Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Head Like a Hole, Eyes Without A Face



They were Option 30.

Lead singer: Trent Reznor.

And they liked to cover Billy Idol, it seems.

I remember my friends Jerry and Alexis had that same plaid shirt from the mid-80s. Does this mean Reznor liked shopping at The Gap?

Click on the photo to be transported.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Butterflies aren't free



Nope, butterflies at the Natural History Museum are not free at all. First off,they're contained in a plexiglas conservatory, and second, cost $16 to get in. Not that this stopped us on Sunday.



This is my second visit to the flying insects; they seemed less varied in color and type this year; still, it's a pleasant trip. Until you start sweating your face off, because the room is about 80 degrees and 80 percent humidity (yes, like a Washington, D.C. July) having the little buggers floating and flapping around is quite lovely.



One piece of advice: On weekends in New York, only do things that no one else has thought of. Which means stay home. Because if you go out to a museum on a three-day-weekend Sunday, things will be packed. We got tickets for a 3:45 visit to the butterflies, then stood in line another 20 minutes to be let in. The room is relatively small, and they can only have a few people in at a time.



Once inside, the kids -- mostly young girls -- will go up to one of the banks of tropical plants and sugar dishes and offer their hands, standing as patiently as they know how for as long as they can stand it, to have one of the butterflies alight on their outstretched fingers. Butterflies have other ideas, though; one monarch landed in the blue-black hair of a young girl while she eagerly awaited anointment in another direction. By the time she was alerted, it had flown away.



On the other hand, should this guy have landed on you, you probably couldn't get away fast enough. Fortunately, he hung like a Garfield window ornament on the plexiglass the entire time, like a bouncer keeping an eye on things. A moth amidst butterflies, yet I bet he gets lots of pictures taken. Made me think of "Silence of the Lambs," frankly.

Saturday, February 18, 2006

I Mess With Texas, Part 9



Woot! One Texas Mess to go before we hit double digits!

The nice thing is, sometimes these things just write themselves:
Houston eyes cameras at apartment complexes

HOUSTON -- Houston's police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing.

(More at the link.)

Can we really be surprised that this is being proposed in Texas? Here's hoping Chief Hurtt (man, what a great name) volunteers to go first. Because, you know, he's not doing anything wrong.

Sometimes you miss the old days when red-staters were more about getting the guv'mnt outta private lives, rather than finding new ways to syringe it in.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Pictures, and the 1,000 words



Okay, so, not to be flip. I do understand that this is art, and those notorious cartoons were, well, not, even if they were valid examples of freedom of speech. But. How is it that this is valid, but they are not -- if your argument is that no one is allowed to reproduce the image of Mohammed?

Remember, that seems to be the main argument. Not so much that they were offensive cartoons -- but that no one may reproduce the image of Mohammed, even if it's a purty one.

There are many other folios like this. They're from the 1500's. They're not British, they're quite clearly Persian. This one is marked: "The Prophet on Buraq." I do note that some of the other folios feature Mohammed on Buraq and his face is either whited out or covered, burqua-style. Which does seem to put things into definition a bit more clearly. But this one has a full frontal illustration thing going on. So, what's the deal?

Notion and link from VeryBigBlog.

UPDATE: Have found more on this discussion at MetaFilter.

Wikipedia, though subject to sabotage, has some illuminating information here. In part:
The Qur'an, Islam's holiest book, condemns idolatry, but has no direct condemnations of pictorial art. Direct prohibitions of pictorial art, or any depiction of sacred figures, are found in certain hadiths, or recorded oral traditions.

Views regarding pictorial representation within several religious communities have varied from group to group, and from time to time. Among Muslims, the Shi'a Muslims have been generally tolerant of pictorial representation of human figures including Muhammad to the point that a fatwa exists given by Ali al-Sistani, the Shi'a marja of Iraq, stating that it is permissible to make pictures of Muhammad, if done with the highest respect. [46] Sunni Muslims are considered less tolerant. However, the Sunni Ottomans, the last dynasty to claim the caliphate, were not only tolerant but even patrons of miniaturist art, some of which depicted Muhammad. These depictions usually show Muhammad's face covered with a veil or as a featureless void emanating light (depicted as flames). Pictorial surveys of Muhammad can be found on the internet.[47][48][49]

...

