The real-life Edna Mode - If you aspire to cartoonish superhero proportions, where your massive muscles and barrel chest allow you to leap computer-generated buildings with single, animated bounds, you should take a lesson from Mr. Incredible: Sew your underwear to your shirt.
Salon link; advertising supported free access
posted by GriffX
on Dec 21, 2004 -
15 comments
Patrick "Ask a Pilot" Smith opines on "Terror in the Skies, Again?" Smith: I, for one, fully admit that certain acts of airborne crime and treachery may indeed open the channels to a debate on civil liberties. Pray tell, what happened? Gunfight at 37,000 feet? Valiant passengers wrestle a grenade from a suicidal operative? Hero pilots beat back a cockpit takeover?
Well, no. As a matter of fact, nothing happened. Turns out the Syrians are part of a musical ensemble hired to play at a hotel. The men talk to one another. They glance around. They pee. That's it? That's it.
posted by skallas
on Jul 20, 2004 -
68 comments
The Newsweek-Fahrenheit wars - Michael Isikoff's "seven errors, distortions and selective omissions of crucial information" detailed by Craig Unger, "
House of Bush, House of Saud" author (read excerpts of his book
at Salon.com, for members or by a "day pass") Isikoff has heavily cited Unger's book but, it seems, not bothered to read Unger's generously provided
source files. "Liberal" PBS is not excluded, as credulous (or ignorant) "On the Media" host Bob Garfield's July 2 interview with Isikoff
demonstrates. What shall we call such
pervasive, ongoing and seemingly willful patterns of inaccuracy, distortion, and selective omission?
posted by troutfishing
on Jul 7, 2004 -
34 comments
America's laziest fascist Inside Michael Savage's hatefest. I can't tell if this is offensive or just sadly pathetic. Salon: But if the first half of the event showcased Savage's ability to stir the faithful, the second half was an object lesson in how a performer can take his audience -- and his talent -- for granted. Basically, he bombed. He spent nearly 20 minutes sitting in a stuffed chair in front of a television set, free-associating as he channel surfed. Seeing footage of Jordan's King Abdullah, he screamed, "Kiss my ass! Shut the hell up!" To a soccer match in Spanish, he quipped, "Reminds me of my gardener." It was about as entertaining as watching a middle-aged man yelling at his living room TV. Savage eventually realized things weren't going well. "You don't like this shit," he said. "It's a bad act."
posted by skallas
on May 19, 2004 -
49 comments
Joseph Wilson interviewed at Salon. They've also tried to portray you, and all the other whistle-blowers who have spoken out against the administration, as partisan democrats. Do you think that has been an effective technique?
It hasn't worked with me. People are touched by this story because it gives a human face to a whole host of lies and deceptions that only now are becoming apparent to the American public. Americans don't like this attitude. Americans don't like to see their women taken out and beaten up.
posted by skallas
on May 3, 2004 -
71 comments
Every culture can be kind of defined by what they drink in order to avoid dying of diarrhea. In China it's tea. In Africa it's milk or animal blood. In Europe it was wine and beer. Salon talks with Neal Stephenson.
[premium/free day pass]
posted by xmutex
on Apr 21, 2004 -
9 comments
Thou shalt not make scientific progress. "Medical research is poised to make a quantum leap that will benefit sufferers from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and other diseases. But George W. Bush's religious convictions stand in its way."
posted by homunculus
on Mar 24, 2004 -
45 comments
Howard Stern's new found liberalism. "The potential impact is huge," says Charles Goyette, talk-show host at KFYI in Phoenix. "And it's not just with the 8 million people who tune it, it's that he breaks the spell. Everybody's been enchanted by Bush, that he's a great wartime leader and to criticize him is unpatriotic. Now Stern pounds him every day and it shatters that illusion that the man is invincible and he shouldn't be criticized."
posted by skallas
on Mar 12, 2004 -
50 comments
Lost Liberties? Salon has an interesting two part series on the tensions between antiwar protesters and law enforcement.
