The thing I hate most about the NY Times is their smug tone. I get the impression that more editorial capital is expended on maintaining the image of accuracy than on actually achieving it. Everything is presented as if it's coming down from Mt Sinai, but every time I read a story on a subject I actually know something about, I find it's full of inaccuracies, biased viewpoints, or just plain crap.
I never have that problem with the NY Post. I know it's full of crap to begin with, so I'm not disposed to take its veracity for granted. Not being saddled with the Time's noble pose, the tabloid often goes straight to the heart of matters that are not "fit to print", but are really more apropos than what passes for news. The Voice once call Post cartoonist Sean Delonis a "monster from the id" (Forbidden Planet reference) and that might be said of the paper as a whole. This story actually did provide a little information, which sparks doubts about the image being projected of Elian's "surrogate mother". I'm starting to wonder exactly how many children are being abused in this affair. The Post did make one concession to good taste, or more likely expediency; in the paper, this article was accompanied by a nice photo of Marisleysis sucking on a popsicle.
(Oh yeah, the Post doesn't make you sign in, either.)

SNAFU @ area 51 pic site

The shittin' web site at the web address published by the NYT yesterday for aerial photos of area 51 has been down since I posted it.
Thanks for D.F.s comment with link to a Yahoo news story on possible reasons why.

the coelacanth has been added to endangered species list.

The “Full Cleveland” as I remember understanding it from a guy I knew who grew up in St.Louis (Missouri folks need someone to look down on) is it’s merely the conspicuous matching of white belt and white shoes in male attire. However there are several tack-ons associated with the phenomenon. As per Alex Wilson (of Detroit) “It’s always better if the belt and shoes can be shiny like patent leather (but not leather) or even the wet look”. It is the ubiquitous accessory to the leisure suit (preferably one in tan or light blue with darker same color contrast stitching) with open collar (no tie) and also as per Alex , gold chains. Alex add’s “The sporting party can be characterized as a used car salesman type”. My favorite sighting is TV’s Herb Tarlich of WKRP Cincinnati. Radio spot salesman Herb sported the look all throughout the series and I recall he once mentioned that he had to go to a special golf pro-shop in Kentucky to get one particular model leisure suit. Alex mentioned he found a couple of links which bear out his points, although I couldn’t find them. I spoke today with my brother just to make sure I had it right too.

Also looking for Area 51.

wasnt someone talking about absinthe awhile back?

Here's two links to blogs covering the big DC ruckus set for tomorrow, April 16th. The first is from the Monkeyfist folk, and I don't know who this second one is by, but they seem similarly aligned. You've got to love the anarchist soccer league challenging world bank and IMF leaders to a high stakes game of football.

If you should know this, you probably already do, but just in case: Diti's opening is tonight at the Boesky gallery. (Is there a jpeg we could post? Steve?)

What's the deal with Blogger? Has it been down lately?

looks like I can add kottke to the small list of sites to which I have made some modest (and I mean modest,) anonymous, contribution. Check out the April 12th entry where he gives the results of a question he asked about the name for a monochromatic style of dress. I supplied the incorrect but favorite answer. Now if only I had a page I wasn't embarassed about, I might have gotten a link out of that from the mighty jason kottke.

Sixty-fifth anniversary of the Great Dust Storm.

Where's Chuck?

Drop out today, avoid the June rush.Art Strike 1990-1993 There still may be time...........

drat fink's post from feed yesterday made me think of this poem by Auden. Must have been the growing gills bit, and the compression of intimacy. (Today, I fear the gay interpretation would take precedence.) I'm very much in symapthy with these critiques, but also less pessimistic. Many cultural spaces have disappeared, but we've always managed to find something new and unexpected in the vacuum.

This I got by listening, so no links to match up with this anouncement, but : WFMU radio DJ Kenny G has a guest on his show Tues evening 8-11. The guests name eludes me but he curated the the audio instalation portion @ whitney 2nd 1/2 20 c. show. They will feature fluxist music and in particular Charlotte Morman. Best know as the nude cellist who sometimes wore a Nam June Paik TV Bra. More good radio!

