Monday, February 08, 2010

Live-Blogging Palin's Tea Party Speech - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan:

9.30 pm. The first mention of the debt after half an hour. This is a brutal, take-no-prisoner attack on Obama. She's running for president.

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Sunday, February 07, 2010

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Black Playwrights Convening, part two: Isaac Butler reports | Upstaged | Time Out New York:

Well, I’d say the major frustration is that theater is still really fucking racist. This should surprise exactly no one. We all know theater is slow-moving with regard to aesthetics, but it’s slow-moving with regard to other things, too.

So besides the color slot, there’s the “treating the writer like you’re doing them a favor” problem. This is a problem that white writers complain about, too, but it has a particular flavor when a white theater is doing it do a black playwright. Another one is just kind of general disrespect stuff, like artistic directors not coming to meet ‘n’ greets. And then there’s the extra labor demands, where marketing folk expect black playwrights to do the work of marketing their shows to black audiences. But the most interesting frustration articulated had to do with the failure of black theaters to develop into a viable alternative. One former artistic director of a black theater summed it up: She felt that if a play was premiered at her theater, she knew it would never be performed again because white theaters had no respect for black theaters, and other black theaters didn’t want to do work that was on each other’s stages. And then someone who has lived his entire adult life in black theater said that black theaters subsist on the rejected commissions and development opportunities of white theaters. So the ecosystem goes: White theater commissions black playwright, develops their play to death, rejects it, black theater does it, nothing else happens with it.

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Saturday, February 06, 2010

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Santa Fe Institute economist: one in four Americans is employed to guard the wealth of the rich Boing Boing:

Here's a fascinating profile on radical Santa Fe Institute economist Samuel Bowles, an empiricist who says his research doesn't support the Chicago School efficient marketplace hypothesis. Instead, Bowles argues that the wealth inequality created by strict market economics creates inefficiencies because society has to devote so much effort to stopping the poor from expropriating the rich. He calls this "guard labor" and says that one in four Americans is employed to in the sector -- labor that could otherwise be used to increase the nation's wealth and progress.

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Friday, February 05, 2010

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Thursday, February 04, 2010

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Marilyn Banner's Art Blog: Mike Daisey:

Mike Daisey is a genius performer. We saw him at Wooly Mammoth on Friday night, doing a two hour long monologue on money. Money as our religion. Not sure how to describe it. Heartful, brilliant, hilariously funny, dead serious truth telling in every line. Much of the DC audience was not laughing. Offended no doubt, as so many (I can't say "most" though that is my feeling) people in this area base their whole lives, actions, philosophy, everything on the idea that wealth and money determine human value.

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010

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Colorado Springs cuts into services considered basic by many - The Denver Post:

This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won't pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

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Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Tinkerer’s Sunset [dive into mark]:

When DVD Jon was arrested after breaking the CSS encryption algorithm, he was charged with “unauthorized computer trespassing.” That led his lawyers to ask the obvious question, “On whose computer did he trespass?” The prosecutor’s answer: “his own.”

If that doesn’t make your heart skip a beat, you can stop reading now.

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Monday, February 01, 2010

Holder's Betrayal - The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan:

The details of this critical report and the way it was handled at DOJ are little short of infuriating. Here is a critical report whose conclusions were already clear months ago: that Yoo, Bybee at al were guilty of flagrant incompetence in assessing the law in order to allow their political masters to torture at will. And yet, out of some sort of tradition, DOJ hands over the final version to a 70 year-old career Justice Department official who allowed former DOJ officials to dispute and review the report again and again, and then allowed its central conclusion to be watered down. It is one more sign - along with the blanket dismissal of the serious allegations of misconduct at Gitmo - that the Obama administration is circling the establishment wagons on defending Bush era torture and war crimes. They seem either a) incapable of understanding the gravity of what went on or b) deliberately refusing to tackle clear violations of the law out of the usual political cowardice.

Yes, they ended torture. But everything else they have done has been to protect government law-breaking, rather than to investigate, let alone, prosecute it. There is no other word for this but betrayal - betrayal of the people who supported them and betrayal of those patriots within the government who take the rule of law seriously. But this is how Washington works:

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Sunday, January 31, 2010

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12:06 PM

Smiling Maniacally.: What I hate about pregnancy?:

Things you can and cannot eat are a perfect example - caffeine, sushi, alcohol, soft cheese, smoked salmon, and hollandaise sauce. Guess which one (1) I actually gave up throughout the entire pregnancy because only *one* of these actually posed a danger to the baby. You know, based on actual studies versus theoretical inferences.

