Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Last-Minute Halloween Costume Ideas (3:39 pm)
This Jossip.com post about how to “Dress Up As Your Favorite Media Meanie” cracked me up.
I laughed especially hard upon reading these costume ideas for dressing up like evil media queens:
ANNA WINTOUR
How to do it: Purse your lips and practice your cruel smile and inability to provide positive reinforcement. Have one of your friends pose as your assistant and spend the evening berating her while simultaneously pretending she doesn’t exist. Refuse to be seen with fat people. Speak softly, with a self-taught British intonation. Be prepared to repeat the phrase, “I already told you, I’m not wearing a mask.”
Props: Brown bob, designer sunglasses, fur coat (Bonus for red paint splattered on by angry PETA protesters).
BONNIE FULLER
How to do it: Tote around that book of hers you’ve been using as a coaster; find yet-to-ruin magazines (like, say, The New Yorker) cross out all the editorial and just write “SEX.” Be prepared to convince people why Us Weekly or Star magazine is a relevant contribution to the cultural lexicon. Become extremely uncomfortable when asked to reiterate your stance on a public figure’s right to a private life.
Props: The aforementioned coaster-slash-book, understated devil horns/pitchfork, urine-infused coffee.
DAVID HAUSLAIB
How to do it: For this costume, four-hour haircuts are essential, as are fake tans and high-pitched girlish giggles. Wear tight clothing, excessive amounts of cologne and fancy shoes. Slather your hair with gel to create an effortless look that says “I didn’t just get a four-hour haircut.” Speak exclusively in emoticons. Gesticulate wildly with your hands and stand in such a way that it accentuates your torso. Avoid normal social interactions with your hard-working staff in favor of one-word emails sent from your Blackberry wireless handheld.
Props: Man-purse, Blackberry, a dog-eared copy of Field & Stream.
posted by Anna Schneider | start the discussion
Can You Hear Me Now, or Should We Throw Another Fundraiser? (1:42 pm)
Did phone company executives try to gain Senator Rockefeller’s support for legislation to immunize telecoms from lawsuits alleging violations of wiretapping laws? Did they succeed? From the New York Times:
Executives at the two biggest phone companies contributed more than $42,000 in political donations to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV this year while seeking his support for legal immunity for businesses participating in National Security Agency eavesdropping.
The surge in contributions came from a Who’s Who of executives at the companies, AT&T and Verizon, starting with the chief executives and including at least 50 executives and lawyers at the two utilities, according to campaign finance reports.
The money came primarily from a fund-raiser that Verizon held for Mr. Rockefeller in March in New York and another that AT&T sponsored for him in May in San Antonio.
Mr. Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, emerged last week as the most important supporter of immunity in devising a compromise plan with Senate Republicans and the Bush administration.
… Mr. Rockefeller received little in the way of contributions from AT&T or Verizon executives before this year, reporting $4,050 from 2002 through 2006. From last March to June, he collected a total of $42,850 from executives at the two companies.
This certainly looks suspicious. But things aren’t as they appear, according to the telecoms’ defenders:
A spokeswoman for AT&T, Claudia B. Jones, said contributions from its executives related to Mr. Rockefeller’s role on the Senate Commerce Committee, not immunity or other questions before... read more
posted by Intern | start the discussion
Lead Toys for Tots (1:40 pm)
Lead paint in toys? No worries. Tainted food? Meh.
The New York Times reported yesterday that the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Nancy A. Nord—you guessed it, a Bush appointee—objected to Congress giving the agency more money to better protect consumers.
From the Times:
Ms. Nord opposes provisions that would increase the maximum penalties for safety violations and make it easier for the government to make public reports of faulty products, protect industry whistle-blowers and prosecute executives of companies that willfully violate laws.
Hmm, it’s hard to believe that Nord, a former lawyer at Eastman Kodak and an official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, would put business before consumers.
Fortunately, the U.S. Senate today adopted sweeping reforms for the consumer agency, despite Nord’s objections.
In future news, Nord plans to rename the agency the Screw Over Consumers Commission.
posted by Sanhita Sinharoy | 4 comments
Fake Vampire Teeth May Actually Poison your Blood (1:25 pm)
Add another item to the list of product recalls from China. “Ugly Teeth” were pulled from the shelves today because, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), “The surface paint on the teeth contains excessive levels of lead.” (In other trick-or-treating news, the CPSC also recalled Halloween Skull Pails filled with candy a few weeks ago.)
Tainted products like “Ugly Teeth” continue to pop up each week, but what seems to be ignored are the “Chinese workers dying to dispose of millions of tons of our toxic crap.” Terry Allen wrote about the boatloads of toxic e-waste the United States dumps into China each year. And if you thought lead-painted teeth were scary, how about exposing yourself each day “to brain-damaging, lung-burning, carcinogenic, birth-defect-inducing toxins such as lead, mercury, cadmium and bromated flame retardants…as well as to dioxin at levels up to 56 times World Health Organization standards.” Let’s not forget that “some 82 percent of children under 6 around Guiyu have lead poisoning.” Now that’s scary.
