real news

Ozzy Osbourne: New album first I've done sober. He didn't want his life to go to "pieces."

In other news of the retarded, a guy tried to yoink an ATM but was unsuccessful because his prosthetic leg fell off.

Yet other mildly thought-inducing stories:
Have spatula, will travel describes the joy of learning to cook local cuisines while traveling. I think this is great, but unless you have the luxury of traveling a lot, would't you want to spend more time exploring the places and enjoying the local food as a restaurant customer?

The Navy has used dolphins to protect harbors for a long time. I had no idea that our government employed marine mammals and gave them retirement benefits. What are the terms of their contracts and benefits?

Although they found a way to not return Ingrid's money to me (quel outrage), the SNCF deserves some credit for setting the world record train speed of 574.8 km/h (357 mph). Hello, Amtrak?

EDRT

The UR has an "Emotionally Disturbed Response Team?" I know the article isn't something to laugh at. But really, is this a typo?

Also typoed: In Brussels, the homeless have had to spend a first night on the streets."

Sometimes the gap between average and CEO salaries can be supersized American-style the other way around -- leave it to Google. You'd think the guys were Belgian (as Wendy's boyfriend assumed). Josh Wolf is finally free after 226 days in jail, 58 more than the last record-setting journalist for refusing to hand over information. Damn.

In terms of public health, New Mexico gets an A and Arizona gets an F.

april fools

Nerdly humor explained.

world record alcohol concentration?

Some Belgian headlines are exciting today. More Flemings are cycling to work and school and whatnot, and more people in Antwerp cycle to work or school than use public transport. While the latter is not so important or exciting in itself, it reflects an attitude towards cycling as the preferred method of transportation that you won't find even in the bike-friendliest American city.

Others are just plain bizarre and/or misleading. "No animals in pet shops," for example. Or "Increase in stalking." Best of all must be "Nieuwpoort man sets record" for the highest blood-alcohol concentration measured, 4.66 % (it is not explained whether this is a national or world record). I enjoy the judge's wit: "Congratulations! You're still alive. You hold the record. Blood-alcohol levels of 4 percent and higher have been measured, but that is usually during a post-mortem." A helpful comparison is also supplied: "A blood alcohol level of 4,66% is equal to drinking a barrel of beer and two bottles of wine in close succession." Could even the Poles or Russians top that?

math that's durned big as Manhattan

Lie group E8: "An international team of mathematicians says it has cracked a 120-year-old puzzle that researchers say is so complicated that its handwritten solution would cover the island of Manhattan."

I didn't know Wikipedia was so groovy about amplitude modulation.

The Germans can't possibly be serious. Limit speed on the autobahn?

It's not only North Carolina that still has funny laws about personal life (and maybe public life as well?) still on the books. Ireland's High Court is doing some spring cleaning after 1,000 years.

Are we better off without our emotions?

Sad and disturbing as it is, innocent fluffy white sheep being spray-painted (ooh a verbed noun!) with swastikas by miscreant German youths is also terribly funny. As is the feigned bemusement of the German authorities, who told the media, "Exactly why the group behaved toward these good-natured beasts in this way is unclear." I am tangentially reminded of Donald Barkin, who addressed his "Writing Portraits" seminar (into which I failed to gain admission) in 2003: "People see being a poet as like being a shepherd. They respond, 'Oh, are there still poets around? Why?'"


The swastika hasn't always been T3h Evil. To give one of many examples, in Buddhism it's a vegetarian symbol. Happy post-St. Patrick's Day!

Finally, something to remedy my aging brain's seive-like memory: exercise!

Somebody is in a hell of a lot of trouble for leaving $20 million worth of MJ by the side of the road. I feel sorry for that truck driver.

After thousands of years, Mayans are still mystical and awesome.

oh the irony: "Belgian Defence Minister André Flahaut chartered a military helicopter to make it on time to a screening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," according to La Libre Belgique.... The two-hour flight from Brussels to Hasselt produced 12 to 20 times more CO2 greenhouse gas than a car journey of the same distance."

DNA analysis has pinpointed the origin of avian flu to the province of my ancestors, Guangdong. Figures.

Santa Monica will be the next city after Berkeley to administer birth control shots to its squirrel population.

Asians seem so harmless that it's really difficult to take the astoundingly offensive article, "Why I Hate Blacks," by self-declared Asian Supremacist (first time I've heard the term) Kenneth Eng (perhaps a cousin twenty times removed) seriously. It's so pitiful it's funny. And now we have to go about passing a San Francisco resolution just to make up for it. Save the paper and trees involved in such officialdom and just TP this guy's house once, folks.

Not sure what to make of the increasing vanity of my generation, however. I don't see it as being prevalent even at places like Eastman and Yale (perhaps Chip would ahem at Juilliard and I at Hahvahd ;), but how could I when I'm an illustrative representative? Might not the same thing be happening in China with the one-child-per-family deal?

So you don't just get fined if you don't vote in Belgium. If you're a student, you're normally required to work the polls. Won't they need more immigrants to work them this year, with students going into exams?

world press photos of the year

Much of the world we inhabit is nothing like what we know, is it? And yet even in horror there is beauty, and in ugliness there is extraordinary love.

