http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ en-us aaron@etchouse.com 2007-11-01T12:09:31-06:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/001471.html Since I'm still not going to have any videos to post for another week, and I can't quite get my brain around the boneheaded moves happening in the Obama campaign, I thought I'd finally get around to posting some Vancouver trip round-up. Instead of flying into Vancouver, we were able to save some money by flying to Seattle and renting a car to drive up. Neither of us had ever been to Washington before, so we spent the afternoon of our arrival poking around the campus area and visiting an indie craft store that Emily wanted to check out. The thing that really struck me about Seattle was how much more foreign it seemed than every other big city visited recently. To a certain extent, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, New York, Boston, San Francisco, etc., all have a very similar feel to me, where the only variable is magnitude. The woody and mountainous geography around Puget Sound really made me feel like we'd gone somewhere new, as did the kind of odd traffic idiosyncrasies. 1471@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 Music 2007-11-01T12:09:31-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/001462.html A couple weeks ago, Esther Thorson from the University of Missouri was here to give a talk about the decline of American newspapers. Like most such talks in the academy, it was full of concerns over structural changes in American political media and awful it is that nobody wants to have a civil discussion anymore, etc. In the Q&A, one of our professors raised the idea that perhaps we're not turning away from the traditional press because we want an ideologically-driven one, but because we don't really care about "the news" and we never have. This comment got me wondering something else -- why don't these discussions ever contain any suggestion that there has been a dramatic drop in the quality of American political reporting over the past two decades? There are perfectly understandable practical reasons for this, to be sure, the big one being that even the most scientifically rigorous analysis will be at least a little bit subjective, and thus open to being dismissed by partisan critics. But so what? Social science findings are frequently controversial, both inside and outside the academy. I'm posting this because a couple recent comments by Matthew Yglesias have really gotten me thinking closely about the quality issue and the extent to which journalists and the audience view it differently. As he notes as part of an ongoing debate about why cable news channels spend so much time on tabloid stories -- the common answer seeming to be that it's because they bring in ratings -- there is no allowance for the idea that these news organizations are doing nothing but produced lots of useless crap: Given that the country adds over two million people a year to its population, the fact that the audience seems to have stalled for years at around 1.5 million hardly suggests a wildly successful programming model. Indeed, it seems to me that in some ways the worst damage financial pressures have done to journalism is to let so many people get off the hook by using it as an excuse. It's considered sacrilege in the business to suggest that low quality might be a cause of declining circulation for newspapers or audience for network news broadcasts. Instead, we're supposed to believe that it's the reverse -- problems are all caused by cutbacks which, in turn, are caused by the audience's stubborn unwillingness to cooperate and subscribe. As for the news organizations themselves, they also like to place the blame on the viewers by occasionally doing stories about how much the public likes these tabloid affairs, so jeez, what else can they do? When anybody complains about the content of their rare political reporting, they point fingers in both directions and declare, "Both sides are complaining, so we must be right!" But then they do things like correctly quoting Fred Thompson claiming that Medicare Part D cost $72 trillion, rather than the actual figure of $72 billion, without noting Thompson's error. Yglesias: Now you're walking around thinking a $72 trillion commitment was made. You read it in the newspaper, after all. Except it's wrong! But you shouldn't be un-learning things when you read the paper. The problem here is that, as Yglesias says, people now believe the incorrect figure to be true, because a legitimate newspaper printed it without making note of Thompson's mistake. But the reporter would likely say that there was nothing wrong with her story because, hey, Thompson said "$72 trillion," and that's what she printed. Pointing out his mistake wouldn't have been objective, since it would mean, I guess, taking a position on whether or not Medicare Part D cost $72 billion or a thousand times that much. This inability to apply standards of truthfulness in even the most objectively supported situation is the number one problem with modern American journalism, and it should be a scandal in journalism education. 