by the use of
sceintific agricultural methods to restore its fertility. The large
Arab landholders, however, turned out to be eager to sell the Jewish
settlers their fertile lands, too--at very considerable profits.
Indeed Jewsih purchasers bid land prices up so that, not untypically,
an Arab family of Beirut sold plots of land in the Jezreel valley to
Jewish settlers in 1921 at prices ranging from forty to eighty times
the original purchase price. Far from being forced by Jews to sell,
Arabs offered so much land to Jews that the only limtiing factor on
purchases became money: the Jewish settlers did not have money to buy
all the land that Arabs offered to them.
Not merely non-Palestinian Arabs but the Palestinian Arab leadership
class itself was deeply implicated in these land sales that it publicly
denounced. Either personally or through their families, at least a
quarter of the elected official leadership of the Arab Palestinian
community sold land to Jewish settlers between 1920 and
1928.
That's an excerpt from an excellent book called href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
/0805068848/qid=1067034646/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/104-6596636-
7934327?v=glance&n=507846">A Peace to End All Peace, The Fall
of The Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle
East by David Fromkin. I'm almost finished with it and should
have a full review posted soon.
Posted by Lexiphane at 6:36 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
I WANT A HANDICAPPED FOR CHRISTMAS!
There's something about the commercials I've been seeing for the
new movie
href="http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0316465/">Radio that make
my skin crawl. It's another movie featuring a mentally handicapped
person in which regular folks find human salvation. Good handicapped
person! These movies make me sick because in an effort to make us feel
good about the handicapped, they wind up dehumanizing them by turning
their characters into lovable caricatures stripped of any real
humanity. The nadir of this phenomena was reached by dressing up
Giovanni Ribisi's mentally handicapped character in
href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0123209/">The Other Sister in
a bunny suit and letting the hijinx ensue. Funny handicapped person!
This paragraph from The Washington Post
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9532-
2003Oct23.html">review of Radio says it well:
To the film's credit, the high school's principal (an honorable
performance by Woodard) asks Coach Jones whether Radio is being a bit
objectified. Of course he is. And we're being manipulated as well.
"Radio" lays bare all the mileage Hollywood gets at the expense of
people with disabilities -- how, in the name of the sympathetic
portrayal, it uses them, infantilizes them, caricatures them,
manipulates them, to elicit exactly the thing people with disabilities
don't need: pity. Actors who participate in the farce, just for a
little career cred, should be ashamed.
I'm looking forward to seeing a movie that doesn't dehumanize its main
character to manipulate audiences into feeling good about themselves.
Peter Dinklage is a dwarf who stars in the current non-pandering film
The Station
Agent. Tagged:
Posted by Lexiphane at 3:41 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
MULTICULTURALISM IN FRANCE
In France's sprawling housing projects that are home to much of
its immigrant population, young men
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/international/europe/24FRAN.htm
l?8hpib">usually go unpunished for the gang rapes of young women.
Not only are women subjected to direct sexual brutality, but the
lingering threat of it serves to oppress them on a day-to-day basis.
"If a girl goes out, she's going to get into trouble,Tagged:
especially with Arabs and blacks, because they are not used to seeing
girls outside," he said. "The boys have needs. Where I come from, it's
not normal that a girl goes out at night. If I tell my sister not to go
out, she obeys me. This world is not like France."