I still really, really want to visit Beirut.

Happy Chinese New Year, folks! With apologies to the 125 people reported injured by fireworks in Beijing, including one person who lost their eyes. Partying always has its price.

Especially in a nation of pyromaniacs.

A big HAH to all of you who dare to contaminate your tea with milk: Milk may counteract the healthful effects of tea.

Sunday brunch in Schoen Place after taking the scenic route through brilliant snow-covered Rochester. Warming xocolatl and berry white tea at the natural foods store. Then sweet heavenly goodness at Simply Crêpes. Who could ask for more?

the deep

Massive lakes that fill and drain rapidly under Antarctica, so deep they're not affected by climate change. What an awesome world we inhabit.

another reason PCs suck?

Dell laptop burns down farmhouse. But... Apples have a recent history of going up in smoke as well, so...

who's got the best rack?

Did a man or women append the comment, "The good news is, breast size is increasing across generations," to the news that "The biggest breasts in Europe are found in Britain, where one in every six women prides herself on cup D or larger. The Danes and the Dutch are the runners-up. Belgian women come in fourth. Only little more than half of the Belgian women wear a bra sized bigger than B."

absurdity

Now that she's shocked the world by being dead, Anna Nicole Smith has everyone in the world coming forward and claiming they've dated and getting into scuffles about it. I wonder what precisely it is about a woman that would bring men to this point.

Are your caretakers at the hospital really as nice as they seem?

Oh, and the next time you think about redeveloping Olmstead's Central Park, just remember that the land costs $627 million an acre, which is "26% more than the entire 2006 U.S. defense budget, or 7 million times the price of Boardwalk and Park Place together."

apocalypse

The Klan is growing, fueled by and fueling anti-immigrant sentiment. Chapters grew 63% between 2000 and 2005 after a drop through the 90's. An ironic form of comfort against the accusation that I was deserting my country by moving abroad until it got better.

Software may well start watching all our (just as I suspected) unwatched surveillance camera feeds, turning America into a true surveillance society. Thanks to London for taking the lead... but it was the US that destroyed itself long before in V for Vendetta.

Our government was brilliant enough to ship over $4 billion in cash, weighing 363 tons, on military aircraft to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 at the request of the Iraqi minister of finance. "'Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?'.... On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially 'the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history'... It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later." More irony: I and my fellow gamblers were debating at Casino Royale whether there was really $1 million in dollar bills in the educational display box at the RMSC's new Moneyville exhibit. Thanks to that instructive experience, I now actually have a visual image of how these shipments might appear.

13 computers manage global internet traffic (according to who?) and were briefly overwhelmed by hackers. The attacks continue.

Just some tidbits to brighten everyone's day.

45,000 missing

So much for Brussels being rated the best airport in Europe. Last year over 45,000 suitcases went missing. Where the hell could all those suitcases have gone? You can't just miss 45,000 suitcases lying around in some corner. The bending of the space-time continuum is clearly at work here.

pizza for pesos

What is wrong with our country if anti-immigrant sentiments are so strong right now that a pizza chain with a 60% Hispanic customer base receives hundreds of angry emails and even death threats for offering to accept pesos? People don't have time to sit down and write to their government representatives or their presidents about problems such as global warming or overcrowded schools, but they do have time to read this sign, remember it, go home, find Pizza Patron's contact information, and compose extraordinarily unproductive feedback that makes no difference in their communities or lives besides quashing an opportunity for some Hispanics (and tourists returned home) to use up spare pesos lying in their drawers. Wow thank you all for your valuable contributions to this country. I worry about people's attitudes towards legislation regarding immigration, but this incident makes me wonder how dangerous and disturbing those attitudes are in everyday life. Where did extreme nationalism ultimately take some other countries in the 20th century?

andromeda

My question, which could probably easily be answered if I bothered to do some conversions with the data supplied in the article, is how much of the night sky our closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy (M31), really takes up for the naked eye. Because UCSC researchers have found that it's much, much bigger than we thought.

In less intellectual but more entertaining news, Mr. Blackwell has assigned the euphemism "style-free and fashion deprived" to Britney Spears (who makes 1st for the 3rd time) and Paris Hilton (who makes 1st for the second time) in his annual worst-dressed list, undoubtedly to the glee of many such as myself. Also rewarding was his inclusion of my favorite Angelina Jolie and even Nancy Pelosi in his list of 10 "fabulous fashion independents." The unfortunate thing about all this style criticism is that any actress can be portrayed as a poor dresser. Taking bad shots of people is so easy, particularly when they're in runway clothes.

It's awfully entertaining to me in my campanologically nerdy way that UC Berkeley's library catalog gives as search term examples on its home page "bell tolls" and "for whom the bell." I apologize for not having resisted sharing that incredibly stupid fact with you.

wanderlust

I'm starting to think about travel again as I work out my European concert tour, and am in the mood to be enticed by other destinations. China, anyone?

The Belgians are getting taller and heavier. Not the most surprising news around the block. But Dutch men are the tallest Europeans, and Dutch women weigh the most in Europe, while Ireland has the biggest difference between the sexes. That's weird.

nerdiness

So I feel justified in indulging in a little nerdiness today. I have time. How's this?

