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Main page January 30, 2006Links for a lousy day: Insiders' weather forecast; Flu mystery; librarian makes FBI follow law...Under the weather today, just a few links here. (Not much interests me today but going back to bed. Only the weather link was written today.). (In the forecast below, pcpn is precipitation, qpf is how much -- Quantitative Precipitation Forecast; wna guidance is wave forecasting.) 1032 AM EST Tue Jan 31 2006 This one's out of Taunton, Mass., for Southern New England, including Boston and Providence and inevitably touching on eastern Connecticut and points due north at times. Where you are, "AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION" is the phrase to search, adding your city.
4. Belfast homeopathy results Why this matters: The government is sending the U.S. secretary of health and human services around to say you're on your own if bird flu arrives ("Every community will have to rely on its own resources... Every family needs a plan." Michael O. Leavitt told an overflow crowd of hundreds of Rhode Islanders at the Crowne Plaza hotel." (ProJo, Jan. 14. '06, reg. req. ) So this bit of history about the 1918 flu pandemic in a forum at Flu Wiki and elsewhere is worth looking at again: I did not lose a single case of influenza; my death rate in the pneumonias was 2.1%. The salycilates, including aspirin and quinine, were almost the sole standbys of the old school and it was a common thing to hear them speaking of losing 60% of their pneumonias.-Dudley A. Williams, MD, Providence, Rhode Island. It's from a book by American homeopath who married in New Zealander in the '90s and stayed there, Julian Winston; he died last June. I've got a copy of Dr. Williams' obit on my desk downtown. Gotta start someplace. We're on our own.
"The mystery of some people's rightness of intuition, the rarity of not just seeing into the actuality of what's going on, but then of doing the necessary thing at astonishing personal risk." Doc Searls and Jeneane Sessum also point to the Sharps' item, perhaps increasing the number of people who get infected by their substance.
A mild-mannered link at Infomaniac simply reads "photo blog", but behind it lies her real life: Southern Highlands Cam is a local blog about Cherokee County, N.C. and beyond. Liz retired to the mountains and "phones in" her Herald blog. Sweet. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 29, 2006Couple's daring rescues started a movementToday's Providence Journal A-1 centerpiece is a story for cynical times.
In June they will be only the second and third Americans honored by Israel as "Righteous Among the Nations" in the holocaust memorial park at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. This is our Flash slideshow about the Sharps, narrated by Journal columnist Mark Patinkin and created by projo.com multimedia designer Kathy DeVault. The html portion -- Mark's full story, a guestbook for the Sharps and links to more info about them -- is here, probably requiring Belo registration. Frank Carnevale and Tom Heslin also helped shaped the final package; Mike Foran, Beth Heaney and Donna McGarry had a hand in it, and Andrea Panciera cleared my path. (Disclosure: I produced this, but the Sharps' story is what's compelling and why I blog it.) The Sharps' work founded the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, which even today tries to prevent genocide in places like Darfur. Richard C. Campbell of UUSC shared with us historical photos and news clippings from the group's archives. (Update: UUSC has a blog: Hotwire, "a human rights weblog.") Every once in a while in life, if you're lucky, you get to be part of something unambiguously good. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 28, 2006World's 12 Best New Buildings; Keillor reviews 'American Vertigo'; Bit-Torrent how-to; 3D painted roomsNot a cube: The tower was built at a cost of over 130 million euro to house Barcelona's water company, Agbar, with three levels containing plants. The unusual feature of the project is the slightly curved form of the façades, which begin converging toward the tip of the tower at the 25th floor. This is why the elevators do not go beyond the 25th floor. The space in the inner cylinder is occupied by stairways, plants and two elevators which go up to the 35th floor, while the space formed between the two rings contains no supporting elements and can therefore be used for a wide variety of purposes, from offices to restaurants... Click on the photo to see it larger. What is it about Barcelona and architecture? It's like Gaudi still lives there. We are not our kitsch: Garrison Keillor, elegant storyteller and host of radio's Prairie Home Companion, reviews American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville, by Bernard-Henri Levy in tomorrow's Times book section. At 25, Alexis de Tocqueville wandered early America, and described what he saw. As a kid, I saw it through his eyes and 1831 became real to me. Unfortunately, Levy seems drawn to cartoon America, what Keillor calls a "classic Freaks, Fatties, Fanatics & Faux Culture Excursion." Levy visits modern America's junk and misses you and me and Keillor's baking-powder-biscuit-loving listeners . "...there's nobody here whom you recognize. In more than 300 pages, nobody tells a joke....this is a book about the French," he writes. He likes Savannah and gets delirious about Seattle, especially the Space Needle, which represents for him "everything that America has always made me dream of: poetry and modernity, precariousness and technical challenge, lightness of form meshed with a Babel syndrome, city lights, the haunting quality of darkness, tall trees of steel." O.K., fine. The Eiffel Tower is quite the deal, too. de T began by sailing from Le Havre, France, to Newport, where, ". . . we wandered about the town. It has 16,000 inhabitants, a magnificent harbour, newly fortified, tiny houses modeled one would say on the kitchen of Beaumont-la-Chartre, but so clean they resemble opera scenery. They are all painted. There is also a church whose bell tower is in a rather remarkable architectural style. I sketched it on Jules' album. We had been told that the women of Newport were noteworthy for their beauty; we found them extraordinarily ugly. This new race of people we saw bears no clear mark of its origin (n'a aucun caratere original); it's neither English, nor French, nor German; it's mixture of all the nations. This race is entirely commercial. In the small city of Newport there are 4 or 5 banks; the same is true in all the cities in the Union. . . ." Traveling America in the footsteps of de Tocqueville today would be a terrific book if Keillor wrote it, I suspect, but now Levy's gone and stepped on the title. Here's de T's Democracy in America, the book that Levy bounces off; his itinerary. and the map route. (He never went to Vegas, which lay in the desert's future). Second opinion: The Toronto Globe and Mail review starts off brushing Keillor's concerns aside, but then damns the book with, "Apparently no one edited this book, insuring that no one will understand it." Here's the first chapter of Levy's American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville. See what you think.