Posted by Lexiphane at 3:12 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DOG DAY AFTERNOON
The New York Times
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/24/nyregion/24DOGS.html?hp">breaks
down the data from the recent census canis today and finds some
obvious trends in dog ownership by neighborhood. Lap dogs rule the
Upper East Side. Pit bulls and other large breeds thrive in the South
Bronx. The Lexiphane has long held that there is a dog-owner maxim
that applies to most NYC pet owners:
The size of a dogTagged:
is inversely proportional to the relative size of said dog's owner's
apartment.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:37 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 23, 2003
CLOSED BOOK
Book magazine
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/business/media/22BOOK.html">is
folding and this should come as no surprise. I received the
periodical for a year with a free subscription for signing up for
Barnes & Noble's Readers' Advantage program. B&N is withdrawing its
support and circulation predictably collapsed. Book is not
something I would have paid for at almost any price. Its close
affiliation with B&N made it seem more like a hefty sales circular than
something you'd be charged for. Author profiles, book reviews, and
other features were so closely aligned with what B&N was selling that
Book could hardly even be identified as a magazine. It was a
catalogue with lots of editorial content. Book might be able to
survive as a loss-leading form of advertising for B&N, targeting a
segment of the public that are heavy book buyers. That's essentially
what it was when I was receiving it through the Readers' Advantage
program. I had no idea they were actually expecting it to be
profitable.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:25 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 22, 2003
SHOOTING THEIR MOUTHS OFF
I've seen
href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100894,00.html">the tape
recently made public of Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, and some of their
friends shooting off a bunch of guns in the middle of the woods. Some
people in Columbine are now wondering who saw this tape prior to
Klebold and Harris' killing spree at their high school, as if it were
some sort of smoking gun of homicidal intent. Blogger Anne Haight has
some
href="http://www.leftist.org/haightspeech/archives/000063.html">cogent
thoughts over at her site that I largely agree with. If Klebold,
Harris et. al were guilty of anything in this tape, it's acting like
extreme morons, ignoring basic gun safety, and probably not being able
to hit the broad side of a barn from 30 feet away. That's about it.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:25 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
TURN A BLIND EYE
href="http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12321">Critics
scoffed when President Bush included North Korea as a member of the
Axis of Evil, although readers of this site will know that I firmly
believe it merits that dubious distinction. The
href="http://www.hrnk.org">U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North
Korea published a report yesterday titled
href="http://www.hrnk.org/TheHiddenGulag-press.pdf">The Hidden
Gulag [PDF file]. It documents the slave labor camps, known as
kwan-li-so, where between 150,000 and 200,000 political
prisoners are worked to death as a regular part of North Korea's
political economy. Even accepting the fact that all of North Korea is
essentially a prison labor camp, this report is especially eye-opening.
Coupled with the pictures in Sunday's
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/19/magazine/19KOREA.html">New York
Times Magazine, which showed tens of thousands of
schoolchildren putting on massive dance performances six days a week
for 30 days in celebration of Kim Jong Il's 60th birthday, The
Hidden Gulag provides a look at the sickness that pervades life in
a communist dystopia.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:46 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
WTF?
In the middle of a war, a
href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/executive/rumsfeld-
memo.htm">presumably confidential memo from the Secretary of
Defense to an under-Secretary, two generals, and another party
discussing overall strategy and things to consider for an upcoming
meeting is leaked to and then published in the national press. I don't
think it's unreasonable that Sec. Rumsfeld might want to find out who
released the memo to USA Today and then have them fired
immediately, if not prosecuted.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:38 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 21, 2003
ON THE ROAD IN CUBA
Richard Lapper of The Financial Times went to Cuba with his wife
and figured the best way to hear what people thought of their lives in
the Caribbean communist prison state was to pick up hitch-hikers. What
he found was a population teetering backwards into a pre-industrial
age, both disgruntled and proud. His article is a
href="http://search.ft.com/search/article.html?id=031017008426&query=cu
ba&vsc_appId=totalSearch&state=Form">balanced but unflinching look
at what remains of Castro's "revolution."
The people that travel to Cuba to admire a more simple, uncomplicated,
and grounded society are probably one of the
href="http://www.wackonet.fsnet.co.uk/tmp/cuba/reports/AE_Report.htm">l
owest forms of humanity. They view others' enforced poverty as
quaint and worthy of contemplation, as if they were in a Disney version
of Misery Island. Then they head back to their lands of plenty, get
their pictures developed at their local grocery store brimming with
foodstuffs, and tell their friends about the "magic" of the place,
while deriding the lunatic right-wing exile community in Miami that
would destroy it with tacky things like jobs, modern facilities, and
opportunities to attain some measure of material comfort. For some,
it's fun to play revolutionary while an entire nation suffers.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:30 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
UNBIASED?
Boston police are prepared to seek
href="http://www.boston.com/news/daily/20/bullpen_charges.htm">assault
and battery charges against Yankees pitcher Jeff Nelson and right
fielder Karim Garcia after a brawl broke out in the Yankees bullpen
during game 3 of the ALCS. I have no idea whether these charges can be
substantiated or not, but assuming the Boston DA brings charges, is it
possible for two Yankees to receive a fair trial in Boston given the
historical enmity between Bostonians and the Yankees and the fact that
the New York team just crushed the Sox's chance at a long-awaited World
Series championship? Could Nelson and Garcia get an unbiased jury pool
anywhere in New England?
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:15 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 20, 2003
TOO PERSONAL
A lot of sites run online personal ads, including
href="http://www.gothamist.com">Gothamist.com. Today it featured a
picture of a young woman identified as f12 and accompanied with
this excerpt from her profile:
Celebrity I resemble most: Jennifer Connelly, but it
came from this geek in a bar who told me that he'd be my Russell
Crowe.
