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August 19, 2003
who to kill? jimmy carter or donald rumsfeld?
michael flatley, or downtown julie brown?
hello kitty or bug-eyed earl?
they line up, you decide.
posted by quonsar at 10:01 PM PST - 52 comments
Distributive Justice - It's an art project with both an interactive web exhibit and an installation at the
American Effects exhibit currently showing at
The Whitney Museum in NYC. In the words of the artists: "Distributive justice is not only a central issue of moral and political philosophy, but also an object of common-sense moral reasoning. Everyone is sensitive to the question of his/her share of the common good. Even those who get the best peace of the social pie are in need to justify the actual model of distribution. It has become a truism that most people (especially in the transition countries) experience their own social position as "unjust", relying on certain intuitive principles of distributive justice... All the parts of the project would later on be integrated on a web-portal. The actual or potential participants would thus gane a virtual space of their own designed for exchange of information and opinions (mailing list, forum, chat), creating archives etc. In this manner the project would eventually develop into a permanently open forum."
posted by The Michael The at 7:43 PM PST - 5 comments
Borscht Belt Memories When I was a kid my family would all pack up and go to the Pines Hotel. Located in South Fallsburg NY, it was classic Borscht Belt even when we visited it in the 70's, with
Morris Katz painting using his trademark toilet paper to manically dab the trees with color, racing to staple the frame and sell the painting to somebody to that quasi-celebrity fellow who was known for the Simon Says games in the lobby.
The hotel has been
abandoned I have found out and a pang went through my heart -- surely I will have to take my gal Jenn up to visit the ruins. The photos at the site are interesting and the descriptions are too. I was hoping to go back there and rediscover the place but who knew it would be this way.
posted by RubberHen at 4:39 PM PST - 21 comments
The Public Library of Science has been getting some good press lately.
An Editorial at the Sacramento Bee,
The New Scientist,
Washington Post and
The Boston Globe, have all written up The PLoS, the organization founded by a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and two colleagues, is plotting the overthrow of the system by which scientific results are made known to the world -- a $9 billion publishing juggernaut with subscription charges that range into thousands of dollars per year.
They are committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. Check it out at
publiclibraryofscience.org.
posted by Blake at 4:06 PM PST - 5 comments
Man Shoots Six at His Surprise Party He intended to play a joke on them with his shotgun and ended up nearly killing six of them because he tripped (with his finger on the trigger of his Mossberg pump, sorry, had a Coolio moment there).
I would have thought the Swedes would have already disarmed their populance by now but apparently not.
posted by fenriq at 3:51 PM PST - 37 comments
Last Saturday afternoon, Rep.
Bill Janklow (SD) ran a stop sign and hit and killed a motorcyclist.
Janklow has a
history of driving poorly. In fact, his speedy habits have been the subject of
jokes in the past. Will Janklow receive special treatment because of his fame? What kind of penalty does a crime such as this deserve?
posted by graventy at 1:58 PM PST - 34 comments
Extra ordinary, every day. Online exhibition drawn from the Bauhaus Collection at Harvard's splendid Busch-Reisinger Museum (which also includes fine holdings of Austrian Secessionism, 1920s abstraction, and German Expressionists). Fellow MeFi modernism buffs, you may start drooling...now.
posted by scody at 1:47 PM PST - 4 comments
Phoenix runs out of gas. In a
scene reminiscent of the 70's, the entire PHX area is queued up, waiting in line for gas. Since Sunday, when this began in earnest, prices have shot up something like 50% to somewhere in between $2 and $3/gallon for unleaded. Apparently, it doesn't take much to throw off a city like Phoenix's gas supply -- a pipeline that linked Tucson to the greater PHX metro area
had to be shut down earlier this month, cutting off a major supply of precious petrol from El Paso. Panic buying ensued, throwing the whole system into total chaos.
Think alternative fuel is the answer?
Just ask 'Propane Jane.'
posted by ph00dz at 8:35 AM PST - 67 comments
Who Wants To Marry My Daughter? Mom will interview suitors for her 22-year-old (who's also the mom of a 4-year-old), a la the NBC
"reality" show. Mom's already booked some dates and a getaway weekend for the winner. Seriously. Must have "a steady job, a love of children, strong morals, and no criminal baggage." Livestock
brideprice optional.
posted by serafinapekkala at 7:44 AM PST - 30 comments