1462@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 Politics 2007-10-13T21:24:17-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000712.html We got a new car this week -- NEW new -- and it is... an SUV. A "crossover" SUV, but an SUV nonetheless. How do two people who think so politically about their consumption justify such a choice? Well, a few things. Firstly, we're actually using the "U" part of "SUV" -- the main reason we wanted this vehicle was to more easily haul Emily's stuff to craft shows. Loading it all into her Jetta worked, but she was restricted in how much she could take and the car itself was significantly affected by the load. Still, we'd planning to stick with it until it gave out, which finally happened last week. Perhaps the biggest concern with this car is the gas mileage. Since we've yet to take it on the highway or fill the tank, I don't know what we'll wind up with exactly, but according to the official reports I think we'll be right around where the Jetta was, maybe a little under it. Also, I can drive this car, which wasn't really the case with the Jetta. That car was a manual transmission, which I can drive but am not comfortable with; it was also really small and didn't have cruise control, which meant I physically couldn't deal with more than an hour in the driver's seat. The new one is an automatic, it's bigger and it has cruise. If we need to drive home after Emily would be tired, or if she's had some drinks, we don't have to worry about whether my beat-up Grand Prix can make it. Still, I find myself continuing to sneer at other SUV drivers and occasionally sneering at myself. So it's a bit weird. 712@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2007-09-01T13:19:56-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000695.html DC, or at least what I've seen of it, has been interesting so far. Much like New York, I wish I could've seen what it was like 20 years ago. Much like Boston, I can't find breakfast before 9:00 fucking anywhere. The conference itself is pretty laid back, primarily because the only paper I'm the lead author on is in a poster session, and really, it's August in Washington. I've seen some of the sights but not explored too much, because it's way too hot to spend a lot of time walking around outside, and the public transportation is not very good. Last night, though, we followed the Wisconsin social by cramming five of us into a cab to go to a party at Ezra Klein's house, because Kjerstin's sister Emily knows him and understood it to be the place for hip young folks like ourselves to be. Kjerstin had earlier identified him as "some blogger that was on Hardball yesterday," and was surprised that I could identify him, based largely on this post. I don't generally read Klein's blog, but that post was linked by Atrios, whom I do read. Also in attendance was Matthew Yglesias, whom I recognized, and I'm told a bunch of other bloggers, whom I didn't. It was sort of a weird experience, in that I was sort of shocked that these 25-year-old prep school kids were part of the New Elite Punditry, my general agreement with them about most everything notwithstanding. Part of it also was a direct collision with the New Celebrity, which the fact that I recognized Yglesias immediately plays a large part in. On the other hand, we were provided with several beers and a piece of cake (it was Tristan's birthday, though I don't know who Tristan is), and had a generally enjoyable time hanging out on a wobbly old deck. Also, some guy walked straight into the glass deck door, which everybody promised to blog, but so far have not. I grabbed a big handful of bottle caps for Emily when we were getting ready to leave, so Madison readers may find themselves in the possession of 100% authentic Big Media Blogger trash if they come down to the farmers market and buy some bottle cap magnets. They are guaranteed to appreciate!* * Appreciation not guaranteed. 695@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2007-08-11T12:31:45-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000679.html One of the things I like about Boston is that it's one of the few places where the cartoonishly stereotyped accent that outsiders think the locals have is actually kind of prevalent. Yesterday morning I has leaving the dorm and these two cops were outside, apparently directing people around the construction. One was sitting in an unmarked car with the window open, eating yogurt or something. As I pass, the guy standing outside the car says to the guy inside, in the kind of thick accent that I normally use when doing one of my hilarious accent routines, "Watcha eatin' theah, cream o' sum yung guy?" And then he cracks up. 679@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2007-07-19T18:57:05-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000677.html Yesterday we had a talk from Sunshine Hillygus about political microtargeting via direct mail, and its relationship to cross-party vote-chasing. It seemed kind of out of place, since the general references she made to the Internet in the introduction weren't followed up with anything in the specific talk -- "information technology" was in the title, but the technology in question was data-mining and market analysis. Also, it seemed like there was a lot to be said about intra-party vote-shoring-up that she didn't cover, for whatever reason. This morning I'm introducing Dan Gillmor, whom I'm sad to say is the only OII speaker that I'd heard of before the schedule and syllabus went out. Gillmor is something of a citizen-journalism/net-media evangelist and preach-practicer, so I'm eager to hear what he has to say about the state of the American press and its relationship to the rise of its new competitors. 