Thanks for allowing me a new venue to air out my ravings. I have been feeding on heavily, and enjoying immensely, the links and diaries all of you have been posting. Learning a lot, relearning some more. I realize my postings are not too cheerful. I have one more to add, and then I would like to send some archives (Waveland Miss. was archive)to bring everyone up to snuff with this little parallel universe from which I come. Then, I hope to make that effort which amounts to descriptions of less death and bigotry, more smiley faces. Unrelated, but still, I was overpaid some for the last two weeks and instead of hording the windfall went out and upgraded my budget PCU with more RAM. I've always wanted more RAM than I could use, instead of just barely enough. Went from 32megs to 128, and zing, does it make a difference

(haiku for alex)

A wandering path...
only my grinding footsteps
and the birds' silence

though somewhat resembling bad poetry generated in my youth, the haiku generator can become addictive, at least for 10 minutes, hoping for a good one, before you never want to go back...

we toasted terrence with some champagne (egly rose grand cru) last night - decided it just might be time to break out the jungle wine...?


tonight
nothing to write

but this

> Last night (Monday, April 3) at 2:30 AM Terence McKenna took his last > breath and crossed over. He was surrounded by those he loved, although he > didn't leave this plane until everyone had fallen asleep. Christie was by > his side. > > In Dec. 1999 at Esalen Terence said: > > "Everything is a blessing and everything comes as a gift. And I don't > regret anything about the situation I find myself in. If psychedelics > don't ready you for the great beyond, then I don't know what really does. > And we're all under sentence of 'moving up' at some point in our lives. > > I have an absolute faith that the universe prefers joy and distills us with > joy. That is what religion is trying to download to us, and this is what > every moment of life is trying to do-if we can open to it. And we > psychedelic people, if we could secure that death has no sting, we would > have done the greatest service to suffering intelligence that can be done. > > And I feel that death is close, and I feel strong because of this > (psychedelic) community and these people and plants that it rests on, and > the ancient practices that it rests on, and I am full of hope, not only for > my own small problems, but for humanity in general." >

Yes, we were down for a few hours this morning. Nothing serious (thank goddess.) I guess I really need to cache a static version of the site every so often so that I can at least serve up something when the database goes down. I'll get right on it:) Cheers to the amazing folk at Hurricane Electric for responding promptly to the very rare instances of problems on their machines.

I noticed it was down at about 9:20 am; anyone have an earlier time?

OK, I've created a few new sections here on the inside. I wrote a little note in SystemNews about this. Basically I'm just experimenting. I copied Bill's piece from yesterday into its own section (creatively named "bill") and I'm hoping that he keeps posting random interesting bits there. We are still working on a more focused external page for him, but you'll see that when we get something up.

I've had the pleasure recently (thanks to Bill) of communicating with another Jim - Jim Louis. He is a sort of pioneer in this medium that we are all experimenting with here. Since May of '97 he has been publishing via email a series of short pieces describing his life in Louisianna, under the title: e.mail from NOLA. The publishing has been to a very circumscribed audience, and we're looking in to how we can expand that. There are some issues with the extreme verite (names, events, ect.) of these pieces, so for the time being we are picking up this really great series, but only on the "inside" of the site here. For now, guests won't see it. Jim will make further decisions down the road. In any case, I have the good fortune to have received a (huge) hard copy of the entire 3 year run, and this stuff is very good. You can all judge for yourself, of course, as they come in, but this is the sort of personal journalism that I think the web is all about. Very thoughtful stuff. Enjoy.

News about how absinthe works. via honeyguide

Finita La Comedia, Occidentalis Technicus Neo Barbarus

This post now resides in the Bill section.

The april edition of spark is out. If you've never heard of spark then join the club, because I hadn't either. Mr. Barbelith says spark is an "example of what I want the new barbelith to achieve." That's some pretty good praise. Maybe this is the cool professional level on line magazine that everyone's been waiting for?

hmmm. is this a paradox or is it "apples and oranges" (mutually exclusivity)? i understand the disconnect but i thought it interesting nonetheless. advocates of open source coding are likely strong supporters of privacy rights. why is transparency called for in one arena and not the other? discuss.

drudge report ran with same pix as dmtree.