And childbirth - there is so much mis-information out there about childbirth, labor, delivery, etc. and a lot of it is based, again, on theoretical inferences made back in the 1950s and 60s (like whether or not you should be able to eat/drink while you're in labor. Story in the NY Times about that today, in fact). We were interviewing post-partum doulas last week and I mentioned that I was hoping to avoid a c-section, and the doula replied, well, make sure you don't have an epidural then.

So that pretty much ended that interview. Correlation is not causation people.

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Saturday, January 30, 2010

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Fraser Speirs - Blog - Future Shock:

For years we've all held to the belief that computing had to be made simpler for the 'average person'. I find it difficult to come to any conclusion other than that we have totally failed in this effort.

Secretly, I suspect, we technologists quite liked the idea that Normals would be dependent on us for our technological shamanism. Those incantations that only we can perform to heal their computers, those oracular proclamations that we make over the future and the blessings we bestow on purchasing choices.

I'm often saddened by the infantilising effect of high technology on adults. From being in control of their world, they're thrust back to a childish, mediaeval world in which gremlins appear to torment them and disappear at will and against which magic, spells, and the local witch doctor are their only refuges.

With the iPhone OS as incarnated in the iPad, Apple proposes to do something about this, and I mean really do something about it instead of just talking about doing something about it, and the world is going mental.

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Friday, January 29, 2010

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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Trav S.D. on Downtown Theater:

“The Bike Trip” by Martin Dockery bills itself as a “breathtaking quest to uncover the nature of the psychedelic experience.” I had a chance to see sections from his last Frigid show “The Surprise” (one of the hits of last year). Dockery is a funny, engaging and mind-blowing actor. I think if we throw an acid trip into the mix we can be assured of a rambunctious ride.

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Apple:

William McGuire asks:

"With the availability of the keyboard dock (any info on the price?), does anyone see the iPad as a laptop killer as well?"

Definitely. Given some more software, some way to print documents and photos, and it'll do it. Today it's a sidekick device but a few years from now... well, when I reviewed the original iPhone in 2007 I declared that the Mac and PC's "proxy interaction" model of mouse-and-screen were dead, they just didn't know it yet. Today I have the proof. Pro laptops will survive, but I think consumer laptops are going to become an endangered species.

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Insanely great? Ars reacts to the Apple iPad:

When I leave the apartment for anything beyond local errands, I'm almost invariably carrying both a cell phone for communicating and a laptop for getting work done. A truly useful device would be one that could let me leave one of those devices and its added bulk, cables, and worries about charge status at home. The iPhone went a little way towards that dream—it was a phone, but its ability to handle a bit of web browsing and some light e-mail meant that leaving the laptop at home was possible in a few additional circumstances—but, for the most part, I'm still stuck lugging two devices.

The iPad doesn't fix that. It's clearly not a phone, so my phone would still have to come with me. It would do a better job of e-mail and web browsing than the iPhone but, if I'm carrying one of those anyway, that's not a huge help. On the other side of its category divide, the iPad might add a few more cases where a laptop is unnecessary, but very few. I'm a touch typist; I take notes on presentations while watching the speaker, and I am often writing in one application while looking over a document in a second. With no physical keyboard and no multitasking, the iPad simply wouldn't work for me. It's just too limited to mean I could leave my laptop home any more often than I already do.

Apple looks like it nailed its target of creating a truly distinct device that's somewhere in between the phone and the laptop. And, for precisely that reason, it doesn't seem like it would be all that useful to me.

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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Letters of Note: Ordinary standards do not apply to Tesla:

On January 4th, 1943, Slovenian-American author Louis Adamic wrote the following heartfelt letter to ex-President of the United States, Herbert Hoover. The letter concerned the alarming treatment and general well-being of Adamic's friend, Nikola Tesla; an immeasurably important inventor whose impact on the modern world is still difficult to appreciate and who, despite his numerous groundbreaking scientific achievements, was at the time of writing severely in debt and in worryingly ill-health.

Hoover immediately forwarded the letter to the IEEE, but to no avail; just three days after it was written, Tesla passed away in the hotel room in which he had lived for the past ten years.

Transcript follows.

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12:33 PM

Open letter to the new Apple iTablet:

And what of your appearance? Your materials? Will you be razor thin and gleaming like the mysteries of the fifth dimension? Made of rhodium, dark matter and the hymens of lost pagan goddesses? Will you smell like cake, feel like baby skin and taste like the hot roadkill of love? No one has a goddamn clue. Hence, the excitement, as they say, mounteth.

One thing we now know for sure: You will appear in a burst of dazzle in just a few short days at another special Apple media event, revealed in all your iWonderglory, ogled and cheered and turned over in the hand like an electric gemstone unearthed by trembling archaeologists who do not dress very well and seldom have sex.

