06w21:1 Forgeting the Soil Posted May 24th, 2006 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2006 week 21 number 1 (Forgetting the Soil) Last night I caught the CBC1 Ideas re-broadcast of the 2004 symposium held to discuss Jane Jacobs’ last book, Dark Age Ahead. Toward the end of the program Nobel-winning economist Robert Lucas presented a picture of things being great just as they are. According to Lucas, the movement away from ‘the idiocy of rural life’ (a phrase he credited to Marx) was a good thing and nothing to be concerned about. I was dumbfounded to hear this, questioning the limits of his imagination. If everyone moved to cities, where would our food come from? What then followed was a presentation by Norman Wirzba, who brought up my concerns with an eloquent speech on this basic problem, which is one of ignorance about the cycles of life. This ignorance is encouraged by city-living and tempts us to believe that we live in a post-agrarian age. His point is that we do not, nor could we realistically. His talk was so good that I contacted him after the broadcast to request a copy of his paper to post on Goodreads. He got back to me this morning and it can now be found at the link below. – Timothy ——————————————————————— The Forgetting of Soil: A Response to Dark Age Ahead | Norman Wirzba http://goodreads.ca/normanwirzba/ “The steady migration of people from farms or rural areas to cities or suburbs, a migration pattern now being replicated across the globe, means that very few of us have any realistic or honest idea of where food comes from, and under what conditions it can be expected to be safely and reliably produced. Food is conveniently and cheaply purchased at the store. […] Given the important insight that culture is not primarily transmitted through the written page or computer screen but rather that ‘cultures live through word of mouth and example,’ (5) a fundamental question emerges: does the victory of urbanization over agrarian life nonetheless signal a long-term defeat if it means the loss of living, concrete examples of sustainable engagement with the land? Who in our society, what face-to-face apprenticeships, will pass on the wisdom we need to live well in bodies that are themselves dependent on the health and vitality of other biological bodies and systems?” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Wednesday 24 May 2006 @ 2:45 PM
06w16:1 Inventions of the March Hare Posted April 17th, 2006 by timothy. 1 Comment Good Reads Mailing List | 2006 week 16 number 1 (inventions of the march hare) April is the cruelest month, supposedly. But I found March pretty shity. Which is why these didn’t get sent. This is the ‘lost Goodreads March Collection’ for 2006. I nevertheless appreciate this collection as a reminder of how fleeting ‘current’ topics of interest turn out to be. – Timothy ——————————————————————— Text —————————– Up With Grups | Adam Sternbergh http://tinyurl.com/g923m He owns eleven pairs of sneakers, hasn’t worn anything but jeans in a year, and won’t shut up about the latest Death Cab for Cutie CD. But he is no kid. He is among the ascendant breed of grown-up who has redefined adulthood as we once knew it and killed off the generation gap. // I’ll admit that I only read about 1/3 of this article, and it got some play in the blogosphere during a time when there wasn’t much else (it seemed) to talk about; some consensus around it being too focused on the white upper-middle class of New York Beijing’s Unwanted Best Seller | Jürgen Kremb http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,407184,00.html People across China are trying to uncover the name of the mystery author behind the much-discussed best seller “Wolf Totem,” which has sold millions of copies. The tome’s author is a known Chinese dissident who is writing under the nom de plume Jiang Rong. If he had used his real name, the book never would have been published. The oil in your oatmeal | Chad Heeter http://tinyurl.com/mbw7s A lot of fossil fuel goes into producing, packaging and shipping our breakfast Costing an Arm and a Leg | Carl Elliott http://www.slate.com/id/2085402/ The victims of a growing mental disorder are obsessed with amputation. Hole-y Cow | Daniel Lew http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=306 Animals can live a surprising amount of time with a permanent hole to their stomach, especially if it is a surgically made fistula. Humans have had fistulas; the first human on record as having one was a French Canadian by the name of Alexis St. Martin. He sustained a life-threatening musket wound in 1822, and was marked a terminal case by his physician. However, he managed to heal and was mostly functional again within two years – except for a hole in his stomach that would never close. Through this hole doctors were able to examine inner workings of his stomach. Pedophilic promo has manga maniacs panting for pre-schooler panties | Ryann Connell http://tinyurl.com/hc6tx It’s gross, filthy and disgusting, but Japanese erotic manga fans can’t get enough of a comic that comes with a pair of pre-school girl’s panties as a promotional item, according to Cyzo (March). More than This : Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation | Samara Allsop