It's a false-color image of colliding galaxies NGC 2207 and IC 2163, space.com's sometime image of the day.

If you're also feeling nerdy, you might try voting for the best space images of 2006. Or reading about the most bizarre satellite ever.

Tiffany Blue

Sweeeeet not only do I have gaudy jewelry and a stinky expensive perfume named after meeeeeee, but also a shade of my favorite color, blue: Tiffany Blue, PMS 1837.

Indiana Jones 4!!!

So I keep telling people that I haven't been particularly excited about any movies since Back to the Future and Indiana Jones. (The Matrix and Koyaanisqaatsi excepted.) Well, today's my lucky day: George Lucas has announced that Harrison Ford will be returning for his fourth installment as Indie!

I'll be the first in theaters with my Icee to watch and cheer. If it ever emerges from development hell, I'd also watch Ender's Game.

hypocrisy

It's definitely gratifying for Saddam to have been executed by his own country in a place where he ordered many ruthless executions, but I'm still against the death penalty and I am still sad that my country is so hypocritical as to depose Saddam in the name of justice and then give him the same fate that he gave his enemies.

so what?

John keeps inviting me to join new online things, but my reaction isn't much more than to set up a skeleton profile and then ask, "So what?" I must be an old fogie for sure.

speed

My parents' desktop was insanely slow when I returned home, so I've spent inordinate amounts of time fixing it. I've also gone on a cleaning rampage, dumping out old publications that no longer enchant my inner child, donating books and clothes, and picking clothes to attempt to sell on the Haight with the hope that they'll pity a woman on crutches. And yes, as of right now I finally have this computer going at a normal speed.

I miss my days of stargazing (not that we can see anything from downtown Rochester). There are all sorts of things going on in the sky, history being made that only a few people witness... including "the kind of event that turns young children into Carl Sagans," according to one TV guy. Perhaps if Adrien were here...

I finally get my hands on Charles Burney's journal, "An Eighteenth-Century Musical Tour in Central Europe and the Netherlands," and what should the heading for the first section be about, but "Burney's poor opinion of French music confirmed." He has lots to say about carillons, including the competition between "a remarkable violinist and an equally remarkable carillonneur." I can't wait to find out who drowned out the other.

Another quote: "...and for the serpent, it is not only overblown, and detesably out of tune, but exactly resembling in tone, that of a great hungry, or rather angry, Essex calf." More gems to come in the journal of Tiffany's reading of Burney's journals.

Geckos are superheroes! Soon our cars will be able to scale walls too. I can't wait to hang from the ceilings of belfries.

And Bobby was ahead of his time.

Can one but snicker at the fact that a well-known historical organ resides in Uithuizen, the Netherlands (i.e. Outhouses)?

There is an interesting photography display concerning American outhouses in the Center at High Falls. Most of the doors are labeled with a crescent moon.

artastic ii

Mark had a brilliant reply to the article about art business today I blogged about as artastic.

I think Bourdieu would say, “My name is Bourdieu, and I think the increasing pandering of the art world to the international capitalist class both devalues what art is and clearly represents the need for sociology to function as a martial art to cut through the bulls-t of cultural capital accumulation.”

break the rain

It rained all day, and then suddenly the sun came out and threw golden light on brick façades, and I pulled on my shoes and hurried to the Little Bakery. I ended up stopping along the way into the sketchy corner store to discover it sold all sorts of interesting middle eastern foodstuffs and a few indian spices. Still no produce; can produce really be so unprofitable in downtown Rochester? I bought a Portuguese loaf at the bakery for the first time. The cheerful lady whose name I really need to find out greeted me and told me she was taking the next day off. As I was leaving, she gave me a cookie. It was still sunny, I came in and ate a delicious sweet slice of bread, the only fresh thing I have left, looked out the window, and discovered that it was so overcast it seemed almost as if night had fallen, or at least that nothing had ever happened. So I wrote this as evidence that it did.

bad eurohabit

55% of Belgians buy mineral water and never drink tap water, a European habit that leads to many wasted resources. Not to mention thirsty and puzzled foreigners and expats. I really don't understand how this preference for mineral water arose. I dislike the taste myself.

Then again, in America we buy tons of bottled water (although water is free and falls from the sky -- even better than growing on trees) and then complain about the price of gas, which per gallon is cheaper than the price of bottled water.

wonderful automation

I searched facebook for "Compline" and came up with a fake individual with no network named "Christ Church Compline." Next to it were the standard options: "Send Message," "View Friends," "Add to Friends," and "Poke Christ!"

Furthermore, if you click on the latter option, you will get a screen displaying the following:

Poke Christ?
You are about to poke Christ Church Compline (no network) .

Christ will be informed of this the next time they log in.

Also, if you poke Christ, they will be able to see your profile for one week.

To control which parts of your profile are displayed when you contact someone through a poke, message or friend request, click here.

Click further, and the ultimate result:

You have poked Christ Church Compline.

I await a response from above for my sacrilege.

