Monday, October 31, 2005
'Pinter's Second Act: Forget the Nobelist's plays-watch him act'
article by MAC ROGERS here.
In 1955, 50 years before he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Harold Pinter was a supporting player at the Colchester Repertory Company, acting under the name David Baron. That same year, while rotating through a series of drawing-room dramas and Agatha Christie thrillers, Pinter began work on his first play, an eerie one-act called The Room. Five years later his masterpiece The Caretaker vaulted him to international fame, and he never needed to take another acting role for money again. Yet Pinter has continued to pursue acting through a number of small, vivid film roles, employing his giant frame and low, thunderous voice to bring life to a whole rogue's gallery of thugs, tyrants, and misanthropes. The nature of these roles is no coincidence: The characters that he plays embody the same obsessions and moral anger that inform his writing. Pinter the actor is a natural extension of Pinter the writer.
'Scare Yourself Silly, but the Real Terrors Are at Your Feet'
essay by ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D. here.
Just in time for Halloween, the usual yearly ritual of terror by headline is now playing itself out in medical offices everywhere. Last year it revolved around flu shots; a few years ago it was anthrax and smallpox; a few years before that it was the "flesh-eating bacteria"; and before that it was Ebola virus, and Lyme disease and so on back into the distant past. This year it's the avian flu.
"I was crossing
I just looked at him. What could I say? He has smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for the last 50 years. He has coughed and wheezed and gasped his way across
'U.S. Inquiry Cites Missteps in Iraqi Reconstruction'
article by JAMES GLANZ here.
As the money runs out on the $30 billion American-financed reconstruction of Iraq, the officials in charge cannot say how many planned projects they will complete, and there is no clear source for hundreds of millions of dollars a year needed to operate the projects that have been finished, according to a report to Congress made public today.
The report, by the special inspector general for
it's not fair to blame walmart for maximizing their profits, but it is fair to blame a social/legal system that permits it
article by STEVEN GREENHOUSE and MICHAEL BARBARO here.
An internal memo sent to Wal-Mart's board of directors proposes numerous ways to hold down spending on health care and other benefits while seeking to minimize damage to the retailer's reputation. Among the recommendations are hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from working at Wal-Mart.
In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive.
To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."
The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that In the memorandum, M. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits. The memo voices concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive.
To discourage unhealthy job applicants, Ms. Chambers suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."
The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefit costs because critics had attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million
'White House Gamble Pays for a Princeton Professor'
article by LOUIS UCHITELLE and EDUARDO PORTER here.
Even before President Bush named Ben S. Bernanke as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers this spring, Mr. Bernanke decided to gamble. He sold his home in New Jersey last year and told friends that, instead of returning to a tenured professorship at Princeton University, he was taking a chance that President Bush would elevate him from obscurity as a Federal Reserve governor to a top political appointment.
The gamble paid off. If the Senate confirms him, Mr. Bernanke will arguably become the most powerful economic leader in the world. Not since Arthur Burns, the Federal Reserve chairman from 1970 to 1978, has a university professor run the nation's central bank.
'Masked: Is Burger King trying to put one over on me?'
article by SETH STEVENSON here.
A few weeks ago, on Sept. 30, I received an e-mail from a reader: "Just by chance, do you know if they will be selling a BK King mask for Halloween."
I knew this referred to the plastic-headed "King" character from Burger King's ongoing ad campaign. But it seemed a slightly odd, out-of-nowhere query. Before I could give it much thought, a few more e-mails rolled in.
Here's one from Oct. 5: "How does a nobody like me, go about obtaining a Burger King head/mask, to use for Halloween? Do you have any ideas?"
And later that same day: "how can someone go about getting a burger king head like the one in the comercials. This would make an excellent costume now that halloween is aproaching and everyone I know seems to eat @ burger king on a regular basis."
