The Flatulated Fly
spot for the Mio Digiwalker
Juicy Evidence Required
nicked from the AP
College gossip site under scrutiny
By BRAD HAYNES, Associated Press WriterTue Mar 18, 8:36 PM ET
New Jersey prosecutors have subpoenaed records of JuicyCampus.com, a Web site that publishes anonymous, often malicious gossip about college students.
Language on the site ranges from catty to hateful and offensive. One thread, for example, on the “most overrated Princeton student” quickly dissolves into name-calling, homophobia and anti-Semitism.
JuicyCampus may be violating the state’s Consumer Fraud Act by suggesting that it doesn’t allow offensive material but providing no enforcement of that rule — and no way for users to report or dispute the material, New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram said Tuesday.
The investigation began last month when a student came forward who had been terrorized by posts on the Web site that included her address. Prosecutors have subpoenaed information from JuicyCampus on how it is run, citing concerns about “unconscionable commercial practices.”
“There’s an unbelievable amount of offensive material posted and absolutely no enforcement,” said Milgram, noting insults about students’ appearance, race and sexual history as “just the tip of the iceberg.”
The attorney general has also subpoenaed the Web site’s advertising agency, Adbrite, to determine how JuicyCampus represented its operation and what advertising keywords the site requested.
Milgram said Adbrite has offered full cooperation with the investigation and canceled its contract with JuicyCampus.
The site launched last fall on seven college campuses and recently expanded to 50 more, including Princeton University. Free to use and supported by advertising, JuicyCampus promises total anonymity to people who post on it. Many of the postings indicate they’ve been viewed thousands of times.
JuicyCampus founder Matt Ivester has expressed little concern in the past about backlash from colleges.
“Like anything that is even remotely controversial, there are always people who demand censorship,” he told The Associated Press last month. “However, we believe that JuicyCampus can have a really positive impact on college campuses, as a place for both entertainment and free expression.”
The site seems designed to shield its users from the threat of libel claims.
“It is not possible for anyone to use this Web site to find out who you are or where you are located,” assures a JuicyCampus privacy page. “We do not track any information that can be used by us to identify you. ”
Mainstream social networking sites, on the other hand, maintain detailed logs of users’ numeric Internet protocol addresses and their posting history.
[ click to view original article at AP ]
Awareness Test
Get Rich The Radiohead Way
Make Radiohead Video, Get Paid (A Little)
| March 17, 2008 7:00 AM
You didn’t really expect Radiohead to produce a traditional music video, did you? The band that released its last album as a pay-what-you-like download last fall has a new stunt: A contest where the winner gets $10,000 — and the chance to make the band’s next video.
The band, along with online animation studio Aniboom, are launching an online search to find an animator–likely an amateur–to create a full-length music video for the band. Contestants are being asked to submit storyboard treatments for the video, uploaded to Aniboom, which will be judged by Aniboom, Radiohead’s label TBD Records, Adult Swim, as well as voters at MySpace.com. Ten semi-finalists will be picked and awarded $1,000 each to produce a one-minute versions. From those clips, the band will choose the best and award another $10,000 to produce a full-length video.
A little about Aniboom: it’s an online animation producer/aggregator that syndicates animation to multiple online outlets such as Veoh and Joost. Aniboom finances production, and then takes a 30% equity stake. The company has a library of 4,000 animated clips from thousands of animators, including an ongoing parody of “American Idol,” “Aniboom Eyedoll.”
Before Barack, There Was Jesse
listen to Grandmaster Melle Mel pump it for
Jesse Jackson back in the brave new 1984 day.
Barack needs Sugar Hill…
50 Years of California Video Art
New Titles Out Next Week
snipped from Shelf-Awareness
Selected hardcover titles appearing next Tuesday, March 25:
Buckingham Palace Gardens: A Novel by Anne Perry (Ballantine, $26) is the 25th Thomas Pitt mystery.
Hollywood Crows: A Novel by Joseph Wambaugh (Little, Brown, $26.99) examines corruption in the LAPD through a new member of the Community Relations Office.
Compulsion: An Alex Delaware Novel by Jonathan Kellerman (Ballantine Books, $27) is the 22nd mystery starring the retired child psychologist.
In the Frame: My Life in Words and Pictures by Helen Mirren (Atria, $35) is the illustrated memoir of the film and TV star.
Yankee Stadium: The Official Retrospective by Al Santasiere and Mark Vancil (Pocket, $50) recalls the stadium’s 85-year history–just before its last season.
Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope by Don and Susie Van Ryn, Newell, Colleen and Whitney Cerak (Howard Books, $21.99) explores the incident in which a girl was buried under the name of another girl who was in a coma.
The Cure for Modern Life: A Novel by Lisa Tucker (Atria, $24.95) follows a pharmaceutical company executive whose ex-girlfriend is a medical ethics watchdog working against him.
Olive Kitteridge: Fiction by Elizabeth Strout (Random House, $25) is a collection of 13 interconnected stories about coastal Maine residents.
Blue-Eyed Devil by Lisa Kleypas (St. Martin’s, $21.95) is a romance novel about the daughter of a rich Texan businessman.
Lost Souls by Lisa Jackson (Kensington, $22) follows a crime writer who enrolls in a Catholic school to investigate the disappearance of several students.
Because I Can (& b/c Ex-Laker Girls Still Rule!)
How many 5-year old children can you take in a fight?
submitted by The Duke
This short survey will tell you approximately how many five year old children you could fight at once. Results are based on physical prowess, training, swarm-combatting experience, and the flexibility of your moral compass. Here are the ground rules:
- You are in an enclosed area roughly the size of a basketball court
- There are no weapons or foreign objects
- Everyone is wearing a cup (so no kicks to the groin)
- The children are merciless and will show no fear
- If a child is knocked unconscious, he is “out.” The same goes for you.
CLICK HERE TO BEGIN
This was created by Matthew Inman. Thanks to this forum post for the inspiration.
ABBA Drummer Dead – Napolean Hat Found Nearby
Ex-ABBA drummer found dead at home
A former drummer for the Swedish pop band ABBA has been found dead in the garden of his house on the island of Majorca.
Ola Brunkert, 62, is believed to have been the only session musician to have appeared on all the group’s recordings.
A police spokeswoman said an autopsy was being carried out but investigations indicated the death was an accident and no foul play is suspected.
She said a neighbour found Mr Brunkert’s body on Sunday in the garden of his house in the town of Arta.
Police believe he fell and cut his neck indoors. He then apparently tried to leave the house to seek help but collapsed in the garden.
If He’d Just Cover His Breasts I Bet He’d Get That Scholarship
from Breitbart.tv
Mystery Bestsellers for February
snipped from IMBA, noted by Shelf-Awareness
The INDEPENDENT MYSTERY BOOKSELLERS ASSOCIATION (IMBA)
Connecting Criminally Inclined Readers with Arresting Mysteries
The following were the bestselling titles at member bookstores of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association during February:
Multiple Dilys nominee Jacqueline Winspear’s historic mystery leads February’s hardcovers, while a timely espionage novel tops the paperback list.
Hardcovers:
1) AN INCOMPLETE REVENGE by Jacqueline Winspear
2) L.A. OUTLAWS by T. Jefferson Parker
3) ATOMIC LOBSTER by Tim Dorsey
4) AUNT DIMITY, VAMPIRE HUNTER by Nancy Atherton
5) THE ANATOMY OF DECEPTION by Lawrence Goldstone
6) THE BLACK DOVE by Steve Hockensmith
7) A PALE HORSE by Charles Todd
8) HELL’S BAY by James Hall
9) PREPARED FOR RAGE by Dana Stabenow
10) THE CRAZY SCHOOL by Cornelia Read
Paperbacks:
1) THE FAITHFUL SPY by Alex Berenson
2) MONEY SHOT by Christa Faust
3) THISTLE & TWIGG by Mary Saums
4) MAGIC CITY by James Hall
5) PUSS ‘N CAHOOTS by Rita Mae Brown
6) A FATAL GRACE by Louise Penny
7) THE WATCHMAN by Robert Crais
8) CHRISTINE FALLS by Benjamin Black
9) WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TO DIE? by Patricia Sprinkle
10) STORM RUNNERS by T. Jefferson Parker
Send Your Poetry to The Guardian
from Guardian UK
Sean O’Brien’s workshop
Sean O’Brien
Monday March 10, 2008
guardian.co.uk
A central figure in the world of contemporary poetry, Sean O’Brien is famous for balancing the demands of tradition and poetic structure with a flair for contemporary themes and local colour. He has won most of the major poetry prizes for his five collections, including the Somerset Maugham Award, the EM Forster Award and the Cholmondeley Award. He is also active as a literary critic and is Professor of Creative Writing at Sheffield University.
Sean’s suggestions for adding drama to poetry
A fundamental skill is the ability to dramatize a poem, to give it the sense of three-dimensional life, rather than simply let it comment on its subject. Few of us are sufficiently remarkable to have interesting general opinions about life, but if we renew proverbial truths in fresh contexts we may be on to something.
Factors to consider in order to achieve this include:
1. The use of narrative rather than commentary.
2. The use of image rather than commentary.
3. The method described by the playwright David Mamet in his famous dictum “Arrive late and leave early.”
4. A sense of audience, which may for example require you to consider the function of the “lead” pronoun of the poem, e.g. “I”, “you”, “we”, “they”.
5. The presence of more than one speaking voice; or the sense that the speaker of the poem is addressing a particular person – which puts the reader in that intimate role. Alternatively, the reader may be an eavesdropper on the events of the poem.
6. The sense of the poem as an event that offers the reader an experience. In this context give careful thought to sentence construction. Formal? Conversational? Mixed?
Examples Robert Browning: My Last Duchess, TS Eliot: Portrait of a Lady, WH Auden: The Fall of Rome, Sylvia Plath: Sheep in Fog, Paul Muldoon: Cuba, Jo Shapcott: Motherland, David Harsent: Marriage xviii: A still life is how I see it – a cool approach.
Activity Write a short dramatic poem (30 lines maximum). Here are some possible openings which may be helpful.
1. When you come around here Waving flowers and a writ You’ll find me standing on the stairs.
3. “It will never be said in my country I have killed a naked man.” – “Matty Groves”, traditional
4. Give me a pear from the blue bowl, Jane. Give me five a day, for old time’s sake. Peel me a grape, disembowel a fig. Let fruit be waiting when I wake.
5. You were saying, dear uncle, When the doorbell rang?
Email your entries, with “Poetry workshop” in the title field, to books.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk, by March 31.
The Case Against Breeding (In Bronze)
The Hollywood Numbers Game
Fascinating montage of Hollywood clips featuring the numbers 1 to 100. It took this guy 101 days to complete, and he got zero help from his girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend). Very cool tho.
Marlowe’s Favorite Christmas Gift
Why The Subway Was Invented
Reggae Sauce man faces heat in court
By Diana Pilkington @ Guardian UK
The singing star who created Reggae Reggae Sauce was caught in a pickle last week when he appeared in court accused of breaching environment laws.
Levi Roots, whose spicy recipe wowed judges on TV’s Dragon’s Den, is also the owner and manager of the Papine Jerk Centre in Lavender Road, Battersea.
In a bid to prevent flytipping, the law requires businesses to keep records showing how they dispose of trade waste.
But when a litter inspector visited the restaurant last July, there were no records to show that its waste had been lawfully collected.
Further attempts to see the records failed, and Mr Roots was summonsed to appear at South Western Magistrates’ Court.
On March 6, he pleaded guilty to being unable to produce any waste records between July 2006 and July 2007.He was fined £350 and ordered to pay the council’s prosecution costs of £153.Wandsworth Council’s environment spokesman Councillor Malcolm Grimston said: “Businesses need to wake up to the fact that they have a legal responsibility when it comes to dealing with their waste and our flytip investigators are there to make sure they fulfil these. Businesses that don’t could suffer the same fate as Mr Roots and end up in court.”
click below to hear Levi’s Reggae Reggae Sauce song
Spicoli Goes Brokeback with Disco Queen
clipped from E! Online
Sean Penn’s Man-on-Man Disco Kiss
Categories: movies, gay, music
Sean Penn does more than pay lip service to his role as Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s movie about the slain gay rights activist.
Just ask Mark Martinez, the performance artist who plays the late cross-dressing disco singer Sylvester in the movie. He got to lock lips with the Oscar winner.
Martinez’s one-day shoot centered around a birthday party for Milk, in which Sylvester performs his 1978 hit, “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” Martinez did the scene dressed in a purple, blue and silver kimono with a matching turban and black bell-bottoms.
Now back to that kiss.
“All of a sudden, Sean’s pointing at me, and he’s talking to the assistant director,” Martinez says. “The AD comes up to me and says, ‘Just to let you know, you are now going to break up Sean and [costar] James Franco’s conversation. You’re going to grab Sean, and Sean’s going to be really excited, and he’s going to kiss you.’”
And that he did. “I’m performing, and he comes onto the dance floor,” Martinez explains. “He grabs me, and he just slaps the biggest kiss on me…It felt like the kiss was forever. I’m like, Is he going to stop? I had to close my eyes. I couldn’t believe it.”
Martinez, whose professional name is Flava, tried to convince Van Sant to do another take. “I’m thinking, We gotta do this thing again. We just didn’t get it right,” Martinez says. “But Gus was like, ‘It’s perfect, perfect, perfect.’ I said, ‘No! It’s not perfect!’ Sean was laughing at me.”
Milk (above) was the openly gay San Francisco city supervisor assassinated by fellow city supervisor Dan White in 1978. Van Sant’s Milk will be released in November or December.
Pole Dancers in Santiago Solve US Dollar Crisis
By James Attwood @ Bloomberg.com
March 14 (Bloomberg) — Bikini-clad pole dancers, mini- skirted hostesses and a deal on foreign exchange await customers at Passapoga, a Santiago nightclub, who pay with U.S. dollars.