This seems like a doubtful strategy for picking someone up. By
identifying oneself as her Russell Crowe, the geek has planted the seed
that he is a highly unstable schizophrenic given to hallucination and
delusions, who will eventually nearly drown her child by accident,
before being reduced to a drooling institutionalized zombie medicated
to the gills on thorazine. See href="http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/">A Beautiful
Mind. At least he didn't identify himself as her Nick Nolte,
which would have insinuated that he would soon be investigating her
murder after someone pushes her out of a plane and she is reduced to
the somatic equivalent of jello, all the while listening to Chazz
Palminteri muse about psychotherapy. See href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0117107/">Mulholland Falls. Tagged:
Posted by Lexiphane at 1:02 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 18, 2003
INTELLECTUAL MALAISIA
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad gave the opening address at a
world conference of Muslim nations recently and made it pretty clear
that the goals of a so-called moderate Muslim leader entail a worldwide
alliance to fight Jewish people, who he characterized as controlling
the world.
The enemy [Jews] will probably welcome these
proposals and we will conclude that the promoters are working for the
enemy. But think. We are up against a people who think. They survived
2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They
invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights
and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so
they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now
gained control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny
community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through
brawn alone. We must use our brains also.
Ah those crafty Jews, coming up with schemes like human rights and
democracy to guilt us into not slaughtering them. Can't get one past
ol' Mahathir though, can they? Tagged:
In the 2001 comedy
href="http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0196229/">Zoolander, the
criminal fashion mogul Mugatu brainwashed a male model in a plot to
murder the Malaysian prime minister. In the movie, the PM was
portrayed as an elderly, benign, Dalai Lama-type figure. Clearly this
isn't the case. Clearly he is a malignant nut. Earlier in his speech,
he does make some good points on where greater Muslim culture took a
wrong turn and let the modern world pass it by.
But halfway through the building of the great Islamic
civilisation came new interpreters of Islam who taught that acquisition
of knowledge by Muslims meant only the study of Islamic theology. The
study of science, medicine etc. was discouraged.
Intellectually the Muslims began to regress. With intellectual
regression the great Muslim civilisation began to falter and wither.
But for the emergence of the Ottoman warriors, Muslim civilisation
would have disappeared with the fall of Granada in 1492.
The early successes of the Ottomans were not accompanied by an
intellectual renaissance. Instead they became more and more preoccupied
with minor issues such as whether tight trousers and peak caps were
Islamic, whether printing machines should be allowed or electricity
used to light mosques. The Industrial Revolution was totally missed by
the Muslims. And the regression continued until the British and French
instigated rebellion against Turkish rule brought about the downfall of
the Ottomans, the last Muslim world power and replaced it with European
colonies and not independent states as promised. It was only after
World War II that these colonies became independent.
All in all it's an interesting speech and the full text can be found href="http://thestar.com.my/oic/story.asp?file=/2003/10/16/oic/20031016
123438&sec">here. Mohamad interestingly blames Western style
democracy for dividing Muslims, although it's unclear what alternative
form of government he would prefer. It's too bad that someone who
seems to be on to something as far as exhorting Islamic reform still
seems so married to the hobbyhorse of anti-Semitism. PM Mohamad is
correct; there are 1.3 billion Muslims in the world and they currently
control 50 of the 180 countries in formal existence. What is the
preoccupation with the tiny sliver of land on the Mediterranean that's
home to a few million Jewish people? It's not like they're occupying
the Hejaz. The
pre-occupation with Israel seems to serve as a pacifier to soothe the
never-ending teething pains of a culture whose growth has stalled
indefinitely.
Posted by Lexiphane at 1:41 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 17, 2003
SOMETHING FOR THE BEANTOWNERS
While The New York Times may have actually been
href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10911FA35580C7B8C
DDA90994DB404482&n=Top%252fOpinion%252fEditorials%2520and%2520Op%252dEd
%252fEditorials">rooting [payment required] for the Red Sox to
beat the Yankees in the ALCS, the New York Post actually went
ahead and editorialized about Boston winning last night and it got into
this morning's papers. The Smoking Gun has the
href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/postcurse1.html">incriminati
ng evidence that The Post evidently has no faith whatsoever
in Yankee miracles.
