Freedom of Speech

For once, a post with no attempt at humor. A link to a Wired story about a blogger who's crusading for greater freedom of expression, a basic human right, in Iran, where he and other bloggers who express their political opinions are punished and sometimes imprisoned for simply blogging.

But last June the Iranian judiciary put in place a more sophisticated filtering system that blocks Iranian access to political Web sites and blogs. (Derakhshan's traffic immediately dropped by half.) Then in September, officials got serious, arresting, interrogating, and even jailing some of the country's bloggers, according to human rights groups. Two of those writers, Mojtaba Saminejad and Mohammad Reza Nasab Abdolahi, remain in prison.

I probably don't even realize the full value of the freedoms I enjoy, even as I enjoy them.

Also, it is frightening to think that a country has nuclear capability and the desire to oppress public opinion at the same time.

Clarification: Handholding Rollerbladers Wearing Earphones Are the Devil

The kind without headphones are merely lesser dark angels of some sort.

(Just got back from a bike ride on the Lake Shore bike trail thing again.)

Also: groups of people doing tai chi look cool and synchronized and zen. Individual people doing tai chi look crazy (until you put them into context), or at least, they look like people communicating with semaphores, minus the flags.

Even Spammers Take a Day Off

This morning, for the first time in recent memory, my e-mail box was empty - no legit e-mails, and, more notably, no spam whatsoever. Usually there are at least one or two junkers that have popped up overnight, but not this time.

It might be random, but it made me wonder if it had anything to do with the holiday weekend. Maybe spammers around the country are chilling out in the backyard, roasting weenies, sprinkling paprika on the potato salad, and giving the "HOT PRON NOW !!!1!!1!!" e-mails a break.

(Trying to find hard data on which days of the year account for the highest and lowest volumes of spam, and some explanation thereof, but...nothing helpful. If you google even what seem like specific key phrases related to this phenomenon, you get an avalanche of useless links.)

I'm King of the Blogiverse! Royal Bloggers Hit the Keyboards.

Former King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia has been building buzz online for three years with his colorful blog, which touches on a wide range of subjects.

Today at 82, he is Cambodia's lion in winter, cancer-stricken and undergoing treatment in China, his former place of exile where he still has a home. Yet he's as sharp-tongued and loquacious as ever. The man who grew up on cowboy movies has taken to the world wide web with equal gusto.

However charming and open he may be in the blogosphere, however, let us not forget that he backed the bloody Khmer Rouge until they turned on him, is blamed by some for much of what has gone wrong with his people, and has irritated the current Prime Minister by making bitter criticisms of Cambodian society.

If only some of the young, stylish, hip, and non-tainted royals would keep blogs. One of those cute-ish Spanish princes, or a Danish princess, or the frequently cute Zara Phillips. But not Prince Charles, because, really, who cares what he thinks about anything?

Inexplicably MacGyver

Patty and Selma Bouvier are probably choking on their smokes right now.

Bud Cort Haunts My Blog

Bud Cort, who so memorably played the morbid teenager in 1971's Harold and Maude, and who made a brief appearance in my blog a short while back, also starred in the recent Wes Anderson/Owen Wilson/Bill Murray picture "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," and took part in an interview with DVD Talk recently. He speaks of having his clothes stolen from his hotel room in Italy during the shoot, being tired of Harold and Maude questions, his longtime friendship with Bill Murray, the fact that Anderson wrote the Zissou part especially for him, and his fervent love for my blog. Except that last part. That's a self-aggrandizing lie.

Hand-holding Rollerbladers Are The Devil

I just finished up a lovely three hour bike ride along the Lake Shore bike trail thingee, and I feel exhausted and refreshed at the same time. It's so much fun on weekends to see all the people out enjoying the beautiful greenery in the park. There are cyclists, runners, and walkers all over the trails, and people playing soccer, tennis, basketball, and volleyball everywhere. Families grilling hot dogs and hamburgers, people doing tai chi, people fishing off the docks and from boats, jetskiers foaming up the coastline, kayakers, and people doing frisbee and agility tricks with their dogs. I've lived here a full month as of today and while I sometimes still feel like a stranger trying to fit in where I don't belong, there are moments when I feel like a happy fit in a crowd, finding just the right places to pass, veer off, and maintain momentum. One thing is for sure: handholding rollerblade couples are Satan's agents of cycling accidents, and I hate them all. Happy Memorial Day Weekend, Chicago! Big kiss.