Many of my friends and co-workers have asked me how to get started on the non-stop bandwagon that is BitTorrent, without having to understand techie words like ’swarm’, ‘peer’, ’seed’ or ‘ratio’. So without further ado, I’d like to get to it. Fixed-point art: 3D painted rooms: "These rooms are painted so that, when looked at right, optical illusions will appear." I think the pairs of photos show how the rooms look from the "wrong angle" (odd) and the impressive illusions that can only be viewed from one spot. via digg. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 27, 2006Behind the Knight Ridder sale; Bird flu vaccine engineered? Davos; Weekend games; R.I. blog an award finalist; Critic in my soup; Bowie '69 videoSherman’s March: How Naples, Florida, money manager Bruce S. Sherman muscled Knight Ridder—the nation’s second-largest newspaper company—into putting itself up for sale. At American Journalism Review. 2:12 a.m. University of Pittsburgh scientists say they've genetically engineered an avian flu vaccine that has proven 100 percent effective in mice and chickens. Pittsburgh Tribune Review says human trials are next. Doing Davos: Covering the The World Economic Forum in Switzerland. "Every participant of the Annual Meeting – ranging from business leaders to political leaders, heads of NGOs, religious leaders academics and journalists – will be asked to join the Forum blog...All of the more than 2,000 participants, including presidents and prime ministers, will be asked to provide at least one posting for the blog." Here's the blog: Forumblog.org - The World Economic Forum Weblog Delving into Davos: The International Herald Tribune and The New York Time have a pack of blogging reporters there. Hamas victory rocks the crowd.
There's a buzz right now around fastr — a flickr game. "Fastr is a game that uses flickr images. It loads ten images that all share a common tag, one by one, and you guess what the tag is. When you guess right, the tag will turn blue. Then you can watch the pictures until the next set begins. The faster you guess, the more points you get. The points are reset every five minutes." This bored me. The thumbnails are too tiny to see what's going on in many of the images, and the tags only rarely make sense (unless you're looking at a set of roses).
The Awards are named after Dodger Sandy Koufax, one of the greatest lefty pitchers ever. Voting isn't open yet. Stay tuned. Critic in my soup, waiter: There's a rhythm to it. Get in the groove and you'd just know which table needs you, Frank. You sure you want to see this? 1969 David Bowie video. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 25, 20065 female Iraqi prisoners to be released; 101 dumb moments in business; new food; China the beautifulMonitor: US to release five female prisoners in Iraq: Reuters. BAGHDAD – A US military spokesman in Baghdad confirmed Wednesday statements by Iraq Justice Ministry officials who said five women detainees are scheduled to be released Thursday. Oddly like Oddball: 101 Dumbest Moments in Business: 2005's shenanigans, skulduggery and just plain stupidity. Goofy fun at CNN Money. Here's number one: 1. Bubble Trouble "If you grew up in Danvers, and you remember it as the spooky place on the hill, it might not be the right place to live." Well, where would you put the Old Folks Rock 'n' Roll Rest Home?
23 stunning photos on a page, that's all. Posted by Sheila Lennon Citizen journalism project falters; 156K pay for TimesSelect
But now it's over. Dan explains why, sort of, in the post that leads at that Bayosphere link. I think he comes closest here: Although the participants -- citizen journalists and commenters -- are essential, it's even more important to remember that publishing is about the audience in the end. Most people who come to the site are not participants. They're looking for the proverbial "clean, well-lighted place" where they can learn or be entertained, or both. We are reactive. Much as they may rail against the media, not many busy people want to chase news stories as a hobby and contribute them to someone else's site. Here at projo.com, we attach an anonymous survey form to our lead story and everybody has an opinion. It's fun to spout off anonymously, and even more fun to read what's really going on in the heads of apparently civilized Rhode Islanders. But unless an issue affects or offends you personally, it's unlikely you've been dying to be an unpaid reporter and just had no place to put your work. Dan has now moved his blogging -- his style is recognizable no matter where he writes it -- to a nonprofit venture he will head, the new Center for Citizen Media, whose mission he outlines here. Mainly, it will support others' efforts. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School will support Dan. Dan and I have a nodding online acquaintance, occasionally pointing to each other's posts, and he was kind to mention me in We The Media as an early mainstream-media blogger, I'd drop by to see what was happening from time to time, but Bayosphere had a vacant feeling, in part because it's hard for one person to launch a community site and think folks will come, and in part, I think, due to the use of Drupal software. Even a well-done, successful Drupal site with tech-savvy participants seems odd to me: Urban Vancouver's homepage and blogs page are almost identical; the sides change. (Nice houseboat pic here, though.) (I spent hours last summer fruitlessly configuring a Drupal site. The community software uses a complex set of roles, permissions and taxonomies that couldn't easily be bent to do what we wanted: host a cluster of separate blogs. Every post is a free-floating item that can be served up in many ways. This permission screen suggests the problem: Even if you make a "class" called "blogger," everyone in that class could post to everyone else's blog. Since the blog entries were accessed from an alphabetical dropdown list of blogs, everyone would have accidentally posted to Art's Notebook sooner or later. Making every blogger a "class of one" would require a permission screen stretching east to Cape Cod. We use Movable Type here.) The lively, familiar look of Dan's new site (it uses WordPress) is more inviting. Commenters on Dan's farewell post seem to agree: There's commiserating and amiable analysis of what didn't happen, but no protests about what's been lost. Wishing Dan well... Turning readers off: I'd love to think that means the Times plans to drop the wall then, but don't bet on it. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 24, 2006Joan Baez: We probably won't overcome; Ethiopian 'Idol'; BitTorrent primer; Flying car caught on Google Earth
Q: Didn't hanging out with Dylan and the Beatles feel like intruding on a boys' club? A: Yeah. So I'd make tea. And dry Dylan's sweaty vests This was why we needed Janis Joplin, but most of us lurched between old roles and no roles then. Equality for all was the dream of the '60s and its elusive legacy, triggered first by nonviolent Freedom Marches. Everybody had to figure out how to change. The story is full of the past, in case you only know Baez as one of your parents' vinyl albums. Baez found fame early, and moved quickly to museum status when folk yielded to rock. She understands the heady days of the peace movement as a peak experience, like Hemingway's bullfighters, "living life all the way up." Now, performing in theatre in Somerville, Mass., -- near Cambridge, where she sang as a teenager at Club 47, (photo) "When did we get so old?" she cried, to huge cheers. She gave them everything in her repertoire: the Bob Dylan impression, the unaccompanied version of Amazing Grace, the anti-war songs. The only thing she wouldn't do was We Shall Overcome, too sacred to perform on a whim she tells me when I meet her later, besides which - and here she giggles - "we probably won't overcome. We're in such a pickle." I don't know about that. On the Web, I see a lot of second chances. New African stars? Ethiopian 'Idol' is a big hit on staid state TV, also from The Guardian, which seems to be having a lot of fun. We've all heard bits and pieces about BitTorrent, here and there, true and untrue—it's used for trading illegal files; it's illegal; it's too obscure for anyone but teenagers; it's the easiest way to download large files. But we have heard about it, because although BitTorrent itself is legal, it's one of the fastest ways to trade all sorts of files, and therefore, it's often mentioned when illegal file-sharing comes up. No more potholes: Flying car captured on Google Earth; Experimental Oz project packs grav-busting hyperdrive. Unmistakably, the floating object casts a shadow. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 23, 2006NFL's 'Interception Virus'; Absinthe involved in honeymoon cruise disappearance; Underground eateries in S.F.Interception Virus infects NFL : Was that the same Denver team that walloped the Patriots last week? The Turnover Virus that deviled Brady seemed to have passed yesterday to Broncos QB Jake Plummer (four interceptions) , as Pittsburgh creamed Denver 34-17 -- and he then passed it to Jake Delhomme (three interceptions), whose Carolina team lost 34-14 a few hours later. Even if Plummer had melted down a week earlier, the Patriots would have had a hard time against yesterday's Steelers.
