Quotes, URL's, Links And References-by:older Femmes, Butches, Ftms, Mtfs, Queer, Etc.

[sweetlady]

Posted on Wed, Feb. 02, 2005

Mergers narrow telecom choices for consumers

By Michael Bazeley Mercury News

SBC's proposed $16 billion purchase of AT&T is another reminder of the dramatic technological and regulatory changes sweeping the telecommunications industry and reshaping the choices consumers face when they shop for communications services.

The notion of phone companies battling one another for local customers is all but dead. Instead, the emerging competition is between phone giants, such as SBC Communications and Verizon Communications, and cable behemoths such as Comcast.

Both are encroaching on each other's turf, hoping to entice consumers by bundling Internet access and phone and television services into all-in-one packages.

Mobile phone companies and Internet phone start-ups such as Vonage will try to steal away slices of the telephone market. But experts predict the lion's share of the phone market will go to the regional Bell phone companies and cable companies.

Whether this new type of competition will be good for consumers or not is open for debate. Outgoing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell has said that this type of ``intermodal'' competition is as good as any for consumers.

But consumer advocates see it differently.

``It underscores the fact that the vision of rigorous competition for the residential customer has failed,'' said Mark Cooper, analyst with Consumer Federation of America. ``We're getting a duopoly, and it's a crummy duopoly. Two companies is not enough to trigger vigorous price competition or innovation.''

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was supposed to spur competition in the local phone market by requiring the regional Bell phone companies to share their massive networks with competitors.

Competitors such as AT&T and Sprint were to lease phone lines from the Bell companies at regulated wholesale rates, allowing them to resell local phone service to their customers.

But bona fide competition never emerged. And a federal appeals court eventually struck down the price controls. The Bush administration decided in summer 2004 not to fight to keep them.

AT&T pulled out of the market for local calling -- including in California -- shortly thereafter, saying it couldn't compete without price caps. SBC's acquisition of AT&T, announced Sunday, would completely eliminate the historic New Jersey company as a competitor.

``Basically, it was cost-prohibitive to set yourself up as local phone company,'' said Allen Long, an East Bay telecommunications consultant.

At the same time, technological advances have dramatically altered the communications landscape.

Phone calls can now be routed across the Internet with relative ease, opening the phone industry to a slew of companies.

The remaining four Baby Bells dominate most phone markets for now. SBC is believed to control about 90 percent of the local residential market in California.

But most consumers, if they can't already, will soon be able to choose their phone service from among a handful of providers. In the Bay Area, those will likely include SBC, Comcast, several wireless companies such as Verizon and start-ups like Vonage and Voice Pulse.

To date, cable companies have been slow to roll out their phone services as they work through technical issues. But that is expected to change.

The number of cable Internet phone users in North America jumped tenfold last year, from less than 50,000 to close to half a million, according to a study being released today by Infonetics Research.

The growth will pick up this year, said Infonetics analyst Kevin Mitchell. Comcast, for example, plans to have 15 million Internet phone subscribers in 20 markets by year's end, he said.

The cable and phone companies will try to attract customers by bundling their array of services into competitively priced packages.

SBC already bundles local and long-distance phone service with Internet access, mobile phone service and satellite television. The company has announced plans to spend $4 billion laying fiber-optic cables, in part so it someday can beam Internet-based television programming into homes.

The cable companies are countering by bundling television, high-speed Internet access and phone service into one package.

``It's going to be head-to-head competition between the Bells and the cable companies,'' Long said.

For now, the cable companies appear to have the edge in that competition. They can add Internet phone service more quickly than companies like SBC and Verizon can add video. Moreover, cable Internet access has a speed advantage over the phone companies' DSL offerings in most markets.

``Who's got the more complete story?'' said David Willis, analyst with the Meta Group. ``The cable guys with video-on-demand and other services, or the telco guys that can sell you cheap telephone and Internet access? The cable guys have much more upside.''

Regardless of which industry dominates, consumer groups say many customers will end up losers.

Most consumers have no need for the expensive bundles offered by cable and phone companies, Cooper said.

Natalie Billingsly, an analyst with the consumer arm of the state Public Utilities Commission, says her concern is that competition works for all consumers, not just those willing to pay for expensive bundles of services.

``Do the consumers have viable competitive pricing across different price points?'' asked Billingsly, of the Office of Ratepayer Advocates. ``Competition isn't working for the general phone user. For the basic residential user who wants dial tone and maybe voice mail, this won't do it for them.''


(*) (*) I wonder how many years it will take for WIRELESS service providers to get their acts together (literally and standards-wise) so that these terrestrial telecom firms becoming monopolies again becomes a meaningless exercise. Look at Japan and G3 wireless there. They never had to build physical network infrastructure for terrestrial telephony; they skipped a commuinications' generation by going wireless. (o) (o) Off to check on Doc again. (first day of a four day chemo treatment at home.....so far, seems okay. It's ME that's sick! :( :( (S) (S) Maybe some sleep will help. (S) (S)

({) (}) ,
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

[sweetlady]

Posted on Wed, Jan. 19, 2005
By John Paczkowski www.siliconvalley.com

What's the difference between God and Larry Ellison? God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison. Yeah, it's an oldie but it's particularly apt today because only Larry Ellison would claim to have taken two companies the size of Oracle and PeopleSoft and integrated them in less than two weeks. Speaking to a gathering of customers at Oracle's corporate headquarters in Redwood Shores, Ellison confidently proclaimed that the task of integrating the two firms is largely over. "I don't mean to be glib -- but I think the merger integration is complete," Ellison said. "We are done. There is nothing left to do." It was a brazen claim, even for Ellison. Together the merged companies employ some 50,000 workers and support 23,000 applications customers and 1,300 applications partners. No matter how much planning was done, to say that all of them have made a smooth transition in 12 days is audacious; to actually believe it is ... Ellisonian. No one has ever successfully merged two such vast and established software companies. Still, if anyone can do it, I suppose it's Ellison. And he's off to a good start. He smartly retained 90 percent of PeopleSoft's development and support organization and with its help plans to to release in 2008 a new applications suite, dubbed "Fusion," that will serve as a migration point for customers on disparate PeopleSoft, Oracle and J.D. Edwards applications platforms.

(*) (*) Ellison and Gates tie in my mind as top dog meglomaniacs. ;) Meaning that their software product lines suffer in an R&D environment that promotes arrogance. Still, Oracle's databases are everywhere. Whenever I worked on a media asset management project where Oracle was involved - it was more often a systems' integrator performing custom enginering that made the experiences with Oracle as a company, tolerable. :| :| (*) (*)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

http://www.viasf.com/boombags/product.html

(*) (*) ;) Too funny.

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Well, that explains the "more than a hint of megalomania":

Handwriting analysts and psychologists have long maintained that a person's doodles and style of writing contain clues to their character and attitude to problems. So when a page of doodles allegedly made by British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, fell into the hands of a reporter for the Daily Mirror, she did what any good tabloid journalist would do: She called a handwriting expert. The resulting analysis, which set off a buzz in the British press, concluded Blair was, among other things, "slightly out of control, very frustrated and stressed." "There is a lack of curves and a lot of irritability which he is struggling to keep under control," Emma Bache, a graphologist who examined the doodles explained. "There is also a lot of retracing of the strokes, which I have never seen him do before. He is feeling very much under pressure, so an obsessive-compulsive nature is coming out. The pressure he is putting on the pen is also quite heavy, which is an indication of stress and tension. He is someone who doesn't like to lose face. ... He is incredibly stubborn; you can see this from the way the 't' in 'taxes' is below the baseline. Even when he knows he is wrong he won't back down. ... There is more than a hint of megalomania about him which I haven't seen before." That last bit there should have been a tip-off. Because it turns out the jottings that Bache analyzed weren't done by Blair, but by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, a revelation that gave everyone over at Downing Street a good laugh. Said a spokesman: "We look forward with amusement to explanations by a variety of psychologists and graphologists of how various characteristics ascribed to the prime minister on the basis of the doodles, such as 'struggling to concentrate,' 'not a natural leader,' 'struggling to keep control of a confusing world,' and 'an unstable man who is feeling under enormous pressure,' equally apply to Mr Gates.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1461520,00.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4220473.stm

(*) (*) This one was too funny to pass up! I loved it! <grinning> ;) ;)

({) (}) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

HP: For circuits, swap silicon for molecules
Published: January 31, 2005, 8:00 PM PST
By Michael Kanellos Staff Writer, CNET News.com

With a recent breakthrough in making circuits with molecules, Hewlett-Packard hopes to change chip history and expand its own role in the process.

Researchers from the Palo Alto, Calif.-based computing giant have created devices called crossbar latches that can be used to perform calculations in microprocessors, the same function silicon transistors now have.

The difference is that crossbar latches--which consist of a grid of microscopic wires linked by molecules at their intersections--are far smaller and, potentially, far cheaper to make because they are produced using processes more akin to inkjet printing rather than the ornate etching processes required for today's chips. Both factors give chipmakers an opportunity to dodge some of the technical difficulties and painful costs awaiting them in coming decade.

HP has already shown how crossbar latches can be used in memory.

"This is the final piece of the puzzle for building a molecular computer," said Phil Kuekes, senior computer architect and primary inventor at HP's Quantum Science Research (QSR) unit.

Adoption of crossbars across the industry could also lead to royalties for HP, which may try to license it, added Stan Williams, director of the QSR. HP is so confident of its technology that is aiming to get elements of crossbar technology incorporated into 32-nanometer chips, which will hit commercially in 2011 or 2012. The company will try to get its technology ensconced in industry road maps guiding equipment makers and semiconductor designers.

"There is a recognition that there is going to have to be innovation," Williams said. "We'd like to introduce some aspect of it into that (32-nanometer) node."

HP, however, isn't trying to find a way out of the conflicts many semiconductor designers face. Researchers from the South Korea, Japan and the United States--including IBM and Intel--will next week publish papers at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference detailing ideas for new types of chips and transistors.

"The single biggest advantage we have is that we can do it now," Kuekes said. "We think we can make complex devices sooner."
Although experts and pundits have declared the imminent death of Moore's Law for three decades, the end appears to be in sight. The principle, which states that chipmakers can double the number of transistors on a silicon chip every two years, has enabled the industry to shrink the size and cost of things like computers and cell phones while improving their performance.

Unfortunately, traditional silicon transistors can't be shrunk in size much longer. Circa 2021, there won't be enough atoms inside traditional transistors to contain the flow of electrons. Hybrid chips that contain elements of traditional silicon chips and some undetermined materials or structures will appear in the first half of the next decade, and chips based on the new materials are predicted to emerge in commercial production in the 2020s, if not earlier.

What it looks like

A single crossbar latch consists of a three wires: a "latch" wire and two control, or clock, wires. The latch wire lies under the other two. The wires are connected by molecules, which transfer electrical impulses from one wire to the next. (In the latches used to perform calculations, it is a layer of a common acid made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.)
In layman's terms, a series of electrical impulses will close the molecular switch between the latch wire and the first clock wire. The impulses will then open the switch between the latch wire and other clock wire. In digital terms, a computer interprets this action as a "0". Conversely, opening the first switch and closing the second becomes a "1."

Earlier, Kuekes had produced crossbar latches that could perform basic calculations, but they couldn't store partial results for later usage. The new crossbar latches, however, detailed in an article in the Journal of Applied Physics, can: They conceivably perform transistorlike functions.

