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French politicians polish cultural credentials. France's presidential hopefuls have begun pledging to defend the country's cherished culture, hoping to drum up support from artists worried that American films and music will steamroll finer French productions. This rhetoric makes it sound like American films are picking up guns to massacre poor defenseless French culture. Maybe American films are so successful because they give people something that the "finer French productions" don't, and if so, then is that such a horrible thing? After all, we are just giving the people what they want, right? And if that takes money away from more artsy productions, then whose fault is that anyway?
comment posted at 7:14 AM on Apr-9-02

The Pulitzer Prizes 2002. The New York Times gets 7; Richard Russo's "Empire Falls" gets Best Fiction; and Best On-Screen Kiss goes to Britney Spears and the guy from "Crossroads" because it made jurists William Safire and Henry Louis Gates Jr. "all teary-eyed."
comment posted at 4:29 PM on Apr-8-02

One Sweet Campaign To Fight Global Warming officially launched this month with a press conference a few days ago. Every day, human beings put 16 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmostphere. The campaign is a joint effort between DMB and Ben & Jerry's which uses the new, previously discussed ice cream flavor as its vehicle, and asks you to pledge to lose 2000 pounds of CO2 this year through reasonable modifications to your daily routine. Help make the world a healthier place. [warning: flash/music]
comment posted at 5:41 AM on Apr-6-02

In case you still thought there was still anything even slightly rational, even-handed and non-ideological about the Nobel Peace Prize: Members of the NPP committee that gave Shimon Peres the Prize in 1994 are now attacking him for not singlehandedly putting a stop to Israeli reoccupation of Palestinian territory, even though here's only a member of the cabinet, not the leader of the country. (Alternatively, they say, he should have quit.) Which would be okay, since what's going on now isn't very peaceful ... except that they've said not a peep about about the actions of one of the other two men that shared the prize that year, one Yassir Arafat. (The third, Yitzhak Rabin, apparently gets off the hook since he's already dead.)
comment posted at 5:43 PM on Apr-5-02

Our great grandkids are toast! A one kilometre-wide chunk of space rock could strike the Earth in 2880, say astronomers... "This is not something to worry about," said Jon Giorgini, a senior engineer at the American space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory... "That's plenty of time to consider the options - 35 generations, in fact."
comment posted at 5:46 PM on Apr-5-02

Eight peace activists were shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers. The soldiers apparently (and I could be wrong) fired without provocation -- the activists were unarmed, and were marching peacefully. Israel's Justice Minister was quoted in the Miami Herald today (no web link available, sorry) as saying, "A person playing with fire should not yell when he gets burned." Essentially, what is being said here is that being a protestor is sufficient reason to be shot. The Israeli army claims to be hunting down "terrorists", but if this is how they define the word I don't feel too inclined to trust them.
comment posted at 1:32 PM on Apr-2-02

The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business It's all here: Enron, Arthur Andersen, Burger King, Mickey D's, CNN, FOX, and the all time favorite, Microsoft. They had to limit it to 101 moments due to size constraints...
comment posted at 6:27 AM on Mar-30-02

Pacific Island States To Sue Western Countries Over Rising Sea Levels
    At the meeting of Pacific Conference of Leaders' Standing Committee at the East West Center in Honolulu, members discussed the use of lawsuits to draw attention to the risks which climate change pose their countries, and to pressure the US and Australia to sign Kyoto. (1)
    The conference nearly coincided with a report by the AU National Tidal facility which reported sinking sea levels in Tuvalu. (1, 2, 3) This story is particularly interesting (1) on human impact on Tuvalu.
    Heading into another major El Nino year, there is no doubt that Pacific states are vulnerable, but how should they argue for recognition of climatic inequalities?
comment posted at 6:31 AM on Mar-30-02

All CNN Video now pay for play. Marketed and sold through RealNetworks' RealOne subscription scheme at $4.95 a month or $39.95 a year. Is there enough demand for CNN Web video to support this?
comment posted at 3:43 PM on Mar-29-02

A Good Summary, albeit in the form of a NYPost Editorial, as to why Israel should ignore 95% of the criticism it gets regarding it's current policy towards negotiating withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. President Bush: are you listening?
comment posted at 9:01 AM on Mar-18-02

This photograph got the World Press Photo of the year award this year. Check out the other winners too. There some absolutely amazing images there.
comment posted at 7:23 AM on Mar-17-02

With enemas like you, who needs friends? Ian and Tony take a trip to Kamp Kolon, and Tony loses his marble.
comment posted at 6:04 PM on Mar-17-02
comment posted at 6:05 PM on Mar-17-02

What if 9/11 were staged? (in French -google translation) This is the thesis of French journalist Thierry Meyssan. Yes, you have played Hunt the Boeing and you have seen the five official Pentagon photos, but it seems that this (conspiracy) theory is not going to go away (at least not here in France). (more inside)
comment posted at 4:33 PM on Mar-15-02

There's big trouble in Flathead county (n.y. times link, reg. required) There's so much to ponder in this completely insubstantial story including the first time I know of that the Newspaper of Record has described someone as having "... a long history of being annoying".
comment posted at 6:16 AM on Mar-3-02

Tie yourself to a half-constructed house on a school campus and live there in solitary confinement while on semi-public display to the world, pissing into a jug and making conch-shell noises from a piece of cardboard and a bullhorn. And do it all in a lobster suit. If that's not performance art, then what is? (Link from a blogger-friend who got it off NextDraft.)
comment posted at 1:01 PM on Feb-23-02

"Happiness has not gone up even, as a society, we've gotten richer and have more access to more things. Advertising is the illusion that stops us from recognizing that." Sut Jhally is a communications professor at the University of Massachusetts, founder of the Media Education Foundation, and an excellent teacher of media literacy.
comment posted at 2:18 PM on Feb-23-02

Said's ideal Mid East proposal. In one of the more insightful pieces written lately about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, Edward Said might surprise those that see only fundamentalists in the Arab world. Excerpt: And since the Palestinian-Israeli struggle has been so humanly impoverishing I would suggest that important symbolic gestures of recognition and responsibility, undertaken perhaps under the auspices of a Mandela or a panel of impeccably credentialed peace-makers, should try to establish justice and compassion as crucial elements in the proceedings. Unfortunately, it is perhaps true that neither Arafat nor Sharon are suited to so high an enterprise. From Al-Ahram Weekly, one of the most interesting English language news magazines originating in the Arab world.
comment posted at 5:54 PM on Oct-30-01

Why Birds Fly in a 'V'. And I thought it was because they liked the view.
comment posted at 7:41 PM on Oct-23-01

Isolationist information and international ignorance -- Whenever I visited my sister in Hong Kong over the past five years, I was always impressed with how much I didn't know about what was going on in the world. This link is a commentary on the feedback to an interview with a CNN Afganistan correspondent who said something similar, and got lambasted for it. Maybe if something good comes out of 9/11, it'll be a shift from celebrity news to real news. Ignorance can be dangerous.
comment posted at 12:43 PM on Sep-24-01