Part 1: "Outlawing dissent: Spying on peace meetings, cracking down on protesters, keeping secret files on innocent people -- how Bush's war on terror has become a war on freedom."
Part 2: "A thousand J. Edgar Hoovers: State and local police are taking it upon themselves to investigate antiwar activists -- and in the computer age, the threat to our civil liberties is even greater than it was in Hoover's day." Does
Protester = Criminal?
posted by homunculus
on Feb 20, 2004 -
2 comments
"The Media vs. Howard Dean." Salon (subscription or Flash ad viewing required) observes that the media have been doing everything in their power to attach negative labels to US presidential candidate Howard Dean. Will the adage that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" prevail? Meanwhile, the Internet is increasing in relevance as a
news source, according to a recent survey. Which websites do you peruse for political coverage, if any?
posted by Eloquence
on Jan 13, 2004 -
67 comments
Three great interviews in
Salon: Former Senator and Vietnam veteran
Max Cleland on the stonewalling of the 9/11 commission and the situation in Iraq, author
Jessica Stern (previously discussed
here) on the recent bombings in Istanbul and Riyadh, and executive director of Amnesty International USA
William Schulz on why the left must confront terror with the same zeal that it battles Bush, or risk irrelevance.
posted by homunculus
on Nov 20, 2003 -
5 comments
Dirty Bombs
Federal investigators have documented 1,300 cases of lost, stolen or abandoned radioactive material inside the United States over the past five years and have concluded there is a significant risk that terrorists could cobble enough together for a dirty bomb.
(warning - Salon link)
posted by Irontom
on Nov 10, 2003 -
13 comments
The severed foot : "The force of the blast propelled this severed foot over a high wall, into the yard of an unoccupied house." - In Iraq, has the US seized something similar to the West bank or the Gaza strip (but the size and population of California) in which
"The light at the end of the tunnel" casts a wan, pallid light over a future in which such events will seem routine ?
posted by troutfishing
on Oct 30, 2003 -
30 comments
Planet Autism "Last summer, a man in California shot his 27-year-old autistic son to death and then shot himself. I understand why." (warning - Salon link)
posted by Irontom
on Sep 27, 2003 -
16 comments
Methamphetamine is now a WMD. Well, I guess we should've seen it coming. According to this Salon article, prosecutors across the country are now using the Patriot act to prosecute drug crimes, fraud, and anything involving a bomb. This means any of these people may be detained indefinitely without an attorney. I don't like trailing questions, but I would like to see some constructive and creative posts about what can be done to protest this. It's so blatantly unconstitutional, it's not funny anymore, and I for one am not willing to welcome our new overlords.
posted by condour75
on Sep 14, 2003 -
100 comments
Al Franken interviewed at Salon.com "O'Reilly went on his radio show and said that the purpose of the lawsuit was to punish me for coming after Fox.
So this is the mindset of the right, that they have to punish you. Joe Wilson, the former Gabon ambassador, was sent to Niger by the CIA and came back and said the uranium claims weren't true. And when the controversy started broiling again about the 16 words in the State of the Union address and Wilson wrote the piece in New York Times, senior administration officials blew the cover on his wife, who was a covert [CIA] operative. And it jeopardized the lives not only of her contacts but every American, because she was a covert agent in weapons of mass destruction. And it's a way of intimidating other analysts who might come forward, and there's a parallel here: You will be punished if you come after us.
I really think the Wilson thing is the most disgraceful action of any White House since Iran Contra. "
posted by skallas
on Aug 27, 2003 -
85 comments
What's Not To Love About A Good Hatchet Job? Christopher Hitchens gleefully chainsaws into
JFK; while
Neal Ascherson demonstrates the more elegant approach towards character assassination with a nice "Drunken Stalinist Bastard"
piece on Kennedy's Cuban Missile buddy,
Khrushchev. Meanwhile, in the streetfighting, eye-scratching category,
Laura Miller rips Chuck "Fight Club" Palahniuk into tiny pieces. What lowest of low instincts makes us relish such gratuitous - yet somehow
richly deserved in the Grand Scheme Of Things - slaughters?