'Legal P2P opens for business'
article by JOHN BORLAND here.
iMesh has occupied a unique role in the digital world for more than a year. Created by Marco and a handful of others in
'Google Wants to Dominate Madison Avenue, Too'
article by SAUL HANSELL here.
IN many ways, Larry Page and Sergey Brin seem an unlikely pair to lead an advertising revolution. As Stanford graduate students sketching out the idea that became Google, the two software engineers sniffed in an academic paper that "advertising-funded search engines will inherently be biased toward the advertisers and away from the needs of consumers."
'Vietnam Study, Casting Doubts, Remains Secret'ba
article by SCOTT SHANE here.
The historian's conclusion is the first serious accusation that communications intercepted by the N.S.A., the secretive eavesdropping and code-breaking agency, were falsified so that they made it look as if North Vietnam had attacked American destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, two days after a previous clash. President Lyndon B. Johnson cited the supposed attack to persuade Congress to authorize broad military action in Vietnam, but most historians have concluded in recent years that there was no second attack.
The N.S.A. historian, Robert J. Hanyok, found a pattern of translation mistakes that went uncorrected, altered intercept times and selective citation of intelligence that persuaded him that midlevel agency officers had deliberately skewed the evidence.
'TV Newsman Is His Own News in the Leak Case'
article by TODD S. PURDUM here.
But on this particular Sunday, the news compelled Mr. Russert to turn his trademark attention to an atypical topic: himself.
'Potential Conflicts Cited in Process for New Drugs'
article by NICHOLAS BAKALAR here.
The authors of the guidelines widely used to establish standards for prescribing medicines are often paid by the drug companies whose products they discuss, a new survey has found.
The study, by the journal Nature and published in its Oct. 20 issue, found that more than one-third of the guideline authors acknowledged some financial interest in the drugs they recommended, including owning stock and being paid by the company to speak at seminars.
Almost half the published guidelines, the survey found, included no information about potential conflicts.
In half of the more than 200 guidelines examined, at least one author had received research financing from a relevant company, and 43 percent had at least one author who had been a paid speaker for the company.
'Polygamous Community Defies State Crackdown'
article by TIMOTHY EGAN here.
COLORADO CITY,
Theirs was the first independent government presence in half a century at this settlement straddling the Arizona-Utah border, a place frozen in a 19th-century frontier theocracy inspired by the early Mormon Church.
But the twin towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, continue to defy the law, the authorities and dissidents say: under the direction of leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, women are still being removed from their husbands and assigned to other men, and girls under 18 are ordered to become brides of older men on a day's notice, all despite the presence of full-time outside law enforcement.
'the point of google print'
google blog entry here.
Books of Revelation
By Eric Schmidt
The Wall Street Journal
Imagine sitting at your computer and, in less than a second, searching the full text of every book ever written. Imagine an historian being able to instantly find every book that mentions the Battle of Algiers. Imagine a high school student in
That's the vision behind Google Print, a program we introduced last fall to help users search through the oceans of information contained in the world's books. Recently, some members of the publishing industry who believe this program violates copyright law have been fighting to stop it. We respectfully disagree with their conclusions, on both the meaning of the law and the spirit of a program which, in fact, will enhance the value of each copyright. Here's why.
'Strong, Sweet Smell Reported in Manhattan'
AP article here.
Residents from the southern tip of
'Google Found to Be Testing Classified Ads'
article by John Markoff here.
The service, which was named Google Base and was for a time accessible at base.google.com, described itself as "Google's database into which you can add all types of content."
"We'll host your content and make it searchable online for free."
The new service could automatically funnel listings on all kinds of subjects and display them as part of the company's sponsored ad links on the right side of pages displaying search results from Google queries.
more info on google base here.
'Genetic Catalog May Aid Search for Roots of Disease'
article by NICHOLAS WADE here.
In a follow-up to the Human Genome Project, a consortium of scientists has compiled a partial catalog of human genetic variation that it hopes will speed the search for the genetic roots of many common diseases.
The catalog is based on analyzing the genomes of people from four ethnic groups - Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and the Yoruba of Nigeria - and it has so far identified about three million sites on the three-billion-unit human genome where some people have different DNA units. These variations help make everyone unique, but they may also be the reason why people have propensities toward certain diseases.
'Are Jews Smarter?'
article by Jennifer Senior here.
Did Jewish intelligence evolve in tandem with Jewish diseases as a result of discrimination in the ghettos of medieval
'Apple sells a million videos in new service'
article here.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Monday, October 24, 2005
'Mao': The Real Mao
book review by NICHOLAS D KRISTOF here.
Yet this is a magisterial work. True, much of Mao's brutality has already emerged over the years, but this biography supplies substantial new information and presents it all in a stylish way that will put it on bedside tables around the world. No wonder the Chinese government has banned not only this book but issues of magazines with reviews of it, for Mao emerges from these pages as another Hitler or Stalin.
What's the Deal With Tom DeLay's Mug Shot?: Why doesn't it have numbers on it?
article by KEVIN McDONELL here.
On Thursday, Tom DeLay reported to the
Yes, though advances in technology have made mug shots pretty much indistinguishable from normal photographs. During the last decade or so, most state and federal bond offices have made their entire booking process digital. (For one, most jurisdictions no longer take fingerprints using an ink pad but use biometric scans instead.) Mug shots now typically get taken with a digital camera. The accused's personal identification number (those digits that used to appear on a placard in front of the arrestee's torso) and other data like gender, eye color, and birth date, get recorded on the side of the photo. (You can see DeLay and his booking information in this uncropped version of the photo.)
'The Antikythera mechanism: the clockwork computer'
economist article here.
WHEN a Greek sponge diver called Elias Stadiatos discovered the wreck of a cargo ship off the tiny
The Antikythera mechanism, as it is now known, was originally housed in a wooden box about the size of a shoebox, with dials on the outside and a complex assembly of bronze gear wheels within. X-ray photographs of the fragments, in which around 30 separate gears can be distinguished, led the late Derek Price, a science historian at
'NYT, Miller Spar Over Role in Leak Probe'
article by PETE YOST here.
In a memo to the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller says Miller "seems to have misled" the newspaper's Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, who said Miller told him in the fall of 2003 that she was not one of the recipients of a leak about the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.
Miller says Keller's criticism is "seriously inaccurate."
excellent profile of independent prosecutor patrick j. fizgerald
article by SCOTT JANE and DAVID JOHNSTON here.
"You'd open a drawer, looking for a pen or Post-it notes, and it would be full of dirty socks," recalled Karen Patton Seymour, a former assistant United States attorney who tried a major case with him. "He was a mess. Food here, clothes there, papers everywhere. But behind all that was a totally organized mind."
That mind, which has taken on Al Qaeda and the Gambino crime family, is now focused on the most politically volatile case of Mr. Fitzgerald's career. As the special prosecutor who has directed the C.I.A. leak investigation, he is expected to decide within days who, if anyone, will be charged with a crime.
star wars homoeroticism
a recut trailer for star wars: episode iii that infers a homosexual relationship between obi-wan and anakin. download by clicking here.
'FEMA Official Says Boss Ignored Warnings'
AP article here.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the midst of the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, a Federal Emergency Management Agency official in New Orleans sent a dire e-mail to Director Michael Brown saying victims had no food and were dying. No response came from Brown.
Instead, less than three hours later, an aide to Brown sent an e-mail saying her boss wanted to go on a television program that night -- after needing at least an hour to eat dinner at a Baton Rouge, La., restaurant.
randy newman is awesome
bio of Randy Newman here.
lyrics for ‘rednecks’ form album ‘good old boys’ (1974):
Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show
With some smart-ass New York Jew
And the Jew laughed at Lester Maddox
And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too
Well, he may be a fool but he's our fool
If they think they're better than him they're wrong
So I went to the park and I took some paper along
And that's where I made this song
We talk real funny down here
We drink too much and we laugh too loud
We're too dumb to make it in no Northern town
And we're keepin' the niggers down
We got no-necked oilmen from
And good ol' boys from
And college men from LSU
Went in dumb - come out dumb too
Hustlin' 'round
Gettin' drunk every weekend at the barbecues
And they're keepin' the niggers down
We're rednecks, rednecks
And we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
And we're keeping the niggers down
Now your northern nigger's a Negro
You see he's got his dignity
Down here we're too ignorant to realize
That the North has set the nigger free
Yes he's free to be put in a cage
In
And he's free to be put in a cage in the South-Side of
And the West-Side
And he's free to be put in a cage in Hough in
And he's free to be put in a cage in
And he's free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in
And he's free to be put in a cage in Roxbury in
They're gatherin' 'em up from miles around
Keepin' the niggers down
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
And we're keeping the niggers down
We are keeping the niggers down
'Drug Effective Against Early Breast Cancer'
AP article here.
Many doctors and patients are embracing a drug described as perhaps the most powerful cancer medicine in a decade, taking their cue from recent studies showing it can halve the risk of relapse for a very aggressive form of breast cancer.
Several experts used words like ''revolutionary,'' ''stunning'' and ''jaw-dropping'' to describe the findings on the impact of the drug, Herceptin. Some even talked of a ''cure'' for a considerable number of women.
...
he drug, Herceptin, targets only diseased cells and is already used for advanced cancer. But in three studies involving thousands of women with early-stage disease, it cut the risk of a relapse in half.
The drug, made by Genentech, does not help everyone, though. For one thing, it is only for the estimated 20 percent of patients whose breast tumors churn out too much of a protein known as HER2. In the recent studies, the drug was used along with standard treatments, including surgery and chemotherapy. Even then, some patients relapsed.
Still, such benefits haven't been seen for a cancer drug since research a decade ago demonstrated the extraordinary strength of tamoxifen. Both drugs home in on cancer cells while sparing healthy ones -- part of the class of ''targeted'' drugs.
'Elderly man drives with body in windshield'
CNN article here.
A 93-year-old driver apparently suffering from dementia fatally struck a pedestrian and drove for three miles with the man's body through his windshield, police said.
Ralph Parker was stopped after he drove through a tollbooth on the Sunshine Skyway, Traffic Homicide Investigator Michael Jockers said. The toll taker called police, he said.
...
The victim's leg was severed in the Wednesday night crash, police said. The man, whose name was not released, was 52.
Parker had renewed his license in 2003.
"That was the one thing he had, to get in his car and just drive for the sheer enjoyment of driving," Jockers said. Parker lived alone after his wife died in 1998, authorities said.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
'The Miller Case: A Notebook, a Cause, a Jail Cell and a Deal'
article by DON VAN NATTA Jr., ADAM LIPTAK and CLIFFORD J LEVY here.
'White Dog (1982)'
imdb page here.
Paul Winfield is a trainer attempting to reprogram vicious dog who's been trained to attack and kill people with black skin.
'A drop of pure gold: A group of researchers attempts to estimate the economic benefits of vaccination'
Economist article here.
WHAT good is vaccination? Obviously it is good for the person receiving the vaccine, if he is thus prevented from suffering from a nasty disease. More subtly, it can be good for an entire population since, if enough of its members are vaccinated, even those who are not will receive a measure of protection. That is because, with only a few susceptible individuals, the transmission of the infection cannot be maintained and the disease spread. But in the case of many vaccines, there are non-medical benefits, too, in the form of costs avoided and the generation of income that would otherwise have been lost. These goods are economic.
'Study Ranks Homeland Security Dept. Lowest in Morale'
article by DAVID E ROSENBAUM here.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 - At the Department of Homeland Security, the main government agency responsible for protecting the country against terrorism and responding to natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, only 12 percent of the more than 10,000 employees who returned a government questionnaire said they felt strongly that they were "encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things."
Only 3 percent said they were confident that in their department, personnel decisions were "based on merit." Fewer than 18 percent said they felt strongly that they were "held accountable for achieving results." And just 4 percent said they were sure that "creativity and innovation are rewarded."
'Stem Cell Test Tried on Mice Saves Embryo'
article by NICHOLAS WADE here.
Scientists have devised two new techniques to derive embryonic stem cells in mice, one of which avoids the destruction of the embryo, a development that could have the potential to shift the grounds of the longstanding political debate about human stem cell research.
'Freeh Continues Criticism of Clinton Terror Record'
article by BRIAN KNOWLTON here.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 - The rancor between Louis Freeh and former President Bill Clinton, who appointed him director of the F.B.I. in 1993, was laid raw anew today as Mr. Freeh continued his assault on the Clinton administration's handling of terrorism, while a former presidential aide accused Mr. Freeh of an "astonishing string of failures that helped leave America vulnerable to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."
'The Silent Partner (1978)'
imdb page here.
This is an imaginative plot, yet one with which the viewer can readily identify. A bank teller (Elliot Gould) is held up at gun point in his bank. Luckily for him he receives a clue that this is going to occur and diverts most of the cash into his own safety deposit box, leaving only a nominal amount for the crook (Christopher Plummer). The ruse works well, but for the fact that the crook resents the fact that he has been outsmarted. There ensues a terrific battle of wits involving the clever but basically "moral" teller, and the cunning and totally uninhibited bank robber, which involves several other people in ways which cannot be revealed here.
'Plasma pencil kills germs'
article by JOY BUCHANAN here.
Laroussi calls it the "plasma pencil." Plasma is a substance made of energized atomic particles that's created when gas is electrified. It's considered the fourth state of matter besides solids, liquids and gases.
The pencil generates a "cold plasma," which can be used to kill germs that contaminate surfaces, infect wounds and rot your teeth. In the future, it might be used to destroy tumors without damaging surrounding tissue. Laroussi, an associate professor at
When he turns the pencil on, it blows a high pitched whistle as a glowing, blue-violet beam about 2 inches long instantly appears at one end. Stick your finger in its path and you only feel a cool breeze, but the beam is powerful enough to blast apart bacteria that's crawling on your skin.
'Measuring the World: From Material to Ethereal'
article by KENNETH CHANG here.
LOCKED in a vault in
For 116 years, this cylinder made of platinum and iridium has been the world's defining unit of mass. It's an easy concept to understand.
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in
It's a two-story-tall contraption that looks one part Star Trek, one part Wallace and Gromit. Briefly put, it measures the power needed to generate an electromagnetic force that balances the gravitational pull on a kilogram of mass.
"It's such a very complicated thing that's hard to explain," said Richard Steiner, the physicist in charge of the project. He has been working on this "electronic kilogram" machine for more than a decade.
'In Unruly Gaza, Clans Compete in Power Void'
article by STEVEN ERLANGER here.
...
The hamullas are again so powerful in Gaza that rival security forces seek to buy their loyalty with money and weapons, while hamullas seek to ensure that their members are represented in all crucial groups, including the militants of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and of course Fatah, which is supposed to be the bulwark of the Palestinian Authority.
...
Talal Okal, a political scientist at
Arafat, in his revolutionary stage, used to talk about "the democracy of the rifle." It is a form of that "democracy" with which Mr. Abbas must now cope.
In fact, it is largely Arafat's own failure to take state-building seriously that helped create the problems here, which were evident long before he died in November, said Salah Abdel Shafi, an economist who works with the World Bank and advises Mr. Abbas. Once the symbol of Palestine disappeared with Arafat's death, many of the fissures were vividly exposed: between the secular and the religious, one group of Fatah and another, one security service and another, one clan and another, all competing for power and benefits.