677@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 Politics 2007-07-18T07:52:51-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000675.html Travel troubles to start the two weeks of OII. First, we had to sit on the tarmac in Madison for an hour, just moments from taking off, because of "wind shear" in Chicago grounding all planes in and out. Luckily, I didn't miss my connection to Boston because some other weather had delayed that plane by 35 minutes. Ridiculously, I managed to do exactly what I did last time I visited Boston -- take an immediate wrong turn and get lost for an hour, helped along by the fact that there are multiple streets with the same name. Am I going the right way on Mass Ave? Sure, there's Cambridge St! No AC or fans in the room, and it's humid as all hell, but I brought enough clothes that I can shower several times a day if I feel like it. 675@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2007-07-16T08:28:17-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000673.html I'm leaving town later this afternoon to attend the Oxford Internet Institute's summer doctoral program, this year hosted at Harvard. I'll be blogging about some of it, however esoteric it might turn out to be. 673@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2007-07-15T12:44:10-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000656.html Man, it is fucking freezing in San Francisco. I can't believe I feel this way, but more than almost anything else I can't wait to get back to Madison just for the weather. 656@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2007-05-28T10:33:53-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000647.html Word came in today that all three of my AEJMC submissions were accepted, which means I'll be traveling to San Francisco, Boston, Washington, Vancouver and Chicago, at least, for scholarly events between now and 2008. This will be, by far, the most networking I've ever done in such a short period -- less than eight months from start to finish, in which I'll be interacting with many of the Important People in the field, and also trying to establish myself as a Big Name of blog research. And yet, the one thing I keep focusing on is, "I wonder who's going to be playing in [city] while I'm there?" 647@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2007-05-18T00:23:52-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000614.html We went to see a free OK Go event at the High Noon last night, put on by Jack Daniel's. This is the second or third such event they've put on in Madison -- they did one with the New Pornographers last year, and there was a Spoon show in 2005 that might've been them too. It was a good show, but I'll have more to say on that when the videos go up next week. What really intrigues me is this: How can this possibly be a profitable marketing strategy for Jack Daniel's? Allow me to describe the extravagance of the evening. The High Noon holds 400 people -- including staff and roughly 100 VIPs, Jack Daniel's and Isthmus, the local sponsor, had 250 tickets to give away by random drawing. We won two sets of two, but that's probably not a good indicator of how many people's contact info they got for future spamming. We also opted out of future spam, as I imagine most entrants would have. In exchange for gathering these e-mail addresses, Jack Daniel's paid (in whole or in part) for: rental of the High Noon with full staff and with only Jack drinks available at the bar (and only Jack bottles on display), two free drink tickets for everybody in the building, OK Go to play a show with no gate and only a tiny merch area, local act Cats Not Dogs to open, a Peavey guitar as a door prize, an assload of t-shirts with all the dates on the Jack Daniel's tour on the back (about 30, with ours listed as "Madison, IN"), a smaller pile of t-shirts with "Madison" and "March 13" specifically on them, a huge pile of hors d'oeurves, tons of Jack-branded 1" buttons (some with "Madison" on), tons of Jack-branded guitar picks, many sets of Jack-branded drumsticks, Jack-branded regular pens, Jack-branded light-up pens, a searchlight and air-compressor-powered inflatable Jack bottle outside, and the loathsome "Jack Daniel's girls." Probably also some other giveaway trinkets that I'm forgetting. Also, custom Polaroid film, such as that seen above, which I imagine is the only way Polaroid can sell film anymore. The Jack Daniel's marketing team I'm sure has a good explanation for all of this: They're trying to cement brand loyalty among young consumers and become the liquor of choice among, if not hipsters, than at least yupsters. They also have a couple new malt beverages to push (which, FYI, are horrible), so putting some freebies in the hands of the cool kids might be a good idea, assuming they have confidence in their product. Looking around the room, though, you'd be hard pressed to find the kind of people they wanted. If there's a market out there looking to get hooked on the PBR of whiskeys, it's not going to show up at an OK Go show at the High Noon Saloon. More likely, the real reason this event happened (and why it will happen again, presumably) is that the marketing industry is a house of cards, which everyone's actions dependent on nothing so much as their perceptions of their competitor's actions. They may not actually gain anything in terms of sales or market share following this spending spree, but sweet Christ, think of what might've happened if they hadn't done this! Maker's Mark would be eating them alive! 