Posted by Lexiphane at 3:09 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
NOT DIGNITY
Earlier this week I derided fans of other teams for their buoyant
displays of enthusiasm for their teams [see
href="http://lexiphane.com/lex/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2
90">AN OPEN LETTER, 10/14/03] and contrasted it with Yankees
fans' cooler dignity on the verge of victory. Last night, however, I
realized it wasn't dignity that constrained those in the Bronx, so much
as pressure. It came to me last night when Fox producers would cut to
fans in the stands at Yankee Stadium and I recognized that I was doing
the same things they were doing. During the tops of innings when the
Red Sox were at bat, fans demurred from towel waving and other such
antics in favor of a stance that resembled something closer to prayer,
with lips pursed and hands clasped tightly in front of their faces. In
the roar of approval at every Rivera strikeout one could detect a
collective sigh of relief.
Yankees fans and their team's organization have become accustomed
to winning. But with constant success comes the pressure for continued
success. While Red Sox fans can anticipate the exhilaration of
redemption and fans of other teams can relish the prospect of
unvarnished victory, Yankees fans must focus on their team not
losing. Not this year. And certainly not to their long-time
Boston pursuers. The Yankees--for good or bad--have become the kings
of October, and the prospect of being thwarted at any stage poses a
bitter affront. So victory is relief instead of triumph, and fans'
containment in the playoffs is more maintaining composure than
refraining from giddiness.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:11 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
GIVE 'EM A BREAK
Boston's probably having a rough enough morning without
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39257-
2003Oct17.html">The Washington Post kicking them while they're
down. Here's the first paragraph of the story on last night's game:
In the end, nothing really changed. The New York Yankees
won. The Boston Red Sox lost. The World Series begins Saturday. The
Yankees will be there for the 39th time. The Red Sox will not for the
85th straight year. Life goes on. Babies will be born, and one of them
will grow up years from now, put on pinstripes, and kill the Red Sox's
dream for another generation.
I don't know what generation author Dave Sheinin is from, but
this generation remembers the Red Sox winning the AL penant in
1986 and taking the NY Mets all the way to Game 7 of the World Series.
The post-season pain of the Red Sox and their fans is likely fairly
acute these days. There's no need to exaggerate their woes for effect.
OTHER WORLD SERIES RED SOX HAVE BEEN IN SINCE 1918:
1946 Lost to St. Louis Cardinals in 7 games
1967 Lost
to St. Louis Cardinals in 7 games
1975 Lost to Cincinatti Reds in 7 games
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:28 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
ONE FOR THE AGES
The game's been over for 25 minutes, but I can still hear the cheering
from the packed bars on 2nd Ave. Cars are still honking their horns.
And I'm still not sure I believe it. At the top of the 11th inning I
could barely watch Mariano Rivera continue to pitch against the heart
of the Red Sox lineup. I consoled myself that no matter what happened,
at least the Yankees had a made a game of it. Boston seemed like a
team--curse or no curse--with destiny on its side this year. And then
Aaron Boone, the less-than-remarkable-hitting third baseman stepped to
the plate at the bottom of that inning and, just like that, it was
over. 100 years of World Series and the Yankees have captured another
penant. I can't imagine what Boston fans must be feeling. The Red Sox
played an incredible season and an incredible series. There has to be
no worse way for it to end than to lose to the despised New York
Yankees. Tonight, I feel for them. It's late though, and I'm going to
bed. If I can get to sleep through the honking, yelling, and screaming
that I'm sure will continue for several more hours.
Posted by Lexiphane at 12:54 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 16, 2003
MARITIME TRAGEDY
With eleven people dead and dozens
others seriously wounded, the collision of one of the Staten Island
ferries into a maintenance pier will count as one of the most serious
accidents in New York City history. Fewer people know about
href="http://www.general-slocum.com/0acc.htm">another tragedy that
occurred aboard a boat, however, that counted, until the terrorist
attacks of 9/11/01, as the disaster with the largest death toll in the
city's history . On June 15, 1904, more than 1,300 German immigrants
and their children from the Lower East Side boarded the General
Slocum for a Sunday cruise around New York. By the end of the day,
1,021 of those people were dead after the General Slocum caught
fire and inadequate safety measures such as lifeboats, lifejackets, or
an ability to swim consigned the victims to a fiery or watery grave.
Historian Edward T. O'Donnell recently published an account of those
events in SHIP ABLAZE, The Tragedy of the
Steamboat General Slocum.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:06 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
RIGHT-TO-DIE?
Terri Schiavo's feeding tube was removed yesterday, possibly
marking the beginning of the end of a
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/16/national/16FEED.html">controver
sial bioethics case. After her heart stopped for a brief time in
1990 when she was 26, Schiavo lost much of her brain function and now
resides in what many doctors identify as a persistant vegetative state.