A key attribute of the switches is that the junction between the wires can be as small as 2 nanometers. The equivalent junction in current transistors inside 90-nanometer chips is about 60 nanometers, meaning that far more crossbar latches can be put into the same space that now holds transistors. Traditional transistors, in fact, will never be able to hit these limits, Kuekes said.

"The three most important things are size, size and size," he said. "When you get down to around 15 nanometers, the physics of semiconductor transistors will not work."

Shrinking the electrical junctions in a chip also generally increases performance, but the switches in the experimental crossbar latches only flip at about a tenth of a second.

Just as important, chips made on crossbar latches could be cheap to manufacture. The wires are put into place through nano-imprint lithography. In this technique, a customized mold is placed into a film later; the imprints left by the mold become the templates for the wires.

The molecular switches, meanwhile, do not have to be placed individually at the juncture of the wires. Only wires at the junctions will carry a current.

"Essentially, all of the other molecules are sacrificed," Williams said.

http://news.com.com/HP+For+circuits%2C+swap+silicon+for+molecules/2100-1006_3-5557954.html?tag=nefd.top

(*) (*) I love articles like this! They explain so much as well as provoke critical thinking.....Have a really nice Thursday everyone! (l) (l)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Alone Again, Naturally
(Gilbert O'Sullivan)

In a little while from now,
If I'm not feeling any less sour.
I promised myself, to treat myself,
And visit a nearby tower ..........
And climbing to the top,
Would throw myself off,
In an effort to, make clear to whoever,
What it's like when your shattered .......
Left standing in a lurch,
In a church with people saying .....
My God, that's tough, she stood him up,
No point in us remaining .......
I may as well go home,
As I did on my own,
Alone again, naturally.

To think that only yesterday,
I was cheerful, bright and gay.
Looking forward to, and who wouldn’t do,
The role I was about to play.
But as if to knock me down,
Reality came around,
And without so much as a mere touch,
Cut me into little pieces.
Leaving me to doubt, all about God and His mercy,
Oh, if He really does exist,
Why did He desert me?
And in my hour of need,
I truely am, indeed,
Alone again, naturally.

It seems to me that there are more hearts,
Broken in the world that can’t be mended,
Left unattended, what do we do?
What do we do?

Now looking back over the years,
And whatever else that appears.
I remember I cried when my father died,
Never wishing to hide the tears.
At sixty-five years old,
My mother, God rest her soul,
Couldn’t understand why the only man,
She had ever loved had been taken.
Leaving her to start, with a heart so badly broken,
Despite encouragement from me,
No words were ever spoken.
And when she passed away,
I cried and cried all day,
Alone again, naturally .....
Alone again ................................. naturally.

http://users.cis.net/sammy/alonea.htm

(*) (*) ;) This one goes back to high school I think. I thought of the song title and a friend sent me the link with the lyrics. (a) (a) (f) (f)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

[sweetlady]

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: February 3, 2005
WASHINGTON

Do male nipples prove evolution?

Not at all, according to a Web site for a planned Creation Museum devoted to showing that the Bible is literally true.

Nipples may be biologically de trop for men, an "expert" on the site notes, but that doesn't mean they resulted from natural selection. They could just as well be a decorating feature of the Creator's (like a hood ornament). Who are we to question His designs, since we cannot presume to comprehend His mind?

The virtual tour of the museum, to be built in rural Kentucky, says its exhibits will explain many such mysteries, like the claim that T. rex lurked around Adam and Eve - "That's the terror that Adam's sin unleashed!" - and how "Noah and his family survive 371 days alone on an animal-filled boat" ("a real 'Survivor' story").

The philosophy of the Creation Museum, part of the "Answers in Genesis" ministry, is summed up this way: "The imprint of the Creator is all around us. And the Bible's clear - heaven and earth in six 24-hour days, earth before sun, birds before lizards. Other surprises are just around the corner. Adam and apes share the same birthday. The first man walked with dinosaurs and named them all! God's Word is true, or evolution is true. No millions of years. There's no room for compromise."

Personally, I've decided to stop evolving. No point, really. Evolution is so 20th century.

As with Iraq, President Bush has applied his doctrine of pre-emption on evolution, cutting it off before it can pose a threat to our well-being.

Ever since he observed during his 2000 campaign that "on the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the earth," Mr. Bush has been reeling backward as fast as he can toward the Garden of Eden, which, if creationists are to be believed, was really "Jurassic Park."

Seeing the powerful role of evangelicals in getting Mr. Bush re-elected, teachers across the country are quietly ignoring evolution, even when the subject is in their curriculums.

Many teachers take the hint on evolution even without overt pressure, Cornelia Dean wrote this week in Science Times: "Teachers themselves avoid the topic, fearing protests."

On eBay, you can even find replicas of the stickers that a Georgia county put on science textbooks to warn that evolution is "a theory, not a fact." Talk about sticker shock.

So much for the Tree of Knowledge. Mr. Bush gives us the Ficus of Faith.

I knew the president, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich wanted to wipe out the psychedelic "if it feels good do it" post-Vietnam 60's and go back to the black-and-white 50's - a meaner "Happy Days."

They wanted to yank us back in a time machine to a place before Vietnam was lost, free love was found, Roe v. Wade was enacted; they could roll back science to smother stem cells' promise. (Since it was reported last week that all human embryonic lines approved for federally financed research are tainted with a foreign molecule from mice, the administration can't even feign an interest in scientific progress. Who'd a-thunk that science's great hope would turn out to be Arnold Schwarzenegger?)

I misunderestimated this ambitious president. His social engineering schemes in the Middle East and America are breathtakingly brazen.

He doesn't just want to dismantle the 60's. He wants to dismantle the whole century - from the Scopes trial to Social Security. He can shred one of the greatest achievements of the New Deal and then go after other big safety-net Democratic programs, reversing the prevailing philosophy of many decades that our tax and social welfare systems should equalize the distribution of wealth, just a little bit. Barry Goldwater wouldn't have had the brass to take a jackhammer to that edifice.

The White House seems to think Social Security was corrupt from the moment it was enacted in 1935. It wants to replace it with private accounts that will fatten the wallets of stockbrokers and put the savings of Americans who didn't inherit vast fortunes at risk.

Mr. Bush and his crew not only want to scrap the New Deal. By weakening environmental and safety protections and trying to flatten the progressive income tax, they're trying to eradicate not just one Roosevelt but two, going after the progressive legacy of Theodore.

With their brutal assault on history and their sanctimonious manner, they give a whole new meaning to Teddy's philosophy of the presidency. Bully pulpit, indeed.

(*) (*) Maureen gets right the heart of it, as always. Her sparkling wit and extraordinary writing skills are such a treat, especially when she vivisects the Village Idiot. Geez - it really a challenge since 9:00 p.m. EDT last night to avoid seeing or hearingthe V.I. either on TV or even some web sites. I have succeeded in hearing "blah, blah, blah" however for the rare time that I accidently hear his voice. ;) ;) What a complete nimrod! And it's wonderful that Maureen Dowd can write and have her column published without fears of revenge. (o) (o) Time to get off my soapbox and get some things done in the F2F world. (*) (*) (*) (*)

({) (}) ,
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

[sweetlady]

From the Desk of David Pogue: What Is Nanotechnology? NYTimes
================================================== ======

A couple of Sundays ago, "CBS News Sunday Morning" ran my
segment about the coming era of nanotechnology. During the
preparation of the story, I had two great experiences.

At one point, I set out to illustrate an interview subject's
comment that the earliest fruits of this technology are
pretty mundane. One of his examples was "nanotechnology
pants," which turned out to be Dockers Stain Defenders
slacks; as a gag, I put them on and prepared to dump a cup of
coffee onto my own thigh to see just how well they'd resist
staining.

I warned the camera crew, though, that this would have to be
a one-take deal; once the pants were wet, I figured, you'd
see the dark spot and we couldn't do a retake. Imagine my
shock, though, when the coffee rolled off as though from a
duck's back, leaving the pants not only unstained, but
completely dry! (The pants don't feel any different from any
other cotton pants.) We wound up filming the dump-the-coffee
shot six times, and the pants never did get wet. Man, remind
me to wear them next time I'm on a plane with children.

My other favorite moment was interviewing Steve Jurvetson,
managing director of a Silicon Valley venture-capital firm
that invests heavily in nanotech companies. Since only a
couple of his sound bites made it onto the show, I thought
you might get a kick out of reading a longer excerpt.

David Pogue: Everybody's heard of nanotechnology, but not
many people know what it is. What is it?

Steve Jurvetson: We define nanotechnology as the manipulation
and control of matter at the nano scale, nano scale being a
billionth of a meter. It's about 70,000 times smaller than
the width of a human hair. It's smaller than the wavelength
of light, something you would normally not ever be able to
see. And it's much smaller than anything we manufacture
today.

The reason that it's so exciting, though, is not just that
it's small. It's that everything changes at that scale. The
physics you may have learned in school is completely
different. In fact, it's wrong and doesn't apply at that
level. Notions like temperature and electricity and magnetism
are completely different.

For example, if you take a simple aluminum can, a Coke can,
and grind it down to the nano scale, to a 20-nanometer
particle, it would spontaneous explode in air. It becomes
rocket fuel.

The nano scale is relevant if it somehow aggregates up to
something we care about. You might start small, but these
small things may start to glom together into larger things,
like a memory chip or a solar cell. And that would be
something you would see and use as a product. So nanotech is
an entirely new way to make products and services that'll
change the world.

DP: Where are we on the road there? How early is this?

SJ: Comparing to the auto industry, it's before the Model T.
It's people tinkering in research labs around the country.
Raising money for further development of their products.

DP: How big are the investments being made? How big is the
excitement?

SJ: The government is a great example. Right now, nanotech is
second only to the space race for Federal funding of basic
research and development. So the US government absolutely
believes that this is the future technology wave. The
National Science Foundation of the US estimates it will be a
trillion-dollar market.

And I might point out the internationally, the U.S. is not
number one or number two. We're number three, if you consider
the EU as an entity and if you consider Japan as an entity.

And we, for one, see it as an incredible boom in innovation.
We think it'll be more important than the industrial
revolution itself, restructuring not only the bases of many
industries, but the fabric of society itself. That'll take
some time, but it has that potential.

DP: And what percent sure are you that it's real?

SJ: I'm 100 percent sure it's real. The really difficult
question is when. If you go out 100 years, there's no
question. This is an inevitable trajectory of miniaturization
that's going on in all of the sciences. It's sort of a
crossroads of the chemists and the physicists and the
geneticists. So I think there's no question that's where
science is heading.

I'd say most of what the average person has heard of in
nanotech will take 50 to 100 years: their bloodstream robots,
the fanciful notions of the future. And much more, frankly
industrial and mundane products -- solar cells, memory chips
-- those'll be within 10 years.

DP: Now, I understand that nanotech involves manipulating
individual atoms. And I understand these incredible possible
results. But I'm missing how we get from there to there. Can
you give us one example from energy or medicine or
manufacturing?

SJ: Sure. The one that jumps to mind is the memory-chip
industry. Computers, cell phones and electronic equipment
need memory chips that keep getting cheaper and faster, and
have higher storage.

But right now, we are at the teetering edge of our
capabilities to build chips, because of waste heat. Our
current computers are incredibly inefficient. They're like
toaster ovens that happen to compute on the side as a by-
product.

Enormous effort is put into fans and heat and cooling
solutions for existing semiconductors. Some estimates by
Intel show that if we don't change the way we build chips, we
will have chips that are hotter than the surface of the sun
in 10 years. That's just an untenable trajectory. Something
radical has to change, or the industry will come to a
grinding halt.