(Warning: Sorry. Possibly unethical direct linking of a Salon Premium article. If your conscience objects, please go through the usual channel.)
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Aug 25, 2003 -
33 comments
"On Liberty" (1859),
John Stuart Mill's classic, is all over the Web, says this
article in Salon.
"It stands to reason that the Net would embrace Mill, and not only because his text is now in the public domain: The Internet is the vastest marketplace of ideas that mankind has yet managed to create. It's an unbounded and still growing embodiment of Mill's ideals."
posted by homunculus
on Aug 12, 2003 -
4 comments
Rumsfeld's personal spy ring The defense secretary couldn't count on the CIA or the State Department to provide a pretext for war in Iraq. So he created a new agency that would tell him what he wanted to hear. Today,
Salon also looks into the role played by
John Bolton. Is investigative journalism now just relegated to the web? [you have to look at an ad, I believe]
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly
on Jul 15, 2003 -
26 comments
Way Lay is the homepage of cartoonist Carol Lay, creator of the strip Story Minute. In addition to being one of the few places one can
view the strip without going through Salon's obnoxious free pass system. The site has the best
autobiography I've seen for an artist site and images of earlier
bizarre parodies of Salvador Dali and the Shroud of Turin.
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Apr 24, 2003 -
7 comments
The CRACK Program (Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity) The organization's premise is radical, if dizzyingly simple: CRACK gives addicts $200 (they'll throw in an extra $50 if a participant recommends a friend) and sets up the medical procedures at a public hospital or clinic. All Nicole had to do was sign a release form, and two weeks later she had her tubes tied at a local hospital. She received a check the following month.
posted by Espoo2
on Apr 8, 2003 -
78 comments
Salon interviews John Brady Kiesling. JBK: "The talking points were pretty pathetic. They may work at home, but they do not work with an audience of sophisticated people who have some experience with the world, who are profoundly nervous about the Middle East and terrorism, and would like to see some signs of intelligent life in American foreign policy."
Are Americans too isolationist for their own good?
posted by skallas
on Mar 19, 2003 -
23 comments
Turncoats in Bermuda shorts. Arianna Huffington continues to skewer offshore tax shelters in her latest Salon opinion piece. Despite her patriot-speak denouncing these corporations for avoiding taxes while our young men are getting ready to die for their country, she does shine the light on a growing problem – “basic fairness and economic justice” – or, the lack of it. How can the average American not be outraged at this, when so many of us are expected to be able to account for even the smallest charitable donation we would dare to use as a tax write-off?
posted by archimago
on Mar 13, 2003 -
11 comments
Determined viewers try to save another TV show (Salon). In this case, its Farscape, which shows its last episode on Friday in the States, and has already aired here in the UK. (no spoliers). Farscape fans are trying just about everything - from picking up 6 families in the Nielsens to fundraising to produce a last episode. Interested? Read on...
posted by rshah21
on Mar 13, 2003 -
17 comments
The Dancing Plant
-- Darwin was obsessed by it, although even he never trained his weedy Asian shrub to twitch its leaves to the sound of music. But in a small town in northern Thailand ...
[Some people may experience a time-delay ad]
posted by titboy
on Mar 12, 2003 -
13 comments
Salon going down? Looks like it. According to this article, they may not make it past Feburary. Even with 47,300 paying subscribers, it still can't pay the bills. What's it take these days?
posted by Hackworth
on Feb 14, 2003 -
35 comments
Sony writes 'article' for Salon. In an effort to find new revenue streams, Salon has published an ad/article written by Sony Corp.