She breathes on her own and her eyes remain, open, however, and her
family claims she is responsive; something doctors claim is just
involuntary reflexes. Schiavo's husband, who now seeks to remarry, has
been attempting for years to force the removal of Schiavo's feeding
tube, which would result in the 39-year-old woman's slow starvation.
Although she left no living will or any other indications, he claims
that she once told him she wouldn't want to be kept alive artificially.
I'm not sure what my thoughts on this case would have been, until I saw
a videotape that Schiavo's parents made recently of their daughter--in
violation of a court order--and aired on The Today Show. Terri Schiavo
does not seem to be in a persistant vegetative state and what The
New York Times article describes as moaning sounded more like an
inarticulation of pleasure in response to interacting with her mother
than pain. Given that Schiavo's husband's claim that she would have
wanted to die seems to be hearsay, it seems strange that courts
wouldn't want to err on the side of caution and allow her to live. If
she is indeed in a persistent vegetative state, she wouldn't mind and
wouldn't even know her "wishes" were being violated would she? And if
she never in fact made such a claim, it seems a little cold-blooded to
starve a person to death because they happen to exist with impaired
brain functions. Finally, given the unclearness of Terri Schiavo's
wishes regarding these circumstances, the Times' headline for
this article could just as easily read "Feeding Tube Removed in Florida
Right-to-Kill Case" instead of identifying it as a "Right-to-Die Case"
as they did.
Posted by Lexiphane at 12:09 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
INCREASED MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING
One of the sadder and ironic sidenotes to the
href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32510-
2003Oct15.html">murder of three security personnel on a diplomatic
mission in the Gaza Strip yesterday is that they were escorting U.S.
diplomats in the country to interview a number of Palestinians who were
candidates to receive Fulbright Scholarships. While the bombers may
not have known this, it is indicative of the situation in Israel. Even
as the U.S. reaches out to Palestinians with the best intentions, some
Palestinians' pathological embrace of murder hinders their countrymen's
progress forward. From the
href="http://www.iie.org/TemplateFulbright.cfm?section=Fulbright1">Fulb
right website:
Established in 1946, the Fulbright Program aims toTagged:
increase mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States
and other countries, through the
exchange of persons, knowledge and skills.
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:30 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 15, 2003
MORE CRUSHING OF DISSENT
After Sean Penn went on a "fact-finding" mission to Iraq prior to
that country's liberation, the actor publicly complained that his anti-
war stance was costing him movie parts and he even went as far as to
sue producer Steven Bing over it when a project fell through. This
could be true. If Penn wants to make a globe-trotting ass out of
himself defending dictators a la Jimmy Carter, he shouldn't be
surprised when people call him on it and it seems like a bad move to
put him in a film. Nonetheless, a recent
href="http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/6916800.htm">AP
article said that this year's New York Film Festival should be
called The Sean Penn Film Festival, as he stars in two prominently
featured films this year. One of them is
href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0327056/">Mystic River,
directed by the Republican Clint Eastwood and co-starring Tim Robbins.
Robbins is another actor who has publicly complained that his anti-war
voice is being suppressed by the media. That's strange since I seem to
catch him on tv and in print regularly braying about the illegitimacy
of current Middle Eastern policy. In fact, he was on Charlie Rose two
nights ago bemoaning his public silencing. The irony of complaining
about being silenced on a nationally televised talk show seemed to
escape him. This morning he was being interviewed on The Today Show on
NBC--the most-watched morning show in the country--but I turned it off
after he admitted that he was probably still drunk at 8 a.m. It would
explain a lot.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:05 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
OVERCONFIDENT
On last night's late news, there were a lot of fan-on-the-streets
on camera proclaiming the ALCS as good as won after the Yankees beat
the Red Sox 4-2 in game 5 at Fenway. With two games remaining at
Yankee Stadium and only one win required for the Yanks to clinch,
things are looking good, but it's hardly a done deal. In the ALDS just
last week, the Red Sox were down 0-2 to the Oakland As before Boston
won three straight to win the series, with the first two wins in
Oakland. Also, at a crucial point late in the race for first in the AL
in September, Boston came to the Bronx and pummeled the Yanks in two
lopsided wins before succumbing to David Wells in game 3 of the series.
One of those losing pitchers was Andy Pettite, who will start for the
Yankees tonight. I'll hold my breath until it's over.