Meanwhile, if you hit the Back button, you get Christ has not received your last poke yet.
They'll get it the next time they log in. Go back home or return to the previous page.

artastic

Art is being sold, held, and resold at a profit. "Does this mean that art is moving so fast on the market that it may never be enjoyed on a wall and just held as an investment to flip later? Rendell doesn't miss a beat: 'Well yes. But at least it's in very good condition.'"

But what would Pierre Bordieu say about this?

Josh Wolf: Jailed Journalist

Josh Wolf: Jailed Journalist

Josh Wolf, freelance journalist and independent videographer, is currently in “coercive custody” at the Federal Detention Facility in Dublin, California. He has never been charged with any crime. Wolf was incarcerated for contempt earlier this year after refusing to provide a Federal Grand jury with unedited video of a 2005 G-8 protest in San Francisco. His incarceration is virtually unprecedented for a journalist refusing to give information to a Grand Jury. It is widely believed he will likely become the longest held journalist in U.S. history.

Having covered protests for several years as part of the San Francisco press corps, Wolf has gained unprecedented access to much of the Bay Area’s activist community. Access denied to other journalists. Attorneys have raised concerns that demand for the tape is part of a fishing expedition by police seeking to identify political dissidents and protesters. Wolf has repeatedly stated under oath that his video does not contain footage of the crimes being investigated by the Grand Jury. To make his case, Wolf has offered to let the judge review his tape.

Wolf, 24, is the recipient of the 2006 Society of Professional Journalists award for Journalist of the Year. Advocates from Reporters Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists and numerous others have all spoken out in his defense.

What Others Have Said About this Case

"When journalists like Josh Wolf are put in jail, journalism and the public’s right to know suffer. An independent press needs a Federal shield law to protect journalists like Josh." --Judith Miller, Journalist

“He [Wolf] may not have the clout or journalism credentials of some of the other government targets, but Josh Wolf is no less entitled to First Amendment protection. Each day he remains incarcerated represents another small dent in this nation’s basic freedoms.” –San Francisco Chronicle Editorial 8/06

"The Wolf case has absolutely no bearing on national security, the argument used in other tussles between federal courts and journalists who refused to name their sources or surrender their files. Confirmed contempt of court orders against Wolf would mean that the independence of the press - which is based among other things on the right to professional secrecy – is more than ever in danger in the United States. Keeping Josh Wolf in jail would be tantamount to denying the role that the media is supposed to play in a democracy, one of questioning and criticizing. Congress must quickly debate and approve a federal shield law that would uphold the right of journalists to protect the confidentiality of their sources." –Reporters Without Borders

[read on]

turkeys receive presidential pardon

Heaven only knows what turkeys did to merit annual condemnation in the first place, but old Bush seems to have done something right for the first time by granting a full presidential pardon to the National Thanksgiving Turkey, Flyer, and its buddy, Fryer. The only concern now is whether the turkeys themselves might have chosen an early demise over a life of being jeered and gawked at by children in Disneyland.

thanksgiving makes me sad

Maybe you don't really want to know why.

The most common reactions to my decision to be vegetarian are "Don't you miss meat? I cannot live without it!" and "Why?" My primary reason is that it cuts my environmental footprint drastically. Page 7 of this admittedly propagandic PETA postcard gives some of the statistics that lead my conscience to eschew meat: Livestock meant for our plates consume vast amounts of grain that could have provided much less expensive food for the hungry; more than half of the water used in the US goes to livestock intended for people's plates; raising animals uses a third of American energy resources; and the meat industry creates more water pollution than all other industries combined, to name a few.

Our society has developed remarkable systems to hide the environmental consequences of all we do from our daily lives. Only if garbage pickup stopped would we realize how much waste we create; only if animals were raised and slaughtered in the city would we be widely aware of their mistreatment; only if the pollution emitted by power plants was blown into our own homes would we realize how horrible it is to waste energy. Our world is modern, efficient, clean, civilized, and... deceptive.

americanizing european education

"The world is indifferent to tradition and past reputations, unforgiving of frailty and ignorant of custom or practice," [Andreas Schleicher, head of the OECD education directorate] said. "Success will go to those individuals and countries which are swift to adapt, slow to complain, and open to change."

A pretty bleak snapshot of the world.

I worry that a point is being missed. America may boast the largest number of prestigious universities today, but I suspect that your average affordable European university is better than your average affordable American university. Competence is distributed differently. Much like degree prestige and even income in the US--the proportions are outrageous.

I'll be the first to admit how much Yale has done for me. But without a diversity of systems in the world, how will we ever be able to pinpoint a reason when one of those systems fails?

I woke up this morning for unknown reasons thinking of the young friends I've lost along the way to tragic accidents and health conditions. Even after a brush with my own mortality, I still find it difficult to comprehend the deaths of people my age. Take a look at the firefighters who defied the latest California firestorm.

expatica headlines

Sixty days of summer rain, and now that I've left, Belgium may well be set for the hottest fall ever. Life is so unjust.

It's difficult for me to see Europe's need to combat obesity. I never noticed how many grossly obese people walked the streets of the US until I came back from a year in Europe!

Go Belgian housewives!

edumacated city

San Francisco is the second most educated city in the country, following Seattle. I've never been to Seattle, sadly. I'm really overdue for my first visit.