According to the BBC "It is the satirical intent of the cartoonists, and the association of the Prophet with terrorism, that is so offensive to the vast majority of Muslims."[50] However, six of the more controversial caricatures were published in Egypt in October 2005, months before the protests began, suggesting that there is more to the controversy than just the original cartoons and their publication.


And, more Mohammed images in this archive.

TANGENTALLY RELATED: Someone else (One Good Move) has caught on to the Mohammed Rose renaming, and said basically what I did a few days back: We're all so alike.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Gezundheit!



Thanks to Steve at the Sneeze, the world can now know the story of how I ticked off Charles Schultz.

(And it gives me a chance to point everyone to Steve's Sneeze site, which is marvelous.) Be sure to check out "Steve, Don't Eat It!"

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Forever's a mighty long time



Happy Valentine's Day!

A la Pamie:
If forever means forever --
it covers lifetimes.
If forever covers lifetimes --
It covers all the years of my life.
If forever covers all the years of my life --
Then it covers 18 to life.
If forever means forever --
Then I don't understand why you broke up with me just because I'm doing a little time.
You best get your priorities in order because one day I won't be in this cell
And you're gonna be sorry.
Forever.

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Snow Daze, 2006



I think it was Lucy Van Pelt who noted that snow wasn't really ripe until February. That means we just got some of the ripest stuff on record (they're calling this the second biggest snowstorm on record for New York City, the last being in 1947). At least, if "they"=WCBS-TV.

I went out. I love snow, and I love when it's snowing. Things were a bit sting-y when it blew in your face, but I grabbed the camera and checked out the 'hood.



I actually had some errands, but the library was closed, ditto the pharmacy (though not the rest of Duane Reade, damn their hides). The pet store was open, so I snagged some food for the dog.



Also picked up a slice of Sicilian -- pizza guys just have to be available on such days.



People are really just friendlier in the snow, at least when it's fresh. Kids are outside making snowballs and fairly pathetic snowpeople, and when one little one falls on his rear in the stuff it's clownish and cute; the father watching looked up at me grinning and grinned back. People give you little looks like "hey, whatcha gonna do, aren't we toughing this out together?" when you walk by on the street and there's a real sense of comradeship.



I'm sure there's some study worth doing on faux-apocalyptic bonding; I mean, if we were really going to be stranded for weeks or months there'd be no grinning and things would get ugly fast. (Hello, avian flu -- a friend of mine says she's already stocking up supplies "in case.") But on a day when the world turns white and you know it'll all be over by nighttime and tomorrow will be slushy and manageable and Monday, it's okay to have a little fun with it all.



UPDATE: Actually, it's the record, not the second in line, as of this evening (again, as per WCBS-TV.)

Saturday, February 11, 2006

Hallelujah!



Cornwall, here I come!

I was becoming disillusioned that I would never get to see the UK in decent weather because airfares for June and July were just not dipping below $800 (and might I mention that includes upwards of $200 in just insane fees and taxes). And then I got the email from heaven. Or rather, Airfarewatchdog.com. And I snagged a trip for about half that -- including those stupid fees and taxes. In fact, the fees and taxes were more than the actual ticket!

O, to be hiking in South West England in the summertime. Now I will be. Hooray!

(And, it's snowing right now! Hooray that too!)

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Con artists and children

Daniel Dennett, on Salon.com, by way of Bookslut:

The political consequences of undermining faith are monumental, spurring riots and killings around the world. Are you -- is science -- willing to take responsibility for these deadly outcomes?