http://cinetext.philo.at/magazine/allsop/lostintranslation.html The film’s emphatic climax is the inaudible whisper however it also places emphasis on the fact that the transgression from friend to lover is never fully realised. Perhaps this is what is so appealing to contemporary audiences who are often used to graphic representations of sexual conduct. Celebrity Death Watch | Kurt Andersen http://tinyurl.com/f2jux Could the country’s insane fame fixation maybe, finally – fingers crossed – be coming to an end? One hopeful sign: Paris Hilton. Chamber of horrors http://tinyurl.com/ot4a9 // Santiago Sierra filled a synagogue with carbon monoxide and the viewers toured it wearing gas masks. Gas and Jews, get it? It got shut down for two weeks. Should we care? The Ten Commandments of Simon | Derek Kirk Kim http://www.lowbright.com/Comics/10Commandments/10Commandments.htm // how western males can remain virgins until age 29; online comic Micheal Ignatieff’s speech to University of Ottawa http://www.michaelignatieffmp.ca/speeches/speech0.html // Because he might be Prime Minister within the next five years Malcolm Gladwell has a blog http://gladwell.typepad.com/ Audio —————————– Fighting Terrorism with Schools | Leonard Lopate and Greg Mortenson http://audio.wnyc.org/lopate/lopate030706c.mp3 After a failed mountain climbing trip to the summit of K2, Greg Mortenson was nursed back to health by villagers in a remote part of Pakistan. He promised to repay them by returning and building a school. Now, he’s built over 50 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. He describes his mission to fight extremism and terrorism on the Taliban’s home turf in Three Cups of Tea. // Very inspiring. —————–Lectures —————————– Lectures Archive http://www.lecturesarchive.com/index2.html // a collection of links to a variety of lectures in streaming audio and mp3 Slought Foundation http://slought.org // Lectures for the iPod by such notables as Zizek and his would-be canonical companions. As for Zizek, consider this comment from Crooked Timber: “Today I was wondering whether it was worth buying Slavoj Zizek’s new book, The Parallax View and reading it, even in a spirit of ironic detachment or what have you. Reasons to Buy: 1. Some smart people I know like him. Selected Reason Not to Buy: 1. Life’s too short to deal with bullshit, even if it’s high-quality, triple-sifted, quintessence of ironic Lacanian crunchy-frog bullshit like this […] it’s clear to me that it’s not the Mainstream Media that has anything to fear from the blogosphere, but rather Slavoj Zizek-he will shortly be rendered obsolete by the universe of pop-culture enriched slacker grad-student/ABD bloggers. Even Zizek can’t write fast enough to keep up with them all.” —————–Norman Mailer and Son ———————— The Mailers in Discussion Part 1: http://audio.wnyc.org/lopate/lopate030206d.mp3 Part 2: http://tinyurl.com/o785x // Part 1: March 2nd afternoon on the Leonard Lopate Show; Part 2: March 2nd evening at some lecture hall. Norman Mailer and his son John Buffalo M. talk about their recent collaborative book and Mailer has great things to say about the state of the USA today. Personally, when Norman Mailer dies I’ll consider it a diminishment of humanity. Video—————————– The Answer | Peter J. Charlton http://tinyurl.com/mrojg // this lends support to my idea that art is meant for the easily impressed, or at the very least that the role of poetry in our lives has been totally taken over by pop lyrics. The Simpsons in Real Life http://youtube.com/watch?v=49IDp76kjPw // Apparently created in the UK to promote the new season; a month ago famous. Microsoft iPod Video http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2704424 // the importance of good design; a month ago famous. Somewhere it was said that this was actually created by Microsoft in order to critique their design department. South Park Scientology Episode http://youtube.com/watch?v=EJN6PT80ZcA // I think this episode was contrived simply to make fun of Tom Cruise; notable is the illustration of Scientology Doctrine with the overlaid ‘This is what Scientologists Actually Believe’. The question is: what movie did Cruise’s thetan watch 65 million years ago to inspire such feelings for her today? The entire episode used to be at YouTube and is probably still kicking around somewhere. This is the excerpt outlining their beliefs. —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyUrl (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Monday 17 April 2006 @ 3:27 PM
