- Comics and Politics: The New Yorker has (well, one of its writers has) an interesting and long article about Aaron McGruder, the guy who created Boondocks. It’s a long, long article, but it may be worth reading solely for the part where, as a special guest at the Nation’s (the lefty newsweekly) birthday party, McGruder faces off with Eric Alterman. (“He [McGruder] said—bragged, even—that he’d voted for Nader in 2000. …[Eric Alterman] shouted out, “Thanks for Bush!” Exactly what happened next is unclear. Alterman recalls that McGruder responded by grabbing his crotch and saying, “Try these nuts.”) Anyway, it’s a great article, particularly if you happen to like Boondocks. (New Yorker: “The Radical” by Ben McGrath [April 19, 2004] via RandomWalks)
- Fun new viruses: There’s apparently a nifty new strain of salmonella that’s resistant to all kinds of antibiotics. ‘All kinds’ as in ‘all.’ How lovely. (via Spiegel: “Neuer Salmonellen-Stamm ist unbesiegbar” [April 16, 2004])
- Civilian Deaths? What Civilian Deaths? CNN to Al Jazeera: isn’t it true that Iraqi civilian deaths don’t really matter? No, not an actual quote from CNN, but damn close. Daryn Kagan, on CNN: “Isn’t the story, though, bigger than just the simple numbers, with all due respect to the Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives– … [isn’t the story] that the insurgents… are mixing in among the civilians, making it actually possibly that even more civilians would be killed, that the story is what the Iraqi insurgents are doing, in addition to what is the response from the U.S. military?” (via FAIR: “ACTION ALERT:
CNN to Al Jazeera: Why Report Civilian Deaths?” [April 15, 2004]) - News to me: Apparently, Donald Trump considers himself more of a Democrat than a Republican. Which I’m sure surprises (and possibly secretly pleases?) people on all sides of the table.
- Death wishes: And, last but not least, now you too can Choose your own dramatic death! Yes, it’s yet another worthless internet “personality” quiz. Why am I even mentioning it? I’ll be honest with you: to fill space. I’m apparently going to be attacked by a ridiculously small animal and bleed to death. (Yes, that is an actual outcome on the quiz. And yes, it was my actual quiz result. Don’t you feel privileged knowing that?)
Things to Mull
Posted by Ben on April 19, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/things-to-mull/
Gone the next
Well, no, but this coulda been a post. Which, right now, it’s not going to be.
Originally, this was supposed to be a highly informative post. A must-read. See, it woulda been fun. Interesting. Nuanced. Literary, but not in an alienating, egotistical way.
It would’ve been a highly informative (and also, I might point out, tremendously exciting) post. It would have thrilled you. It would have conveyed to you incredible things, things that would have blown you away, but in a good way.
Unfortunately, the thing I was going to write about, as far as I can tell, doesn’t currently exist. It might exist in the future, and I know for a fact that it existed in the past. But right now? No way.
What I was going to say was something along the lines of, “you know those stories where one person writes one sentence, and then someone else writes the next sentence, and so on? Well,” (I would’ve said) “there’s this site” (I would’ve put the link to the words ‘this site,’ or maybe to something even more interesting) “that puts this into practice; you can suggest a sentence, and then people vote on which one they’d like to pick for the story. It’s kinda neat.”
I would’ve raved and raved about this gimmick, this site, and entreated to you go visit it.
And I would’ve thrown in a whole bunch of extraneous details, bells and whistles to make my description of the thing even more interesting than it would’ve been by itself.
But now?
I ain’t got shit.
[Note: Yes, if the thing ever flickers back into existence, I’ll let you know. Maybe.]
Posted by Ben on April 18, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/gone-the-next/
There be rattlesnakes in these shrubs
“An Oklahoma man went into a home improvement store looking for shrubs but left in an ambulance after being bitten by a rattlesnake, officials said on Wednesday.”
(via Yahoo/Reuters: “Shopper Bitten by Rattlesnake” [April 15, 2004])
Posted by Ben on April 18, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/there-be-rattlesnakes-in-these-shrubs/
I don’t consider myself a salesman, but
…but there are some things too good to pass up. Too good to pass up mentioning, anyway. At Central Alarm Systems, which sells alarms, etc., I stumbled across this bit of keen copywriting:
LCD Keypad – Custom English Display
Same as above, but this baby reads out in Custom English! What this means is it’s able to be programmed for the wording that you choose to place in it. Instead of it reading “Zone 4”, it can read out “Zone Fault – Sally’s bedroom window”. Is this slick or what?
LCD Keypad – Custom English Display $148.95 Item #3115Battery – 12 Volt Rechargeable
This wet cell, 12 volt 5.0 AH rechargeable battery will give your system 20+ hours on standby power in case of power failure. And because it’s a wet cell, you can recharge it after a power failure. Expect this baby to last 5 – 10 years! (emphasis added)
Posted by Ben on April 17, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/i-dont-consider-myself-a-salesman-but/
Mad Dog and Glory (***)
(1993) John McNaughton – Uma Thurman, Bill Murray, Robert DeNiro, et al.
Synopsis: A mediocre crime-scene photographer—the eponymous Mad Dog, played by DeNiro— stumbles across a robbery-in-progress at a convenience store, managing to save the life of a mob boss Frank Milo (that would be Bill Murray). At the behest of his therapist, Frank makes an effort to thank Mad Dog, providing him with one week of “friendship” from, yep, Glory (Uma Thurman). From this plot nexus, the rest of the movie flows forth.