Consider the possibilities: Steelers-Seahawks showdown could be memorable. At SI.com. An illegal alcoholic drink that gained notoriety in the 19th century for its hallucinogenic effects is emerging as the latest twist in a modern mystery surrounding a Greenwich man who vanished from his honeymoon cruise last summer. Due to the hallucinogenic effects of absinthe, imbibing it is sometimes called, "Chasing the Green Fairy." Cheaper thrills: Speakeasy cuisine: Underground restaurants flourish in the Bay Area. S.F. Chronicle finds eating out is more exciting if it's a bit illegal -- and it's less expensive, too. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 22, 2006330 MPG car under $20k? Female Iraqi prisoners Key in Iraq Hostage Drama; Beef Osso Bucco recipe tryout
There's a press release at pureenergysystems.com. (No, it's not floating above a fourth wheel on the far right; that seems to be the company logo.) The manufacturer: Three San Diego engineers have formed a startup called Accelerated Composites. They welcome investors, but they've used photos of text on their website, so I can't quote them. (D'oh to AC's marketing team.) More pix and these amazing specs at autoblog: The diesel/electric hybrid pairs a 12 hp diesel engine with a 25 hp electric motor, with power storage in a bank of supercapacitors. With a weight of only 850 lbs, the powertrain is good for a 0-60 time of about 11 seconds, and a top speed of 95 mph (electronically limited). Construction has begun for the first prototype. No one's hazarding a guess yet about when you can plop your money down for it. Related: Ford expected to announce 25,000 job cuts Monday. AFP. Imagine if Detroit had been developing and selling economical cars instead of going for big quick profits with gas-guzzling SUVs that cost like a truck but were largely big boxes on a car chassis. Women as pawns: Female Iraqi prisoners Key in Iraq Hostage Drama: AP reporter Scheherezade Faramarzi writes, The U.S. military confirmed this week that it was holding eight women. However, Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim Ali said a ninth woman was arrested Jan. 6 — one day before (U.S. journalist Jill) Carroll was abducted. Related: Iraq ministry expects US to free Iraqi women. Reuters. Sunday dinner: Beef Osso Bucco over Ricotta Gnocchi and Warm Spinach: Never tried it before. I'm using loose baby spinach instead of bagged, since it's only cooked by putting the hot meat on it. I'll let you know how it goes. Later: Poking around about osso bucco, which is traditionally made with veal, I read this: "Keep in mind, if you use lamb or beef, the meat won’t be as 'fall off the bone' tender. " No way. I will make it in the crockpot tomorrow, and it will be tender. Good thing I went shopping, and hadn't frozen everything I'd bought on sale. We're having Roast Pork Loin instead. These directions are vague, but I get the idea. We put this together quickly and now, as we watch the Steelers and Broncos, wonderful aromas of garlic and ginger are coming from the kitchen. There's plenty of spinach, enough to serve with this, too. Even later: An hour per pound would have been too much cooking for that pork roast. Our 3.79-lb roast was done in 2 1/2 hours, and was a little dry. Next time, I'd put it on a rack and add water to the pan. I found a jar of good applesauce -- just apples -- in the back of the pantry, and that solved the problem. The spinach, dropped into a pot in which a crushed clove of garlic was sweating in a bit of olive oil over low heat, made a tasty contrast. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 20, 20063 million Irish have one king's gene; Japan nixes U.S. beef again; Precious and simple food blogsMedieval Irish warlord boasts three million descendants: From New Scientist. If your name is (O')Neill, (O')Gallagher, (O')Boyle, (O')Doherty, O'Donnell, Connor, Cannon, Bradley, O'Reilly, Flynn, (Mc)Kee, Campbell, Devlin, Donnelly, Egan, Gormley, Hynes, McCaul, McGovern, McLoughlin, McManus, McMenamin, Molloy, O'Kane, O'Rourke or Quinn, you may be one of them. But the photos and descriptions of experiments in their kitchen at the eight-room, $995-a-night Keyah Grande resort in Pagosa Springs, Colo., surprise the mind more than the palate, and the recipe for Chocolate Caramel Cashew Balls might make you a star in your next cookie swap.
Crustless Roasted Vegetable Cheddar Quiche could catch anybody's eye. (I found these blog while searching for non-lethal food news after reading that the Japanese have again banned imports of U.S. beef -- less than a month after permitting some back in -- because a shipment from New York contained carcass parts that could have posed a risk of mad cow disease.) Posted by Sheila Lennon January 19, 2006Sun may have a companion; Bin Laden audio translated; Free 411; Beatles videos;10:06 p.m.
The New Horizons spacecraft got off today to Pluto -- some 9 years away -- and the Kuiper Belt -- more years away. But it is going in the wrong direction to peek at the other side of the sun. Full Text of bin Laden Tape translated by AP. It ends, ...You have tried to prevent us from leading a dignified life, but you will not be able to prevent us from a dignified death. Failing to carry out jihad, which is called for in our religion, is a sin. The best death to us is under the shadows of swords. Don't let your strength and modern arms fool you. They win a few battles but lose the war. Patience and steadfastness are much better. We were patient in fighting the Soviet Union with simple weapons for 10 years and we bled their economy and now they are nothing. Now that sounds like a threat.
Reuters: Bin Laden says new US attacks prepared, offers truce: Interesting. We weren't even in Iraq when 9/11 happened. How come he's still out there, popping up? 10:04 a.m. The government argues that it needs the information as it prepares to once again defend the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act in a federal court in Pennsylvania. The law was struck down in 2004 because it was too broad and could prevent adults from accessing legal porn sites. More chilling: "The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google." I don't know about you, but I don't perform well with somebody looking over my shoulder. I grew up on stories of families huddled around secret radios in cold-war Poland, spies everywhere, neighbors turning in neighbors, and we were proud that it couldn't happen here. Realtime, your way: Now Out In Theaters -- And On Your TV! A guide to the same-day-release movement. Free 411. No more cell phone charges for directory assistance if you do it with 1-800-FREE-411. How it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah: Lots of early Beatles videos. Via Robot Wisdom again. Better than sliced bread: Tab Mix Plus is now my very favorite Firefox browser extension. With a gazillion tabs open, I can move tabs around, close all the right ones, all the left ones, similar ones, see the ones I've closed (accidentally), make the current tab bold (so I can find it). Links I click on open in new tabs with italic headers, so I know I haven't read them yet. Each tab opens with a little x on it so you can close it; with a lot of tabs open, they get small and I was closing in the act of clicking, so I configured it to only have the x on the current tab: read it, close it. Also now saves all the tabs from your last session, if you choose. Images of Venus. The Russians made them in 1975. Browse these links to see how to do everything your way.
Canceled first due to high winds aloft in Florida, yesterday's attempt ended oddly: Laurel, Maryland where the New Horizons Flight Control Center is located has no power, so no launch today...I quess John Hopkins APL doesn't have a back up generator. The launch window for today opens at 1:08 p.m. and closes at 3:05 p.m. Live liftoff coverage on the blog begins at 1 p.m., Lou says. If it goes, watch the NASA launch live here or at Johns Hopkins/APL, where the webcam is trained on the rocket right now. Mosquito time:Wristwatch to detect malaria: Found at Aljazeera, The sturdy digital timepiece pricks the wrist with a tiny needle four times a day and tests the blood for malaria parasites. Locked away: Want to e-Mail a 'NY Times' Columnist? Better Subscribe to TimesSelect : Joe Strupp at Editor & Publisher, If you haven't signed up for TimesSelect, The New York Times' online subscription product, don't bother e-mailing the paper's star columnists. So if you read a columnist in the paper and want to praise/slam them, you have to pay to email your Valentine/razzberry. I used to read and sometimes link to Times columnists, but they might as well be offline now. How odd that reaching the top of the ladder -- for columnists -- now means being well paid and little read. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 18, 2006BBC: Female detainees set free in Iraq; Monitor: Hostage video ignites wide call to free Jill Carroll8:16 p.m. Iraq's ministry of justice has told the BBC that six of the eight women being held by coalition forces in Iraq are to be released early. Related: From Reuters today, U.S. confirms holding 8 women prisoners in Iraq Hostage video ignites wide call to free Carroll: Wednesday, the umbrella group for a number of leading Sunni clerics condemned the Jan. 7 kidnapping The Christian Science Monitor, for whom Jilll Carroll was reporting when she was abducted, reports, Those calling upon her abductors in Iraq to show mercy included senior members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo, and some of Iraq's most influential Sunni Arab leaders, including Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the Iraqi Accordance Front.... A separate page publishes some of these statements. Updated 11:27 p.m. BBC broadcasts a few seconds of the video; Scotsman.com has more stills. 4:44 p.m. Tuesday The abductors of US journalist Jill Carroll have threatened to kill her if the United States does not free Iraqi women prisoners within 72 hours. Al-Jazeera TV would not tell The Associated Press how it received the tape, but issued its own statement calling for Carroll's release. An Al-Jazeera producer said no militant group's name was attached to the message that it was sent to the station with the tape on Tuesday.... Posted by Sheila Lennon January 17, 2006Al Gore's speech: Audio, video, transcript; NYT: Two Groups Planning to Sue Over Federal EavesdroppingAl Gore's speech yesterday: Video, C-Span (RealPlayer) Sponsors: Liberty Coalition, American Constitution Society WaPo: Gore Says Bush Broke the Law With Spying The American system of checks and balances is designed to ensure that no one branch has imperial power. The use of fear and the declaration of a permanent state of war to suspend these safeguards by the Bush administration should alarm everyone who thinks the American experiment is worth continuing. Gore called for the appointment of a special counsel:
Today, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rejected that call, saying,
Replace "the enemy" with "our political enemies" or simply with "everybody" to see the problem here. Gore is still not a mesmerizing speaker, but it's more than refreshing to hear an intelligent, thoughtful, passionate speech from a political leader again. There's been far too much of this mush: A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Tracey Schmitt, attacked Gore's comments shortly after his address. Catching up: War, Trials, Leakers, Investigations, Packed Courts, and a Constitutional Crisis by Tom Engelhardt. NYT: Two Groups Planning to Sue Over Federal Eavesdropping: Two leading civil rights groups plan to file lawsuits Tuesday against the Bush administration over its domestic spying program to determine whether the operation was used to monitor 10 defense lawyers, journalists, scholars, political activists and other Americans with ties to the Middle East. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 15, 2006'Most disrespected' now: Manning; Patriots fan blues; Video: Hendrix at Woodstock, Monterey; comet dust lands safely in UtahThis just in: NYT: Steeler Accuses Officials of Cheating Updated 11:48 p.m. Most disrespected, by a mile: Wrath descends on Peyton Manning. After reading these, I almost feel bad about dissing him myself this morning:
Peyton Manning looked like a lost child in the mall. Again. He wore a gray suit, open collar, no tie, and he looked so much younger than 29, and he tried to explain to the cameras and recorders and bright lights how he lost again. Let's face it: Peyton can't win when it counts. MSNBC's Bob Cook If Peyton Manning is considered such a great decision-maker at quarterback, then how come he left Sunday’s playoff game on the lap of his idiot kicker? Over at the Indy Star message board, the fans' comments are brutal. Here's the survey: Poll Results: Was this season a failure? Updated 4:23 p.m. I am a Steelers fan. They just ended the Colts season, 21-18. I love Jerome Bettis, "The Bus." They deserved to win, and play Denver next Sunday. Yeah. 10:28 a.m. Brady on the rest of playoffs: "It's going to be hard to watch those games. Can both teams lose?" -- ESPN Patriots impersonators: Who were those guys who played in Denver last night? The faces looked familiar, but they must have been ringers wearing masks. Belichick's band doesn't play that badly. They always find a way to win. Denver only scored three points on their own; the Patriots gift-wrapped and handed them four touchdowns. Tinker Bell is dead. Did you clap? It is irrational, I know, to put your happiness into the hands of others. When things go badly for them, things go worse for us, and there's nothing we can do to improve our moods or their fate. Sitting in our homes, friends' homes, sports bars, alternately chewing nails and canapes, dread spreads. Bad gets worse. The dip sits like a lump in the pit of the stomach. It's a global-warming January and, yesterday's hard spring rain has turned today to cold snow, perfectly mirroring the hearts of Patriots fans. Football Sundays are over for us. Today, the replays are too hard to watch. The best I can muster is negative -- I'll rouse myself to root against Peyton Manning this afternoon. I feel mean enough now to say out loud there's something about the guy I just don't like, something wussy, like Frank The Denver Post homepage today leads with all sports: The Denver Avalanche hockey team, and three basketball stories. The Broncos aren't even mentioned. (Nobody could stick around late to update the site?)
Oh shut up. Somebody quits, gets fired, gets eliminated, they eulogize their "run." You're not a Broadway show. Get another word. Bah, humbug. Video: Jimi Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner, Woodstock, 1969; and Hey Joe. at Monterey, 1967. One more: Red Houseat the Isle of Wight festival, 1970.
NASA’s Stardust sample return capsule has returned to Earth today, floating to the ground under billowing parachute. A helicopter team has successfully located the capsule under desert dark conditions. The caption: This image provided by NASA shows the nucleus of comet Wild 2, taken by the navigation camera during the close-approach phase of NASA'S Stardust spacecraft on Jan. 2, 2004, during a flyby of the comet. The Stardust's round-trip, interstellar rendezvous to comet Wild 2 drew to a close this morning, when the spacecraft jettisoned a canister containing comet grains through the Earth's fiery atmosphere to the high Utah desert. Large photo at NASA of Stardust's "sample return capsule." Posted by Sheila Lennon January 14, 2006Down the rabbit hole?; Pats still 'crippled' to West press; Football food; Antarctic Journal; no garden blogsHalf man, half beast?
New England has become largely one-dimensional. Injuries to offensive linemen and running back Corey Dillon have rendered the running game ineffective. Somebody's been reading old clips. Pony Express hasn't delivered the news. Don't bet against Brady and Belichick. I'm looking forward to the next two days. This may be the most fun more than two people can have in January. Football food: I don't do nachos, tacos and wings. New recipes I'm looking at for the four-game playoff marathon this weekend (It might be five -- my brother's arriving from a wedding in Russia late Saturday night, so I've promised to record the Pats game so he can watch it for breakfast Sunday morning): These Pats games have been family affairs at my house for years. We're expecting he'll bring vodka and caviar to the party. I can boil the eggs and chop red onion. There's a lemon and sour cream in my fridge, and I can make toast. Recipes that caught my eye (just in case...):
Chard, Tomato And Cheese Casserole Garlic, Brie And Tomato Toast Appetizers Cumin-Coconut Skewered Chicken I fill in with cheese and veggies, store-bought pine-nut hummus and Planter's cocktail peanuts and comice pears. And always one odd surprise, like chocolate truffles from Whole Foods.
You'll find it popping up from the projo home page, or at this flat link (Okay, it's a redirect.) . Registration not required. I have no head: I forgot to post the new garden blogs to the Garden Blgos list, and now I'm home and can't reach them. Monday. Is time accelerating? The pitching machine in my batting cage is going way too fast. Related: Norway building 'Doomsday' seed bank. BBC. Norway is planning to build a "doomsday vault" inside a mountain on an Arctic island to hold a seed bank of all known varieties of the world's crops. Go Pats. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 13, 2006Video: Beatles' 'Revolution'; Iraqi bloggers on kidnapped reporter Jill Carroll, her late translatorMusic video: Beatles' Revolution. Iraqi bloggers on Jill Carroll, her late translator Alan Enwiyah: Riverbend, the "girl blogger" of Baghdad Burning, knew the interpreter killed during Carroll's abduction. In Thanks for the Music, she writes,
Unspeakably sad. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 12, 2006New Mozilla mail (TBird v. 1.5); Pats to lose?; 1967 Jimi Hendrix video; 1945 Groucho Marx letter; Mozart's musical diary, c. 1790Mail upgrade: The open-source Mozilla Foundation yesterday released Thunderbird v 1.5, a new version of the free stand-alone email client and companion to the Firefox browser. What's New includes an autosave (as a draft) feature , support for podcasts, Google Earth and RSS feeds, new security features, including a phishing-scam detector, and more. If you've ever started an email and forgotten about it when you shut down, or your system crashed in mid-composition, you'll appreciate the autosave feature: The mail in porgress is safely stored as a draft without you having to do anything. Simple upgrade instructions. Here's Groucho: I just don't understand your attitude. Even if you plan on releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don't know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try. Great stuff. The credit line is The Oxford Book of Letters, 1996. No accompanying story, just a letter. (This may happen all the time in Australia, but American journalism would have to add at least a line saying something like, "Great Letters by Famous People.") Urban legends debunker Snopes.com says it was a publicity stunt cooked up by the Marx brothers.
How to Set White Balance on your digital camera. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 11, 2006Sports Illustrated's King rants about Westin; Which organic fruits, veggies are worth the premium; Hack your showerheadAggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week by Peter King at Sports Illustrated. Lots of sportswriters covering the Patriots stay in Providence -- it's cheaper than Boston, and there's less traffic to fight to get to Gillette Stadium, which is about equidistant from both cities. So it's not too surprising to hear a hotel rant:
Thanks, Peter. We like it, too. Next time, you might walk around Waterplace Park and save the sawbuck. Meanwhile, the Westin might wonder whether the fee is worth this bad press. News to use: When buying organic pays (and doesn't): Consumer Reports finds that it's worth buying organic versions of these vegetables, since pesticide levels in them remain high even after washing:.
But CR says seafood isn't worth the extra price. More at the link. (If you're in Providence, East Side Marketplace on Pitman Street -- one block from Whole Foods -- sells organic produce for the same price as conventionally grown produce.)
Many people now hack their showers — or customize them, if you prefer. You can take your shower head down, pull the washer out with a screwdriver, and remove the offending intrusion that is restricting water flow. It can be a tiny second washer or it can be a hard plastic piece. Just pop it out and replace the washer. Sometimes it is necessary to trim it out using a pen knife.... Why would anyone want to do this? According to the head of Zoe Industries, people somehow have the sense that I described above. "Generally, they don't like the water savers," he says, "the flow of water is too weak and they feel as though they haven't gotten a shower." New Firefox Extension: X-Ray:: This is a way to peek at the html tags of a webpage without having to "view source." You won't see urls, just raw tags. After you install it and restart Firefox, X-Ray will be on your context menu Turn it on with a right click on any page. Refresh the Web page to see it normally again. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 10, 2006Media, blogosphere agree to blackout news of kidnapped U.S. journalist; Father of LSD maintains at 100; Organic castle game; Key to the night sky to cost $399Updated 12:48 p.m. "It wasn't just U.S. media, there were various Italian agencies that ran with a lot of details, and a Kuwaiti news agency that ran with it, then pulled it down," he told E&P. "Basically, everyone who ran with it, once we reached them, was cooperative. I was surprised and very heartened that people were so willing to help us." ... When asked how the limited reporting might have helped Carroll's situation, Ingwerson declined to elaborate, saying "I don't want to go on the record with anything on that. When this is resolved I would love to talk about it." 12:43 a.m. Blogosphere keeps mum about abducted U.S. journalist: Saturday, Democratic Underground discussed how Daily Kos and Reporters Without Borders were among those voluntarily not identifying the American journalist abducted last week, and her news organization was mum. (Links to Arab media that did identify her were posted on D.U. but disappeared.) Today, that changed. Reporter abducted in Iraq, reads the Christian Science Monitor headline, accompanied by a statement from the Monitor that begins: Jill Carroll, a freelance writer currently on assignment for The Christian Science Monitor, was abducted in western Baghdad on Saturday morning, local time. Her Iraqi interpreter was fatally wounded in the kidnapping. Her Iraqi driver escaped unharmed. At this point, no one has claimed responsibility. At Reporters Without Borders now: Reporters Without Borders added : “There is still a life that can be saved today. We appeal to all those who, like us, reject injustice to do everything possible to ensure that the kidnapped journalist is freed as soon as possible. Experience has shown that an energetic campaign is decisive in the first days of an abduction.” WaPo has the most detailed story about Carroll and the events that led up to her abduction. Here's some of her work. Jan. 6: America's waning clout in Iraq Jan. 5: Violence threatens Iraqi coalition Earlier: Sunnis, Secular Iraqis Demand Vote Review by Jill Carroll and Farai Chideya. Audio at NPR. I hope the switch from silence to saturation works, and she is released quickly and unharmed The prepared mind: Nearly 100, LSD's Father Ponders His 'Problem Child' NYT reporter Craig S. Smith visits Albert Hofman in Burg, Switzerland: Rounding a century, Mr. Hofmann is physically reduced but mentally clear. He is prone to digressions, ambling with pleasure through memories of his boyhood, but his bright eyes flash with the recollection of a mystical experience he had on a forest path more than 90 years ago in the hills above Baden, Switzerland. The experience left him longing for a similar glimpse of what he calls "a miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality."
It was as he was synthesizing the drug on a Friday afternoon in April 1943 that he first experienced the altered state of consciousness for which it became famous. "Immediately, I recognized it as the same experience I had had as a child," he said. "I didn't know what caused it, but I knew that it was important." What is fascinating is that when this happened to him, he knew what it was because he had experienced it arising from nature once before, and didn't just think he was going crazy and flip out in some ER. In honor of his birthday, a symposium, LSD: Problem Child and Wonder Drug, launches next week in Basel. The Castle: A beautiful game/"interactive object." Click around, a castle will arise, things will happen, one triggering another, organically. I read that you know you've done it all when the word "Congratulations" appears, but I'm not there yet.. Related: A very cool graphic effect, demonstrated using the Google logo. Annotated sky: SkyScout: Point it at the sky and it tells you what star you're looking at. Ask where Mars is, arrows on the screen point you to it. GPS meets sky maps. I've always wanted this sort of teacher, and this best of show winner at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is coming in March -- but at $399. Oh, well. We can hope it will be on TV for $19.95 ("...but wait, there's more!") eventually. Howard Stern is off the air and behind a pay wall. Another happy ending. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 9, 20067-day forecast for Denver; In London and Denver, Florida and Indy, Pats get respect
National Weather Service 7-day forecast for Denver: Saturday: .Mostly clear. Highs in the 50s. Lows in the lower to mid 20s. It was 69 degrees there Saturday, tying the record. In a survey on its weather blog, ABC Channel 7 asks if readers "want more of this very warm January weather. 53 percent voted "Yes, I hope it lasts until spring. (NWS foresees for Providence, "Saturday Night: A chance of rain showers before 9pm, then a chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low near 31. Chance of precipitation is 40%."). When it comes to finding success in the post-season, there is no substitute for experience. Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots, and Joe Gibbs, his counterpart with the Washington Redskins, have each won three Super Bowl titles, and on Saturday night that experience proved vital as their teams prevailed in two gritty play-off matches. The Patriots looked ominously powerful in disposing of the Jacksonville Jaguars 28-3 and, on this evidence, appear well placed to mount another championship run. New England have won three of the last four titles, and may be timing this year's challenge to perfection. Ominously powerful. We like that. (Maybe he arrived late.) Denver Post: "Is this who Denver fans wanted for their Broncos for the AFC second-round playoff game Saturday night at Invesco Field at Mile High?" Nevertheless, the Patriots start the week as 3 1/2-point underdogs. Perfect. Never mind that 3 points is the customary value of home-field advantage. The World Champs as underdogs is too juicy not to milk for a pumped attitude. 10:34 a.m. Jacksonville gives chowdah heads a laugh: A bizarre reaction from David Whitley at the Orlando Sentinel:
The whole thing has a stinging, sullen, resentful tone that imagines New Englanders as rich fops. The Patriots unite everybody here -- from the stool-squatters in the dingiest burnout bars to the tailgaters with wicker picnic baskets, we all whoop and groan together. Get over it. It's not about class. Your coach played Limpy the quarterback way too long. From Bob Kravitz at the Indy Star -- the Colts home paper -- comes, "Patriots no longer look so ripe for the picking":