National Geographic and
Parent Soup have also published ad/articles, though
the New York Times said no. While the articles do not directly reference Sony products, the feature people who do fascinating things with technology... technology which, it just so happens, is advertised conveniently right next to the technology featuring passage.
Is this sort of thing ever ethical? If so, what sort of disclosures are necessary. Clearly the ad/articles are intended to appear to be regular content.
posted by 4easypayments
on Dec 2, 2002 -
29 comments
In the Trenches with Love and AIDS. An HIV-negative gay man shares why he sleeps with seropositive men and how he deals with the danger :
"When his health finally collapses, you clean his diarrhea off the sheets and floor and swaddle him in diapers against his will. When he falls into a coma, you lie next to him every night and jerk off amid the scent of looming death. Your orgasms are great. You hold his hand as his last breath slips away and then his mouth drops open and foam bubbles out. They take him away but you can't let him go yet, so you don't change the sheets for two days, and you masturbate some more."
posted by The Jesse Helms
on Dec 1, 2002 -
31 comments
How mushrooms will save the world "I have a strategy for creating ecological footprints on other planets," says the Johnny Appleseed of mushrooms. "By using a consortium of fungi and seeds and other microorganisms, you could actually seed other planets with little plops. You could actually start keystone species and go to creating vegetation on planets." And the Internet is one big giant 'shroom. Fascinating article on how mushrooms may hold the key to environmental clean ups. And so much more!
posted by archimago
on Nov 25, 2002 -
9 comments
Salon Opens up Premium ... sort of. Salon will now let you read premium content in exchange for viewing an ad. Is this a signal that paid content isn't working for them, a groundbreaking way to bring in ad revenue (as they claim), both, or neither?
posted by risenc
on Nov 20, 2002 -
35 comments
How the world sees Americans. "They readily distinguish between the official face of the American government (who they tend to disagree with and fear) and American people, pop culture and values (which they tend to adore and emulate)." "It's the world's superpower ... that has a childlike understanding of everyone else."
Journalist Mark Hertsgaard travelled the globe gathering opinions about the U.S. He talks about the surprising results.
posted by gazingus
on Nov 6, 2002 -
108 comments
Slavercise - If you're like me (who am I kidding; you're not) then you have trouble motivating yourself to work out, get to the gym, or ask for low fat milk in your latte. Aside from prizing sleep over mindless physical exertion, the idea of staring at a blank wall while stepping to the oldies drives me to depression. If only I could combine the burn of calories with the burn of a six foot rawhide leather whip cracking against my corpulent behind. < via
Salon subscription>
posted by dirtylittlemonkey
on Oct 25, 2002 -
8 comments
"Why terrorism works." In an interview plugging his new book, Alan Dershowitz makes some interesting points and suggests some intriguing solutions vis-a-vis various Current Situations.
posted by donkeyschlong
on Sep 12, 2002 -
24 comments
Blog baiting. This content-free Salon article is pointed to by News.com and chances are it will be picked up by tech weblogs within a couple of hours. Notice the presence of popular (in blogland) underdog in the title (Mozilla). The many blog references in the article body, including a gratuitious reference to the
arch-tech-weblog that presumes knowledge of said blog's moderation system. The meta implications of web media composing content so that it may be picked up by weblogs are interesting --and yes, the irony of a MeFi FPP is painfully obvious. What next?
posted by costas
on Sep 10, 2002 -
25 comments
Is modern literature too pretentious? "In the bookstore I'll sometimes sample what all the fuss is about, but one glance at the affected prose -- 'furious dabs of tulips stuttering,' say, or 'in the dark before the day yet was' -- and I'm hightailing it to the friendly black spines of the Penguin Classics"
This essay from B.R. Myers in The Atlantic has been expanded into a book. I thought this
defense of Raymond Chandler makes a good point about how literature (or at least its critics) can be exclusionary.
posted by owillis
on Aug 8, 2002 -
112 comments