12:31 PM

12:31 PM

MTA Security Overhaul "May Never be Completed" - Gothamist:

The MTA says its biggest security overhaul in history "is taking too long, costing too much" and now it's running out of money. The agency has only $59 million left in the bank for the program—not nearly enough for the installation of motion sensor cameras and other high-tech gadgets at every subway station.

10:57 AM

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

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Economic View - Will More Borrowers Walk Away From Their Mortgages? - NYTimes.com:

Some homeowners may keep paying because they think it’s immoral to default. This view has been reinforced by government officials like former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who while in office said that anyone who walked away from a mortgage would be “simply a speculator — and one who is not honoring his obligation.” (The irony of a former investment banker denouncing speculation seems to have been lost on him.)

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Why computers should be more like toasters. - By Farhad Manjoo - Slate Magazine:

Yet this sort of thinking breaks down when you compare the PC with every other consumer product. An automobile is both much more physically capable and dangerous than a computer, and yet nobody has to understand how a car works in order to drive. Sure, we require people who are operating motor vehicles to receive special training, but the training is mainly about the rules of the road. Actually using the car—learning what the steering wheel, gears, and pedals do—is a five-minute process and does not require a lesson in internal combustion. And what do you need to do to maintain a car? Almost nothing: Load it up with gas and take it in every few months to a guy who makes sure it's in working condition. When your car is in trouble, it doesn't issue a slew of warnings for you to interpret; it just says "check engine" and expects you to get expert help. Compare this with all the hassles of maintaining your computer: backing up your data, defragmenting your drive, checking for viruses, making sure your files are organized properly, occasionally reinstalling your operating system because things have gotten too gunked up, and on and on.

12:21 AM

Monday, January 25, 2010

The Playgoer: The Full-Price "Preview":

The term is becoming downright anachronistic. On the Broadway of old--as evident in old movies from "42nd Street" to "The Producers" plays truly "opened"--i.e. premiered--on "Opening Night" (after perhaps some open/invited dress rehearsals). Then by the 1960s, tickets would be available--at a DISCOUNT--for two or three pre-opening performances as a warm-up.

Off Broadway this didn't matter much I suppose since you were lucky to get the NY Times critic to come at all, let alone to your first night. But now, not only does everyone do "previews" but when the run is already limited and you control the schedule, some nonprofit companies have specialized in delaying official "opening" as long as possible so that if reviews are bad, the show will already be closing and thus unaffected. In other words, the preview period has been longer than the official "run." (I think Joe Papp pioneered that practice to get around critics.)

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Sunday, January 24, 2010

How Obama's cool, detached temperament is hurting him and his party

Obama's coolness and detachment put him in a different category of president that includes Lincoln (on the positive side) and Jimmy Carter (on the negative). His relationship with the world is primarily rational and analytical rather than intuitive or emotional. As he acknowledged in his interview with George Stephanopoulos the day after Scott Brown's victory, his tendency to focus on substance can make him seem remote and technocratic. So while many people continue to deeply admire him, few come away from any encounter feeling closer to him. He is not warm, he is not loyal, he is not deeply involved with others. His most fervent enthusiasts tend to express love for the ideas he embodies and represents—America transcending its racial history, a fairer and more unified society, rationality, wise decision-making, and so forth—as opposed to for the man himself.

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A Honey of an Anklet - theater, conservation, the utterly mundane, and Etruscan 8-tracks » The Last Cargo Cult:

For a man who spends two hours sitting behind a desk and talking, Mike Daisey reveals an energy and grace in his movement worthy of a tai chi chuan master. Steepling his fingers to make a point, then softly melting them to the side, storyteller Daisey explores in his current offering at Woolly Mammoth the peculiarities of the natives in the islands called Vanuatu and the big island called Long, and shows them to be hilariously ridiculous in equal measures.

10:07 PM

Friday, January 22, 2010

11:49 PM

Oiling the Zipper - Theater - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper:

"I had no idea how to take off a glove or tease or take a long time to do anything," she says. "Or the little things you might not think of, like oiling your zipper." She has dozens of routines, but only a few favorites at any given time. In heavy rotation these days: "Vinyl and Stockings, where I wear vinyl and strangle myself at the end with my stockings; The Hussy, which is a bored-stripper routine; and Rand, a modern-dance tribute to Sally Rand, which I do to a string-­quartet cover of a Tool song. I use a five-and-a-half-foot balloon. It's bigger than me." And her Poodle Number, which involves a rhinestone doggy dish, a bone, and 100 balloons, which Carnell blows up (and then pops) herself.