Well, we know Indy is jealous, jealous of those Super Bowl titles. And if Cincinnati beats Pittsburgh today (4:30 p.m. on CBS), the real Super Bowl happens under the dome at Indy next Sunday. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 8, 2006Wallace Stevens and me: Penelope poemsIn the spring of my senior year in high school, I received in the mail, wrapped in plain brown paper, a paperback book, The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. The postmark was illegible, its sender a mystery. A young man, certainly, perhaps Alan, whom I'd met at a debate tournament In Washington. A strike had canceled my flight home, so I took the bus to New York City with him, and he took me to the Night Owl, a folk club in the Village. (My frantic parents wondered where their 16-year-old daughter was, not expecting an authorized late-night detour.) Sitting at a round table under a naked light bulb in the back room, in awe of these older hipsters, I think I talked with Richie Havens. Dylan's girlfriend Yvette borrowed my hairbrush. Would the motherless genius who lived with his debate coach have sent me Stevens? Maybe not.. But if couldn't know who, could I sniff out why? I tried to find a clue inside the book, and it opened to this poem: THE WORLD AS MEDITATION It had a light around it, and I returned to it over the years. It informed me. In the early '80s, I carried a notebook everywhere, writing what overflowed into it. Late at night, poems.began pouring out of my pen fully formed, so quickly I soon had to type them to keep up with the dictation. One night I spread all sheets of paper out on the living room rug and walked around them, reading, looking for a pattern. Viewed that way, I saw they were Penelope's story, my response to the same impulse that had seized Stevens, 25 years a-borning. One of them is here. (Like Stevens, who died the year he won the Pulitzer Prize for this collection, and like Penelope, whose story stretches over decades, I feel I may be old before I finish this work.) This was all triggered this morning when I stumbled out of bed to the computer, and found Robert Pinsky's Poet's Choice column in today's Washington Post. It begins, When I come across a poem or movie that makes Mother Nature out to be merely sweet and benign in some sentimental humanized way, I think of Wallace Stevens's poem "Madame La Fleurie." And then he publishes the poem for readers of the Sunday paper. A line jumped out at me: He looked in a glass of the earth and thought he lived in it. The 70-year-old Stevens had a brief encounter with the Penelope archetype. The poem passed it on, intact, to a girl who could -- and would -- live in it. Related: A fascinating chronology of Stevens' life in its cultural context. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 6, 2006Microsoft rushes out patch for nasty Windows flaw; Athletes and their tattoos; 'Bolero' through a cochlear implant?This one is so dangerous that Microsoft released a fix without waiting for the monthly updates, recommending that customers apply the update immediately. The problem goes all the way back to Windows 98, and, unlike many previous security vulnerabilities, could potentially be exploited if a user simply viewed a malicious image on a Web site or in an email message. -- DesigntechnicaDownload the patch from Microsoft for the version of Windows you're using, open it, close other programs, install and reboot. That's it. Done. -- Pre-patch FAQ on the flaw at Computerworld.
The right arm of Jeremy Shockey, N.Y. Giants.
Posted by Sheila Lennon January 5, 2006Jon Stewart to Host Oscars; Live and unreleased mp3s: Mitchell/Taylor, Lennon, Nyro, jazzJon Stewart to Host Oscar Show: L.A. Times. Joni Mitchell and James Taylor At The Royal Albert Hall, Oct 28, 1970: ROIO of the Week [Recordings of Indeterminate Origin] at BigO Worldwide magazine, based in Singapore. This one's worth bookmarking for its live concerts and unreleased tracks, each available for a short time. Also still open: Hat tip to first blogger Jorn Barger, who's been so good at finding shiny nuggets for so long. Yesterday, MSNBC.com published a transcript of Andrea Mitchell's interview with author James Risen about the CIA's domestic spying program. In it, Mitchell asked Risen if he had uncovered evidence that CNN correspondent Christiane Amanpour was eavesdropped upon. It was a specific and pointed question that led AMERICAblog to ask if the veteran journalist had been spied on by the Bush administration. This afternoon, MSNBC.com removed the portion of the transcript that referred to Amanpour. (Here's what it originally said.) In a statement to TVNewser tonight, NBC explained why: "Unfortunately this transcript was released prematurely. It was a topic on which we had not completed our reporting, and it was not broadcast on 'NBC Nightly News' nor on any other NBC News program. We removed that section of the transcript so that we may further continue our inquiry." It's not clear why leaving that in the transcript would hinder their inquiry, so it's a backwards way to say, "Oops, we were taking the opportunity to ask Risen about this other angle we're working on, but that story's not ready yet..." Posted by Sheila Lennon January 4, 2006Cheap Google PC? NBC's Andrea Mitchell wonders if CNN's Amanpour targeted by NSA spying; Abramoff exposed by partner's jilted fiancee? Eminent domain challenged in NOLACheap PCs, anyone? L.A. Times Sources say Google has been in negotiations with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., among other retailers, to sell a Google PC. The machine would run an operating system created by Google, not Microsoft's Windows, which is one reason it would be so cheap — perhaps as little as a couple of hundred dollars.... Larry Page, Google's co-founder and president of products, will give a keynote address Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Analysts suspect that Page will use the opportunity either to show off a Google computing device or announce a partnership with a big retailer to sell such a machine. Both companies deny this, and common sense suggests a non-Windows, non-Mac computer will just baffle people. If the PC used the open-source Linux operating system, a lot of Windows programs won't work on it. Any chance this would be a PC that used Web versions of common software? Reporter defends release of NSA spy program: James Risen says his sources are 'patriots,' CIA calls them 'unreliable' (5 pages) (one-page version that triggers printer): This is a transcript of an interview in which NBC's Andrea Mitchell quizzes the Times reporter who broke the story. Interesting question from insider Mitchell (wife of Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan), which indicates a level of concern about the spying program's breadth: Mitchell: You don't have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christian Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon? A veteran journalist like Mitchell wouldn't have just pulled that name out of the air. If journalists, White House political enemies and others were spied upon, the real reason for not getting warrants becomes apparent -- judges would have refused to go along with it. Another interesting injection from Mitchell: Mitchell: You described the president and George Tenet, discussing the interrogation of a particularly important prisoner, Abu Zabida. You describe what the president said to Tenant. What does that say? Risen: As I say in the book, there's some dispute about whether this conversation took place, but what I was told by one particularly good source was that in discussing Abu Zabaida, who had been wounded right after his capture, and was being given medical treatment, that the president asked Tenet who authorized putting him on pain medication? Now there are people close to Tenet who say they've never heard that story, and don't believe it, which is what I say in the book, but it raises the question about the signals that the president was sending to the CIA and the military, about the way in which people should be treated in prisons. And even without that conversation it was pretty clear that the president had told or made it clear to the CIA that the gloves were to come off now, in going after al-Qaida... Mitchell: Would it surprise you to know that at least one source says that that conversation was between Dick Cheney and George Tenet? Risen: I haven't heard that. That's interesting.