Review: This could have been great. The plot itself isn’t exactly inspired, but the casting is: it was a stroke of genius (could have been, anyway) to cast DeNiro as the bumbling cop and Murray as the cold-hearted, yet wryly funny, mob boss. Uma and Bill both do a bang-up job in their roles, despite their characters’ weaknesses. Robert, surprisingly, does merely okay. Unfortunately, the movie as a whole does not fare so well. Generally speaking, this movie does have its moments of offbeat humor, yes. It takes a stab at poignancy a couple times, mostly missing the mark. It’s fun, but certainly not outstanding. Though the pacing of the movie is a bit awkward—there’s nothing to really drive the movie forward, and the relationship between Glory and Mad Dog doesn’t “develop” so much as flop around depending on what the plot requires—it’s not particularly slow or drawn out. It simply is. The ending left me with a bad taste in my mouth, mostly for the way the characters’ convictions actual desires—insofar as they are established by the movie’s plot—are casually molded out of convenience. “Mad Dog and Glory” is slightly better than mediocre, but not spectacular.
Rating: [•••] out of [•••••]
Posted by Ben on April 17, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/mad-dog-and-glory/
File-Sharing: The Saga Continues
Maybe you’ve heard and maybe you haven’t, but there’s a study out now by some business professor types that seems to say file-sharing doesn’t really hurt music sales. The study—which involves a lot more than simple surveys (e.g., “do you buy fewer albums now because of file-sharing?” etc.)—also points to the numerous weaknesses of “studies” so far that have purported to reveal the impact of file-sharing on music sales.
Unsurprisingly, the RIAA has taken exception to this study.
Says Amy Weiss, RIAA senior VP of communications, the study is “counterintuitive.”
Amy Weiss also says:
“We look forward to what other academics will have to say about since it has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal. … We also look forward to understanding what the authors actually did in the study, since the text of the analysis is incomprehensible to the layman.”
“We look forward to understanding”? Apparently, the RIAA has no statisticians or economists on its payroll. Which is also counterintuitive, considering that the RIAA’s been claiming that file-sharing has had a serious impact on its income. If the RIAA can’t understand any studies that aren’t in the parlance of the layman, how can it “understand” whether or not file-sharing has had an impact on its profits?
Curiously, a similar problem has arisen recently in the cream cheese industry.
Said the PR mouthpiece for the international Cream Cheese Council (ICCC), “it’s preposterous to think that a decline in cream cheese sales could possibly have anything to do with the quality of our product or the economy. No, I’m afraid it’s patently obvious that the cream cheese industry is hurting because of illegal cream cheese communes, and any study that contradicts this isn’t looking in the right places.” [note: not an actual quote or organization]
[Another note, which I’d intended to add earlier: I’d like to point out that I think it’s completely reasonable for Amy Weiss (and/or or any of her colleagues at the RIAA) to object to the findings of the Oberholzer-Strumpf study; PR isn’t exactly the sort of thing where you can demand absolute objectivity. It is the sort of thing, however, where you can seriously question the validity of any ostensible ‘facts.’]
(via “The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales An Empirical Analysis” by Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf; and also via Reuters: “RIAA Says Study Falls Short” by Bill Holland [April 9, 2004])
Posted by Ben on April 16, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/file-sharing-the-saga-continues/
Sweet dreams
So apparently Stanley Kubrick’s the Shining gets played round-the-clock at the resort on which the movie (by way of Stephen King’s book) is based.
It almost makes too much sense.
(via Boingboing: “redrum redrum” [April 14, 2004])
Posted by Ben on April 16, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/sweet-dreams/
Got Gas?
$2.00 for a gallon of gasoline may seem like a towering, ominous threshold, but the fact is, it’s a threshold we passed long ago—we just didn’t notice.
By the time you’ve factored in tax subsidies (to those charming oil companies), program subsidies (e.g., fed/state costs to improve transportation infrastructure plus R&D, etc.), protection subsidies (that would be military costs—amazingly, one of the lesser factors), environmental/social costs (e.g., localized air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, global warming, etc.), and other external factors (costs of increased traffic congestion, car accidents, and subsidized parking to name a few), the actual cost of a gallon of gasoline is somewhere beteen $5.60 and $15.14.
(via International Center for Technology Assessment: “The Real Price of Gasoline” [PDF]; the ‘executive summary,’ which provides a cursory overview of these external costs, is available here)
Posted by Ben on April 15, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/got-gas/
From the bowels of the internet
“Flibbity Jibbit, a wonderful story about a duck that holds the key to saving the lives of a hungry town!“
In six handy PDF files, for all to enjoy!
Posted by Ben on April 15, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/from-the-bowels-of-the-internet/
In retrospect, the foresight was there
“Five months before Sept. 11, 2001, the officers responsible for defending American airspace wanted to test their ability to prevent a hijacked airliner from being crashed into the Pentagon, but the scenario was rejected by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as impractical, a Joint Chiefs spokesman confirmed yesterday.”
(via BoGlo: “Pentagon crash ‘too unrealistic'” by Bryan Bender [April 14, 2004])
Posted by Ben on April 14, 2004
https://www.swordbilled.com/in-retrospect-the-foresight-was-there/