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:10 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 14, 2003
AN OPEN LETTER
The Yankees lost last night knotting the ALCS at 2-2, which is
disappointing, because the Boston Red Sox and their fans, in their hour
of desperation and imminent triumph, have resorted to acting retarded.
Have you heard about their "Cowboy Up" slogan? I think it's supposed
to be a verb. What the hell do cowboys have to do with Boston? Ten
years from now this will make the Superbowl Shuffle of the Chicago
Bears look like a great idea. People may loathe the Yankees and their
fans for a number of reasons--too many to enumerate here--but we don't
have foam bats or do tomahawk chops, there's no rally monkey, we don't
wave towels, and there will never be any "cowboying up" in the Bronx.
It's often hard to discern when sitting in the Yankee Stadium
bleachers, but we have dignity, and will shed it for no team. Also, we
don't riot and burn police cars or news vans when we win. We throw our
team a parade. Other cities should look into this.
P.S. Red Sox players: please wash your hats. I doubt it's good luck
and it makes you look like a bunch of pathetic little leaguers. Plus,
the sight of dried, crusty, white sweat stains on your caps makes me
nauseous. The Sox don't just stink; they fucking smell bad too.
Posted by Lexiphane at 12:55 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 13, 2003
NOT-SO-OPEN HOUSE
Friday I wrote about the Open House
New York project [see
href="http://www.lexiphane.com/lex/modules.php?name=News&file=article&s
id=284&mode=&order=0&thold=0">HIDDEN NYC, 10/10/03] that was an
opportunity for people to get a look at architectural spaces normally
closed to the public. I decided to limit myself to Manhattan since
there were so many places available to visit and such a short time
frame. I didn't want to spend a lot of time traveling between
boroughs. Saturday was supposed to be a journey anchored around the
4,5,6 line, south then north, to get in as many locations as possible.
First I walked to the Ukranian Institute of America, which is housed in
a large Gilded Age mansion on 79th and 5th Ave. It was very
impressive, but there was no tour and minimal information to tell me
what I was looking at. Afterwards, I attempted to catch a train
downtown to see the Tweed Courthouse by City Hall, recently improved
with a multi-million-dollar renovation. The subway PA informed
everyone, however, that all trains between 86th St. and Wall St.,
uptown and downtown, were out of service. For the purposes of my day,
this was like saying I was paralyzed from my nose to my toes. Little
did I know that the 2,3 lines were also out of service on the West
side. With the two main north/south subway backbones of the East and
West sides out of service, I packed it in by 10:30 am.
The next day I was going to see a mansion and the High Bridge
water tower up in Harlem, but the weather was overcast and I got caught
up in To Catch a
Thief with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly on AMC. By the time it
was over, so were the operating hours of the Open House New York
attractions I was interested in. Maybe next year.
Posted by Lexiphane at 4:40 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
EZ BAKE TRIBUNE
Making the average college campus newspaper offering look like
The New York Times, The
Tribune Company introduced its new free NY daily newspaper, am New
York, Friday. According to an
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/business/media/13free.html">art
icle in The Times, its publisher is looking to reach a young
21-34 year-old, non-newspaper-reading demographic. am New York
is a good start at solidifying that non-reading demo. At 20 pages,
including 2 full-age ads and three pages of classifieds, am New
York strains one's brain as hard as one's finger muscles.
It appears that the average story length in am New York is
approximately 200 words, which makes the
href="http://www.nypost.com">New York Post look like
href="http://www.newyorker.com/">The New Yorker. Original
editorial content is scarce. The new paper includes three articles
written for am New York, two editorials and a column on the op-
ed page, a gossip page with three news items and four storylets
identified as buzzworthy, Best Bets for viewing on its TV page, an NFL
scoreboard on the sports page, a list of albums being released this
week, and the winning lottery numbers. The TV guide that takes up half
a page purports to be original, but then it probably would have been
updated to reflect that tonight's Yankees-Red Sox meeting is game 4 and
not game 5.
The majority of am New York is borrowed. Today's paper
includes two articles from The LA Times, one from The Orlando
Sentinel, and one from The Chicago Tribune. There's also a
short Q&A feature and the horoscopes from Tribune Media Services.
Filling the bulk of its pages are 36 news items from the Associated
Press.
Here is what The Tribune Company thinks its target demographic
wants in a newspaper: a slight, context-less, news service clip and
paste job, devoid of any editorial identity to distinguish itself as
something one would want to read. If readership is down in the 21-34
demographic, it's because most people can get this bland generic news
feed from an Internet homepage. am New York is running in the
opposite direction of where it should be going. Next time, call me
before you start a mini-newspaper and I'll save you some money.
