Like a lot of people, I’m fascinated by magic. Oh, not the real kind - you know, the sleight-of-hand/parlor trick/Houdini stuff. I used to know Whit Haydn and have seen him do tricks so well that even though I was pretty sure I knew how he was doing it, and even though I was able to stand about a foot away and watch, I still couldn’t catch him.

I’m not sure I understand exactly what it is in us that responds so powerfully to illusion - maybe it’s that the day-to-day world is so mundane and bereft of hope that we’re automatically drawn to even the most subliminal suggestion that there could be more to life than meets the eye. Full Story »

Hhaing The Yu, 29, in rain falling on the ruins of his home, in a township outside Yangon, Myanmar.

This is not about politics; it is about saving people’s lives. There is absolutely no more time to lose.

— United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, pressing the military junta in Myanmar to accept international assistance as hundreds of thousands of its citizens reel from the effects of a devastating cyclone earlier this month; May 14.
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The Old Man and The Hawk
for Carrie

If he hadn’t been thirsty, the boy might have missed it. He saw it when he raised his canteen. It didn’t seem like much at first, he thought, just a black speck curling through the blue Utah sky. But he kept looking, curious. He squinted at the distant mystery, his thirst temporarily forgotten.

“Mr. Seth, is that a bird?”

The old man leaned against a stout but gnarled juniper, thumbs hooked in the shoulder straps of his worn canvas pack. He knew how and when to steal a few seconds’ rest as the minutes and the hours and the days and the life flowed by. He curled his arm around the juniper, letting his palm see and know the tree’s rough bark. He didn’t look up. He didn’t need to.

“It’s a hawk, son.”
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It’s official. According to Mark Hotaling, executive director of the Christian Family Alliance of Colorado, “Colorado is going to be ground zero for the issue of life in America.” (Source: Denver Post) The reason is that the Colorado non-profit Colorado for Equal Rights has turned in nearly double the number of signatures required to get an amendment to the Colorado constitution onto November’s ballot. Here’s the complete text of said proposed amendment:

Person defined. As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms “person” or “persons” shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization.

Our own Dr. Slammy brought up this issue in a post (Every sperm is sacred) three months ago, and the ramifications of this range from the absurd, awful, and terrifying all the way to downright misogynistic. And yes, you read that right. Full Story »

Jane Harman, who represents California’s 36th District, may be the wealthiest member of Congress. She may also be running second as the member of Congress who has seen the greatest accretion of net worth since attaining her House seat in 1994.

According to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation called Fortune 535, Rep. Harman’s net worth in 2006 may have been $409,426,887, up from $241,334,326 in 2000. (Sunlight bills itself as “a catalyst to create greater political transparency and to foster more openness and accountability in government.”)

The site allows inspection of each member of Congress in terms of net worth. Tabs lead to “Wealthiest,” “Greatest Change,” “Started with $0 or less,” and “Ended 2006 with $0 or less.”

It’s great fun. But Fortune 535’s worth is not its revelation of congressional wealth; rather, it demonstrates the weaknesses in the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 that requires financial disclosures by members of Congress. That’s why “may” is the operative word regarding Rep. Harman’s wealth.
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Whores no more.

On the job, the key for many of us is adapting by adopting — an alternate personality, that is. But some jobs arouse emotions and sensations that are too overwhelming for the conscious mind. In the process called splitting, we shunt those off to a kind of branch line of our consciousness.

Sex work is such a job. Its laborers often find the only way to survive is by putting as much distance as possible between their real and work selves. The lack of self-respect inherent in these evasion tactics is magnified by the need to hide the nature of their work from loved ones. Full Story »

If our profits are taxed, that means we’ll have less capital to invest in new production.

— John Hofmeister, president of Shell U.S., to CNNMoney.com; May 6.

These companies are spending a very small amount of their operating cash flow on exploration. They are spending the majority of their funds buying back stock.

— Amy Myers Jaffe, a fellow in energy studies at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, discussing results of her just-finished a two-year study looking at oil companies and how they spend their money; May 6.
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Long ago, in the beginning, a newspaper developed a Web site. Hundreds followed that lead. Now, one newspaper has only a Web site. In the end, what will there be? And what will be the consequences for readers?

A Wisconsin daily newspaper, whose readers have been increasingly shedding it, has now shed a significant expense — newsprint. The Capital Times of Madison, whose circulation has fallen from more than 40,000 to 18,000, said “-30-” to its printing press. It has become an online information enterprise around the Madison.com portal.

The 90-year-old newspaper — one of two serving Madison under a joint operating agreement — will only publish a tabloid-sized edition twice per week carrying some news, opinion and a weekly arts, entertainment and culture section. It will be distributed in its home-delivered partner paper, the Wisconsin State Journal.

It’s a dicey move, but critics like me have said for years that the Web-only newspaper will see its day come (which does not mean we have argued that online-only is a good idea). So what does this end-of-print mean for Madison and beyond?
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In case you missed it, Trent Reznor yesterday released the new Nine Inch Nails CD, The Slip, as a free download. I’ve only had time to listen to it once, and that was while I was working. So I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve been able to give it a few minutes of real attention. In any case, it’s free NIN, and what’s not to love about that.