For example, there's a company in Denver that takes a
molecule that's similar to chlorophyll, the chemical in
plants that helps convert sunlight into energy. Modifies it
in a way that helps store information for a memory chip. They
take an otherwise standard chip from the manufacturing
facility. And rather than replace everything on a portion
where you want memory, they splash a beaker of these
molecules on 'em. They self-assemble, meaning they attach
automatically to exposed silicon or exposed aluminum,
whichever you might need. Anywhere you had exposed metal,
you've got a memory cell. You splash and rinse, and you've
manufactured a memory chip on an otherwise normal chip.

The customer who buys a computer wouldn't know there's nano
inside, if you draw an analogy to Intel inside. All they know
is their memory chips were cheaper, faster, lower power.

DP: Now, this term self-assembly is making me a little
nervous, because Michael Crichton tells us that if things go
wrong, these self-assembling nano-factories will take over
and merge with biology and reduce the world to grey goo.

SJ: I really enjoy reading his books. Just like "Jurassic
Park," a very colorful nightmare. So should we be worried
about that? No. I think there's a big difference between a
self-assembly technique and autonomous agents that run amok.
That's in the domain of science fiction.

The self-assembly I've been describing in these products are
more like, you know, crystallizing salt from a beaker of salt
water. Yeah, the crystal self-assembles, but that doesn't
mean it has any ability to do anything other than form salt.
It's about that simple.

And I think the regulatory regimes we have and frankly, a
history of societal debate, that groups are springing up this
early, long before there's any product that's actually a
threat, is a good sign. Because I think it means people's
eyes will be opened and they'll be participating in debates.
So I'm fairly confident we as a society can navigate that.
But it doesn't mean we should be complacent and not have
plenty of people thinking about it.

(*) (*) (h) (h)

(k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

By DAVID BERNSTEIN Published: February 3, 2005 NYTimes

CHICAGO

HOMARO CANTU'S maki look a lot like the sushi rolls served at other upscale restaurants: pristine, coin-size disks stuffed with lumps of fresh crab and rice and wrapped in shiny nori. They also taste like sushi, deliciously fishy and seaweedy.

But the sushi made by Mr. Cantu, the 28-year-old executive chef at Moto in Chicago, often contains no fish. It is prepared on a Canon i560 inkjet printer rather than a cutting board. He prints images of maki on pieces of edible paper made of soybeans and cornstarch, using organic, food-based inks of his own concoction. He then flavors the back of the paper, which is ordinarily used to put images onto birthday cakes, with powdered soy and seaweed seasonings.

At least two or three food items made of paper are likely to be included in a meal at Moto, which might include 10 or more tasting courses. Even the menu is edible; diners crunch it up into a bowl of gazpacho, creating Mr. Cantu's version of alphabet soup.

Sometimes he seasons the menus to taste like the main courses. Recently, he used dehydrated squash and sour cream powders to match a soup entree. He also prepares edible photographs flavored to fit a theme: an image of a cow, for example, might taste like filet mignon.

"We can create any sort of flavor on a printed image that we set our minds to," Mr. Cantu said. The connections need not stop with things ordinarily thought of as food. "What does M. C. Escher's 'Relativity' painting taste like? That's where we go next."

Food critics have cheered, comparing Mr. Cantu to Salvador Dali and Willy Wonka for his peculiarly playful style of cooking. More precisely, he is a chef in the Buck Rogers tradition, blazing a trail to a space-age culinary frontier.

Mr. Cantu wants to use technology to change the way people perceive (and eat) food, and he uses Moto as his laboratory. "Gastronomy has to catch up to the evolution in technology," he said. "And we're helping that process happen."

Tucked among warehouses and lofts in the Chicago meatpacking district, Moto attracts a trend-conscious crowd. Some guests leave scratching their heads; others walk away spellbound by a glimpse of Mr. Cantu's vision of the future of food.

William Mericle, 41, described recent meal at Moto as "dinner theater on your plate." He did not care for all 20 small dishes he sampled, but he said he liked most of them. He found Mr. Cantu's imagination appealing. "He's mad-scientist-meets-gourmet-chef," he said. "Like Christopher Lloyd from 'Back to the Future,' if he were more interested in food than time travel."

Mr. Cantu believes that restaurant-goers, particularly diners who are willing to spend $240 per person for a meal (the cost of a 20-course tasting menu with wine at Moto) are often disappointed by conventional dining experiences. "They're sick and tired of steak and eggs," he said. "They're tired of just going to a restaurant, having food placed on the table, having it cleared, and there's no more mental input into it other than the basic needs of a caveman, just eat and nourish."

At Moto, he said, "there's so much more we can do."

Mr. Cantu is experimenting with liquid nitrogen, helium and superconductors to make foods levitate. And while many chefs speak of buying new ovens or refrigerators, he wants to invest in a three-dimensional printer to make physical prototypes of his inventions, which he now painstakingly builds by hand. The 3-D printer could function as a cooking device, creating silicone molds for pill-sized dishes flavored, say, like watermelon, bacon and eggs or even beef Bourguignon, he said, and he could also make edible molds out of cornstarch.

He also plans to buy a class IV laser to create dishes that are "impossible through conventional means." (A class IV laser, the highest grade under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's classification system, projects high-powered beams and is typically used for surgery or welding.)

Mr. Cantu said he might use the laser to burn a hole through a piece of sashimi tuna, cooking the fish thoroughly inside but leaving its exterior raw. He said he would also use the laser to create "inside out" bread, where the crust is baked inside the loaf and the doughy part is the outer surface. "We'll be the first restaurant on planet Earth to use a class IV laser to cook food," he said with a grin.

He is testing a hand-held ion-particle gun, which he said is for levitating food. So far he has zapped only salt and sugar, but envisions one day making whole meals float before awestruck diners.

The son of a fabricating engineer, Mr. Cantu got his start as a science geek. "From a very young age, I liked to take apart things," said Mr. Cantu, who grew up in the Pacific Northwest. "All of my Christmas gifts would wind up in a million pieces. I actually recall taking apart my dad's lawnmower three times to understand how combustible engines work."

When he was 12, he took a job as a cook and busboy, mainly to earn money for remote-controlled airplanes and helicopters that he then took apart. But the restaurant business rubbed off on Mr. Cantu, and after high school he attended culinary school at Le Cordon Bleu in Portland, Ore. A series of jobs followed, nearly 50 in all, Mr. Cantu said. He worked as a stagiaire, or intern, in some of the top kitchens around the country, eventually talking his way into a job at Charlie Trotter's, a well-known restaurant in Chicago. He became a sous-chef there before opening Moto last year.

Mr. Cantu has filed applications for patents on more than 30 inventions, including a cooking box that steams fish. The tiny opaque box, about three inches square, is made of a superinsulating polymer. Mr. Cantu heats the box to 350 degrees in an oven and places a raw piece of Pacific sea bass inside it. A server then delivers it to diners, who can watch the fish cook.

Assisting Mr. Cantu with what he calls his " 'Star Wars' stuff" is DeepLabs, a small Chicago product-development and design consultancy. Mr. Cantu meets weekly with the crew of aerospace and mechanical engineers, programmers and product designers at DeepLabs for brainstorming sessions.

"I tell them I want to make food float, I want to make it disappear, I want to make it reappear, I want to make the utensils edible, I want to make the plates, the table, the chairs edible," Mr. Cantu said, "I ask them, what do I need to do that?"

Ryan Alexander, an industrial graphic designer at DeepLabs, said he and his colleagues at the company, which has designed more conventional products for Motorola and Home Depot, are enthusiastic about Mr. Cantu: "We don't say no," he said.

Using engineering, graphics and animation software, DeepLabs designers have begun to turn Mr. Cantu's dreams into realties.

They have created mockups of his all-in-one utensil, a combination fork, knife and spoon, as well as utensils with pressurized handles that release aromatic vapors. The latest prototype is a utensil with a disposable, self-heating silicone handle that can be filled with liquefied or pureed foods. A carbon-dioxide-based charge heats the food (soup, for example), and the diner squeezes the handle to release it onto a spoon. Mr. Cantu envisions many applications for such a utensil, from military meals to cookouts.

Mr. Cantu said his experiments and kitchen inventions could one day revolutionize how, where and what we eat. "This will tap into something," he said. "Maybe a mission to Mars, I don't know. Maybe we're going to find a way to grow something in a temperature that liquid nitrogen operates at. Then we could grow food on Pluto. There are possibilities to this that we can't fathom yet. And to not do it is far more consequential than just to say, hey, we're going to stick with our steak and eggs today."

(*) (*) How cool! Have a wonderful Friday! (l) (l)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

[sweetlady]

Yesterday was Groundhog Day and the day of the State of the Union Address.

As Air America Radio pointed out, it was an ironic juxtaposition: one
involved a meaningless ritual in which we looked to a creature of little intelligence for prognostication, and the other involved a groundhog.

(*) (*) So much said in so few words. ;)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/nerdwatch/

(*) (*) ;) ;)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

The Jheronimus Bosch Adventure Game is a modern-day variant of Bosch's painted fantasies. The game is set in a decor of images from the Boschian world, for which the famous paintings The Pedlar and The Tabletop with the Seven Deadly Sins have served as points of departure. One or more players can play the game on the Internet at the same time. In the adventure game several difficult missions have to be accomplished on the fly. This all happens in a series of small games. The challenge is to find a balance between 'surviving' and the 'good living', but it's also of major importance to stay healthy in dark middle ages. Because at the end of the game the last judgment will be passed by Jheronimus Bosch himself? Shall you land in virtual heaven or will you burn in Bosch's hell?

The Jheronimus Bosch internet game is an online multi-user learning and adventure game. It is possible to play this game by several players a-synchronically from different locations. The combination of simultaneous and a-synchronous gaming creates opportunities for both, as well for single-use gaming as for multi-use gaming; the game results will be encountered for each single user individually.

http://lab.v2.nl/projects/bosch_game.html

(*) (*) Way cool. (h)

({) (}) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

http://www.rockrage.com/media/fonts/musicfonts.html

(*) (*) :o

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Here's a quick and easy way to ruin your PC brand: Sell it to a Chinese manufacturer. According to a survey published by Merrill Lynch, legions of IBM customers will consider switching vendors as a result of the sale of the company's PC divsion to China's Lenovo. "Almost half of IBM PC users said they would consider switching, a high figure even recognizing that not all will," said Merrill Lynch VP Steven Milunovich. "More problematic for IBM is the finding that PC switchers might buy less of other IBM products as well." No doubt. Certainly, IBM's customer loyalty is already suffering. Witness James Gaskin's latest screed in ITWorld. "I think the IBM PC sale to Lenovo is the worst kind of management stupidity and darn near traitorous," Gaskin writes in a piece entitled "The IBM PC Deal Sucks." "If Lenovo makes most of the IBM PCs already, yet IBM loses a billion per year or whichever number you trust about this story, that tells me IBM management overhead has gotten seriously out of whack. Speaking of whack, let's go to Armonk and whack two of every three executives with a pink slip and see if the PC division can make a profit now. Bet it will. Second, how can management of the world's most advanced technical manufacturer (at one time, anyway) get suckered into outsourcing the majority of production to a single overseas vendor? Suddenly that vendor can afford to buy out the company they've been working for? If I was an IBM shareholder, I might start a class action suit for fraud against management for letting this happen while they're supposed to be 'stewards' of my capital investment."

http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2428/050203ibmlenovo/

http://www.itworld.com/Comp/nls_networkingibmpc050203/

(*) (*) And to think back to when IBM was considered "blue chip". :| :|

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Q U O T E D

"People put a lot of interesting stuff in Altoids tins. Usually it's one of two options, either drugs or condoms."