Dozens of Dry-Heaving Reasons I'll Never Take a Cruise

My Grandma loves cruises. She's taken my mom and my aunt on several, to Alaska, which looked breathtaking in photos, and the Caribbean, where I've never been and would love to visit. Grandma has even invited/bribed me to take one with her, which I might consider, but then headlines like this keep popping up:

Vomiting Virus Hits Cruise Ship.

80% of passengers on a Mediterranean cruise were sickened by an intense 24 hour virus which kept them nauseated and vomiting, and, by request, confined to their cabins. As if people doubled over with the pukes would feel much like sashaying down the lido deck in search of the next buffet.

The company has said that passengers who had been forced to isolate themselves would be conpensated.

Hopefully not with a voucher for a free vomit, I mean voyage, down the Danube.

No Way, CyberSnotHead!

Can Overuse of Media Stifle Emotional Maturity?

But Then, So Does Katie Holmes

Monagan Has "Impossible" Role as Cruise's Lover. Let's hope she performs with more convincing enthusiasm than the real one.

I Remember the '80's

The Breakfast Club cast will reunite on MTV, and yet Billy Idol doesn't know when to call it quits.

Five Crunches Equals One Hit Off the Pipe

=

Ozzie Says He Gets High Now By Working Out

Random Animal Stories Roundup

There's probably a Grimm's fairy tale to be cobbled together from these recent news items involving a manatee, a horse, a long-lost cat, an elephant, and a swimming bear. Or a Disney movie, where they all talk, get lost together, and then find their way home through interspecies cooperation.

(The elephant is from the Korean restaurant story, where pachyderms rampaged and destroyed a BBQ joint, which is now garnering more business by being called the "Restaurant Where Elephants Have Been." Yummy.)

The Archimedes I Know Would LOVE The Whole Particle Accelerator Part of the Story

A particle accelerator is being used to reveal the long-lost writings of the Greek mathematician Archimedes, work hidden for centuries after a Christian monk wrote over it in the Middle Ages.

Highly focused X-rays produced at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center were used last week to begin deciphering the parts of the 174-page text that have not yet been revealed. The X-rays cause iron in the hidden ink to glow.

"One of the delightful things is we don't know what it's going to say," said William Noel, head of the Archimedes Palimpsest project at the Walters Art Gallery.

Bella Rossa Is So Many Things, And She Smells Like Hot Rubber

It just occurred to me to do a few clicks of research on my own name and see if there's anything cool or prophetic or creepy related to the name Bella Rossa. And:

Bella Rossa is a pretty flower.







Bella Rossa is a pretty necklace.








Bella Rossa is a hot motorcycle:

"This'll be the eleventh Spring La Bella Rossa and I have been together. Every one has been glorious. I know the drill. By now so does she. I'll install her fully charged battery and then roll her out into the sunshine. Then I'll give her new plugs, check her tire pressure, spritz her chain, turn on her "choke" and push the starter. "

I Hope So

I went home to Indiana yesterday to hug my parents and transfer some stuff and let my mom buy me dry goods at Big Lots. Also visited with my sister and niece, and my brother and his wife. My sister-in-law, who herself just arrived from China to start a new life with my brother, told me I looked happier since I moved to the city. "Your spirit is brighter."

I hope so. I think it will be more so when I feel a little more self-sufficient and independent.

To that end, I will now soak up a little sun on a walk to the store. It's a beautiful morning in Chicago.

Happy Birthday, Dear Morphine, Happy BirthD___zzzzzzzz

Everyone's favorite opiate turns 200 this year!

