Why aren't you reading zambiastories.com?

A friend of mine from Dallas is in Zambia on a fellowship reporting for the Dallas Morning News. If you did the CD mix of the month thing you probably remember him. He gets some plum assignments like traveling to Pitcairn Island and covering the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake. Thankfully he’s keeping a blog up to date while he’s in Zambia and it has some great stuff in it.

I gotta figure out a way to make my job more exciting. Listening: (none)

why are the bad girls so good?

I moderate a mailing list for Dallas movie geeks and the question came up as to whether anyone nowadays can match someone like Rita Hayworth in Gilda for sexiness and charm. I got so caught up in my response I wanted to document it here.

I recommend Gilda and The Lady from Shanghai.

I think part of the Rita Hayworth mystique comes from these two femme fatale roles. In my opinion the role she played has helped cement her as an icon more than any of her natural talents. Look at the list below and I think you’ll agree that all these women meet or exceed the Rita Hayworth standards for sexiness and charm. And I think the reason for that is due to the femme fatale roles that enhanced their popularity.

Confronting Government Lies

Howard Zinn delivered a speech on Confronting Government Lies at the Unitarian Universalist Association in Boston. The Alternative Radio project broadcast it. He has a certain clarity with points like this:

Zinn warned against being fooled by the preamble to the Constitution, which says “We the People.” It was not a group of farmers creating the constitution for all; it was 55 rich white men. These rich white men wrote the Constitution to protect rich white men. His speech lingered quite a bit on our recent actions in Iraq and while I cheered his kowtowing to a liberal audience I think his speech would be that much more powerful with less humor and more of his keen historical perspective.

Read more...

Bill walks out on Terry Gross

Talk about fireworks on the radio! Fresh Air has an interview with Bill O’Reilly [RealAudio] that rivals her interview with Gene Simmons of KISS for tension and spirited, verbal intercourse. Bill took umbrage with Terry’s questions and accused her of being harder on him than she had been in her interview with Al Franken [RealAudio].

In particular she gave Bill a chance to defend himself against negative remarks made by others. She asked Al Franken similar questions about negative remarks about him made by others.

Delivering a clear message

I ran around downtown Huntsville and Monte Sano and Green mountain taking pictures today. It was a really great day. I do have one picture that I thought was particularly funny and important to share.

Abstinence - The Choice of a New Generation

And then there were three

I went to a wedding last weekend. I had a really great time, with my pants on thank you very much.

When I got back to Huntsville I still had a post-wedding buzz going on for a couple days afterwards. I think it was around tuesday or wednesday that the not so fresh, next day, emotional hangover settled in and cleared out. I definitely want to be a best man at more weddings. Now I know the secret handshakes and stuff that go along with it. I’d never participated in a wedding this much before and it was much better than just being a spectator.

Todo List for Weekend

Off to see

Every day that I go

Every day that I go into work I start it off listening to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel. I’ve been listening to it almost non-stop since I discovered it in spring on [a new article on Salon](http://www.crabwalk.com/cdmom/>a CDMOM mix. I was surprised to read <a href=), and a recent Creative Loafing article that praise it. Not bad for something that came out five years ago.

It was neat to see references to Soft Machine, Elf Power and Olivia Tremor Control. I love it when I’ve assembled a little music universe for myself and then discover that someone else used the same parts to build theirs. It kinda makes everything seem structured, meaningful. Listening: (none) Feeling: wistful

I got something in my

I got something in my email today from a Dallas theater called the Inwood. This is something I don’t think I’ll ever see in Huntsville, AL:

USA Film Festival and Landmark Theatres want to offer you FREE tickets
to a Special Screening of SECONDHAND LIONS.

Star Haley Joel Osment and Director Tim McCanlies will be in attendance
at this screening.

I can’t imagine Huntsville would ever get a Landmark theater, have a local festival of the stature (which is decidedly humble) of USA Film Festival, or get Hollywood talent to attend a screening of their own film in Huntsville.

Catching up to the future

Looks like some folks are finally beginning to bring the brilliant ideas in BFS to other platforms. Beos had the ability to track your work like this from day one, although the addition of Rendezvous to make it work across multiple computers is novel. I wonder if BFS guru Dominic Giampaolo (didn’t have to spellcheck his name thank you very much!) will fold this functionality into OS X since he works in the Apple file system group. Listening: Belle & Sebastian - Expectations Feeling: excited