-- MIT grad Limor Fried adds MP3 players to the list of accessories one can secret away in the "curiously strong" mints' tin box.

(*) (*) too much. ;)

(k) (k) ,Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Posted on Fri, Feb. 04, 2005
PLAYSTATION PORTABLE OFFERS 4-INCH SCREEN

By Dean Takahashi San Jose Mercury News

Setting the schedule for a horse race with Nintendo, Sony said Thursday that it will launch its new handheld game gadget in the United States on March 24.

The first million people who buy a $249 PlayStation Portable also will receive a free copy of the ``Spider-Man 2'' movie, which is stored on a two-inch disc and can be viewed on the handheld's four-inch diagonal screen.

The handheld also will be bundled with accessories such as a memory card for storing digital media, headphones and a sample disc of digital entertainment. Sony said 24 titles will be available around the time it goes on sale.

The bundle and price suggest that Sony's target is far afield from its rival Nintendo's traditional handheld market of young kids.

Kaz Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment America in Foster City, said the company is including the movie to show off the gadget's ability to display digital pictures and play music as well as games that approach the PlayStation 2's quality in graphics. By emphasizing the total entertainment experience, Sony is trying to appeal to older gamers and even non-gamers.

``We want to expand the market,'' Hirai said. ``It's a true portable entertainment device.''

But the PSP price is $100 more than Nintendo's DS, which has sold almost 3 million units since its launch n the United States and Japan in November. The DS handheld comes with two screens, but the screens are smaller than Sony's and aren't suitable for viewing movies.

``We're happy about Sony's price,'' said Perrin Kaplan, vice president of corporate marketing at Nintendo of America in Redmond, Wash. ``We think they are going after a different market. But we are having success getting older gamers to buy the DS.''

Hirai noted that the value of the accessories and movies adds up to about $75. Games will be sold separately for about $40, the same price as Nintendo's games.

The PlayStation Portable has sold more than 800,000 units since its launch in Japan in December. By March 31, the company expects to hit its target of selling 3 million units worldwide, Hirai said.

Nintendo, by contrast, hopes to sell 5 million units by the end of March. Nintendo will be launching the DS in Europe in March, Kaplan said.

Among the games available for the PSP at the launch, about nine will be published by Sony. Six will be from Electronic Arts of Redwood City. At least 23 more titles will be launched later in the year, Hirai said. Nintendo's DS has 16 titles now and will have eight more by March.

Schelley Olhava, an analyst at market research firm IDC, said she expects both devices to be sold out for some time and that both devices appeal to gamers.

Said Richard Doherty, an analyst at the Envisioneering Group: ``It's clear the performance and graphics will be better on the PSP, but both systems are going to sell very well.''

Among the losers in the portable gaming market could be Nokia, whose N-Gage game phone has sold only 1.4 million units after being on the market since fall 2003. Gerard Wiener, general manager of the N-Gage business, said Thursday that his company will make announcements related to new versions of its hardware at upcoming conferences.

Sony, meanwhile, will reveal details of its upcoming PlayStation 3 video game console at a chip conference Monday in San Francisco. The PlayStation 3 isn't expected to launch until 2006.

(*) (*) Gotta run! Have a lovely Saturday! (f) (f) (f) (f)

({) (}) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

By JULIA REED Published: February 6, 2005 NYTimes

When I was 15, I studied in France, at the University of Strasbourg, for six weeks. On weekdays, my fellow American students and I ate lunch in the school cafeteria and discovered the wonders of braised rabbit and coq au vin, followed always by an apricot tart or napoleon (my first ever!) at the nearby patisserie. On weekends we toured the country by train, fortified by bread and (real!) cheese, along with copious amounts of cheap red wine. Already weight-obsessed, I was sure I'd put on at least 10 pounds. But when I stepped off the plane, the jaws of my waiting parents and my best friend literally dropped. It turns out I'd lost 10 pounds -- I'm not sure I've looked as good since.

Mireille Guiliano had quite a different teenage experience abroad. As an 18-year-old from a small town in eastern France, she spent a year as an exchange student in the well-to-do Boston suburb of Weston, Mass., where she discovered the distinctly American joys of bagels, brownies and chocolate chip cookies and gained 20 pounds. When her own parents met her ocean liner in Le Havre, they were as stunned as mine were, but for a different reason -- her father told her she looked like a sack of potatoes. ''I could not have imagined anything more hurtful,'' she writes. ''And to this day the sting has not been topped.''

Never fear -- Guiliano's story has a happy ending. After a few miserable months during which she gains more weight, cries herself to sleep and hurries past mirrors clothed in shapeless flannel shifts, her mother brings in the family doctor, a k a ''Dr. Miracle.'' He detoxes her with leek broth for a weekend, teaches her to become a master of both her ''willpower'' and her ''pleasures,'' and supplies her with recipes including one for apple tart without the dough. She learns to love walking, finds her ''equilibrium'' and goes on to become C.E.O. of Clicquot Inc. and a director of Champagne Veuve Clicquot. Most remarkably, despite the fact that she dines out 300 times a year and enjoys two- and three-course meals for lunch and dinner every day -- always accompanied by a glass of Champagne -- she has remained thin.

Guiliano recommends Dr. Miracle's plan as the French way, but it is not unlike the advice that American nutritionists on Web sites and at spas and clinics across the country dispense every day. It is exactly the advice I got last year at Dallas's Cooper Clinic during my annual physical: if you want a glass of wine with dinner, don't eat the bread or skip the baked potato. Do some aerobic exercise; if you're over 40, lift weights. Keep a food diary and cut out the processed junk. Slowly changing your eating habits is far more effective than any crash diet. You don't have to deprive yourself if you learn to make trade-offs. And on and on.

Somehow, though, these sensible stratagems are more palatable coming from Guiliano, who was once fat herself, and who now happily lives in America, where she first fell victim to our bad habits. She knows we eat too fast in front of the TV or with newspaper in hand, while French women make a ritual out of every meal. She knows we eat portions that are too big and food that is too bland. French women, on the other hand, stress flavor and variety over quantity and, therefore, are more satisfied with less. (Bland food and too much of one kind, a big bowl of pasta for example, breeds boredom, which leads you to alleviate it by eating more.) She knows our tendency to gorge ourselves on Snickers bars rather than savoring a single piece of fine dark chocolate. French women eat slowly and ''with all five senses.''

Indeed, much is made of the superiority of French women in all things, from chewing to ''using the same scarf to create a different effect'' to ''preserving spark and mystery'' in long-term relationships. Apparently, they're even better at being happy -- ''the French woman understands intuitively that one does not laugh because one is happy; one is happy because one laughs.'' This gets a tad tiresome, but I forgive Guiliano her patriotic fervor and her endless aphorisms because she is on to something. After all, I lost 10 pounds by walking off my daily pastry and eating small portions of once exotic dishes (at the university cafeteria they never filled your plate). Also, who can blame her for branding? If a lot of what she dispenses is universally sound advice with a French label, she's smart to apply it. We may profess to despise her compatriots in all their arrogance, but secretly we still find Paris far sexier than South Beach.

I think our problem with the French has always been jealousy. We have an inferiority complex, at least stylewise. French women can do more with a scarf. We wish we had their innate chic, their effortless discipline, their easy appreciation of all things sensual -- their impossible thinness. When I begged my parents to send me abroad, it was not to, say, Germany that I wished to go. Desperate to be sophisticated, it was French that I wanted to learn, France that I wanted to know. (Now of course, I wish I'd studied the far more useful Spanish.) Despite all our achievements in what used to be the exclusively French provinces of fashion, food and wine, the real milestones for many of us remain our first Chanel suit, our first sip of Petrus or Chateau d'Yquem, our first time at La Grenouille or La Tour d'Argent. And then there is the fact that while close to two-thirds of American adults are either obese or overweight, French women really don't get fat.

The reason behind that most enviable difference, says Guiliano, is that ''French women take pleasure in staying thin by eating well, while American women see it as a conflict and obsess over it.'' Put another way, ''French women typically think about good things to eat. American women typically worry about bad things to eat.'' She says she is constantly appalled that American cocktail parties are filled with chatter about diets, a subject that shouldn't be deemed proper conversation. She says eating in America has become ''controversial behavior'' and that our obsession with weight is growing into nothing less than a ''psychosis'' that she believes adds stress ''to our already stressful way of life,'' which is ''fast erasing the simple values of pleasure.''

She urges us to relax. Walk to the market, breathe in the fresh herbs, cook a good dinner, have a glass of wine or champagne (preferably Veuve Clicquot). Just sip it slowly (she makes hers last through a meal). She rejects the ''American rule'' of ''no pain, no gain'' and describes exercise machines as a ''vestige of Puritanism: instruments of public self-flagellation to make up for private sins of couch riding and overeating.'' By all means go to the gym if you really love it, she says. Otherwise take the stairs and pick up some weights in the privacy of your own home. She finds walking an indulgence that allows time for ''freedom of thought,'' and says French women walk an average of three times as much as American women do. She proudly reports that during the 2003 blackout she easily made it past the younger people in her building who were huffing and puffing on the stairs.

Sometimes these ''simple values'' seem perhaps too simple. Many of us need the discipline of the gym and don't have time to stroll to the open-air market (which probably doesn't exist where we live) or set a proper table twice a day. My own early lessons in the civilized life sadly didn't take. The summer I returned from France, a McDonald's opened in our town and a Big Mac suddenly seemed as exotic as a nicoise salad. I failed miserably at what Guiliano calls ''recasting,'' emphasizing quality over quantity in both meals and exercise.

But, armed with her book, I am willing to try again. There is no scientific ''food plan,'' just suggestions and seemingly indulgent recipes, including one for fingerling potatoes and caviar. Guiliano reminds us that a half-dozen oysters contain only 60 or 70 calories, that soups fill you up and supply much-needed water to your body (''The theory goes that the French, who eat soup up to five times a week for dinner, eat better and less.'') Her mother's ''soupe aux légumes'' is worth the price of the book alone, but I am less sure about her own ''Chicken au Champagne,'' which requires you to pour a cup of champagne over some chicken breasts and then broil them. After tasting one, I can say with certainty that I'd rather have the Champagne in the glass and that I would definitely not serve the chicken to company along with, as she suggests, brown rice and mushrooms. I'm also not entirely sure about Dr. Miracle's apple ''tart'' with its cabbage leaf ''pastry'' (not for eating, necessarily, but ''for presentation''). Still, sans cabbage leaf, it's a good idea, and her snapper with almonds is good full stop, as is the delicious tagliatelle with lemon.

Guiliano ends the book with a list of more observations about French women. They don't weigh themselves, they don't snack all the time, they eat more fruit but would never give up their bread or other carbs. They dress to take out the garbage, they understand the importance of a good haircut and expensive perfume, they know love is slimming. Part of me wanted to throw the book across the room, while the other part was memorizing the list. I actually found myself resolving to learn to eat with all five senses -- or at least to try to turn off ''All My Children'' during lunch breaks. I did not even throw up when I got to the line that encouraged me to savor ''all the little things that make each day a miracle,'' so that I may not need a shot of Scotch (French women don't drink hard liquor) or a quart of Haagen-Dazs to get me over the top. At the very least, we would all do ourselves a favor to make like Colette, for whom the table was ''a date with love and friendship '' instead of the root of all evil.

Julia Reed is senior writer for Vogue and author of ''Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena.''