614@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 Music 2007-03-14T13:57:06-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000537.html My first publication came out today, and since it's in an online journal everybody can read it for free. Check it out. 537@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2006-10-31T09:40:30-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000488.html The Daily Show has recently been playing clips from past shows in honor of its tenth birthday, and one a couple of weeks ago featured former contributor A. Whitney Brown. He's probably best known for his commentaries (called "The Big Picture," also the title of a similarly themed book by Brown) during the Dennis Miller-era "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live, but he's done very little since leaving TDS in the late 90's. After briefly seeing him discuss the constant presence of NAMBLA members at Disney World, I started looking around after him. Apparently he worked as a producer for Air America Radio, got fired for "insubordination," started a blog that lasted exactly two days and is now a semi-regular diarist at Daily Kos. It's kind of weird to see, because I think he was one of the best political humorists of the late 80's and early 90's, both in terms of message and style, and now he's part of a mass of what amounts to long tail political commentary. It'll be nice to hear something from him once in a while now, and maybe this is a stage that suits him. Two of my favorite bloggers, Digby and Billmon, distinctly remind me of his style, after all. Still, somebody, please, put him back on television. Everytime I think of A. Whitney Brown, I'm reminded of what a do-nothing punk Lewis Black is. 488@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 Politics 2006-08-13T23:05:17-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000487.html San Francisco was a pretty nice place to spend probably our only vacation this year, even if it was partially a working vacation. The weather was terrific, especially coming from our 100+ degree heat indices in Madison, and we spent a fair amount of our time there in jackets and long pants. I'm not sure I'd want to live there (and given the near-term effects of global warming, that may not be an option for much longer) but I hope we get a chance to visit again soon. Some good things: Good public transportation coverage. The subways/streetcars don't cover that much ground outside of downtown, but it seems like there are bus routes covering pretty much every city street. Also, it seems to be about the same price as the buses in Madison. Good eats: Crepes a Go-Go in Berkeley will be the first place I go next time I'm in the bay area. Also recommended are Celia's, Golden Rice Bowl and Organic Coffee. If you're downtown, Annabelle's is a good place to drink. You find yourself walking a lot, particularly since parking is such a nightmare, which is good. There aren't nearly as many open wireless networks as you would expect, but Google operates one in Union Square, which is a nice place to hang out anyway. Not strictly SF-related, but I bought a set of Philips noise cancelling earbuds (model no. SHN2500) at the Virgin Megastore for $30 and they are amazing. They completely blocked out ambient sound, including the engines, on the flights home, which was much better than I expected. And a couple annoying things: All the street address numbers start from where the street starts, not from a common reference point. Thus, while Polk and Powell Sts. are parallel, 900 Polk St. is not on the same cross-street as 900 Powell St. Plus, in the sections of town with numbered streets, the street addresses of cross-streets don't correspond with what they're between. For instance, my sister lives between 15th and 16th Aves., but her number is not in the 1500s. It's hard to explain how annoying this is after a few times walking around several extra blocks because the numbers weren't right. It's harder than you'd expect to find a good Mexican restaurant. It's much easier than you'd expect to find a Walgreen's, however. Two separate bars gave me vodka gimlets with way too much lime juice. They weren't bad, per se, but they also weren't vodka gimlets. Perhaps this is just how they're made on the west coast. 