Let's Get Together and Feel All Right

It's Friday night in the city. I am flush with nannying money, and thus have a fridge stocked with fresh french rolls, cream cheese, pickles, and beer. ParTAY.

It's chilly but I like the fresh air so my windows are open, and so far tonight I've heard some Mexican party music, something that sounded Indian, something with Russian lyrics, and now, "One Love /People Get Ready."

Duh: Senator Regrets Making Hitler Comment

Don't people usually regret making Hitler comments? He's a rather polarizing, hot-button figure.

"Referencing Hitler was meant to dramatize the principle of an argument, not to characterize my Democratic colleagues," Santorum, the No. 3 Republican in the GOP leadership in the Senate, said of his remarks Thursday.

Seriously, dude. Have you never heard of Godwin's Law?

"This states that if one participant in a discussion calls another a Nazi or compares them to Hitler, the thread has degenerated into personal abuse and there is no possibility of further rational discussion, the thread is therefore dead and no one should post any more messages in it. If anyone ignores this and does continue posting, they should not be replied to."

Greater Copenhagen Commuter Rail Network. Better Than Any Other Greater Copenhagen Rail Network.

"This page shows the real-time position of trains in the Greater Copenhagen commuter rail network. The trains are colour-coded to show how on time or late they are."

Cool.

Gatorade + Whisky + Camera = Drunk Triathlon Avedon? No.

Woo! I just had my first drunk person on the train experience this morning. On the Red Line, at 9:30 a.m., a middle aged man with a bag over his shoulder, a camera in one hand, and a plastic bottle of Gatorade in the other. Except it's not Gatorade, unless they're making a whiskey blend these days.

Sits down in one of those center-facing seats, right in front of me, REEKING of alcohol, sipping and muttering, and then playing with his camera like he's going to start shooting pictures. Mutters some more, including the term "bimbos." I put my shades back on and am looking in the window reflection at the blonde lawyer looking lady directly across from him, who is, like me, hardly moving a muscle but watching him very closely.

Next stop? We both leap for the doors. Not sure where blonde lawyer lady went, but I simply jumped into the next car. The urban adventure continues!

Missouri Dog Hailed as Hero

I know I'm a sucker, but I love these kinds of stories.

A collie/golden retriever farm dog saved her owner by dragging the wife to the spot where the husband was trapped under a tractor.

"The award does not honor trained rescue dogs but "a companion animal that's well-treated and has bonded with the family, so they somehow know what to do and step up to the plate when there's trouble," said Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles...

When she was let out, Shannon bolted from the door, dragging Peggy Mandry through the pasture and into the wood.

"I was bleeding, I began to get weaker. I reached a point where there was either going to be a minor miracle or this was it for me," said Ted Mandry, 65. "At that point, my wife and my dog came to the edge of the gully.

For her heroic act, Shannon was treated to an airplane flight to Los Angeles (she got to sit in the cabin instead of being stowed in cargo) and a stay at a beachside hotel.

She also received a plaque from the SPCA, a year's supply of dog food and a "goodie bag" filled with treats.

"She's loving the attention," Mandry said. "How do you get a dog back in a farm after getting the star treatment in Los Angeles?""

Concern That Tattoos Are Losing Non-Conformist Appeal

Well, yeah, even stupid whitebread me has one, now, so they've likely lost their rebellious outcast sexiness.

"For a lot of younger people, tattooing has become part of life, like buying a pair of shoes," said Spider Webb, 60, who has published books on the art of tattooing since the 1970s. "It's like computers, no one used to have them, now everyone has; no one (they knew) had tattoos, now everyone has."

When a guy named Spider Webb calls something passe, you'd best consider it passe.

If You Love Something, Set it Free. If You REALLY Love It, Clone It!

$50 will stash Fluffy or Fido's DNA away for safe keeping, should you ever want to decide that the millions of adorable, lovable strays at thousands of shelters around the country are just not as good as a "replica" of your own pet. Savings and Clone at your service.