(*) (*) Je'tiem (l) (l) Have a lovely Sunday afternoon. (f) (f) (f)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady and a sleeping Doc the Boxer (S) (S) (S)

[sweetlady]

FRANK RICH Published: February 6, 2005

LET us be grateful that Janet Jackson did not bare both breasts.

On the first anniversary of the Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction that shook the world, it's clear that just one was big enough to wreak havoc. The ensuing Washington indecency crusade has unleashed a wave of self-censorship on American television unrivaled since the McCarthy era, with everyone from the dying D-Day heroes in "Saving Private Ryan" to cuddly animated animals on daytime television getting the ax. Even NBC's presentation of the Olympics last summer, in which actors donned body suits to simulate "nude" ancient Greek statues, is currently under federal investigation.

Public television is now so fearful of crossing its government patrons that it is flirting with self-immolation. Having disowned lesbians in the children's show "Postcards From Buster" and stripped suspect language from "Prime Suspect" on "Masterpiece Theater," PBS is editing its Feb. 23 broadcast of "Dirty War," the HBO-BBC film about a terrorist attack, to remove a glimpse of female nudity in a scene depicting nuclear detoxification. Next thing you know they'll be snipping lascivious flesh out of a documentary about Auschwitz.

This repressive cultural environment was officially ratified on Nov. 2, when Ms. Jackson's breast pulled off its greatest coup of all: the re-election of President Bush. Or so it was decreed by the media horde that retroactively declared "moral values" the campaign's decisive issue and the Super Bowl the blue states' Waterloo. The political bosses of "family" organizations, well aware that TV's collective wisdom becomes reality whether true or not, have been emboldened ever since. They are spending their political capital like drunken sailors, redoubling their demands that the Bush administration marginalize gay people, stamp out sex education and turn pop culture into a continuous loop of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm."

With Sunday's Super Bowl, their crusade has scored a touchdown. MTV has been replaced as halftime producer by Don Mischer, the go-to guy for a guaranteed snoozefest; his credits include the Tony Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors and the 2004 Democratic National Convention at which the balloons failed to drop. (His subsequent cursing was heard on CNN, but escaped government sanction because no Republicans were watching.) Fox Sports Net has changed the title of its signature program "Best Damn Sports Show Period" to "Best Darn Super Bowl Road Show Period." The commercials, too, will "be careful" and in "good taste," according to the head of marketing for Anheuser-Busch. Fox, which recently pixilated the bottom of a cartoon toddler in a rerun of the series "Family Guy," now has someone on full-time rear-end alert: it rejected a comic spot for Airborne, a cold remedy, showing the backside of the 84-year-old Mickey Rooney as he leaves a sauna.

This might all be laughable were the government not expanding its role as cultural cop. But it is. The departures of Michael Powell, the Savonarola of the Federal Communications Commission, and John Ashcroft, whose parallel right-breast fixation was stimulated by a statue in the Justice Department, are red herrings. "Thank God he's gone, but God help us with what's next," said Howard Stern upon learning of Mr. Powell's imminent exit. He's right. After all, L. Brent Bozell of the Parents Television Council condemned Mr. Powell for "four years of failed leadership" in fighting indecency. (Mr. Powell's commission had the temerity to actually reject some Parents Television Council jeremiads, which are distinguished by their inordinate obsession with the penis.) Mr. Bozell, whose organization has been second to none in increasing the number of annual indecency complaints from 111 in 2000 to a million-plus last year, is angling for a tougher successor and may well get one.

His wish has in effect been granted even before Mr. Powell's chair is filled. The second Bush term began with the installation of a powerful new government censor in another big job, Secretary of Education. Margaret Spellings hadn't even been officially sworn into the cabinet when she took on "Postcards From Buster," threatening PBS with decreased financing because one episode had the show's eponymous animated rabbit hobnobbing with actual lesbian moms while visiting Vermont to learn how maple syrup is made. Though Buster had in previous installments visited Muslims, Mormons, Orthodox Jews and Pentecostal Christians, gay couples (even when not identified as such on camera) are verboten to our new Secretary of Education. "Many parents would not want their young children exposed to the lifestyles portrayed in this episode," Ms. Spellings wrote in her threatening letter to Pat Mitchell, the C.E.O. of PBS.

The letter, as it happened, was unnecessary: Public broadcasting says that it had decreed on its own only a few hours earlier that it would not distribute the offending show - the most alarming example yet of just how cowardly it has become and how chilling the Janet Jackson effect has been. (Since then, some two dozen member stations out of a total of 349 have rebeled and decided to broadcast the episode anyway.) But the story won't end with this one incident. Ms. Spellings' threats against PBS are only the latest chapter in a continuing saga at an education department that increasingly resembles an authoritarian government's ministry of information.

A month before the election, The Los Angeles Times reported on its front page that the department had quietly destroyed more than 300,000 copies of "a booklet designed for parents to help their children learn history" after Lynne Cheney, who has no official government role, complained about its contents. The booklet burning occurred under the watch of Rod Paige, the education secretary who, we would later learn, was simultaneously complicit in another sub rosa exercise in heavy-handed government information management: the payment of $240,000 in taxpayers' funds to Armstrong Williams, a talking head and columnist, to plug Bush administration policies on radio and TV.

Mr. Paige fled his post last month without adequately explaining what he knew about these scandals. Enter Ms. Spellings, previously a White House aide who by some accounts had been a shadow administrator of the education department during Mr. Paige's out-to-lunch tenure. With all the other troubles in public education, why would she focus on a single episode of a single children's program on her second day in the job? We don't yet know. But her act was nothing if not ideologically synergistic with still another freshly uncovered Bush propaganda effort. Just as Ms. Spellings busted Buster, two more syndicated columnists copped to receiving taxpayers' dollars, this time siphoned through the Department of Health and Human Services, to help craft propaganda for a Bush "healthy marriage initiative" that disdains same-sex couples as fervently as Ms. Spellings did in her letter to PBS.

What makes this story more insidious still is the glaring reality that the most prominent Republican lesbians in America are Mary Cheney, a former gay and lesbian marketing liaison for Coors beer, and her partner, Heather Poe, who appeared as a couple in public and on TV during the presidential campaign. That Ms. Spellings would gratuitously go after this specific "lifestyle" right after taking office is so provocative it smells like payback specifically pitched at those "pro-family" watchdogs who snarled at the mention of Ms. Cheney's sexual orientation during the campaign whether it was by John Kerry or anyone else. Surely Ms. Spellings doesn't believe in discrimination against nontraditional families: by her own account, she was a single mother who had to park her 13-year-old and 8-year-old children in Austin when she first went to work at the White House. Then again, President Bush went on record last month as saying that "studies have shown that the ideal is where a child is being raised by a man and a woman" (even though, as The New York Times reported, "there is no scientific evidence that children raised by gay couples do any worse").

That our government is now both intimidating PBS and awarding public money to pundits to enforce "moral values" agendas demonizing certain families is the ugliest fallout of the campaign against indecency. That campaign cannot really banish salaciousness from pop culture, a rank impossibility in a market economy where red and blue customers are united in their infatuation with "Desperate Housewives." But it can create public policy that discriminates against anyone on the hit list of moral values zealots. Inane as it may seem that Ms. Spellings is conducting a witch hunt against Buster or that James Dobson has taken aim at SpongeBob SquarePants, there's a method to their seeming idiocy: the cartoon surrogates are deliberately chosen to camouflage the harshness of their assault on nonanimated, flesh-and-blood people.

This, too, has its antecedent in the McCarthy era. In his novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay," Michael Chabon was extrapolating from actual history when one of his heroes, a gay comic book artist, is hauled before Congress to testify about pairing up "strapping young fellows in tight trousers" as superheroes. A Senate committee of the time did investigate the comics. Its guiding force was the psychiatrist Fredric Wertham's fear-mongering 1954 tome "Seduction of the Innocent," which posited that Batman and Robin could corrupt children by inducing a "wish dream of two homosexuals living together." The decency cops of that day, exemplified by closeted gay right-wingers like J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn, escalated a culture war into one with human costs by conflating homosexuality with the criminality of treason.

One big difference between that America and ours is that the culture industry, public broadcasting not included, has gained much more power since then. Should Sunday's Super Bowl falter in the ratings, its creators will lure that missing audience back next year with wardrobe malfunctions that haven't even been invented yet.

But gay parents whose "lifestyle" is vilified by a cabinet officer don't have that power. They're vulnerable even in a state like Vermont that respects their civil rights. "I feel sick about it," Karen Pike of Hinesburg, Vt., told The Burlington Free Press, after learning that PBS had orphaned the "Buster" episode showing her, her partner and their three children. "I understand they get public funding, but they should be the one station we feel confident in, in knowing that what we see there represents our country."

No one had told her that some stories are no longer welcome. You have to wonder if anyone has told Mary Cheney: Focus on the Family could not have been pleased to read last week's New York Post report that she has hired Bill Clinton's high-powered literary dealmaker to peddle her own story as a book.

(*) (*) (*) POWERFUL COMMENTARY!!! KUDOS TO THE COLUMNIST!! (h) (h) (h) (h) (f) (f) (f) (f) I absolutely agree! (*) (*) (*)

(k) (k) ,
An exhausted Sweetlady and her hurting Doc the Boxer (from chemo)

[sweetlady]

The Trip (2002)
It's 1973, and gay rights activist Tommy (Steve Braun) is about to embark on the journey of a lifetime when he meets an older man, Alan (Larry Sullivan), whose political views skew as far right as Tommy's do left. In spite of their differences, they fall in love, but four years later they're torn apart when an anti-gay book Alan once wrote re-surfaces. Does their love deserve a second chance?
Starring: Larry Sullivan, Steve Braun
Director: Miles Swain

Rated R For sexual content, language and some drug use

(*) (*) (*) I liked it and would watch with friends again. (*) (*)


Gone But Not Forgotten (2003)
Drew (Aaron Orr) is a forest ranger who meets yuppie Mark (Matthew Montgomery) after he falls while rock climbing. Mark wakes up in the hospital with amnesia and sees that Drew has remained by his side since the accident. Drew offers to move in with Mark to help him out until he regains his memory, which propels the two men into a passionate affair. But things start to change as Mark's memory slowly returns. …
Starring: Aaron Orr, Matthew Montgomery
Director: Michael D. Akers

(*) Poor production. Seemed like a college-student did the filming and editing. The music and sequences were inappropriate. I almost stopped it a few times it was that bad. I do not recommend this film. :( (*) (*) (*)

(*) (*) Well, I do habve a couple more netflix films here including "Shrek 2", (h) (h) why not? I need a good laugh. Badly. :|

({) (}) and (k) (k) ,
Sweetlady and Doc the Boxer

[sweetlady]

Virgo Karma Profile

With its analytical mind and penchant for helping others, Virgo is one of the most selflessly virtuous Signs of the Zodiac. The Sign of the Virgin possesses high-minded ideals toward which it works constantly; second-best just doesn't satisfy Virgo, who requires perfection in all things. Virgos apply the same high standards to themselves that they do to their friends and loved ones; at least they're fair about their scrutiny and diligent criticisms! That's right, Virgo tends to place too high a premium on perfection, and sometimes can't seem to let well enough alone. Others can begin to feel a bit hen-pecked when Virgo's around, due to the Virgoan tendency to criticize constantly and focus on minor (often unimportant) details.