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Yesterday's Supreme Court Ruling that Corporations Have More First Amendment Rights Than Citizens | Slog | The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper:

The majority, consisting entirely of justices appointed by Republican presidents, held that the First Amendment rights of corporations cannot be distinguished from those of natural born citizens. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens observed: “Under the majority's view, I suppose it may be a First Amendment problem that corporations are not permitted to vote, given that voting is, among other things, a form of speech."

The ruling effectively guts McCain-Feingold and other campaign finance legislation as it applies to corporations. Presumably, any existing or contemplated effort by states to restrict corporate political spending in state elections is also now doomed by this precedent.

The implications of this ruling boggle the mind. In the long term, corporations will be able to give unlimited money to candidates who favor their positions. What chance will any state or federal legislative effort to reform, or tax, or regulate business now have? How much would it be worth to Big Pharma and the insurance industry to unseat enough members of Congress to kill health care reform permanently?

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Music Review - Lady Gaga - Lady Gaga at Radio City - Lavish Worlds, and the Headwear to Match - NYTimes.com:

No one in pop is more audacious about headwear. Onstage and in photos on video screens, she wore Egyptian-deity golden armor, antlers, a shiny red chauffeur’s hat, a spiked black hood and an exoskeletonlike helmet, not to mention bondage-style rings connecting her head to a bar held up by two men. It’s hard to say what that had to do with “Paparazzi” — which mingles love, stalking and media awareness — but even when connections were cryptic, the show had its own momentum.

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

BrightestYoungThings: PlayDC: Last Cargo Cult @ Woolly Mammoth:

Mike Daisey is one hell of a story-teller–even a seasoned raconteur would have difficulty weaving together such disparate plot-points as an America-revering island culture, the wonders of IKEA, and the cost of a sandwich in the Hamptons. But Daisey does it seamlessly in Woolly Mammoth’s The Last Cargo Cult, delivering a monologue that is at once a hilarious account of adventure-travel and a searing indictment of the global financial system.

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Supreme Court Says Corporations Can Spend As Much as They Want on Getting Their Friends Elected - Supreme Court - Gawker:

The conservative majority on the Supreme Court reiterated their utterly insane opinion that corporations are people today as they struck down restrictions on campaign spending by corporations in a decision that everyone expected but that is depressing nonetheless.

(A lot of people are reporting that this is good news for unions, but they are generally eliding the important point that Goldman Sachs has a lot more money than the UAW. And, to recap: corporations are people and money is speech.)

11:57 AM

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

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How Do We Get More Masterpieces? - Parabasis:

I was strolling through wikipedia today, and it's worth noting how many plays many beloved playwrights had written and produced before their masterpieces. Because we ignore the first half of the saying "took my whole life to be an overnight success," this gets obfuscated. Yes, there are some Young Geniuses... but there are a lot of Old Masters. My favorite example of this being Tony Kushner, who people seem to think wrote Bright Room and then Angels but had, in fact, written (and produced) thirteen plays prior to writing Millennium Approaches. Sam Shepard had over a decade of film and theatre writing experience prior to Buried Child. Tennessee Williams wrote eight plays before Streetcar. Eugene O'Neill had been writing for twenty years before he wrote most of what is considered his major works (and don't get me started on Moliere or Shakespeare).

9:02 AM

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

This is hard to believe--this is a CEASE AND DESIST LETTER served to an artist for posting the text of a review of their work on their website.


More here.

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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Why Jon Stewart failed to make John Yoo squirm:

But was "nailing" him ever a possibility? Yoo has slipped the grasp of many critics through the years. Part of the reason is his demeanor: calm, good-humored, endlessly patient. It throws people, especially those expecting a younger, Korean Dick Cheney.

But it's also Yoo's rhetorical skill. Stewart failed to "nail" Yoo not because he wasn't prepared. (Although perhaps Stewart could have quoted some of the harsher memos.) He failed because Yoo is a lawyer. The chief criticism against Yoo is that, as deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel after 9/11, he gave the Bush administration legal cover to torture suspected terrorists. In a time of war, he wrote in what became known as the "torture memos," the president has expanded power to make decisions without congressional approval. When it comes to what's torture and what's not, he wrote, only treatment that inflicts suffering equivalent to organ failure "or even death" constitutes torture. In later interviews, he suggested that nothing—no law and no treaty—could stop the president from ordering torture if the circumstances required it.

Yoo wasn't advocating these techniques, he can say. He was simply answering the question of whether the Constitution allows the president to make these decisions in a time of war. Even if his interpretation of the law led to the use of these techniques, that was the decision of the person ordering them—not the person who interpreted the law as allowing them.

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