We cannot let any group, however devout, blackmail us into silence by their expressions of hurt feelings whenever they feel that we are getting close to the truth. That is what con artists do when their marks begin to get suspicious, and that is what children do when they can't have their way, and it should be beneath the dignity of any religious group to play that card. The responsibility of science is to safeguard the well-being of those it studies and to tell the truth. If people insist on taking themselves out of the arena of reasonable political discourse and mutual examination, they forfeit their right to be heard. There is no excuse for deliberately insulting anybody, but people who insist on putting their sensibilities on a hair trigger demonstrate that they prefer pity to respect.

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Cartoon: The Revenge



Things to remember when plotting a cartoon revenge:

Know the religious makeup of the country you're pissed off at.
Denmark, for example, is "Evangelical Lutheran." Though they were quite kind to refugee Jews during WWII, and there are likely some Jews still living there, it is not a Jewish country.

Know the history of the event you're planning on "satirizing."
The Holocaust, for example, did target Jews, but basically the goal of the Nazis was to eliminate "impure" races and individuals, including so-called "mud people." Therefore, if you're not a pure-blooded Ayran from the Barvarian or Nordic areas of the world, you're pretty well screwed. Oh, and you had to be Protestant; they weren't very forgiving of other views of God. So if you happen to be from the non-white parts of the world (e.g., say, oh, Iran), they'd have been coming for you eventually. And 60 years ago, they'd probably have made many inroads.

Know the religious makeup and history of the individuals you're actually attempting to offend.
While it's possible and probably likely that some Jews will be offended by lowlifes who would try and illustrate something like the Holocaust in "funny" or "satirical" terms (how would one satirize the Holocaust, exactly? I mean, just for the sake of argument, it's not like those pretentious Jews who got themselves gassed did it accidentally or something), I bet we won't see

Embassy-burning
Flag-torching
Widescale violent protests
Deaths

over it. Nobody pokes fun at the Jews better than the Jews. It's how you cope in a world that blames you for freaking everything.

The one amusing element to all of this, and even then it's not all that amusing, just ironic: Danishes (the breakfast pastries) have been renamed in Iran. They're calling them "Mohammedan" pastries. Because while you can't depict the prophet graphically, you can eat him if he comes with sugar and fruit. Apparently.

I mean, how silhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifly is that, to rename a food item because you don't like the country it came from? We'd never do that in the US. We certainly wouldn't legislate it, or attempt to.

Oh, wait, we would.

Everybody, into the kiddie pool! It's time to all act like five year olds!


UPDATE: Choire Sicha has something to say, and says it well.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A good piece from the London Times.

UPDATE, THE REVENGE: I never thought I'd say it, but you go, Christopher Hitchens.

Monday, February 06, 2006

My hero



You can never write about Werner Herzog too much.

First of all, Joaquin Phoenix may owe his life to him.
Oscar-nominee Joaquin Phoenix was rescued from his car wreck last week by German cult director Werner Herzog.

The 31-year-old Walk the Line star overturned his car on a canyon road above Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood after his brakes failed and he collided with another vehicle.

Phoenix was saved because he was wearing his seat-belt, but has revealed he was helped from the wreckage by the 63-year-old, who has a home nearby.


But now, it appears the man may actually have Super Powers: He's sort of more powerful than a locomotive (see above) and apparently he can stop bullets. If they're the right kind. I eagerly await his leaping tall buildings in a single bound.
Herzog Shot During Interview

German director Werner Herzog was shot by a crazed fan during a recent interview with the BBC.

The 63-year-old was chatting with movie journalist Mark Kermode about his documentary Grizzly Man, when a sniper opened fire with an air rifle.

Kermode explains, "I thought a firecracker had gone off.

"Herzog, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, said, 'Oh, someone is shooting at us. We must go.'

"He had a bruise the size of a snooker ball, with a hole in. He just carried on with the interview while bleeding quietly in his boxer shorts."

An unrepentant Herzog insisted, "It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid."

Significant Bullet, I think, is my new favorite band name.

No Cartoons Were Harmed In The Creation of This Article

But some guts were busted.

The Onion hits the nail on the head.