All this nervous attention to detail can leave Virgo itself feeling a bit harried at the day's end. The Sign of Virgo rules the stomach and digestive tract; have you ever developed a stomachache just from worrying too much? That's how many Virgos feel all the time! They may work themselves into a self-critical, nervous frenzy and be simply unable to unwind. But what is all this focus on perfection for? Perfection isn't exactly a human trait; as humans, we tend to verge more toward chaos, or at least toward somewhere in the middle. Even Virgo interestingly enough, when Virgo is out of synch it might actually become quite sloppy. As do all extremes, Virgo's obsession with perfection needs balancing.

Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, all this hyper-attention to detail may be drawing Virgo's attention away from more important matters or from larger truths. That old saying, "Can't see the forest for the trees," could easily apply to Virgo. Could this be on purpose? Virgos should think about whether they might be focusing on the details as a way to avoid the truth of the bigger picture. But they should also try not to let that suggestion send them into an over-analytical frenzy! Virgo's truly analytical mind is both a strength and a weakness. The same quality that makes Virgos wonderful accountants, lawyers and researchers may also make them think too hard about things not deserving of so much attention. Virgo must try to learn to distinguish what does merit close scrutiny and criticism (such as a public policy that hurts more than it helps) from what doesn't (such as the way your family takes off their shoes by the front door and leaves them there in a messy pile).

There are some very real health risks in never allowing oneself to relax and unwind. Virgo can be something of a hypochondriac, and hypochondria can actually lead to real medical conditions. And even if it doesn't, what's the fun of constantly worrying about possible health problems? Virgo must learn to relax and let go, which may be easier said than done. Those born under its exacting influence may have to look to other Signs of the Zodiac for help and inspiration. For example, Sagittarius is perfectly able to see that forest that Virgo is never able to see for all the trees. As the Sign of the Philosopher, Sagittarius concerns itself with the larger truths that Virgo may miss or not understand. Virgo can look to Pisces to learn to stop criticizing and start understanding the reasons behind others' shortcomings; perhaps criticism isn't the best way to help someone. And Gemini can inspire Virgo to relax and use that sharp mind for fun, not toil.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/atplay/virgo3.jsp

(*) (*) Fits to a "T"! ;)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/love/gallery.jsp?floc=g-kissing_women1&gname=kissing_women

(*) (*) Only two to three seem genuine and authentic to me.....the others seem very posed as if for a het man's enjoyment. My 2 cents. ;) ;) (*) (*)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Macca keeps it clean to Bowl 'em over

04/02/2005 - 14:21:14 A year after the Janet Jackson boob, US television has come up with the perfect way to clean up its act at halftime of the Super Bowl on Sunday: hire Paul McCartney to entertain.

A year after the Janet Jackson boob, US television has come up with the perfect way to clean up its act at halftime of the Super Bowl on Sunday: hire Paul McCartney to entertain.

Paul McCartney will be the only performer during the National Football League’s 12 minute extravaganza in Jacksonville, Florida.

He promises not to cause the same furore Jackson stirred up last season when Justin Timberlake tore open her top at the end of the show and revealed her bare breast - the infamous “wardrobe malfunction”.

And so, the former Beatles star has come full circle. Considered among the most edgy entertainers in the world during the 1960s, he has now become the safe choice.

“I had a slight inkling that there might be something like that attached to it,” McCartney said last night.

“That’s OK. It’s an honour to do it.”

McCartney’s play list – he has hundreds of songs to choose from – is a secret, although everything has been vetted and approved by the NFL to ensure he doesn’t sing anything that might be offensive.

The 62-year-old icon joked about the possibility of exposing flesh during the halftime show.

“I can assure you I won’t,” McCartney said, “because I’ll be naked”.

Fox, which is televising the game, has opted against an eight-second delay of the telecast as a way of preventing something inappropriate from airing. Short delays on live events became much more popular in the aftermath of the Jackson affair.

“Basically, we’re treating the Super Bowl as a news event,” spokesman Dan Hill said. “We don’t believe in tape delaying news events.”

The Jackson episode dominated conversation about the game for weeks afterward. It prompted congressional hearings, stricter Federal Communication Commission rules and triggered fines against the US stations that carried the game.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/story.asp?j=132626336&p=y3z6z7x4z

(*) (*) What GREAT news! Paul rocks! (h) (h)

({) (}) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

La Dolce Musto
by Michael Musto
February 1st, 2005 10:03

Let me graciously glide you through the decades, starting with the '60s Broadway musical Good Vibrations, a harmless theme park entertainment that pie-facedly borrows from Mamma Mia! (it throws in the expected "surprise" gay twist and the de rigueur post-curtain reprise medley) while jumping the gun on All Shook Up (there's a nerd, an interracial couple, and even an Elvis sighting). But though it's bulimic and contrived and seems to think the BEACH BOYS songs were really just about cars and girls, I was sort of buoyed by the cute, spirited cast and dopey doings. Critics will bitch the show to high heaven—guess what it names a character just so they can sing "Help Me, Rhonda"?—but they have themselves to blame for the jukebox genre; the scribes are the ones who raved about Mamma Mia! simply because it opened shortly after 9-11, when they were desperate for any escapist crapola to hang onto.

The surf turned to smurfs when the '70s came back with a big, old smiley face that went a little bitter. At a promo event for MIKE CARBONARO's Big Apple Comic Book, Art, and Toy Show, I treaded delicately while hobnobbing with TV Land types over warm potato salad and Mountain Dew. Three's Company's pert JOYCE DEWITT entered, saying, "I'm late because I was putting on 400 pounds of makeup!" That's OK, Joyce, what else have you been working on? "They're doing an A&E Biography about Three's Company and I'm writing three books, describing what I've learned from the most amazing spiritual teachers on the planet." Hmm, I was starting to notice a three trend.

But anyway, when John Ritter died, did you really bury the hatchet with SUZANNE SOMERS? Oops. Non-spiritual moment. "I never had a hatchet with Suzanne," she said, steaming, "and I don't want to talk about Suzanne. That's Suzanne's drama and you'll have to ask her about that!" Tense silence. The Mountain Dew went flat. No hatchet indeed.

I counted to three, then ran over to ERIN MORAN (Joanie from Happy Days) for comfort and asked what she's working on. "Nothing," she said, cutely scrunching her face. "It's so hard to get a break in this business." OK, but do you think Chachi (SCOTT BAIO) was overrated? "I do! He's a sweetheart and he's cute and everything, but . . . " She stopped herself. "No, he's a nice guy. He has a strong Italian father and he wouldn't have been overrated without that. Italians are very close." (I know; that's why I always look so suffocated.)

Moving on to the '80s—nah, let's race forward to the '90s, to get as far away from Three's Company's backstage devilry as possible. The '90s were the land of Forrest Gump, grunge, FIONA APPLE, and other uplifting phenomena, and they're all back—things happen so quickly here—via Nerveana, a Tribeca club dedicated to the Prozac decade, the one that had me at hello. So did the club; I adore nothing more than a well-executed theme, and this place—basically the upstairs to the '80s haven the Culture Club—turns it out like a Spice Girl at an open bar. The Beverly Hills 90210 mural is perfection, the O.J. car chase on the TV screen still compels, and even the cocktail ideas are divoon. (The LORENA BOBBITT "tastes like fresh cut strawberries.") What I could have done without at the opening were all the reporters running around asking people, "So what characterized the '90s anyway?" Honey, if you can remember, you weren't there.

Less than zero

I can't even remember the present—yes, we've blissfully segued into now—though I do recall the recent wrap party for Fox's ex-con drama Jonny Zero at the Cutting Room, where I overheard someone from the show say, "They ran the fourth episode second! It made no sense!" Yeah, but it made more sense than if they ran the fourth episode fourth. And it made way more sense than the fact that star FRANKY G wasn't showing up because he couldn't tear himself away from the Steelers game.

Sense (and some sensibility) was restored at DENISE RICH's Fifth Avenue luxury pad last Monday, when notables gathered to watch the DVD release of JAMES TOBACK's When Will I Be Loved over couscous and champagne. Was Toback, like every other moviemaker, praying he'd get Oscar nominations the next day? "Unfortunately," he told me, "with a marketing budget of zero, my chances are zero. I'm not bitter because I know the game. When I made
Fingers 25 years ago, HARVEY KEITEL said, 'Jimmy, what's wrong with these people? All this shit is getting attention and nobody knows we exist.' Well, now a French director, JACQUES AUDIARD, is remaking Fingers. Maybe I have to wait 25 years till I'm a cripple in Brazil for this movie to have its day in court. Or we could screen it every night here, charge $3,000 a ticket, and call it the Denise Rich Theater!" Uh-oh, another three word. Don't come at me with a hatchet, Joyce.

The nominations came out—no PAUL GIAMATTI? Are you people crazed?—and I found myself chatting about them with DELROY LINDO at the Court TV event for the harrowing The Exonerated at 21 Club, where rich people mixed with black guys falsely accused of rape. "I'm thrilled," Lindo said, "for DON CHEADLE, SOPHIE OKONEDO, JAMIE FOXX, and the young lady from Maria Full of Grace." (Well, let's hope she doesn't nab the gold or it could lead to an embarrassing moment: "The winner is . . . the young lady from Maria Full of Grace.") Did Lindo get scads of money to do The Exonerated? "Money! This is the payment right here," he said, laughingly pointing to a plate of hors d'oeuvres. "But it was a worthwhile project with wonderful people. I got into acting because I wanted to change the world." And when he does it, I rarely want to change the channel.

Finger me Elmo

But let's point to the future with some food for thought and discuss how the family values crowd is aghast again about the threat of cartoon homosexuality. The strangest aspect of this doofy debate is that the liberal argument seems to always be, "But how could a cartoon character have sexuality?" Honey, tell that to everyone from Prince Charming to Mickey Mouse to Yogi Bear, all of whom had hot girlfriends. The reality is, cartoon characters do often have sexuality; the public just doesn't make much of it because it's straight and pretty routine. If it were gay, everyone would not only notice, they'd shit themselves, so creators have to put it in via signifiers and suggestions to get their point across while denying it like crazy. The JERRY FALWELLs find this dangerous. I find it wonderful. And by the way, forget SpongeBob and the starfish. The Squidward character is a total screamer!

http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0505,musto,60647,15.html

(*) (*) Sometimes writers have to go a little ways off in the weeds to make their points. :o :o

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Mary M. seems to be on the same level as others who hung with J.C.

http://www.magdalene.org/contents.htm

******************
Monday, Aug. 11, 2003
Mary Magdalene Saint or Sinner?
A new wave of literature is cleaning up her reputation. How a woman of substance was "harlotized"
By DAVID VAN BIEMA

The gorgeous female cryptographer and the hunky college professor are fleeing the scene of a ghastly murder they did not commit. In the midst of their escape, which will eventually utilize an armored car, a private jet, electronic-surveillance devices and just enough unavoidable violence to keep things interesting, our heroes seek out the one man who holds the key not only to their exoneration but also to a mystery that could change the world. To help explain it to them, crippled, jovial, fabulously wealthy historian Sir Leigh Teabing points out a figure in a famous painting.

"'Who is she?' Sophie asked.

"'That, my dear,' Teabing replied, 'is Mary Magdalene.'

"Sophie turned. 'The prostitute?'

"Teabing drew a short breath, as if the word had injured him personally. 'Magdalene was no such thing. That unfortunate misconception is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the early Church.'"

Summer page turners tend to sidestep the finer points of 6th century church history. Perhaps that is their loss. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, now in its 18th week on the New York Times hard-cover fiction best-seller list, is one of those hypercaffeinated conspiracy specials with two-page chapters and people's hair described as "burgundy." But Brown, who by book's end has woven Magdalene intricately and rather outrageously into his plot, has picked his MacGuffin cannily. Not only has he enlisted one of the few New Testament personages whom a reader might arguably imagine in a bathing suit (generations of Old Masters, after all, painted her topless). He has chosen a character whose actual identity is in play, both in theology and pop culture.