05w49:1 Pinter vs. the War Criminals Posted December 10th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 49 number 1 (Pinter vs. the war criminals) ——————————————————————— 2005 Nobel Lecture ‘Art, Truth & Politics’ | Harold Pinter http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html “… language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time. But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot. The truth is something entirely different. […] Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed. […] The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.”NOTE: with choice of video or text Pinter blasts ‘Nazi America’ and ‘deluded idiot’ Blair | Angelique Chrisafis & Imogen Tilden http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4688521-103690,00.html “The playwright Harold Pinter last night likened George W Bush’s administration to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany, saying the US was charging towards world domination while the American public and Britain’s ‘mass-murdering’ prime minister sat back and watched. Pinter, 72, was at the National Theatre in London to read from War, a new collection of his anti-war poetry that had been published in the press in response to events in Iraq.”article date: June 2003 Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’ | Doug Thompson http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml “GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the [Patriot] act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. ‘I don’t give a goddamn,’ Bush retorted. ‘I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.’ ‘Mr. President,’ one aide in the meeting said. ‘There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.’ ‘Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,’ Bush screamed back. ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!'” U.S. bans use of torture | CBC http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2005/12/07/torture051207.html “The White House has tried to argue that rules against torture don’t apply beyond U.S. soil, in places like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or Afghanistan. But on Wednesday that all changed. Speaking in Kiev, Rice made a definitive statement. ‘Those obligations [against the use of torture] extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States,’ she said. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said it was ‘about time.’ ‘Shame on us that it took so long for the administration’ to make the determination not to use torture, she said. A Democratic Senator called Rice’s statement an ‘almost total reversal of U.S. policy.'” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Saturday 10 December 2005 @ 12:58 PM
05w46:1 Modern Times Posted November 15th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 46 number 1 (modern times) ——————————————————————— We Now Live in a Fascist State | Lewis H. Lapham http://organicconsumers.org/Politics/harpers101205.cfm “We’re Americans; we have the money and the know-how to succeed where Hitler failed, and history has favored us with advantages not given to the early pioneers. We don’t have to burn any books. The Nazis in the 1930s were forced to waste precious time and money on the inoculation of the German citizenry, too well-educated for its own good, against the infections of impermissible thought. We can count it as a blessing that we don’t bear the burden of an educated citizenry. The systematic destruction of the public-school and library systems over the last thirty years, a program wisely carried out under administrations both Republican and Democratic, protects the market for the sale and distribution of the government’s propaganda posters. The publishing companies can print as many books as will guarantee their profit (books on any and all subjects, some of them even truthful), but to people who don’t know how to read or think, they do as little harm as snowflakes falling on a frozen pond. “ Writers and the Golden Age | Allan Massie http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/pulpit_nov_05.html “Of course, the idea that art necessarily finds expression in protest, or is essentially a means of protesting, whether from the Right or the Left, is itself, comparatively speaking, modern. It dates from the Romantic movement. Before then, much art was a celebration of the established order, and inasmuch as it was critical, the criticism was directed at those who would disturb that order. Satire, for instance, was generally conservative. Its anger and contempt were aroused by folly and the vanity and vices of the present day; the satirist harked back to a (doubtless imaginary) Golden Age. […] The Left, ever since Rousseau, has seen man as essentially good, in chains only on account of the institutions of a cruel and corrupt society. Loosen his chains, strike off his fetters, and the natural benevolence of his nature will be free to flourish. For the Left the Golden Age is still to come. The Right, however, sees our nature as essentially flawed. […]Left-wing artists, however angry, are optimists; right-wing ones, however serene or witty, are pessimists. Yet the same man may be of the Left in his politics, opinions, and daily life, but of the Right in his Art. Graham Greene is a good example: politically on the Left, nevertheless on the Right in the view of man’s nature which informs his novels.” What’s a Modern Girl to Do? | Maureen Dowd http://tinyurl.com/aany5 “‘What I find most disturbing about the 1950’s-ification and retrogression of women’s lives is that it has seeped into the corporate and social culture, where it can do real damage,’ she complains. ‘Otherwise intelligent men, who know women still earn less than men as a rule, say things like: ‘I’ll get the check. You only have girl money.” Throughout the long, dark ages of undisputed patriarchy, women connived to trade beauty and sex for affluence and status. In the first flush of feminism, women offered to pay half the check with ‘woman money’ as a way to show that these crass calculations – that a woman’s worth in society was determined by her looks, that she was an ornament up for sale to the highest bidder – no longer applied. Now dating etiquette has reverted. Young women no longer care about using the check to assert their equality. They care about using it to assess their sexuality. Going Dutch is an archaic feminist relic. Young women talk about it with disbelief and disdain. ‘It’s a scuzzy 70’s thing, like platform shoes on men,’ one told me.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 15 November 2005 @ 11:17 PM
05w39:1 Everybody must get stoned Posted October 1st, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 39 number 1 (everybody must get stoned) ——————————————————————— The ’60s Trap | David Greenberg http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=2125915&nav/tap1 “No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s documentary about Bob Dylan’s early years, is but the latest item in a flood tide of Dylanalia that, in trying to pay due homage to America’s most important rock artist, constricts his four-decade career to its first six years. […] Though delightful to watch … the documentary wallows in baby boomer nostalgia. […] Despite subsequent droughts and misfires, Dylan has since turned out some brilliant albums – from Desire in the 1970s to Infidels and Oh Mercy at either end of the 1980s to Time Out of Mind a few years ago – that approach his greatest work and surpass much of the folkie stuff that still draws so much giddy attention. So, why have we been so quick to ignore the bulk of his career? One part of the answer is that Dylan shares a problem with the 1960s as a whole: Scholarship and popular commentary alike are shaped by the baby boomers who lived through the period and have never quite transcended their own youthful enthusiasms. As Rick Perlstein noted in Lingua Franca several years ago, the preponderance of boomers in the historical profession – and, he might have added, in the culture overall – has made it hard for younger voices to gain a hearing for ideas that argue with the prevailing, familiar tale of the decade.” A Less Fashionable War | Charles Shaw http://tinyurl.com/bran7 “Thirty years ago Gore Vidal noted that ‘roughly 80% of police work in the United States has to do with the regulation of our private morals – controlling what we drink, eat, smoke, put into our veins – with whom and how we have sex or gamble.’ Then there were roughly 250,000 prisoners in the nation. Today there is more than 2 million, with another million in county jails awaiting trial or sentencing, and another roughly 3 million under ‘correctional supervision’ on probation or parole. The total national cost of incarceration then was $4 billion annually; today it’s $64 billion, with another $20 billion in federal money and $22-24 billion in money from state governments earmarked for waging the so-called ‘War on Drugs.’ Nationally, around 60% or more of these prisoners are drug criminals. Yet, throughout all this time and expense there has not been the slightest decrease in either drug use or supply.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Saturday 01 October 2005 @ 6:13 PM
05w36:2 Today's the Day Posted September 11th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 36 number 2 (today’s the day) It being the fourth anniversary of Terrible Tuesday, I felt like I should comment here, since it’s something I’m wont to do anyway. These two articles deal with the USA. The first, published yesterday in the Globe and Mail, (and surprisingly free) is a wonderful summation of all that’s perceived to be wrong with the United States today, dealing with the usual Lefty complaints, but presented in what I think is a fair manner with an intelligence sometimes lacking as we assume everyone agrees with us and knows what were talking about. The intro that the Globe published with it read: ‘9/11/05 The Watery hell in New Orleans shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, argues Paul William Roberts. Decades of oil-driven greed and misguided foreign policy have created a monster at odds with much of the planet and unwilling to take care of its own. The Stars and Stripes forever? Four years after the Twin Towers, it seems the superpower itself is starting to sink’. It is an odd coincidence that the destruction of New Orleans came three weeks before the anniversary of the event which had such a profound impact on our psyches. I remember that day shattering the sense of doom that had been building as I watched North American society carelessly and recklessly consume ever greater amount of non-renewable resources for their urbane trucks, and argue about such irrelevant things as Presidential head, while letting Brittany Spears’ career get off the ground. Then, the event caused a shift, and America went into its war mentally, paranoia growing like mushrooms around the social and ethical rot. Enron, the Iraq war, and then last year’s hope that it might all end in one humiliating defeat we could all get behind. But no, the Christians of the south prayed to their God and re-elected a man whom many in the world regularly compare to Hitler. Which is a characteristic of the hyperbole of our times, and not really accurate – for one thing, Hitler was competent. He had his evil plan and succeeded in replacing the Devil as a figure of evil for the secular age. The prayers of thousands of Muslims was answered in August, a month historically known for terrible things, and suddenly, America is spited upon, and the too-terrible-to-name administration is shown that it can’t do shit, but it can certainly let its citizens wallow in it. So the second article looks back four years to the event and the New York artworld’s response to it with the thoughts of Arthur Danto. And I was prompted to write this lengthy intro by my own memories of finding art in the week after rather irrelevant, but I was haunted then by a quote that I’ve since been unable to track down, stating something to the effect that things like art are really important in times of tragedy to remind us that horrors aren’t the only story with regard to being human. Except this time, with the storm, I find watching CNN (since CBC is locked into a narcissistic drama) to be more compelling than any video art could ever be. As an artist, I find art totally lame right now. Danto hints at this in his article – the professional imagineers of our society cannot in the end imagine something more powerful than reality (and given how I’ve let Goodreads collect that anti-pomo arguments over the past year, I’m tempted to ask here that being disconnected from reality, how could artists not fail in the task?) But everything being as it is has taken the wind out of my sails in many ways – the catastrophe is depressing in that it was allowed to happen, and art is depressing in that it’s rather pathetic. And with the CBC on its perpetual walkabout, there isn’t really any good TV to watch, and the new season of Big Ideas on TVO hasn’t started yet. The usual end of summer blues aggravated by depressing world events … but, four years ago suggested that maybe this a new pattern, and in the end it’s a new addition to the list that prompts one to say c’est la vie. -Timothy ——————————————————————— The flagging empire | Paul William Roberts http://tinyurl.com/bpgyh “In hindsight, the $14-billion price tag on the plan that had been drawn up for saving Louisiana’s coastline and the Mississippi’s delta now must look like a bargain to a Congress that has agreed to $50-billion in aid alone. It is safe to say that relocating more than a million people, along with the loss of the nation’s largest port, and the other economic consequences from Hurricane Katrina will bankrupt the United States. Or would, if anyone dared to call in the country’s debts, which now exceed any number of dollars one can write meaningfully – particularly since no one seems to know just what a trillion is anyway. It’s a known unknown. The unknown part is what happens to a nation that owes this much money: No other one has ever racked up such a tab. Even so, in the eyes of the world, the emperor stands naked. Monday’s issue of London’s The Independent noted: ‘We could be witnessing a significant moment in America. Hurricane Katrina has revealed some uncomfortable truths about the world’s richest and most powerful nation. The catastrophe in New Orleans exposed shocking inequalities – both of wealth and race – and also the relative impotence of the federal authorities when faced with a large-scale disaster. Many Americans are beginning to ask just what sort of country they are living in. There is a sense that the struggle for the soul of America is gathering pace.’ There is also suddenly a sense that the American Empire is in decline, that the only successful wars it has ever waged are the ones against the environment and its own people.” 9/11 Art as a Gloss on Wittgenstein | Arthur C. Danto http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/danto/danto9-9-05.asp “[One of the truths I learned] was that even the most ordinary people respond to tragedy with art. Among many unforgettable experiences of the early aftermath of the event was the unprompted appearance of little shrines in fronts of doors, on windowsills and in public spaces everywhere. By nightfall on 9/11, New York was a complex of vernacular altars. In the course of that terrible day, a reporter had phoned, asking me what the art world was going to do about the attacks. I could not imagine that anyone not practically engaged in coping and helping was able to do anything except sit transfixed in front of the television screen, watching the towers burn, and of the crowds at street level running from danger and, later, trudging through smoke and detritus in search of someone they knew. I thought the last thing on anyone’s mind was art. But by day’s end the city was transformed into a ritual precinct, dense with improvised sites of mourning. I thought at the time that artists, had they tried to do something in response to 9/11, could not have done better than the anonymous shrine-makers who found ways of expressing the common mood and feeling of those days, in ways that everyone instantly understood.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Sunday 11 September 2005 @ 12:07 PM