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:45 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
LIFE IMITATES ART
Here's an
href="http://www.tampatrib.com/MGA8V1KOLLD.html">interesting
article on a 22-year-old man who, while jailed, recognized the man
who sexually molested him as a child along with three other boys.
Exacting revenge, the now-grown victim beat his molestor unconscious.
Last night, Cinemax aired the 1996 movie
href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0117665/">Sleepers, in which
two Hell's Kitchen gangsters, who turned bad after being sexually
brutalized by guards in a juvenile facility when they were young,
recognize their primary tormentor years later and gun him down in a
bar.
NB: The execution scene set in a NYC bar in Sleepers was
actually shot at the bar
href="http://www.cgpix.com/hoboken_elysiancafe.htm">Elysian Cafe in
Hoboken, NJ.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:02 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DON'T MESS WITH 81ST ST.
I walked over to 81st between 3rd and Lexington Aves. Saturday
and was happy to see that
href="http://newyork.citysearch.com/profile/38728570/">Pearson's Texas
BBQ is now open for business [see
href="http://www.lexiphane.com/lex/modules.php?name=News&file=article&s
id=255">BBQ RECON, 9/22/03]. At the moment, it's dinner only,
starting at 5 p.m. The menu looks very reasonably priced with a
variety of beef, pork, and chicken items. There's also a number of
sides, even though those aren't something Chef Pearson has really
bothered with in the past. Desserts include pecan pie and some type of
chocolate brownie concoction among other choices. Most magazines and
newspapers usually wait a month of two for a restaurant to gets its
operational legs before a review, so crowds should be manageable for
the next couple weeks. After that, expect an explosion in interest and
long waits for reservations.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:32 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
LATE AND INCORRECT
Saturday Night Live had a bit this weekend that would have
been amusing if the joke wasn't months old and pathetically incorrect.
It was the actor Carl Weathers promoting himself as the potential
governor for any state because, as they repeated many times, "He was
the black guy in Predator." This is supposed to be a joke based on the
fact that two other cast members of
href="http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0093773/">Predator--Arnold
Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura--have become governors of California
and Minnesota, respectively, since appearing in that film. This
apparent political mandate was
href="http://www.bunsen.tv/2003_08_01_bunsen_archive.html#1060210222251
93302">brought up by Bunsen almost immediately after Arnold
announced his gubernatorial candidacy months ago, which makes this joke
stale. Bunsen, however, thought Weathers should be made Secretary of
State. Secondly, belaboring the fact that Weathers was the black guy
in Predator is moronic. He even went on to bring up why he was
a preferable candidate over Danny Glover--Glover appeared in
href="http://www.us.imdb.com/title/tt0100403/">Predator 2,
Weathers appeared in the original Predator. When I think of the
black guy in Predator, however, I think of
href="http://www.us.imdb.com/name/nm0004886/">Bill Duke, who played
the not-marginal role of Sergeant Mac. The fact that there are two
significant black actors in Predator makes the skit's tagline
incredibly feeble because it doesn't make any sense. I suggested Bill
Duke for Secretary of Defense in
href="http://www.lexiphane.com/lex/modules.php?name=News&file=article&s
id=205">THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST, 8/7/03.
NB: Bill Duke is a native of Poughkeepsie, NY and attended FDR
High in Hyde Park.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:14 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 10, 2003
HIDDEN NYC
Open House New York is a two-
day event this weekend that allows people access to architectural sites
normally closed to the public.
Check
here for a list of all the sites and times they'll be open. The
only problem looks like the number of options available through all
five boroughs and the time constraints in seeing as many as possible.
See you out there. Tagged:
Posted by Lexiphane at 4:40 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
DARWIN FINALIST
It's a tragedy whenever someone
href="http://www.adn.com/front/story/4110831p-4127072c.html">dies
prematurely, but premature might not be the case here. Timothy
Treadwell sounds like a flake and an idiot. Not only was he
encouraging others to engage in foolhardy and dangerous behavior, he
was endangering the life of his girlfriend and the lives of the bears
he purportedly "loved." Guess what buddy, giant Alaskan brown bears
don't want to be your friend. They might tolerate your annoying
presence for a while, but eventually you wind up lunch.
Alaska State Troopers and National Park ServiceTagged:
officials said Timothy Treadwell, 46, and girlfriend Amie Huguenard,
37, were killed and partially eaten by a bear or bears near Kaflia Bay,
about 300 miles southwest of Anchorage, earlier this week.