Three decades ago, the Roman Catholic Church quietly admitted what critics had been saying for centuries: Magdalene's standard image as a reformed prostitute is not supported by the text of the Bible. Freed of this lurid, limiting premise and employing varying ratios of scholarship and whimsy, academics and enthusiasts have posited various other Magdalenes: a rich and honored patron of Jesus, an Apostle in her own right, the mother of the Messiah's child and even his prophetic successor. The wealth of possibilities has inspired a wave of literature, both academic and popular, including Margaret George's 2002 best-selling historical novel Mary, Called Magdalene. And it has gained Magdalene a new following among Catholics who see in her a potent female role model and a possible argument against the all-male priesthood. The woman who three Gospels agree was the first witness to Christ's Resurrection is having her own kind of rebirth. Says Ellen Turner, who played host to an alternative celebration for the saint on her traditional feast day on July 22: "Mary [Magdalene] got worked over by the church, but she is still there for us. If we can bring her story forward, we can get back to what Jesus was really about."

In 1988, the book Mary Magdalene: A Woman Who Showed Her Gratitude, part of a children's biblical-women series and a fairly typical product of its time, explained that its subject "was not famous for the great things she did or said, but she goes down in history as a woman who truly loved Jesus with all her heart and was not embarrassed to show it despite criticism from others." That is certainly part of her traditional resume. Many Christian churches would add her importance as an example of the power of Christ's love to save even the most fallen humanity, and of repentance. (The word maudlin derives from her reputation as a tearful penitent.) Centuries of Catholic teaching also established her colloquial identity as the bad girl who became the hope of all bad girls, the saved siren active not only in the overheated imaginations of parochial-school students but also as the patron of institutions for wayward women such as the grim nun-run laundries featured in the new movie The Magdalene Sisters. In the culture at large, writer Kathy Shaidle has suggested, Magdalene is "the Jessica Rabbit of the Gospels, the gold-hearted town tramp belting out I Don't Know How to Love Him."

The only problem is that it turns out that she wasn't bad, just interpreted that way. Mary Magdalene (her name refers to Magdala, a city in Galilee) first appears in the Gospel of Luke as one of several apparently wealthy women Jesus cures of possession (seven demons are cast from her), who join him and the Apostles and "provided for them out of their means." Her name does not come up again until the Crucifixion, which she and other women witness from the foot of the Cross, the male disciples having fled. On Easter Sunday morning, she visits Jesus' sepulcher, either alone or with other women, and discovers it empty. She learns — in three Gospels from angels and in one from Jesus himself — that he is risen. John's recounting is the most dramatic. She is solo at the empty tomb. She alerts Peter and an unnamed disciple; only the latter seems to grasp the Resurrection, and they leave. Lingering, Magdalene encounters Jesus, who asks her not to cling to him, "but go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father ... and my God." In Luke's and Mark's versions, this plays out as a bit of a farce: Magdalene and other women try to alert the men, but "these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them." Eventually they came around.

Discrepancies notwithstanding, the net impression is of a woman of substance, brave and smart and devoted, who plays a crucial — perhaps irreplaceable — role in Christianity's defining moment. So where did all the juicy stuff come from? Mary Magdalene's image became distorted when early church leaders bundled into her story those of several less distinguished women whom the Bible did not name or referred to without a last name. One is the "sinner" in Luke who bathes Jesus' feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, kisses them and anoints them with ointment. "Her many sins have been forgiven, for she loved much," he says. Others include Luke's Mary of Bethany and a third, unnamed woman, both of whom anointed Jesus in one form or another. The mix-up was made official by Pope Gregory the Great in 591: "She whom Luke calls the sinful woman, whom John calls Mary [of Bethany], we believe to be the Mary from whom seven devils were ejected according to Mark," Gregory declared in a sermon. That position became church teaching, although it was not adopted by Orthodoxy or Protestantism when each later split from Catholicism.

What prompted Gregory? One theory suggests an attempt to reduce the number of Marys — there was a similar merging of characters named John. Another submits that the sinning woman was appended simply to provide missing backstory for a figure of obvious importance. Others blame misogyny. Whatever the motivation, the effect of the process was drastic and, from a feminist perspective, tragic. Magdalene's witness to the Resurrection, rather than being acclaimed as an act of discipleship in some ways greater than the men's, was reduced to the final stage in a moving but far less central tale about the redemption of a repentant sinner. "The pattern is a common one," writes Jane Schaberg, a professor of religious and women's studies at the University of Detroit Mercy and author of last year's The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: "the powerful woman disempowered, remembered as a whore or whorish." As shorthand, Schaberg coined the term "harlotization."

In 1969, in the liturgical equivalent of fine print, the Catholic Church officially separated Luke's sinful woman, Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene as part of a general revision of its missal. Word has been slow in filtering down into the pews, however. (It hasn't helped that Magdalene's heroics at the tomb are still omitted from the Easter Sunday liturgy, relegated instead to midweek.) And in the meantime, more scholarship has stoked the fires of those who see her eclipse as a chauvinist conspiracy. Historians of Christianity are increasingly fascinated with a group of early followers of Christ known broadly as the Gnostics, some of whose writings were unearthed only 55 years ago. And the Gnostics were fascinated by Magdalene. The so-called Gospel of Mary [Magdalene], which may date from as early as A.D. 125 (or about 40 years after John's Gospel), describes her as having received a private vision from Jesus, which she passes on to the male disciples. This role is a usurpation of the go-between status the standard Gospels normally accord to Peter, and Mary depicts him as mightily peeved, asking, "Did [Jesus] really speak with a woman without our knowledge?" The disciple Levi comes to her defense, saying, "Peter, you have always been hot-tempered ... If the Savior made her worthy, who are you to reject her? Surely, the Savior loves her very well. That is why he loved her more than us."

Them's fightin' words, especially when one remembers that the papacy traces its authority back to Peter. Of course, the Gnostic Gospels are not the Bible. In fact, there is evidence that the Bible was standardized and canonized precisely to exclude such books, which the early church leaders regarded as heretical for many non-Magdalene reasons. Nonetheless, feminists have been quick to cite Mary as evidence both of Magdalene's early importance, at least in some communities, and as the virtual play-by-play of a forgotten gender battle, in which church fathers eventually prevailed over the people who never got the chance to be known as church mothers. "I think it was a power struggle," says Schaberg, "And the canonical texts that we have [today] come from the winners."

Schaberg goes further. In her book, she returns to John in light of the Gnostic writings and purports to find "fragments of a claim" that Jesus may have seen Magdalene as his prophetic successor. The position is thus far quite lonely. But it serves nicely to illustrate the way in which any retrieval of Magdalene as a "winner" inevitably shakes up current assumptions about male church leadership. After Pope John Paul II prohibited even the discussion of female priests in 1995, he cited "the example recorded in the Sacred Scriptures of Christ choosing his Apostles only from among men ..." That argument would seem weakened in light of the "new" Magdalene, whom the Pope himself has acknowledged by the once unfashionable title "Apostle to the Apostles." Chester Gillis, chair of the department of theology at Georgetown University, says conventional Catholics still feel that Mary Magdalene's absence from many biblical scenes involving the male disciples, and specifically from the ordination-like ritual of the Last Supper, rule her out as a priest precedent. Gillis agrees, however, that her recalibration "certainly makes a case for a stronger role for women in the church."

Meanwhile, the combination of catholic rethinking and Gnostic revelations have reanimated wilder Magdalene speculations, like that of a Jesus-Magdalene marriage. ("No other biblical figure," Schaberg notes, "has had such a vivid and bizarre postbiblical life.") The Gnostic Gospel of Philip describes Magdalene as "the one who was called [Jesus'] companion," claiming that he "used to kiss her on her [mouth]." Most scholars discount a Jesus-Magdalene match because it finds little echo in the canonical Gospels once the false Magdalenes are removed. But it fulfills a deep narrative expectation: for the alpha male to take a mate, for a yin to Jesus' yang or, as some neopagans have suggested, for a goddess to his god. Martin Luther believed that Jesus and Magdalene were married, as did Mormon patriarch Brigham Young.

The notion that Magdalene was pregnant by Jesus at his Crucifixion became especially entrenched in France, which already had a tradition of her immigration in a rudderless boat, bearing the Holy Grail, his chalice at the Last Supper into which his blood later fell. Several French kings promoted the legend that descendants of Magdalene's child founded the Merovingian line of European royalty, a story revived by Richard Wagner in his opera Parsifal and again in connection with Diana, Princess of Wales, who reportedly had some Merovingian blood. (The Wachowski brothers, those cultural magpies, named a villain in The Matrix Reloaded Merovingian, filming him surrounded by Grail-like chalices. His wife in that film was played by Italian actress Monica Bellucci, who will also play Magdalene in Mel Gibson's upcoming Jesus film ... Sorry, this stuff is addictive.) The idea that Magdalene herself was the Holy Grail — the human receptacle for Jesus' blood line — popped up in a 1986 best seller, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which inspired Brown's Da Vinci Code. When Brown said recently, "Mary Magdalene is a historical figure whose time has come," he meant a figure with a lot of mythic filagree.

Ellen Turner was 48 years old when she first learned that Mary Magdalene was not a whore. Through Catholic school and a Catholic college, she attests, "I thought about her in the traditional way, as a sinner." But eight years ago, the 56-year-old technical writer tapped into a network of neo-Magdalenites through her connection with the liberal Catholic groups Call to Action and Futurechurch. The discovery that, as Turner puts it, Magdalene "got the shaft" started her thinking about how to change the situation. She was happy to find that the two organizations, which see Magdalene's recovered image as an argument for their goal of a priesthood open to all those who feel called, coordinate celebrations around the world on her feast day.

Last month Turner and her husband Ray played host to such a celebration at their home in San Jose, Calif. About 30 participants drove in from as far away as Oakland. After meeting and greeting and strolling the meditation labyrinth in Turner's backyard, the group held something resembling a church service, with an opening hymn, a blessing over the bread and wine and readings about Magdalene from the four Gospels. There was no priest, but Turner herself read what, if this were a Mass, might be a homily. "From the beginning," she intoned as the sun sank over Silicon Valley, "her view has been ignored, unappreciated. The first to see the risen Lord — those with more power have sought to marginalize her. Yet she is faithful. She remains. She cannot be silenced."

http://www.danbrown.com/media/morenews/time.html

(*) (*) Can anyone tell that I am a recovering Catholic? ;) Eight years of Catholic school and 4 hears of CCD in high school provided ENOUGH stuff for a few years of intense therapy... :| ;) Call my spirituality of the past 25 years running close to that of the Hopi Native Americans along with an unshakable belief in angels and spirit guides. (a) (a) (l) (l) (l) (l)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Heard about the "sushi Nazi?" Well, the infamous "soup Nazi" immortalized on a legendary "Seinfeld" episode (and who the sitcom's writers have said is based on a real line-around-the-block New York City soup seller), Kazunori Nozawa has rules. The one and only sushi man at this small, nothing-to-look-at sushi bar insists you go by those rules---and he doesn't make California rolls. He layers perfect pink salmon with translucent seaweed noodles, steeps heavenly mussels in a rice-vinegar broth and enfolds elaborate hand rolls in toasted sheets of seaweed. Some flavors are subtly concealed---and like the proverbial Chinese puzzle box---appear magically as others vanish, awakening your taste buds to Nozawa's handiwork. --Gayot.com

Address: 11288 Ventura Blvd., Unit C
Studio City, 91604
Neighborhood: East Valley
Type: Japanese

http://www.la.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/cgpportal.woa/wa/path?urlpath=%2Fdining%2Fasianpanasiansushi%2Fsush inozawa%2F833

(*) (*) Forget California and roll into this traditional succulent sushi. I've been here several times when I lived here as well as on subsequent trips to LA. It's my absolutely favorite sushi place in the world, including some in Japan where I was on business trips. The "sushi nazi", as they call the owner - gives you what he thinks you'll like when you sit at the sushi bar. Eventually, as I came in with various friends, he finally asked me what I wanted.....which my answer is always Hamachi sahshimi.....(yellowtail tuna). Yummy! ;) ;) Now I'm hungry!