05w36:1 Katrina Audio and Video Part II Posted September 7th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 36 number 1 (katrina audio and video part II) The destruction of an entire city by a storm is something I never really expected to see. I mean, I’m waiting for the nuclear bomb thing which they keep telling me is on it’s way … as on it’s way as the help that FEMA kept promising Mayor Nagin last week I suppose. Anyway, after the past five years of Bush bullshit that anyone who was paying attention could see through, the maligned ‘Liberals’ suddenly seem vindicated, once again united in a chorus of unsaid, ‘we told you so’. And what gets me is that even the people at Bush’s Broadcasting Co (aka Fox News) have joined in the chorus of criticism. The American media elite are finally as pissed off with the Bush administration and the whole status quo as the rest of the world. So onto this Goodreads – building on the net-famous sample of last weekend, I direct you to the website crooksandliars.com which is running a great roundup and video+audio archive of the reporting from New Orleans, along with some others, including what Kanye West was talking about (on the Metafilter link). – Timothy ——————————————————————— Crooks and Liars http://www.crooksandliars.com/ Highlight1 (Clip from last night’s Daily Show); Highlight 2 (Tim Russert on the Imus Show); Highlight3 (Kanye West clip again, a better one that what I sent outbefore); Highlight4 (Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera on Fox News) The Rebellion of the Talking Heads | Jack Shafer http://www.slate.com/id/2125581/ “In the last couple of days, many of the broadcasters reporting from the bowl-shaped toxic waste dump that was once the city of New Orleans have stopped playing the role of wind-swept wet men facing down a big storm to become public advocates for the poor, the displaced, the starving, the dying, and the dead. Last night, CNN’s Anderson Cooper abandoned the old persona to throttle Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., in a live interview. (See the video or read the transcript.)” Black people loot, white people borrow | Metafilter http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44689 Barbara Bush insults Katrina survivors | Metafilter http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44871 “Barbara Bush insults Katrina survivors. Said today while visiting relief efforts at the Houston Astrodome: ‘Almost everyone I’ve talked to said we’re going to move to Houston. What I’m hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. (Said with concern.) Everybody is so overwhelmed by all the hospitality. And so many of the peoples in the arena here, you know, they’re underprivileged anyway, so this–this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.’ I’d be curious what she’d think after after living there for just a week, much less for months on end, before being sent off to somewhere even further from their homes, friends, and relatives. Please note: This woman raised our president. Did the acorn fall far from the tree?” NOTE: Audio here via crooksandliars: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/bb.mp3 —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Wednesday 07 September 2005 @ 9:18 PM
05w35:2 Audio and Video Posted September 3rd, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 35 number 2 (audio and video) ——————————————————————— CNN Weatherman | CNN http://retrospection.net/videofiles/hurricanekat.php “‘But Chad … Chad … Chad … translate that for us, I don’t understand!'”From: Mon 30 August 2005 4:30am EST Interview with Mayor Ray Nagin | WWL-AM http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/audio/ray_nagin_20050901.mp3 “‘Put a moratorium on press conferences …. don’t tell me 40,000 people are coming here! They’re not here! It’s too dogone late. Now get off your asses and let’s do something, and let’s fix the biggest godamn crisis in the history of this country!'”From: Thursday 1 September 2005, 14:05min The Kanye West Quote | Kanye West http://media.putfile.com/Kanye79 “‘George Bush doesn’t care about black people…'”From: Friday 2 September 2005 —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Saturday 03 September 2005 @ 9:15 PM
05w35:1 …and blow your house down and drown Posted August 30th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 35 number 1 (…and blow your house down and drown) ——————————————————————— Hurricane Katrina | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina “Hurricane Katrina, the remnants of which still exist as a powerful storm system, was a major tropical cyclone that caused significant damage in the southeastern part of the United States. Areas affected (so far) include southern Florida, Louisiana (especially the Greater New Orleans area), southern and central Mississippi, southern Alabama, the western Florida Panhandle, western Georgia and the Tennessee Valley region. Katrina is the eleventh named storm, fourth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Its minimum central pressure of 27.108 inches (918 mb) at the time of its Louisiana landfall makes it the third most intense system to strike the United States in recorded history. So far there have been at least 84 deaths, a number which will rise as casualty reports come in from areas that are currently inaccessible. It would be the deadliest hurricane in the United States since at least Hurricane