By Becki Sholl
posted by Intern | 1 comment
Monday, October 29, 2007
More Mieville (10:54 pm)
I was happy to see last week that China Mieville’s essay, “Floating Utopias,” (that we excerpted from Evil Paradises: Dreamworlds of Neoliberalism a couple months ago) got a new life on the Web thanks to a link from the always interesting folks at 3 Quarks Daily, who in turn inspired a link from the estimable Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber. Turnabout being fair play and all, I thought I should point any possible Mieville fanatics out there to this interview with China that 3 Quarks put up last week and, for those who have read China’s incredible Bas-Lag anti-trilogy, Henry’s consideration of the books’ implications for politics and fantasy for n+1 a year or so ago. (There’s spoilers in it, so if you haven’t read Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and Iron Council, you should hold off on clicking on that second link until you have remedied that gaping literary lacunae. And you should remedy it immediately: You won’t be disappointed.)
posted by Brian Cook | start the discussion
F.E.M.AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! RUN FOR THE HILLS! (5:00 pm)
True or False:
An arm of the federal government staged a fake news conference last week, complete with staff members posing as reporters who slow-pitched friendly questions to their boss.
No, friends, this is not a fictional scenario from the latest Orwellian knock-off — if you guessed true, pat yourself on the back (or run for Canada)! According to the New York Times, the wonderful folks at FEMA held a faux news conference on Tuesday to respond to Wildfires raging across Southern California:
The Federal Emergency Management Agency staged a fake news conference this week, with agency staff officials, pretending to be reporters, peppering [John P. “Pat” Philbin, who is now the FORMER director of FEMA’s external affairs] with decidedly friendly questions about the response to the California fires, the Department of Homeland Security acknowledged Friday….
The questions from the staff were posed after FEMA gave reporters only 15 minutes notice for a news conference on Tuesday, meaning that other than television camera crews, no reporters showed up before questioning began. A toll-free telephone line was provided so reporters could listen in, but it was not set up to allow questions.
As a result, staff members asked Mr. Johnson a series of friendly questions like, “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” and, “What lessons learned from Katrina have been applied?”
Mr. Johnson gave no indication that the questions came from his own staff.
“I’m very happy with FEMA’s response so far,” Mr. Johnson said in response to one... read more
posted by Anna Schneider | start the discussion
Friday, October 26, 2007
Combatting—Not Dismissing—Racism (5:00 pm)
Last week Dr. James Watson, founder of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Long Island and Nobel Prize-winning biologist for his work with DNA, was featured in an interview in the Sunday Times Magazine of London. Here’s how the AP explained what he had to say.
The response was predictable, as were the headlines.
Nobelist’s Race Comments Spark Outrage
In the United States, the Federation of American Scientists said it was outraged that Watson “chose to use his unique stature to promote personal prejudices that are racist, vicious and unsupported by science.”
And Watson’s employer said he wasn’t speaking for the Cold Spring Harbor research facility, where the board and administration “vehemently disagree with these statements and are bewildered and saddened if he indeed made such comments.”
The mainstream American media has gotten quite used to covering these stories recently. The formula is quite simple: explain what he said and provide context if it doesn’t dilute the offensiveness of the comments, ask other people what they thought of the... read more
posted by Intern | 2 comments
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Raging Bulls (12:37 pm)
MSNBC put up an fascinating (but brief) story about six elephants that were “electrocuted in a drunken rampage” on Tuesday. Such grisly incidences are becoming commonplace:
Elephants are known to have a taste for rice beer brewed by tribal communities in India’s northeast. Four wild elephants died in similar circumstances in the region three years ago. …
“The increasing man-elephant conflict following the shrinkage in their habitat due to the growing human population is giving us nightmares,” said Pradyut Bordoloi, a former forest and environment minister for Assam.
I’ve been interested in elephant/human conflicts since the New York Times published an article on elephant social psychology last October. Human encroachment is wreaking havoc on the species’ unique social structures, which is causing violent and divisive problems among dwindling elephant communities around the world:
All across Africa, India and parts of Southeast Asia, from within and around whatever patches and corridors of their natural habitat remain, elephants have been striking out, destroying villages and crops, attacking and killing human beings. In fact, these attacks have become so commonplace that a new statistical category, known as Human-Elephant Conflict, or H.E.C., was created by elephant researchers in the mid-1990’s to monitor the problem.
Elephant social systems are intricate and signify higher levels of consciousness—the types of complex socialization and morality that has traditionally been solely associated with primates. The increase in rogue elephant attacks and incidents like Tuesday’s drunken rampage in India are indicative of the decay of elephant societies (emphasis mine):
Typically,... read more
posted by Erin Polgreen | 1 comment
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