Peace,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

About LiveJournal

LiveJournal is a simple-to-use (but extremely powerful and customizable) personal publishing ("blogging") tool, built on open source software.

Joining the site is free. Users can choose to upgrade their accounts for extra features.

http://www.livejournal.com/

Features: http://www.livejournal.com/site/about.bml

(*) (*) Think I'll create my own site.....when I have time that is.... ;)

Peace,
Sweetlady (h)

[sweetlady]

http://erasing.org/i_ate_ipod_shuffle/

(*) (*) ;) ;)

(k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

The Airline Napkin Wipeoreum
“We Wipe Your Smile While You Fly”

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinair/

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinaira/index-a1.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinaira/index-a2.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinaira/index-b-c.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinaira/index-d-h.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinair/index-i-o.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinair/index-p-s.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinair/index-t-y.htm

http://home.earthlink.net/~napkinair/index-other.htm

(*) (*) <teehee> I'm sp punchy after a long nap this afternoon. (S) (S) Have been up since 2:00 a.m. last night....and every night before that since I can remember back to right after xmas, 2004. (S) (S) (S) Doc's staying the night at the vet on I.V. fluids since late this morning. Chemo (the third installment) was just so painful for him. (and killing me to keep trying everyting I can to keep him as comfortable and hydrated as possible):( :( He's in a good place and is resting (actually asleep) well. (o) (o)

Peace,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

The Wi-Fi detection ring was developed to give mobile computer users the ability to detect 802.11b/g signals, while providing a unique, fashionable and ultra-portable product package.

The prototype circuit collects and rectifies an RF signal in the 2.4GHz range, whereafter an Atmel Tiny microCONTROLLER (oops, original post said 'microPROCESSOR'), detecting the presence of a DC voltage, thusly engages a flashing LED.

Due to the simplicity of the circuit design, the prototype unit does not discriminate between other sources of 2.4GHz RF, eg. "leaky" microwave ovens, cordless phones, etc. Future production units would feature surface-mounted components to decrease the detector profile and microcontrollers that discriminate between other RF sources, as well as indicate whether the Wi-Fi nodes are open/closed/encrypted, etc.

Looking at the prototype image, yes, it does look like a dogs breakfast. However, future iterations will have a bit more care put into the physical design and layout. The 3D concept and mockup images demonstrate the future direction of the product design.

The maximum detection range appeared to be roughly 40 feet (line of sight), which is not exactly great, but this can likely be blamed on the antenna and the lack of a sensitive tunnel diode, which a future improved version will both utilize.

More on: http://neil.moon-beam.com/users/kris/index.htm

(*) (*) (h) (h) VERY cool! (h) (h)

Peace,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

All this hurly-burly over HD DVD and Blu-ray, and here they're getting leapfrogged already. Tokyo-based Optware Corp. says it's developed an optical storage technology capable of writing 3.9 terabytes of information on a single disc. Dubbed Holographic Versatile Disc (HVD), the technology records data on discs in the form of laser interference fringes, enabling discs the size of today's DVDs to store more than 200 times as much data, with a transfer rate of over one gigabit per second. Sounds promising. Certainly, HVD could solve the current disc space to floor volume issues that enterprises are running into. Still, as Brian Babinea, an analyst at Enterprise Strategy group, notes, it's difficult to assess HVDs' true potential without seeing them in action in a business environment. "Until these products actually hit the market, it's all speculation," Babinea told IT Observer. "HVD offers tremendous amounts of capacity, but they need to prove that the data can be accessed quickly without any quality degradation. Until then, it's a science project," he said.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/02/04/holographic/index.php

http://www.ebcvg.com/articles.php?id=579


(*) (*) Storage capacity and associated costs have been plummeting for years. These new developments will be no different - I disagree with the analyst in this article. I'll bet that he has stock in either new format DVD or Blu-ray companies for sure! ;) ;) (h) (h)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

or in other words:

PEOPLESOFT MERGER MEANS RIVALS MAY NEED TO COOPERATE

By John Boudreau Mercury News Sat, Feb. 05, 2005

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/gmsv/10825086.htm


(*) (*) Two rivals cooperating? We'll see. :|

Peace,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

Posted on Mon, Feb. 07, 2005

CONCERN OVER BACKLASH LEAVES CARRIERS COOL TO DIRECTORY

By Sam Diaz Mercury News


Privacy was never supposed to be an issue.

When the cell phone companies sat down a couple of years ago to talk about making cell phone numbers available through the national 411 directory, the message was clear: If it involved any risk of upsetting customers over the privacy of their numbers, then all bets were off.

Now, the issue of privacy -- along with legislation that attempts to force the issue -- has taken center stage, slowing efforts to add cell phone numbers to the directory and possibly sending the idea to its grave before it even gets off the ground.

Sprint PCS said last week that it will delay its rollout of the cell phone directory -- dubbed Wireless 411 -- for at least a year. Verizon Wireless pulled out of the plan shortly after discussions started. And Cingular Wireless -- now the largest national cell phone carrier, following its acquisition of AT&T Wireless -- has taken a non-committal stance on the issue.

Collectively, that could spell disaster for an idea that was intended to serve two growing groups of consumers: the small-business owners who use their cell phones -- also known as wireless phones -- as their primary business phone, and the younger generation of cell phone users who no longer bother with home-based ``landline'' phones.

``Every carrier is running for the hills,'' said Roger Entner, a Yankee Group analyst who views the 411 directory as pretty much dead. Only one of the six largest cell phone companies -- T-Mobile -- remains committed to the service, planning to offer it later this year.

But Greg Keene, chief privacy officer for Qsent, the Portland, Ore., company selected to manage the 411 database of cell phone numbers, said the service is something that's in demand and won't go away.

``Over 50 percent of consumers want this service, as long as it has good privacy protection built in,'' Keene said, referring to the results of a 2004 survey that studied consumer reaction to the idea. ``When more than half of the people want it, then it lives, especially as more and more people move away from landline phones to wireless phones.''

Originally, Qsent had hoped that cell phone companies would start offering the 411 service to their customers in the first half of this year. Then the cell phone numbers belonging to those who wanted to be listed would be added to the 411 directory -- but not a phone book or Internet database -- by the end of the year.

But without the support of the nation's largest carriers, that's an unlikely scenario, said Entner, the industry analyst.

The concept of Wireless 411 has been in development for a couple of years and was gearing up for a launch when a fast-spreading e-mail -- now recognized as an urban myth -- started flooding e-mail inboxes in December. The e-mail issued a warning about a soon-to-be-released cell phone directory that would be handed over to telemarketers unless the numbers were registered on a federal do-not-call list by a deadline date.

The e-mail's message was wrong -- but the fallout showed just how sensitive the issue of cell phone privacy remains, said Janee Briesemeister, a senior policy analyst for Consumers Union.

``The fact that that e-mail spread like wildfire is indicative of the concern that consumers have about this issue,'' Briesemeister said. ``While the e-mail was not 100 percent correct, the fact that people responded to it so strongly shows that the public is concerned and wants to keep control of their cell phone numbers.''

Unlike calls on a home-based landline phone, incoming cell phone calls are usually billed per minute, prompting users to be selective about who gets their number. Landline phone numbers, with an unlimited-use model, have always been listed in the 411 directory, as well as the phone book, unless the customers pays to be unlisted.

``Wireless has grown up differently than the landline telephone did,'' said Verizon Wireless spokesman Jeffrey Nelson. ``There is a zone of privacy, if you will, around wireless. People don't just automatically give out their wireless numbers. They decide whether someone will have their number or not.''

The Qsent plan for managing the 411 database of cell phone numbers, he said, addresses those privacy concerns:

• The directory would be established on an ``opt-in'' basis. Only customers who ask their cell phone provider to add the number to the directory would be included. Customers who do nothing would not be in.

• The numbers would not be printed in phone books or be available on the Internet.

• The numbers also would not be part of the landline 411 directory itself. Instead, Qsent would maintain the directory, and operators who handle 411 calls -- whether from landline phones or cell phones -- would reroute callers to the Qsent directory for a listed cell phone number.

But consumers need more than just the promise of a cell phone company to make sure their numbers stay private, Briesemeister said. Laws -- whether one federal law or 50 state laws -- need to be in place for protect consumers from being listed without their consent or knowledge.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill in September that requires written permission of the customer to allow the listing of a cell phone number. South Dakota passed a similar law recently and several other states have bills pending, Briesemeister said. A federal bill, similar to one that died last year, has been reintroduced in Congress this year.

Still, some wonder if the government's intervention may have done more harm than good in determining the fate of wireless 411.

The state law, for example, requires written permission by cell phone customers to list their numbers in the directory. Collecting signatures and managing that paperwork -- and trying to accommodate a different law for each state -- suddenly becomes more trouble than it's worth for the cell phone companies, said Dan Miller, an analyst with Opus Research in San Francisco.

``It reached a point where the expense of defending putting it up exceeded the benefits they could offer their subscribers,'' Miller said. ``It creates too much business risk and cultivates more ill will than good will.''

For Sprint PCS, the cloud of confusion generated by the legislation helped push the company into a wait-and-see delay for at least another year.

``We do believe it can be a valuable service to those who want it when provided on an opt-in basis,'' said Sprint PCS spokeswoman Caroline Semerdjian. ``It's one of those services we'll have to evaluate more.''


(*) (*) Amazing how just when we got state and national protection from telephone marketers.....up pops yet aother privacy issue. As Rosanna Rosannadanna used to always say, "It's always something!" ;) (*) (*)

(k) (k) ,
Sweetlady

[sweetlady]

By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D.

Published: February 8, 2005 NYTimes


Look closely at the top of your doctor's head the next time you get a chance. Do those odd gray hairs worry you at all? Do they speak to you of wisdom and experience? Or do they remind you it may be time to leave the old fool for a source of more up-to-date care?

In Britain, the National Health Service imposes draconian limitations on physicians wishing to work after age 65, and essentially forbids work after 70. The policy is clearly intended to guard the population from doddering idiots, but some may argue it squanders the best talents instead.

We know all about dog-years and cat-years. No expert yet has come up with an estimate for doctor-years. How old do doctors really become, after 10 years in practice, or 50? Can we safely drag wrinkled, elderly frames around like tortoises, knowing that at work we are relatively immortal? Or should we retire while still chronologically young but, in doctor-years, obsolesced beyond repair?

I once had two colleagues who graduated from medical school over 40 years apart. The young one was fresh out of training, the old one heading for retirement. Watching the two of them at work was one of the best possible lessons in the passage of medical time.

The old doctor had taken care of some patients for decades. The intermittent half-hours they spent together had coalesced over the years into tight, loyal partnerships.

The young one had never takLen care of a patient for more than a couple of years before saying goodbye and moving on.