Scientists who study Alaska brown bears said they had been warning
Treadwell for years that he needed to be more careful around the huge
and powerful coastal twin of the grizzly.
Treadwell's films of close-up encounters with giant bears brought him a
bounty of national media attention. The fearless former drug addict
from Malibu, Calif. -- who routinely eased up close to bears to chant
"I love you'' in a high-pitched, sing-song voice -- was the subject of
a show on the Discovery Channel and a report on "Dateline NBC." Blond,
good-looking and charismatic, he appeared for interviews on David
Letterman's show and "The Rosie O'Donnell Show" to talk about his
bears. He even gave them names: Booble, Aunt Melissa, Mr. Chocolate,
Freckles and Molly, among others.
A self-proclaimed eco-warrior, he attracted something of a cult
following too. Chuck Bartlebaugh of "Be Bear Aware,'' a national bear
awareness campaign, called Treadwell one of the leaders of a group of
people engaged in "a trend to promote getting close to bears to show
they were not dangerous.
"He kept insisting that he wanted to show that bears in thick brush
aren't dangerous. The last two people killed (by bears) in Glacier
National Park went off the trail into the brush. They said their goal
was to find a grizzly bear so they could 'do a Timothy.' We have a
trail of dead people and dead bears because of this trend that says,
'Let's show it's not dangerous.' ''
Posted by Lexiphane at 2:33 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
SOX WIN, FENWAY LOSES
The Wall Street Journal has an article in today's
Marketplace section [by subscription only] about whether the new owners
of the Red Sox and their Fenway ballpark will seek to build a new
stadium with greater capacity and revenue-generating capabilities or
continue to make piecemeal improvements to the existing park. My
conclusion from the article is that if the Red Sox win this year,
Fenway will get the wrecking ball in the near future. The Red Sox
organization will have the public good will of a World Series
Championship to acquire generous public financing for a new facility.
Also, the pain of seeing Fenway abandoned will be somewhat allayed by
the lifting of the dreaded Curse of the Bambino. For lovers of Fenway,
a Red Sox championship this year could be a pyrrhic victory indeed.
Posted by Lexiphane at 11:19 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
AT WHAT COST?
Last Sunday, The New York Times ran an
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/nyregion/05GUNS.html?pagewanted
=1">interesting article on the NYPD's Firearms Investigation Unit,
a group of 53 detectives and 13 supervisors whose sole purpose is to
get guns off the street by going undercover and arranging illegal buys.
It is extremely dangerous work. Six months ago, Detectives Rodney J.
Andrews and James V. Nemorin were both murdered by two suspects they
were trying to buy guns from in an undercover sting. It is a loss
still deeply felt by all member of their former unit.
What the article fails to make clear is whether the FIU's goals,
while lofty, are even worth pursuing. Despite a serious commitment of
manpower and budget, the FIU only managed to confiscate 486 guns, out
of a total of 4,068 confiscated by the entire department in 2002.
While this is more than 10% of the department's entire take, it's
misleading because those other guns were confiscated from criminals
presumably engaged in other wrongdoing. The focus on removing guns as
a way to deter crime is na?ve. 4.5 million guns are sold in the U.S.
every year. Removing one-hundredth of 1% of those guns from the
streets of NYC will do little to deter violent crime. Given the high
cost in manpower, budget, and unfortunately in the lives of Detectives
Andrews and Nemorin, it seems like the NYPD would get a bigger bang for
its buck by targeting criminals instead of the inanimate objects some
use to ply their trade.
Posted by Lexiphane at 10:41 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 8, 2003
SELF PARODY
Tom Brokaw's take on the recall on the NBC Evening News was
unintentionally hilarious. Any pretext of unbiased reporting was
completely abandoned. He did a running commentary as he drove along
the streets of California. As he drove down a street in East LA, a
pretty rundown barrio, he was describing that these were the Hispanic
voters that needed to come out for Davis' non-recall. Then he drove
through a tree-lined street of mansions in Pasadena and said "and
this is where Schwarzenegger needs his voters to get out." He
later described Schwarzenegger supporters as "angry white men."
Really? What about them is angry? Maybe they just think Davis sucks.
And don't any members of other ethnic groups agree? Davis supporters
were described as "women and African Americans." Why aren't these
people described as shrewish hysterical women and surly African
Americans? Because that would be loaded and demeaning? Yep.
Posted by Lexiphane at 9:47 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack