Thursday, February 28, 2002
"God has walked through the room on our record and I want to give thanks. Amen." --bono, paraphrasing quincy jones, on winning record of the year. "It was a sweet defeat." --the edge on losing album of the year to the “o brother, where art thou?” soundtrack, which he was a fan of. “the songs did change their meaning…. you're the songwriter, you're supposed to know what those songs are about. you're often wrong. music changes shape to fit the predicament it finds itself in. and this year, the predicament was a very different america.” --bono, when asked what effect september 11th had on the band’s music. overall, I’d have to say u2’s speeches/responses to their grammy wins in 2001 were more interesting. but then again, last year you didn’t have the shadow of 9-11 implicitly muffling the relatively insignificant feat of winning a little gold phonograph player. still a great band, making great music. and even if you don’t agree with jubilee2000, you’ve got to respect bono for his efforts in making the third world a little bit more like the first. keep on rockin’ in a free world. Wednesday, February 27, 2002
Tuesday, February 26, 2002
bittersweets. way too funny. the best part is that they give examples of what is written on the candies, one example being "no scrubs*". so what is that asterisk noting? go to the bottom of that page, and you'll find: "* A scrub is a guy that thinks he's fly, and is also known as a buster." Monday, February 25, 2002
"I’m hoping some forward thinking CEO reads the piece and solves the problem--all they need is a million bucks a year in ads to keep on truckin. If not that, then a foundation must surely leap in. Best, ML" --michael lewis' response to my e-mail about his NITV article. i've taken the liberty of forwarding his article and e-mail to ken lewis, the ceo of bank of america, in hopes that my company will buy advertising time on NITV. if anyone else would like to send an e-mail or snail-mail letter to ken lewis, please let me know, and i'll get you the information. if you could be so kind as to send me the contact info of the executive office of your respective company/institution, i'd really appreciate it. i'd like to help get the word out to keep NITV, one of the few if not only voices of free speech in iran (in farsi), free to all viewers. there has to be a million dollars somewhere to make this happen. thanks.
"We also know, from Sherron Watkins' now famous letter to Lay, that Enron's corrupt partnerships were something of an open secret within Enron. Indeed, everything we know so far about Enron suggests that many, many employees were, at the very least, willing accomplices to the schemes dreamed up by their bosses. And now they want their money back! They are like accessories to a failed bank heist who demand restitution because the police confiscated their share of the take." --from michael lewis's 02/25/02 bloomberg article Sunday, February 24, 2002
The show ends. Pahlavi [son of the deposed Iranian shah, now with a show on NITV--National Iranian Television] leaves. The atmosphere inside NITV decompresses. A small crowd gathers for a buffet lunch. I [Michael Lewis] grab a plate and find a seat. A short, dark man hunched over a paper plate heaped with Persian takeout looks up. ''Who are you?'' he asks, maybe because I'm the only one on the premises who isn't Persian. I tell him I came to write an article about Reza Pahlavi. ''You don't need to be talking to Reza Pahlavi,'' he says. ''You need to talk to me!'' ''Why?'' I ask. He draws himself up. ''I have a very big show on NITV,'' he says. ''What do you do?'' ''I am very related to 'Saturday Night Live,''' he says. ''I do characters very related to 'Saturday Night Live' characters.'' ''Which ones?'' I ask. ''All of them.'' I consider this. Satire in Iran seems as unlikely as bobsledding in Jamaica. ''I don't think I've ever heard of an Iranian satirist,'' I say. ''Because I am the only one!'' he says. ''All the rest are dead!'' Forty minutes later...the last known living Iranian political satirist has a full hour and 20 minutes left to fill and no material to fill it with. He ponders his predicament during commercials for a New Jersey jewelry shop, a Parisian women's-clothing boutique and Tilda basmati rice. Then the red light goes on again, and his face, transformed, swivels into the camera as his hand reaches for the speakerphone. All lines are already jammed; the people who watch the show no longer need to be told when or how to call him if they want to get in on the act. The first caller to get through is a woman in Tehran. ''If mullahs can have a couple of wives each,'' she asks, ''why can't I take a couple of husbands?'' ''Eeeee!'' Mullah Hajji [the character played by Pahlavi] shrieks in outrage. With one hand, he hectors the woman about male dignity; with the other he picks his nose. --from michael lewis's 02/24/02 nyt magazine article, "the satellite subversives". NITV, due to a lack of funds, has decided to scramble their program every other day. they have to scramble to get people to pay for their expenses, but only every other day in order to give those inside iran--who are probably too poor to pay for the show--a chance to remember what free speech sounds like. michael, is there something we can do to help?
"And in the end, her students usually do what she wants: they take out their gel pens or their glittery feather-topped pens and write something [an apology to a fellow schoolmate as part of a class assignment to make adolescent girls nicer], fold it over and over again into origami and then hide behind their hair when it's read aloud. Often as not, it contains a hidden or a not-so-hidden barb. To wit: 'I used to be best friends with two girls. We weren't popular, we weren't that pretty, but we had fun together. When we came to this school, we were placed in different classes. I stopped being friends with them and left them to be popular. They despise me now, and I'm sorry for what I did. I haven't apologized because I don't really want to be friends any longer and am afraid if I apologize, then that's how it will result. We are now in completely different leagues.' Or: 'Dear B. I'm sorry for excluding you and ignoring you. Also, I have said a bunch of bad things about you. I have also run away from you just because I didn't like you. A.' Then there are the apologies that rehash the original offense in a way sure to embarrass the offended party all over again, as in: 'I'm sorry I told everybody you had an American Girl doll. It really burned your reputation.' Or: 'Dear "Friend," I'm sorry that I talked about you behind your back. I once even compared your forehead/face to a minefield (only 2 1 person though.) I'm really sorry I said these things even though I might still believe them.'" --from margaret talbot's 02/24/02 nyt magazine article, "girls just want to be mean" Friday, February 22, 2002
QUESTION 1: Which Bush administration official sparred with Sen. Robert Byrd last week during a hearing before Byrd's Appropriations Committee The answer is: Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. It was an exchange so bitter that at times it seemed like veteran Sen. Robert Byrd and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill would verbally duel to the death over, of all things, who is more "ordinary." So much for the bipartisan lovefest that swept Washington in the days immediately following September 11. --from the u.s. news quiz.