Getting closer to dark matter with Hubble.

The Hollywood film industry creates more pollution than the aerospace manufacturing, apparel, hotels and semiconductor manufacturing sectors. Only petroleum manufacturing belched more emissions.

Now for the first time, I feel really good about not watching movies.

poppy

I've grown up in California, I've lived in Belgium and cycled through its fields, I've spent a day in Ieper playing a concert and wandering the museum and standing beneath the Menin Gate to witness a special Last Post, and I've still hardly seen a single Flanders poppy, that beautiful, tragic symbol that bears no such meaning in California as it does to the Belgians and the English.

First of all, I have to admit both delight and surprise that the American public has voted the Democrats back into office. After 1.5 presidential terms to evidence a dismal track record in voting decisions, I wasn't really expecting much change. And same-sex marriage has been banned in some states. Disgusting. Also funny, and possibly effective, but very dismaying was the Arizona measure to award $1 million to a randomly selected voter in each general election. Do we really have to resort to paying the American people to think about what's good for them?!

We have a funny government. In the Senate, every state has equal representation, and CNN writer Justin Gest points out that "Wyoming -- a state with more cattle than voters -- receives as much of a say as California -- a state with an economy the size of France."

The less serious news is too amazing to summarize when I can quote verbatim:

Producer of dozens of educational films for students dies at 90
11/08/06 08:40 PM, EST
Sid Davis, who produced more than 180 educational films warning youngsters of the dangers of drugs, drinking and running with scissors, has died. He was 90.
FULL STORY

Do that many kids really run around with scissors? Maybe we should let natural selection take its course a little earlier on than 90.

How about this for all of us spice-addicts? Maybe the next time I'm in Belgium missing spicy food, I can just bring a tarantula along for a quick fix.

Tarantulas and chillis share pain target
11/08/06 03:34 PM, EST
Tarantulas and chilli peppers may not appear to have anything in common but an encounter with either the spider or the plant can be a painful experience.

news bites

"Ouch, K-Fed: "There was relatively little taunting Wednesday night from a Chicago crowd that appeared to contain a few genuine fans, though at least one man was led out by security after hoisting a large, cardboard sign insulting Federline's manhood."

I think the man should've been given free tickets to more upcoming bad shows.

Another reason Caltech is one of the more bizarre places in the world (not to imply that this is bad).

Satellite images of Earth from above, one reason to wish one was in DC. Sure, there's Google Maps. But can your computer screen really beat the Smithsonian?

Trains in the US continue to be pathetic. (Not really news, I suppose.

So it is the Dutch who most often evade Belgian speeding fines. No surprise. But doesn't that mean we can ignore our parking tickets in the Netherlands? I know someone on their Wanted List. :)

So whose great idea was it to research the research habits of graduate students?

taal problemen

So Dutch is the 28th most "common" language in the world. But issuing loyalty cards to shopkeepers who speak only in Flemish to their customers? Sounds like a grade school measure. Maybe things have descended to that point.

democracy?

Thirty percent of state candidates running unopposed. Something about our "democractic" system isn't working.

I desperately miss heirloom tomatoes. And now everybody's going to eat them and there will be none left for me!

There aren't a whole lot of numbers, but some surprising insights and sorely needed reasons to feel good about this country in TIME Magazine's "America by the numbers".

salty intrigue

I only saw the Salton Sea once on the way to Death Valley or some other SoCal destination, but I never forgot it. It's vast enough to be mind-boggling, but not so vast that one simply views it as an ocean, as I did on the shores of Lake Michigan. I could never figure out the story behind this body of water, but thanks to a CNN article and Wikipedia article (Wikipedia includes articles on all sorts of things you wouldn't find in other general reference volumes), I finally understand.

The Salton Sea, completely below sea level, was created in 1905 by accident. Its water supply is unintentional and artificial. Its lowest point is only 5 feet above the lowest point of Death Valley. Sometimes thousands of dead tilapia wash up on its shores.

For a while, the Sea was a resort area. Google Maps shows the extensive network of streets built for the Salton Sea. Most of them are empty. (Is my inner photographer screaming to get out there right now or what? It sounds even eerier than Pleasure Beach or Doel.) The sea just got too salty.

Like the Hoge Veluwe, this man-made environment has become essential to many kinds of wildlife. And there are many who are trying to save the sea. There is also thirsty San Diego trying to get at the water that feeds it.

Utterly fascinating. I can't wait for the 3,000-page report due to be released to the public shortly. Well, perhaps I'm being facetious. But I've just found out that a random thing that's always intrigued me is even more strange and otherwordly and controversial and important than I imagined. I wish I could take a couple months to explore and publish a book of photos. Guess I'll have to be content with looking for someone else's.

palm problem

I have a problem with palm trees in California. I love stereotypical images of palms at the beach, and in fact have created a couple of mock-retro ones that I'll try to post if I ever get around to turning on my internal/external hard drive. I have a purse and a bikini with palms, and it's totally for that Cali look. But I never liked the look of palms poking up all over California. They absolutely don't belong in San Francisco, although they line Herb Caen Boulevard and struggle by the new tracks in Visitacion Valley to survive the fog, and they hardly belong in SoCal. Our climate is temperate, but not tropical.