Silliness, this is. Sheer silliness. Clones have been shown to vary greatly from their originals, with different numbers of teeth, different fur patterns, different allergies, different food preferences, different personalities. I just hope people understand that a clone is not a replica, and rather unneccessary, and not guaranteed to age normally or be healthy in general.

For good measure, a few extra links, and an urging: Don't buy a dog or cat from a pet store. Adopt a stray from your local shelter. They will give you years of love and companionship, and you'll save a life!

Humane Society of the United States.

Tails A'Waggin.org (a no-kill shelter back home in Indiana).

Does This Bacteria Make My Butt Look Big?

Certain types of intestinal bacteria may interfere with a hormone that regulates metabolism and weight.

"Gordon and Backhed base their claim on a study of two groups of mice, one exposed to normal intestinal microbes and another raised in a germ-free bubble. The germ-free mice had 42 percent less body fat, even though they were fed one-third more calories. When the animals were inoculated with bacteria from their normal counterparts, the bubble mice increased their body fat by 57 percent in just two weeks."

In my case, I'm sure it's much more a case of brie and brulee in the intestines that contribute to whatever chub I may be trailing.

Like You Care

My kitten is still freaked out by my bare feet. I think she thinks they are little pink monsters or something.

If You Misspell It, They Will Come: Cybersquatting of the Sneakiest Kind

I've been bothered/puzzled by this for a long time, especially yesterday when I went to visit Netflix and mis-typed the URL and got a site very similar, with similar services, but certainly not the place I was looking for.

We had a whole conversation at the old ISP where I interned about how the powers that be decided it was a good idea to keep ahead of the misspellers, and register tons of variations on their name, using each potential mistake to redirect web surfers to the real site, to keep people from getting lost out there in the digital frontier.

Of course, as it turns out, entire businesses thrive on slipped fingers on the keyboards, and people register domain names that are ALMOST the one you're looking for, except totally not. Sometimes they are simply shopping sites, and sometimes they are smutty gross stuff you wouldn't want your kid looking at.

The long arm of the law catches up with piggish porntrapreneurs who register multiple misspellings of popular sites with the intention of misleading people to porn and other commercial sites.

Some dirtbag operating out of a hotel in Hollywood, Florida, was making millions of dollars by tricking children into accessing porn websites and pop-ups.

"As detailed in the Complaint, investigation by the Postal Inspection Service revealed that if a person were to inadvertently access either “WWW.BOBTHEBIULDER.COM” or “WWW.TELTUBBIES.COM,” the person would be presented with advertisements for free access to pornography; as described below, these advertisements included numerous high-quality images of hard-core pornography, including explicit photographs..."

When I Stepped out into the Bright Sunlight from the Darkness of the Movie House, I Saw That I Was Old

Oh, Ponyboy.

Only 38 and looking like Ernest P. Worrell. To quote a fellow poster on a messageboard (who was quoting Dave Chapelle, who was portraying Rick James), "Cocaine is a helluva drug."

Either that, or all those rumbles at the drive-in for the honor of Cherry Valance break down free radicals faster than a soy smoothie can replenish them.

The Amazing, the Glowy, the Usually Working Altair 8800! Now With 256 Bytes of Memory!

The name of the rocket in the previous entry rang a bell in my head - did that rocket share the same name with that early computer? Close. The rocket is an Altairis. The computer was an Altair. But since I'm here:

The January 1975 cover of Popular Electronics featured the first personal computer, the MITS ("Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems") Altair 8800.

"To enter programs or data, one set the toggle switches on the front. There was no keyboard, video terminal or paper tape reader. All programming was in the machine code of binary digits. The first Altairs came with only 256 bytes of memory; they also lacked output devices such as printers. Results of a program were indicated by the pattern of flashing lights on the front panel."

Geeks and hobbyists went nuts over this thing, and the computer industry started rolling.

Fly Me to the Moon

Tickets available now, only $150K for subrbital passenger rocket flight.

"Aera's tour package would include a week of spaceflight training in the Orlando area and Cape Canaveral, climaxing with a flight aboard the company's computer-controlled Altairis rocket to a height of more than 80 miles (128 kilometers). At that altitude, passengers would feel a few minutes of weightlessness and glimpse the curvature of the earth below the blackness of space. A parachute system would make for a soft landing at the end of the trip."

