 |
 |
 |
| |
|
Danger Tuesday
On Tuesday, more than 150 sites made available for download free copies of DJ Danger Mouse's Grey Album. From greytuesday.org:
DJ Danger Mouse created a remix of Jay-Z's the Black Album and the Beatles White Album, and called it the Grey Album. Jay-Z's record label, Roc-A-Fella, released an a capella version of his Black Album specifically to encourage remixes like this one. But despite praise from music fans and major media outlets like Rolling Stone ("an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time") and the Boston Globe (which called it the "most creatively captivating" album of the year), EMI has sent cease and desist letters demanding that stores destroy their copies of the album and websites remove them from their site. EMI claims copyright control of the Beatles 1968 White Album.
Larry Lessig has written on it, so has the New York Times, and Wired.
In a Country Slightly Smaller than Maryland
10 Years Later in Rwanda, the Dead Are Ever Present:
[W]ith the 10th anniversary of the mass killing approaching in April, the Rwandan authorities are working to bury the bones while still preserving the memories of the estimated 800,000 . . . who died.
What Does It Matter? It's in the Post
As reported in the Washington Post:
The newly released "The Lion King 1 1/2" DVD includes a prequel
to the popular movie, deleted scenes, music videos and numerous games, including one entitled "Who Wants to be King of the Jungle?"
In the takeoff on the TV show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" host Meredith Vieira tries to explain the rules, when one animated contestant interrupts: "The rules are taking longer than the game - I'm not from Kentucky, I got it, I got it. Let's play!"
It's remarkable that this sort of prejudice passed someone's, and probably many someones', measure of an acceptable joke. I can't help but think of the children.
Okay, I'm fudging a bit; the quote actually reads "The rules are taking longer than the game - I'm not from New Jersey, I got it, I got it. Let's play!"
Did it Work?
From William and Mary Morris's Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins:
According to an old story, there was once a Dutchman who was so bothered by the rats in his barn that he burned down the barn to get rid of them. Thus a 'barn burner' became one who destroyed all in order to get rid of a nuisance. In the 1840s and 1850s there was a faction of the Democratic party in New York State opposed to the extension of slavery in the territories, and the name Barnburners was given them by their opponents.
Bonoboism
One thing that really stayed with me from college was the story of the bonobo -- a chimpanzee-like ape found only in south of the Congo River in Congo (Kinshasa). What was so fascinating to me was that the bonobo way of doing things was totally unlike anything I would have thought nature would have settled upon: The species is best characterized as female-centered and egalitarian and as one that substitutes sex for aggression. Whereas in most other species sexual behavior is a fairly distinct category, in the bonobo it is part and parcel of social relations--and not just between males and females. Bonobos engage in sex in virtually every partner combination (although such contact among close family members may be suppressed). And sexual interactions occur more often among bonobos than among other primates. Despite the frequency of sex, the bonobo's rate of reproduction in the wild is about the same as that of the chimpanzee. A female gives birth to a single infant at intervals of between five and six years. So bonobos share at least one very important characteristic with our own species, namely, a partial separation between sex and reproduction. (From the article Bonobo Sex and Society by Frans B. M. de Waal, Scientific American [March 1995] -- by way of Songweaver.)
Meet the Candidates: Stephanie Herseth
Stephanie Herseth is the Democrat running, and running ahead, in the June 1 special election to fill South Dakota's lone congressional seat vacated by Bill Janklow. Herseth is a young (33) Georgetown-trained lawyer whose grandfather was governor, grandmother was secretary of state, and father served in the state legislature for twenty years. She grew up on her family's farm and was high school valedictorian, captain of the track and basketball teams and Governor of South Dakota Girls State. As a Georgetown undergrad,she was name one of five most outstanding seniors.
On This Day in Kano
From today's Washington Post:
KANO, Nigeria -- Sticking to its position that the polio vaccine represents a U.S. plot against Muslims, an overwhelmingly Islamic northern Nigerian state declared it would boycott an emergency immunization campaign being launched to stop the crippling outbreak that is spreading across west and central Africa. The announcement from Kano state came on the eve of a World Health Organization campaign to immunize 63 million children in 10 African nations as the polio outbreak spreads from northern Nigeria into countries where the disease had been eradicated.
Also, Insurgents Kill 192 in Uganda.
Update: Ugandan President Blames Rebel Attack on Army Mistakes.
Looking Back, There May Have Been Signs
 John Edwards Rally Davenport, Iowa
Jan. 18, 2003 |  Howard Dean Rally Davenport, Iowa
Jan. 18, 2003 |
|
| Main
| March 2004
» |
|
|
|