And it looks tacky.

For the first time, I've found people who agree. "'They don't provide the same benefits as the other, more leafy trees,' says Paula Daniels, a Board of Public Works commissioner who is heading up the planting effort. Their tall, bare trunks make them inferior when it comes to providing shade, Daniels said, and some experts believe their scant leaves make them less effective at trapping air pollution. And while sun-dappled palms lining a freeway may look good in the movies or on a postcard, Dunlap said people standing beside them can feel as if they are next to a telephone pole." So she's not worried about re-foresting SoCal with palms when plenty of native species are available.

According to one CS grad alum, the mega palms lining the main driveway into Stanford University cost about $100,000 to maintain each year.

fashion = fertility?!

Women, it's time to question your motives when you find yourself scouring your wardrobe for your best outfits: "Women dress to impress when they are at their most fertile, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study they say shows that signs of human ovulation may not be as mysterious as some scientists believe."

So they convicted Scott Dyleski just as everyone expected, but neither the explanations given by the defense or the prosection seem adequate for such a brutal and seemingly premeditated murder.

high-voltage ceramics... or the devil??

Maybe I'll wait on that hybrid after all... for a ceramic power source for electric cars!

Comparable in cleverness to the French-Dutch comeback (link to come): The Rev. Jerry Falwell quips, "I hope she's the candidate, because nothing will energize my [constituency] like Hillary Clinton. If Lucifer ran, he wouldn't." The Rev. Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, retorts, "Maybe the devil made him do it." Another line of worth from the article: "Attendees also were assured during the prayer breakfast that God would preserve a Republican majority in Congress."

Another curious news line: "Gibson's appearance at the [Fantastic Fest] was reminiscent of a similar appearance he made at Knowles' Butt-Numb-a-Thon, which offered one of the first public previews of 'The Passion of the Christ.'"

Like record labels, publishers are scared silly of opportunities to reach new audiences in the information era.

the roundup

It's pretty exciting to be part of the annual count for Belgium. I'm glad I made my lasting contribution!

Maybe something good can come out of the absurdity of everyone suing everyone in America: California sues car firms on fumes.

double entendre

Doctor gives stripper a hand

haunted by bordieu

Somehow I ended up writing in my Fulbright CV about stuff I read in the equivalent of Sociology 101 Yale-style, taught by Joseph Soares, a professor with a powerful personality and unconcealed agenda for his students. Heaven knows my understanding of sociology is in no way advanced, but as I turn every corner and find more spectacular opportunities waiting to be seized, I can't help but wonder when I derailed off the track I should have been in with my Little Vis peers and instead ended up on the path of the privileged. Where I stand in Pierre Bordieu's fields I cannot say, but I know Yale put me pretty high up without my even realizing it. Just the other day, I finally figured out that I can talk to politicians and officials without feeling uncomfortable because Yale invited me to free fancy dinners with famous people and let me do business directly with university deans and secretaries. I took advantage of these opportunities for fun and ambition, but at no point did I realize the incredible level of social training I was inadvertently receiving.

Where am I in the field? An article about Harvard's bizarre move to end Early Action until it sees that other Ivies don't follow suit gives an idea: "At the most selective schools, a 2003 study found, 3 percent of students came from the poorest socio-economic quarter of families, while 74 percent came from the richest."

Nor was I aware that Soares is an exemplary follower of Bordieu's belief that "sociology is a combat sport"--presumably because he never metnioned that Bordieusque idea to us. It always seemed fitting to me that he would be the odd one out in an elitist institution like Yale. I just want to see him get tenure at Wake Forest or wherever he decides he can fight his fight.

litterbugs in space

According to the National Transportation Safety Board, "The number of fatalities [amongst motorcyclists] is outpacing the increase in ridership." Industry, what are you going to do about that?? (Recruit younger riders, I guess.)

Usually Apple redesigns things to look more futuristic and sleek. And then only they can top the design with a new one that makes old models look dated. But the new iTunes looks like some app from a couple years back. Maybe they spilled ice cream from Google It's-Its on their good sketches.

I never thought about it, but even the smallest piece of space junk orbiting the earth at high speed could potentially kill an astronaut. And there are 100,000 pieces space junk orbiting the Earth, including lots of copper needles launched by some idiot American plan.

more wisdom from loveline

Lovely Dr. Drew from Loveline brings us more wise but "doh" news: All members of western culture considered, celebrities love themselves the most. It's puzzling to me that they're low on empathy, though. How can you have a magnetic personality if you can't feel for others?

Sometimes I suspect that I have more celebrity syndrome than my share, and I can't decide whether that would be good or bad.

internet-happy

Unlike television, the internet now makes us happier. Good news for us internet-addicts. It can also inspire wanderlust. But television still makes us dumber, unless new studies have been done contradicting this (which I doubt, since television programing seems to have gotten dumber in general). Does the internet also make us idiots? Or does it make us more well-informed? Or do we just have a maximum comfortable capacity for knowledge, the focus of which has shifted?

To quote Tom's excellent news commentary: "This struck me as beyond hilarious--a Belgian researcher looking at effects of sunlight."