In May 2004, Miller found herself at the center of attention when -- while live on air -- she ordered a cameraman for NBC's Meet the Press to stop filming Colin Powell. A copy of the transcript shows Miller, who also used to work as an NBC staffer, as a brusque press aide. Powell eventually ordered that the interview continue and asked Miller to step aside. What many people didn't realize at the time, however, is that during the Powell interview Miller was upset because her fiancee, Michael Scanlon, had broken off their engagement, two of Miller's former State Department co-workers said. While still engaged to Miller, Scanlon had started an affair with a manicurist and broke up with Miller because he planned to marry the other woman, three of Scanlon's former associates at DeLay's office said. They added that the two had numerous public arguments. But Miller had something on Scanlon. He confided in her all of his dealings with Abramoff, former colleagues said. She saw his emails and knew the intimate details of his lobbying work—work which is now the center of a criminal fraud investigation. After the breakup, Miller went to the FBI and told them everything about Scanlon's dealings with Abramoff, her coworkers added. In turning him in, she became the agency's star witness against her former lover. Scanlon pled guilty in November and is cooperating with prosecutors; Abramoff reached a plea agreement today. Scanlon and Miller met when both worked for Texas congressman Tom DeLay. Miller was press secretary. Scanlon, as communications director, was her boss. A WaPo graphic follows the flow of money and influence. (If he had left her for a lobbyist rather than a manicurist, would she have been so livid?) Defending New Orleans: Common Ground Collective has been doing good things for a while now: ...We used this space to open the first distribution center in the 9th Ward in an effort to provide a beacon of hope amid the darkened and militarized streets and to address the needs of residents who were returning to an area with no services available. The center is open seven days a week offering goods, safety/protective gear, a free medical clinic, a housing advocacy/legal office, a tool lending library, a kitchen to prepare hot meals, a solar shower, and is often used as an alternative to the Orleans Parish Prison when law-enforcement or the National Guard pick homeless residents up for walking after dark in curfew hours. In addition to these services, the center has work crews that are dispatched daily to address the community's needs.... Now they're trying to prevent the seizure of property in the Lower Ninth ward by eminent domain: Common Ground Collective(CGC) announces that it will lease and occupy a building in New Orleans' lower Ninth Ward. This is being done in defiance of the city's attempt to bulldoze that area in response to Hurricane Katrina's damage. In spite of a moratorium on bulldozing structures until January 6th, the City is in violation of its own stipulation, according to Brandon Darby, CGC's Ninth Ward Organizer and Coordinator. Thanks to Eric Lilius for the tip. Related: Eminent domain now big business. The Chicago Tribune reports on an 82-year-old woman whose home was taken by the city of Des Plaines, Ill., for a municipal parking lot -- but the land ended up with a Walgreen's drugstore on it. Brain candy: 100 things we didn't know this time last year: BBC. Good trivia fodder. For instance, 35. The name Lego came from two Danish words "leg godt", meaning "play well". It also means "I put together" in Latin. They won't all make sense to Yanks, though: "86. Hecklers are so-called because of militant textile workers in Dundee." For that explanation, Google turns up this item on Fact of the Day, which brims with these sorts of bonbons. Posted by Sheila Lennon January 3, 2006New garden blogsNew garden blogs: Jane Berger in Washington, D.C. writes to tell me about GardenDesignOnline, her Washington, D.C. blog about ... news, info, resources, book reviews and more on garden design, horticulture, and related subjects.
(I can't tell you how many people here have fantasized about having the dual careers Jane has.) I can't wait to see what she does as the weather warms.
Prefers Full Sun: Sarah Waller in Lawrenceburg, Ind. is focusing right now on indoor gardening -- starting coleus from seed and rescuing 50-cent Christmas cactuses.. She's built a "green room":
Both blogs are welcome additions to the now-venerable Garden Blogs list Seed catalogs are the best reading on a cold January night.... Posted by Sheila Lennon January 1, 2006Hangover helpers; Fla. columnist: 'For New Year, let's hope Republicans see violet'; 'Ten Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter'; Microsoft employees on IEThis is a New-Year's--resolution-free zone. Like a rickety, sagging old house, we're going for historic value and character rather than remodeling. Welcome to my walk-in fireplace. Hangover Helpers Beyond Sheep's Eyes. NYT. "Salty food, for instance, is not a bad idea, nor are sugary drinks." For New Year, let's hope Republicans see violet. By Ed Shupe, High Springs (Fla.) Resident The polarization of Americans for political gain, besides leading people along with campaign promises that candidates don't expect to keep, exacts a terrible price by splintering us as a nation. We're an experiment in diversity. There's no "my way or the highway" about it. You're free to believe as you will, and act on your beliefs within the law. But if you try to make me live by your beliefs, I'll refuse, and wonder why you can't live your own full, rich life without trying to change mine. Only Love Prevails: "You are invited to participate in a worldwide experiment to create a peaceful planet." Can't hurt. Mr. Yoest's Ten Simple Rules for Dating My Daughter. I chuckle, since my dad once met a dubious date with hammer in hand. I eluded parental controls as necessary, nonetheless. Mr. Yoest, you don't have a chance. Get off the grid: Heat From the Earth to Warm Your Hearth Posted by Sheila Lennon |
Pittsburgh meets Seattle in the Super Bowl in two weeks -- Sunday, Feb. 5, at 6:18 p.m. on ABC, and this time, I'll be rooting for them to cap Detroit native 
I found out very recently that the interpreter killed was a good friend -- Alan, of Alan's Melody, and I've spent the last two days crying.
Those gouging fools at the Providence Westin have really gone and done it now. They are doing everything in their power to steer me to the Biltmore across the street, which I'd have already done if not for the Starwood points. Remember last month when I told you about the $6 health club charge at the Westin? It's one of the very few places on my hotel list that charges for using the health club. In fact, I haven't had a single health club charge from another hotel all season.
Revenge of the jilted, bigtime? Raw Story reports (
my passport photo blogging since 2002 garden blogs archived headlines  Sheila Lennon is features & interactive producer of projo.com, the Web site of The Providence (R.I.) Journal Rhode Island |
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