487@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2006-08-11T16:48:05-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000481.html Some scenes from the Bloc Party show: 481@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2006-08-05T10:45:01-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000478.html Some things I've seen in San Francisco. 478@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2006-08-01T19:24:07-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000339.html We went up to my dad's house in upper Michigan for Xmas, and spent the whole time basically snacking on party food and pounding cocktails. But by the time we got to the second round of martinis on Xmas night, Emily and I had killed nearly an entire liter of vodka -- there was just enough left for one drink. I can't stand gin, so I was about to switch to rum when we remembered a discovery we'd made a couple years ago. In the back of my dad's liquor cabinet, for reasons unknown, was an ancient bottle of 190 proof vodka that we figure my grandpa (on the other side) bought at least a couple decades back. As far as I know, this kind of thing is now illegal in both Wisconsin and Michigan, and based on the label designs, we guessed it probably came from the mid 1970's or so. The back bore no distillery information, just these warnings: Already pretty buzzed, I decided to take the plunge. We figured a gimlet would be the most drinkable option, and my dad made it super limey -- three parts lime juice to one part vodka, as opposed to the normal ratio of one to four. I chopped up an orange to further mask the taste after smelling the freshly opened bottle. You know how bottom-shelf vodka smells like paint thinner? This stuff smelled like paint. Can you guess which is mine? The first thing I noticed was that the ice in my chiller (from my dad's new cubist martini set) was melting faster than everybody else's. When I took a small first sip, I found it surprisingly drinkable -- limey, but sweet, and with little bite from the booze. This is OK, I thought, and all of a sudden I could feel it in my eyes. That warming sensation you get down your esophagus from a strong drink was going both ways. So, it was a sipper. I figured that at 190 proof, it was really just like two drinks at 95 proof, so I took my time with it while everyone else had another round. Every once in a while I took too big a sip and felt my tongue burning, but other than that it was a good buzz sustainer. It didn't even really get me all the way drunk, actually, and I did wind up switching to rum afterwards. Next time we're up there I'm going to try mixing some flavored shots with it. 339@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-12-29T15:49:09-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000300.html We bought tickets for Mike Doughty -- formerly of Soul Coughing, currently of Mike Doughty's Band -- today, for next Friday's show at the High Noon Saloon. Only later did I remember that Doughty is a friend of one of the personalities from the old Warren Ellis Forum at Delphi, and an occasional poster at her now-defunct WEF satellite forum. Weird. 300@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 Music 2005-10-08T23:29:49-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000296.html Last week, I reread the Warren Ellis Forum thread about planes hitting the World Trade Center. I considering excerpting snippets of it for humorous effect here -- mainly the predictions that came tragically true and the ones that were way off the mark ("I don't there's anyone for us to go to war with.") -- but ultimately decided that weeding out the "Are you OK?" and "I'm so glad you're OK!" posts would be too much work. Instead, a selection of out-of-context things I've written in e-mails over the last few years. Nov. 19, 2002 "I'm thinking about dropping irony in favor of futurism as a worldview but I don't think I'm ready yet. Part of me still thinks romanticism has some merit and a bigger part wants to stick with the security blanket of irony. Also, I'm not fully forward-looking enough for futurism. I've been thinking a lot about documentary filmmaking lately, which is hardly futurist." Ha ha ha ha ha; fuck futurism. (It's worth noting that the entire message that comes from is soaking in irony from start to finish.) Jan. 5, 2003 "You should try grad school. It's impossible to fail. You can decide, for weeks at a time, that the whole thing is stupid and pointless and you won't participate anymore and they'll still give you A's." I stand by this 100%. Feb. 2, 2003 "And also, there's a shortcut to scoring all kinds of class participation points -- all you have to do is question why the topic at hand matters. Most doctoral types will be dumbfounded and you look like a total theoretical genius." Probably I'll need to delete this post when I go out on the job market. Mar. 5, 2003 "Does the Bible forbid pre-marital lip contact now? I mean, OK, I guess I could reasonably see not having sex first, even though that's also completely silly, if you're hyper-religious or just somehow not into it or whatever. But kissing? Presumably you're going to kiss your spouse fairly often. What if they suck at it? How can you look into your new partner's eyes and say, 'Baby, you know I love you and nothing could ever change that, but what the hell are you trying to do with your tongue? I