Also entertaining: The Canadians beat the French in fleeing and surrendering... at the threat of two Californians headed their way.

a country of commuters

The longest average commute in America lasts 39.6 minutes in New Jersey. Carpooling and walking is down, driving alone is up. I had hopes that America might improve its public transportation and biking culture, perhaps gaining 1% to 2% of what Benelux has up on it. I step out of the country and look what happens. *shakes head*

elvis lives in belgium!

Is this relative or rival, Elvo? :)

I should really stop complaining about the cloudy skies when "East" Flanders (I don't know how Ghent is considered eastern) is experiencing flooding enough to be considered a "natural disaster".

But I need to vent anyway: Every morning I wake up eager to don my summer clothes, the ones I've been waiting all year to wear, only to realize I need the same old purely functional clothes that keep me warm and dry. I've had a good summer, but somehow I can't help but feel that's it's a waste of one's twenty-third year to spend two summer months without a generous helping of sun. You're only energetic, stylin', and 23 once.

hanging the bell

No more 24-hour marriage services in Las Vegas! Why don't you just stop the fun without stopping a single idiot (couple) from tying an inopportune knot.

In other discouraging news, Apple hasn't been doing too well. Paying off Creative, recalling laptops with Sony batteries that have a tendency to explode into flames, having its hacker-immune image scorched (albeit only during use of a third-party driver), and admitting to "excessive" work hours in Chinese factories... get a hold on, guys.

"Google understands English, doesn't it?" Alice asked me today. A couple months ago, Wendy's boyfriend was sure that nobody in the US would know about this great Dutch-language search engine called Google. A company so pervasive and yet culturally without frills that everybody thinks it belongs to their own culture. Impressive and slightly frightening.

playing by number

When it comes to the U.S. News and World Report, it's all about manipulating a game of numbers. And Princeton still doesn't matter. Not to mention that the cover article of Newsweek appearing worldwide at the same time is by Yale president Richard Levin. ;)

Speaking of games, I wonder why wine-and-dine isn't a more common tactic for loosening the tongues of criminals. Villains have been around for centuries, so this idea isn't new. Why torture prisoners in Iraq yet suddenly break the royal treatment out on the self-(pro)claimed murderer of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey?

And then for the seemingly unquantifiable... there is finally convincing proof of the existence of that wonderful thing called dark matter that probably comprises 25% of our universe. How much of the universe is made of matter that we've been able to detect until now? Probably 5%.

Every time I marvel at a new discovery or invention that brings us further into the modern and the technological, I wonder at the same time what kind of dark age I'm inhabiting in which we don't understand either the frontiers of space or the workings of the human mind. One day humankind will understand vast amounts more about the universe than we do now--if we avoid self-destruction. And the year 2006, with its proof of the existence of dark matter etc., will be laughable in its ignorance.

Water beats out beer!!!

Every year, the consumption of beer decreases in Belgium. This year, water beat beer as the country's most popular drink. Water! That thin, weak, tasteless, un-artisanal, ordinary drink. And people pay for it, as restaurants do not serve tap water. They serve mineral water in little bottles that only half quench my thirst. Maybe they're large enough to quench European thirst, and I, at 5 feet and 52 kilograms, require at least twice that amount to feel as if I'd had a real drink.

On the other hand, beer comes in far more generous quantities. I can drink only a quarter of the beer that's served to me as my alcohol tolerance is so low. Somehow my hydration needs are the inverse of the norm here. Then again, how can I be speaking of hydration. A tiny bottle of mineral water probably hydrates the body twice as well as a monstrous glass of Duvel.

development hell

It's a real term, though not as colorful as Duivelskermis, which the Belgians use to describe the not infrequent sunshine rain that accosted me throughout the streets of Antwerpen yesterday. And development hell is where the movie based on Orson Scott Card's riveting (if awkwardly prosed) Ender's Game has been since I first started anticipating it in high school.

I wish I could be bothered to write down the tasks and goals that pass through my head when I'm practicing the carillon or organ. It's only at non-computer keyboards that I remember all the things I'm supposed to do (particularly at the computer) but haven't written down, because at those times, my mind is clearest/least cluttered and there's room for memory. At the computer, I forget things and am unable to write creatively because I expect the machine to think for me.

Just look at this blog entry. It took me five years to remind myself to check out the release date of a movie based on one of my favorite sci-fi novels.

belated friendsterization

After I finished my exams, interesting people in Mechelen starting contacting me via MySpace, eight months after I gave up on trying to meet Mechelaars through the damn site. And by then I had no time to even meet these people. No amount of Googling told me what social networking site was popular in Belgium when I wanted to find it. And finally, I find a link in the newspaper for it: Hyves.net. Two weeks before my departure, probably never to live in Belgium again.

minority report

Remember those beautiful white glass screens that John Anderton manipulated in Minority Report? The Museum Boijmans van Beuningen has similar computers to guide you through a selection of its spectacular collection, but I didn't expect the technology to appear next at Polo Ralph Lauren, of all places. 24/7 window shopping... maybe the only good thing Polo has going.

doe-het-zelf paradise

The weirdest man-made island to date?

Gives me a whole new perspective on Ingrid's former hometown of Dubai. It makes sense that they called in Dutch engineers to solve problems in building the island, as the better part of the Netherlands just rose up out of the water in the last century.

The Poles are coming!

Each month, a thousand Polish workers take temporary positions in Belgium thanks to the recent simplification of European Union rules for recruiting workers from the new Central and Eastern member states. I'm obviously out of touch with the population working in agriculture, as all the Poles I know I've either encountered at Yale, Amersfoort, or Poland.

My visit to Poland has left me not only with a five-word Polish vocabulary, but also the ability to tell Poles apart from other Europeans--probably akin to being able to tell the Chinese and Japanese apart. And I can kind of distinguish their language from other Slavic tongues...with a 51% success rate.

fear of the dark

After the theft of my front wheel and vandalism of my brake cables, my view of Belgium changed slightly... it was no longer the unbelievably safe place it seemed and that some claim it to be. It became darker, less relaxed. But Ben took the cake when he confided in me on our way to KBC's Boerentoren that the young woman working at a Brussels cafe he used to frequent had been taken into the woods and clubbed to death by a "friend"/married man a week or two ago. Incidentally, what news should arise but that murder has increased by 35% over the past five years, symbolized recently by the senseless mp3 killing in Brussel Centraal. I doubt that any of the explanations presented in the article--vigilantism, materialism, lack of social cohesion--can really explain this dude going stark raving mad, but it's not difficult to imagine some prevailing force at work.

spirograph

For the past few years, I've returned to wanting more advanced Spirographs than the one I had as a child. There was one model based partially on randomness, with a pen perched over a moving tray.

Now artificially-grown mouse neurons can create artwork that looks eerily similar to the results of said Spirograph. I'm creeped out.

an LA thing

Where can you find an information wanted sign posted by the homocide department of the police bearing 54 photos of aspiring models? Most certainly in Los Angeles. And it's working.

jailbreak

So Will finally writes back. And he's been up to the best kind of no good! A bit reminiscent of the red paper clip.

A potential antidote to iTunes comes, of all possibilities, from National Geographic World Music.

icky

No wonder an American girl conducted a study showing that toilet seats generally host fewer bacteria than ice cream. Even the soft ice in Belgium is dirty.

lies, all lies!

People can't tell the truth about lying. Surprise, surprise.

tolerance?

The Flemish Interest is avidly opposing anti-racism concerts, taking the events as a personal insult. No further comment necessary.

Since when was Mechelen a noisy place at night? Take me to your party!

earth-shaking

"The U.S. Geological Survey estimates there are 500,000 detectable earthquakes in the world each year, 100,000 of which can be felt and 100 of which cause damage." You'd think Californians would be working hardest on preparing for the big one, but it's a Buffalo-based company in upstate New York that's developed a "silicon-fluid-filled damper...about 20 inches long and as thick as a pop can, [that] can dissipate 15,000 pounds of force, the equivalent of 20 car shock absorbers." It's already used in the Bay Bridge and Triborough Bridge. It's amazing that such a small thing can absorb so much force.

The earth is always threatening to turn on us. Remember all those forest fires that plague California and the four corners? They're already increasing in frequency rapidly because of global warming. When I'm finally done with my education, will I have a Cali to come back to?!

scofflaw diplomats in new york

Parking in Manhattan can easily cost $20 per hour. So being a diplomat must be sweet: "Between November 1997 and the end of 2002, diplomats accumulated more than 150,000 unpaid parking tickets in New York, racking up $18 million in unpaid fines.

Based on statistics supplied by the city, the report said the worst offenders during that period were Kuwait, which averaged 246.2 unpaid tickets per diplomat per year, followed by Egypt, with 139.6; Chad, with 124.3; and Sudan, with 119.1.

Twenty-two countries averaged zero unpaid tickets per year, according to the study, including Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates."

much ado about nothing

Anyone who thinks that America can operate in its current state without its illegal immigrants is an utter fool. So why not let the status quo continue and save the nation some money to educate immigrant children, etc.? Oh, yes, because people want to be re-elected by a nation of fools.

We could also save some money for the people who nearly died for us in wars not all of us supported. A good half to three-quarters of the homeless in San Francisco are veterans of the Vietnam War, if I recall the figures I was told at a shelter correctly. And now the young people who served as recently as in the Iraq war have no place to go. How can we send them off to a war of questionable motivation and then drop them back in the US with nothing but nightmares of the horrors they went through?

Also of interest: "In the United States, a full 42 percent identify themselves first as Christians and second as Americans." From an article about how Muslims are actually doing better than before in Europe.

hearing loss

By the time you've reached your twenties, you've lost your ability to hear very high frequencies, and nobody thought to take advantage of that until now. The possibilities! But it's disturbing to me as a musician that my hearing is already going, particularly since I expose my unprotected ears regularly to the loudest acoustic instrument in the world. How will I detect that the ninth overtone of that bell over yonder is five cents too low?

failure to launch

I watched Failure To Launch on the way to the US, and a gorgeous girl with a Cyrillic passport sitting next to me bore a startling resemblance to Kit (Zooey Deschanel), right down to her outfit. The movie made sense in the US. But I wonder if it would fly in Belgium or just leave people offended.