If there's a snack included, I am so there.

Other companies who want your space dollars: Virgin Galactic (oh, that wacky billionaire Richard Branson!) and Space Adventures.

Things I Appreciate/Enjoy About My New Home and Life

(The first in a series.)

#1 - Church bells every hour. Just distant enough to be soft and unexpected and pretty.

#2 - Long, deep bathtub.

#3 - When my head is below water in said tub, I can hear activity from the person or people in the apartment below me. Four electronic beeps (probably a microwave), an occasional radio.

#4 - Huge window in the bathroom. The sun streams in full-on right about the time I need to shower in the mornings.

(Yes, they may well all be this boring. "Things That Are Neat," by Ralph Wiggum.)

Yesterday's Train Was Full of Bears, and One Idiot

I hopped on a CTA train last night at about six, anticipating getting home at the usual time, but then the train kept getting more and more crowded. I was like "What's the deal? Where did all these people come from? Thank god I got a seat." I was still puzzled until a bunch of people in full Cubs regalia started squeezing into the car. DUH. Cubs game last night. People were headed to Wrigleyville. I got home about ten minutes later than usual, but, as I'm told, it's better than getting stuck on the train after the game, when lots of tipsy, jubilant (or morose, depending) fans crowd the rails. Um, go Cubs?

Scientists Create Self-Replicating Robots

Cornell researcher Hod Lipson holds the modular cubes used to make a self-replicating robot,
as well as small toy cubes he uses to illustrate the mechanism.

Don't be frightened. They're basically Legos with magnets inside them, capable of minimal data transfer. They're not coming for anyone named Sarah Conner, at least not yet. Mwah ha ha ha ha!

Missing the Point Entirely

"A county Republican chairman says his bid to head the state party was sabotaged because a letter falsely accused him of having been married six times. The right number, he says, is five."

Clearly six is a much larger, more offensive, and less Republican number than five.

Totally Random, and Probably Meaningless

I treated myself to a new shower curtain upon moving into my new apartment (my god, the luxury, who am I, Marie Antoinette?). It's a clear background with a colorful map of the world's nations, and each of the Unites States. While looking at it backwards (while inside the shower) I realized that "Utah" spelled backwards is "HATU."

Someday Our Children Will Blog on Mars

Emerging technology will create Martian atmosphere sufficient to sustain human life. Terraforming rocks. (So to speak.)

Sith Lords Command $627 Million in Lost Wages

Where are the Jedi knights when the American economy needs them? Saving some stupid bun-headed princess, I'm sure.

Screw You and Your Double Fudge Swirl!

Ice cream vendor punches boy in face. Vendor loses job. No mention of the fate of the Fudgesicle.

Gay Men Respond Differently to Pheremones

Brain differences may indicate a "biological basis of sexual preference." Oh, gosh, really? I thought men were gay because their mommies dressed them in pink and dominated their fathers, and because they wanted to complicate their lives by "choosing" to be gay. Well, shiver me timbers. Can we CC: this to that Jurassic battle axe Phyllis Schlafly?

I Left Indiana Just in Time

Fake Indiana police officer likes to frisk unsuspecting female motorists.

Birth of Black Hole Witnessed

And a million nerds worldwide sigh in ecstasy. Or, maybe that was just me.

Stray Dog Rescues Abandoned Kenyan Baby

And she's a really cute African mutt, too. Look at all the sweetness in her eyes.

"...if it happened the way it has been relayed, it is one of those amazing things that happens in life that defies human explanation," said a government official.

It does not defy human explanation. It's called the mothering instinct, and it's very powerful. Why is it that when a little blonde kid falls into a gorilla pit and is rescued by a female gorilla, we call the ape "almost human," and when a dog looks after a dumped baby girl it's called a "miracle," when really, those animals are just acting on the same instincts that should have kept that baby's parents from abandoning her in the first place?