mean, is that some kind of wave or something? Help me out, here.'" And then later... Mar. 5, 2003 "OK, so Texas does have at least one redeeming quality." Are these statements connected? You be the judge. Mar. 20, 2003 "She said she decided not to bring up ninjas, superheroes or porn this time. I asked her what kind of guys did she think she was meeting if they didn't like ninjas, superheroes or porn. ... Idiots have popular singles bars in which to meet other idiots. What do we get?" This one worked out in the long run. Mar. 20, 2003 "As for falling in love, I don't know. I equate the anxiety to not knowing if your friends at school are still your friends when summer vacation rolls around. It's an insane amount of giving with no expectation of return. The cynic in me thinks it's probably an unnatural state based on a highly pervasive mental condition. The romantic in me agrees but doesn't care." So did this one, as it turned out. Apr. 10, 2003 "Trying to give everyone hickeys was maybe a tad more eccentric than usual, but still mostly reasonable." Mostly. Apr. 28, 2003 "We found a big tin full of antique soap down in the basement -- I suggested that maybe there's a burgeoning market for ancient soaps on eBay." There's not. Sep. 22, 2003 "Empirical evidence can be found to show many things but I don't think mere empirical evidence will turn Pinocchio into a real boy, and that's what it feels like Barton is getting at." Yeah! Take that, Barton! 296@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-09-17T01:52:28-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000294.html I finally got all my new equipment integrated into the network, and have gotten my black and white film (yes, film) pictures from Vegas scanned and uploaded to Flickr. Color film shots still to come. 294@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-09-11T12:05:25-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000290.html Up to 80,000 dead. Army Corps of Engineers money and resources diverted from Lake Pontchartrain levees to Iraq. A vacation three days too long. 290@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-08-31T21:11:12-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000289.html We're back from Vegas -- I lost about $50 and left my jacket on the plane. Whoops! The first of three photo sets is up at Flickr. 289@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-08-23T14:47:20-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000287.html My distaste for children is well known, but this is still pretty cool. 287@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-08-07T22:11:48-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000276.html The RIAA has apparently been deputized in New York City: Employees of Mondo Kim's and fellow NYC record store Other Music, speaking to Pitchfork on conditions of anonymity, confirmed yesterday that five of Mondo Kim's employees were arrested and taken to Manhattan Central Booking, where they spent the night of June 8. When asked why these five employees were singled out for arrest, the Kim's source told us that an undercover agent was allegedly sold a bootleg, and the arrests followed. After the sale, police produced a search warrant, fingered the arrestees, shut down the store for roughly five hours, and confiscated, according to the RIAA, "500 CD-Rs, 27 Music DVDs, Nine DVD burners, and a scanner," among other items, which include the computer containing the store's database and recent sales records. Meanwhile, you can go down to Canal St. and be offered five copies of "Revenge of the Sith" inside of three minutes with a dozen cops standing right there. 276@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-06-13T10:11:47-06:00 http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/archives/000274.html I've been wondering for years why Saddam Hussein is so often referred to as just "Saddam" by the western media. I figured it was primarily to make him appear larger than life -- you know, Madonna, Cher, Saddam, etc. -- but it turns out he's just got a weird name and there's legitimate discrepancy over what his name is all about. Hussein is not Saddam's family name. It's actually his father's given name. This is a common Arabic tradition, which is why terms like "son of" (ibn or bin, depending on the country) and "father of" (abu) are sometimes part of a person's identification. His full name is something close to Saddam Hussein al-Majid al-Tikriti, depending on the Middle Eastern authorities you consult. Taken apart, it really means that he is "Saddam, son of Hussein al-Majid, part of the al-Tikriti tribe." To complicate matters, the closest term to what westerners would consider a "family" name is not actually represented here. Technically, it would be "al-Khatab," which is the designation of his clan, whose members belong to the larger al-Tikriti tribe. Tikriti, by the way, represents a geographical location � the town of Tikrit along the Tigris River about 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, not far from the village where Saddam was born. Given that, I guess just "Saddam" works. 274@http://www.etchouse.com/cpd/ Sat, 30 Aug 2008 15:20:26 -06:00 The World at Large 2005-06-04T22:33:51-06:00