drat fink

le carping

"America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. "

caught in the web

i had a dream about weblogging last night. wonder if my brain needs a few fresh inputs. went outside to put a pressed shirt in my van for some function i was to attend the next day and someone was shooting a movie on the street. thought it was low budget kidstuff but then i recognized a voice in the dark. the lighting was insufficient. they were literally shooting in the dark. my front door creaked open as i went to go inside and the guy behind the camera swung around to see where the noise was coming from. turns out it was kevin smith. he kind of glared at me for a moment and then turned back to what he was doing. and as i was going upstairs i thought about posting the encounter on my weblog. then i walked up one too many flights, and after retreating the key to my door didnt work. and while i was trying a bunch of different keys, my friend al who i havent seen in ten years shows up, smiley as usual. i was glad to see him but instead of embracing i hand him some boxes im holding and go back to work on the lock. i never do get in before waking up.

mini meme

blog hot or not

making a statement

the atlantic monthly's real state of the nation issue

salty dawgs

its gettin' salty in herre.

out to lunchin'

someone was murdered half a block from my apartment and i had to hear about it from my parents.

chalk lines

"Known as the "Sheetrock scandal" because tests determined that the substances were shredded Sheetrock, pool chalk or gypsum instead of cocaine and methamphetamines, the situation has been a major embarrassment to both the Dallas Police Department and the Dallas County district attorney's office."

"More than 80 cases have been thrown out against nearly 50 suspects, and the city faces an expected deluge of civil law suits for false imprisonment."

skid row houses

"The tenements and storefronts tucked along the border between the East Village and the Lower East Side will soon be in the shadows of four mammoth eight- to 14-story buildings. The historical Bowery skid row will get a major face-lift as the development of the long-planned Cooper Square Urban Renewal area finally commences in January. Earth movers are already poised at the first construction site, just below Houston Street, where developers Chrystie Venture Partners will start work after decades of halted planning and deliberation with the Cooper Square Committee."

it was them

guess its my turn to post alternets top ten conspiracy theories of 2002

north of the border

"At the outset the Bush policy was dominated by people whose expertise is not Asia but weapons proliferation. Now the lead role has reverted to Colin Powell and the diplomats. They have renounced "tailored containment" and forsworn military options so vociferously that Mr. Bush now sounds like Jimmy Carter. True, his motives for this show of restraint may be questionable — he doesn't want to distract attention from Job One in Iraq — but it's a welcome change from the gunslinger talk. We've also started paying more attention to North Korea's neighbors, whose cooperation is essential. Japan, Russia, China and especially South Korea, whose new president floated to power on a wave of anti-American sentiment, all believe Mr. Kim can be induced to sober up and maybe even join the world. Most important, we've agreed to "talk" to the North. (But not "negotiate." It's basically the difference between foreplay and sex.) Whether the Bush folks have come entirely to their senses is hard to tell, but Mr. Galucci describes them as "lurching in the right direction."