People Used To Do This In The Last Town I Lived In

And nobody got arrested there!

Kentucky Man Charged with Drunken Horse Riding.

He Died With His Pajamas On

He also died of gangrene. King Tut, that is.

CTA Tattler: An All-CTA, All the Time Blog

Haw. The CTA Tattler is a blog devoted to all things Chicago Transit Authority. It's really cool.

"Her bladder now empty, she started to walk back through the car. Another passenger shouted out: "You filthy nasty bitch, you best get yer ass of this train...". My friend disembarked and the fate of the filthy nasty bitch remains a mystery. But we have the lingering odor to remind us of her and her dissatisfaction with CTA policies."

Hopefully I will have nothing similar to contribute, but then so far my schedule keeps me riding with the commuter crowd, and not the one a.m. drunk crowd.

Things I Observed on the Train Today

I am managing to find Chicago versions of people I know from back home on the train every time I ride. This morning I sat right in front of a woman who could successfully impersonate a former client of mine. Age, haircut, style, manner, bearing, taste in jewelry and clothing, choice of reading materials, the whole deal.

Also, I should get a Cubs hat?

The Virgin Mary Doesn't Drip Here Anymore

The Underpass Virgin Mary is no more. The city I claim as my own has enjoyed a cement wall stain, I mean visitation from the Holy Mother, for the last month or so. The faithful and possibly unemployed have been flocking to an underpass under the Kennedy Expressway to offer flowers and prayer, sometimes to the point of obstructing the usual flow of traffic in that area.

Today a Chicago man was arrested for painting the words "Big Lie" over the smudgy image, which inspired the faithful to then pray and mourn. Mourn. The loss of a water stain.

"The stain was likely the result of salt runoff, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation."

The cause of the stupidity that inspires this kind of religious devotion to a natural phenomenon has, of course, multiple causes.

In 1996, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to a bank in Clearwater, Florida, where an image said to resemble the Virgin Mary appeared as a function of the corrosion of building materials, until a teenage boy hurled a rock through the window.

The Skeptic's Dictionary on this phenomenon, which is known as pareidolia, "a type of illusion or misperception involving a vague or obscure stimulus being perceived as something clear and distinct."
Just for fun, a cognitive psychologist's academic web page about a cinnamon bun that looked like Mother Teresa.

Netflix Synchronicity

I rent a ton of DVD's from Netflix, which is cooler than cool. Wide range of movie choices (not like Blockbuster, where if you don't want the latest Vin Diesel thrill-omedy, you're pretty much SOL), dropoff at your mailbox, easy as pie.

I'm on the 8-at-a-time program, which keeps me pretty media-satiated. You can have a maximum of 500 titles in your queue at any time, and of course mine is usually at maximum. I go by friends' recommendations, online reviews, links from my own ratings, and so on.

What's interesting is that most of the time there is dense puzzle of 6 Degrees-type links among the movies I have stacked on top of my DVD player. For example, the other day I was watching "Harold and Maude," a strange and charming 1971 movie about the unlikely love that grows between an creepy, morbid teenage boy and a vivacious, youthful 80 year old woman. It's one of those movies I've seen in critics' "My 10 Favorite Movies" lists since I was 15 and desperately seeking a wider cultural range than was available in Indiana, urgently reading the Village Voice and other NYC based publications. I've probably put it on a "must see" list a million times and never could find the title.

Finally found it, got it, watched it, enjoyed it. Loved the elderly actress Ruth Gordon. Was mesmerized by the weirdo, pasty, middle-aged-while-still-young Bud Cort, and wondered what else he might have been in.

Halfway through the next movie selection, "But I'm a Cheerleader!", I was looking for information on the Incorrect Movie Database and found out that Bud Cort had grown from prematurely aged teen to actual middle aged person and was, in fact, playing the father of the lead character in "Cheerleader."

Yes, I do realize that all things are connected, and that Kevin Bacon is at the center of the universe, and that threads of relevance can be found anywhere a person is willing to look, but when things like that pop up without any such intention, it's just kind of cool.