Agnes in 1972, which killed 122. It is also estimated to be the costliest natural disaster in United States history.” Katrina Should be A Lesson To US on Global Warming | Spiegel Online http://tinyurl.com/9578t “Hurricane Katrina is big news for German commentators, whatever their ilk. For some, the powerful storm which slammed the Gulf Coast on Monday, is a symbol of the sort of environmental terrors awaiting the world thanks to global warming and proof positive that America needs to quickly reverse its policy of playing down climate change. For the more conservative, it is simply another regrettable natural catastrophe. […]The toughest commentary of the day comes from Germany’s Environmental Minister, Jürgen Trittin, a Green Party member, who takes space in the Frankfurter Rundschau, a paper owned by the Social Democrats, to bash US President George W. Bush’s environmental laxity. He begins by likening the photos and videos of the hurricane stricken areas to scenes from a Roland Emmerich sci-fi film and insists that global warming and climate change are making it ever more likely that storms and floods will plague America and Europe. ‘There is only one possible route of action,’ he writes. ‘Greenhouse gases have to be radically reduced and it has to happen worldwide. Until now, the US has kept its eyes shut to this emergency. (Americans) make up a mere 4 percent of the population, but are responsible for close to a quarter of emissions.’ He adds that the average American is responsible for double as much carbon dioxide as the average European.” Hurricane ‘will force consumers to reduce fuel use’ | Peter Klinger and Adam Sage http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9072-1757943,00.html “However, the International Energy Agency (IEA), a leading forecaster, and analysts advised against government intervention, saying that the $70 price could provide the much-needed jolt that would force consumers to reduce their oil consumption.The French Government was in disarray yesterday, with ministers squabbling over a proposal to cut the national speed limit to reduce fuel consumption.” Crisis Grows As Flooded New Orleans Looted | Adam Nossiter http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/08/30/D8CAGBA00.html “Helicopters dropped sandbags on two broken levees as the water kept rising in the streets. The governor drew up plans to evacuate just about everyone left in town. Looters ransacked stores. Doctors in their scrubs had to use canoes to bring supplies to blacked-out hospitals. New Orleans sank deeper into crisis Tuesday, a full day after Hurricane Katrina hit. ‘It’s downtown Baghdad,’ said tourist Denise Bollinger, who snapped pictures of looting in the French Quarter. ‘It’s insane.’ The mayor estimated that 80 percent of New Orleans was flooded, while a countless number of residents were still stranded on rooftops.” ‘Our tsunami,’ Mississippi hurricane survivors say | Matt Daily http://tinyurl.com/74l7j “It was like our tsunami,’ Vincent Creel, a spokesman for the Mississippi Gulf Coast city of Biloxi, said on Tuesday. When Hurricane Katrina roared ashore on the U.S. Gulf Coast on Monday, it sent a 30-foot (9-meter) storm surge into Biloxi. Many people were probably trapped in their homes by the ferocious wall of water. ‘It’s going to be in the hundreds,’ said Creel, when asked how many people may have died. Police said around 30 people died in one Biloxi apartment complex alone when the storm surge brought it crashing down.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Tuesday 30 August 2005 @ 11:32 PM
05w08:1 Paris Hilton Antoinette Posted February 21st, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 8 number 1 (Paris Hilton Antoinette) You may have heard about this Paris Hilton thing … about her cellphone getting hacked over the weekend, and all the details (including celebrity phone numbers, her email, and photos) have been posted on the web….the invasion of privacy thing might have some weight if they weren’t always trying to sell us stuff and convince they’re so godamn special. Besides, she’s wicked (see reading #2). So, it’s with pleasure that I do my part to bring the world this magic link. – TimothyPS: Who knows how long it will be up, so if it’s gone by the time you check it, apologies. ——————————————————————— Somebody got hizacked | Anonymous http://www.sunroad.pe.kr/paris/ We’ll never have Paris again | Lloyd Grove http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/264804p-226754c.html “The arc of Paris’ ‘career’ – from rich, witless party girl to rich, witless party girl with a hit television show – is an insult to the American sense of fairness: the idea that you get ahead by working hard, playing by the rules and acquiring a skill of some sort. Paris has bothered with none of the above, and yet society continues to reward her with money and fame. The British actor Stephen Fry put it best when he observed recently to Lowdown that being Paris ‘takes a startling vanity, an enormous lack of selfknowledge and a huge amount of greed and desire.’ What is it about this otherwise unremarkable 23-year-old that can provoke such seething outrage? Let me count the ways….” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Monday 21 February 2005 @ 1:33 AM