"You scored 60%! That makes you a News Neglecter! Sure, TV Guide is entertaining, but maybe you should read the news sometimes." --u.s. news's impersonal internet response to my lack of current affairs knowledge.
"You scored 0%! That makes you a Cave Dweller! Get out from under your rock. There's a whole world of news out there. Take another look at the top stories." --what happens if you don't get anything right on the u.s. news quiz.
"In Green Bay, J'Noel Gardiner's a woman. In parts of Texas, she's a man. A judge in Kansas, where she lives, ruled she's a man. Three appellate judges reversed the ruling, said she might be a woman and set up a test to decide. For Gardiner, there's absolutely no question. She's a woman through and through and shouldn't have to go to court to prove it. She wouldn't have to, either, except that her stepson wants her half of his deceased father's $2.5 million estate. To get it, he's asking courts to invalidate his dead father's marriage on the ground that his stepmom is a guy." --from ann woolner's bloomberg column "when a woman's more like a man" found here. Tuesday, February 19, 2002
questioner: if you could be any fruit, what fruit would you be? me: a banana. questioner: why? because you think of yourself as more white than asian? me: no, because they bruise really easily. questioner: if you could be any animal, what animal would you be? me: a crocodile. questioner: why? i'm guessing it's not because of the hard exterior. me: it's because they cry all the time. questioner: but those are supposed to be fake tears. me: i don't empathize with the fake part. questioner: what's your favorite color? me: black. questioner: [sarcastically] and i thought it was hot pink. silly me. me: i used to really like hot pink and purple. but then i decided to come out of the closet as opposed to just dropping hints. questioner: if you could go anywhere, where would you go? me: heaven. questioner: i'm not sure if that's a happy or depressing thought. me: it goes both ways. goes well with my sexuality. questioner: you like making jokes about your sexuality. why? me: because i think my imagined self is a lot more interesting than my real self. questioner: do you have a low self-esteem? me: i think i have no self-respect and a propensity for self-deprecating humor. but the sexuality stuff doesn't fall under the self-deprecating category. i do it so that people will laugh, love me, and think i have good taste and a sense of style. i'm actually color blind. questioner: you poor thing.
me: i know. woe is me
Monday, February 11, 2002
everyone, give it up for the one and only, our favorite funky man, the prince of cleveland, the king of bad buys, the joker who no longer has a goatee, alex tsai! for those of us without a unix prompt, we can once again get into his head--but not under his skin--at his newly updated hompage. bless you, too, alex! (sorry, james reached http status before you, so he got the first blessings.) may you have many updates--both comically and intellectually provocative--and may the days of your blog be without number! Sunday, February 10, 2002
'To grasp what an intellectual is, think of the opposite of an academic. This isn't to suggest that all academics are dim, though a good few of them are of modest intelligence. But they are usually specialists in a single subject, whereas the classical intellectual has a more ambitious range. Sartre, who is every shopkeeper's idea of an intellectual, was dramatist, philosopher, novelist, political theorist, cult figure and Maoist militant. At its best, this lends intellectuals an admirable breadth and diversity, making them the true inheritors of the old-style sage, humanist or "man of letters". At its worst, it means that they can be bungling amateurs or insufferable dilettantes. 'Academics are concerned with ideas, whereas intellectuals busy themselves with the bearing of ideas on a whole social order. And while academics are largely confined to industrial production units known as universities, intellectuals seek to occupy a more public sphere, as journalists, political commentators and opinion shapers.... Finally, academics are usually conservative or middle-of-the-road, while intellectuals tend to be politically dissident. Since they have less investment in power than politicians and entrepreneurs, they can occasionally speak the truth to it. But they buy this benefit at the cost of being relatively ineffectual figures, part sinister (think of the spooky music of Mastermind), part ridiculous. The fact that the word "intellectual" is a popular form of cursing, on a par with "eejit" or "gobshite", is another price to pay for one's privilege. 'It helps, of course, to be bright, though it's not part of the job description. "Intellectual" designates a social role, like "bus driver", not a quality of mind. There are plenty of smart bus drivers, and a glut of dumb intellectuals. Susan Sontag, however, who has been described as the most intelligent woman in the United States (no doubt much to the chagrin of Cher), labours under no such disability. She is the classical intellectual....' --Terry Eagleton's essay found here. Wednesday, February 06, 2002
"For Questions, Comments, or Errors on our site, please send a digital smoke signal to webmaster@chukchansi.net" --from www.chukchansi.net, the website of a future host-tribe of another Native-American casino. Sunday, February 03, 2002
On Wednesday (01/30/02), my childhood babysitter (her family and mine have been friends for almost 30 years) suffered a massive tragedy. Her nine-year old daughter and seven-year old son died in a car accident. On Friday night (02/01/02), my friend Jen was in a car accident where she suffered a lacerated liver and severe head injuries; and the girl sitting beside her fractured her pelvis, injured her lungs, and was in a coma for the better part of 36 hours. I’m so emotionally spent that I really have a hard time writing anything. But please keep them in you prayers. Peace. |