Industry watcher and pundit extraordinaire Bob Lefsetz predictably has some thoughts about the release. I’m a big Lefsetz fan, mainly because of his relentless assaults on music industry greed and stupidity, and if you’re somebody who’s disgusted, dismayed or confused by how bad the music biz has gotten in recent years, you need to be a Lefsetz Letter subscriber. Full Story »

by Patrick Vecchio

The 10 days between the end of classes and commencement is the most poignant time of the academic year. That’s because commencement is the last time I will see the graduating seniors.

They have changed so much since I started working with them four years ago that it seems only their student ID numbers are still the same. When they arrived on campus, most of them were kids: 18, legally adults, but kids nonetheless, lugging anxiety or bravado like an overstuffed suitcase, unwilling or unable to advance those first conversations with faculty:

“Why do you want to major in journalism/mass communications?” Full Story »

Got hot links if you want ‘em!

We’re still experiencing aftershocks from Hillary’s Iran comments. In “Hillary Strangelove,” the Boston Globe editorialized: “A presidential candidate who lightly commits to obliterating Iran — and, presumably, all the children, parents, and grandparents in Iran — should not be answering the White House phone at any time of day or night.”

In “Hillary the Dream-Slayer” at OpEdNews, Steve Bhaerman writes: “What about the dream many women have about finally having a woman President? The real question for forward-thinking voters is not whether we need the feel-good symbol of a woman President, but whether we are ready to empower genuine feminine wisdom.” Full Story »

What you know about Cinco de May is only half the story. It is also known as the great mayonnaise mess.

Most people don’t know that back in 1912, Hellmann’s mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York. This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day. The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo. Full Story »

Ahhhh. An unseasonably balmy day here in the flyover zone. Upstairs, my riotous infant had subsided into what passes for a nap these hellish days. Downstairs, the dogs and I were cautiously relaxing into sunshine and silence. I snapped open a can of Diet Dr. Pepper, settled into the spot on the couch that fits my rear just right, and fired up the trusty laptop to while away a blessed hour with Google as my friendly guide… and saw this:

And said this: “Good God. Jeff Koons just crapped all over my Google.”

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Howdy. And welcome back to SVR. We’ve recently offered up some of the greatest videos in music history (part 1, part 2, part 3), and today, in the interest of fair and balanced coverage, we felt a hateful need to ruin your Saturday morning by inflicting an ethical obligation to present some of the worst music videos in history. So, let’s get it on, shall we?

First, what in the world would possess Deathtöngue to record a song with these lyrics? “Middle of the road, man it stanks! Let’s run over Lionel Richie with a tank!” Hmmm. Maybe it would be this 1984 video where an “acting teacher” stalks a blind chick.

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I think blogs are dedicated to cruelty, they’re dedicated to dishonesty, they’re dedicated to speed.

— Buzz Bissinger, author of “Friday Night Lights” and other bestsellers, castigating blogs on HBO’s “Costas Now”; May 1.

It’s one of the bigger Cadillacs. I’ve got a desk in it. It’s like an airplane. … I want them to feel that they are somebody and their congressman is somebody. And when they say, ‘This is nice,’ it feels good.

— Rep. Charles Rangell, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, describing the 17-foot-long, 300-horsepower, 2004 Cadillac DeVille he leases for for $777.54 a month; House rules permit members to lease any vehicle at taxpayer expense; May 1.
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“In a campaign of surprises,” writes Daniel Henninger in a recent Wall Street Journal column, “none has been more breathtaking than the falling away of Clinton supporters, loyalists [and] friends. Why?”

The answer, of course — after all, this is the WSJ — is “Money.”

Henninger explains. “Once Barack proved conclusively that he could raise big-time cash, the Clintons’ strongest tie to their machine began to unravel.”

Not the clearest writer, what he seems to mean is that big-money Democrats no longer feel compelled to donate large sums to the Clintons. Full Story »

One of my favorite musical sub-genres is sort of an off-shoot of trip-hop, a sultry urban electropop district where the downbeat influence of Portishead meets up with all kinds of interesting characters dressed like David Bowie in the ’70s. California pure pop a la Burt Bacharach, for instance, which we find in the likes of Saint Etienne (and the solo work of singer Sarah Cracknell), Mono and Hooverphonic.

These groups are almost always fronted by female vocalists, and every year or two I trip across another one that just blows me away. Full Story »

Got hot links if you want ‘em!

Headline of the week: CLINTON CHALKS UP KEY MEANINGLESS VICTORY. At Asia Times Online courtesy of Muhammad Cohen. (Yes, that’s his real name.)

In her Los Angeles Times column, “My Winning Strategy,” Rosa Brooks writes of Hillary Clinton: “But they said I had to win by double digits to keep my campaign alive. . . . And I am alive! And kicking! And punching and biting and kneeing my opponent in the groin!” Full Story »

Most art students learn to appreciate art by studying its history. Thus they’re usually exposed to the figurative art of past centuries before they are to twentieth-century art, with its effusion of styles.

But some have a natural inclination for the avant garde. For example, jazz, with the homage it paid to old standards and show tunes, seemed too, well, straight, for this author when he was young. His gateway to its wonders, current and past, was John Coltrane. Full Story »

Don’t tell me you haven’t fantasized about it. HilRod. BaRock. John Dubya McCain (one-half of the Double Talk Express). Three-way dance inside a STEEL CAGE for the USA Heavyweight Title. Yeah, I’m feeling ya. We’re getting there, too. This past Monday night on WWE Raw, all three candidates ran some lame smack for the national cable audience. In case you missed it:

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