At banks and foreign-exchange bureaus, $1 fetches less than 430 pesos. Passapoga pays 600 pesos.
“This campaign has had considerable success,” said Jaime Retamal, 55, the club’s manager. “Customers come from all over, but a lot from the U.S.”
The dollar has lost a quarter of its value against the peso in the past three years, increasing U.S. travelers’ expense for hotels, taxis and restaurants in Chile. Passapoga is discounting the exchange rate to discourage Americans from cutting back on nightclub visits.
Drinks and exotic dances cost customers the same price in dollars as in 2004, when the growth of manufacturing in China and other developing countries caused demand for copper, Chile’s biggest export, to surge.
Boosted by exports of the metal, which reached a record $8,820 a metric ton on March 6, Chile’s trade surplus widened to $24.5 billion in 2007 from $9.6 billion in 2004. Along with interest rates at a six-year high, that increased demand for pesos.
So far this year, the currency has risen 15 percent against the dollar, the biggest gain among emerging-market currencies. On March 11, it reached 427.40, the highest since November 1997. It closed at 432.85 yesterday.
$23 Drinks
Passapoga’s special exchange rate means a 14,000-peso drink with one of the club’s 50 hostesses costs $23, instead of $32 at the market rate.
Patricia Kart, a Passapoga hostess for 2 1/2 years, said workers agreed to the plan even though it reduces their commissions. The promotion is bringing in more customers, she said.
“We have to take what the house gives us, and our job is to do what it takes to make the clients happy,” Kart, 28, said in a telephone interview from the club. “They are very content.”
When Squatting Might Help
Boyfriend: Woman lived in bathroomEDT By ROXANA HEGEMANThe Associated PressWICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A 35-year-old woman who sat on her boyfriend’s toilet for so long that her body was stuck to the seat by the time he called police had a phobia about leaving the bathroom, the boyfriend said.
“She is an adult; she made her own decision,” said her boyfriend, Kory McFarren. “I should have gotten help for her sooner; I admit that. But after a while, you kind of get used to it.”The case drew nationwide attention after Ness County Sheriff Bryan Whipple said it appeared the Ness City woman’s skin had grown around the seat in the two years she apparently was in the bathroom.”We pried the toilet seat off with a pry bar and the seat went with her to the hospital,” Whipple said. “The hospital removed it.”Police found the clothed woman sitting on the toilet, her sweat pants down to mid-thigh. She was “somewhat disoriented,” and her legs looked like they had atrophied, Whipple said.”She was not glued. She was not tied. She was just physically stuck by her body,” Whipple said. “It is hard to imagine. … I still have a hard time imagining it myself.”She initially refused emergency medical services, but was finally convinced by responders and her boyfriend that she needed to be checked out at a hospital.”She said that she didn’t need any help, that she was OK and did not want to leave,” he said.
When Poverty Might Help
Drive-by Shooting Incidents Down in Oakland, L.A.
from The LaLa Times
High Gas Prices Slow Number of Drive-By Shootings
OAKLAND — The return of high gas prices is affecting business throughout California, including gangs, a new study shows. With gas now at $3 per gallon and many gang bangers driving gas guzzling SUV’s, drive-by shootings have hit an all-time low. One Oakland gang member, Flaco, complained that his gang has been reduced to “bike-bys” and “walk-bys.” “Getaways are hell! And I look like some kinda ‘pinche’ paperboy! Who’s gonna be afraid of some dude on a Schwinn with a stupid basket?!” Harvey Shapiro, accountant for Flaco’s gang, told them that they’ll either need to switch to hybrids or give up on drive-bys until gas prices come down. Meanwhile, in the Echo Park neighborhood in Southern California, the gang ‘Big Top Locos’ had a bake sale to help raise gas money but were only able to make fifty dollars. Various gang members have been using the downtime to catch up with their families, workout, and go to church, but they all say they’re looking forward to the time when gas prices drop. Wacko, an East L.A. Crip, promises he’ll be back out once he can afford it, “Sh*t man, all I’s know is bangin’ and my mom is makin’ me whack!!”
Penguin Enhanced e-Book Classics
by Jim Milliot — Publishers Weekly
Penguin is committed to trying different things in the digital space and things that work will be continued and those that don’t will be stopped, company chairman John Makinson 
told journalists at a luncheon in New York Wednesday. In that spirit, Penguin USA will launch a line of enhanced e-book classics this May, beginning with Pride and Prejudice. The new e-books, which will be compatible with all e-book devices, will feature an array of features, including a filmography, period book reviews, recipes and black-and-white illustrations. Price will be the same as the print edition, $8. Nine other Penguin classics will be released in the enhanced format in the fall. Makinson said the classics are a “great place to start” to test the possibilities of the electronic format.
Penguin has also announced that its U.K. subsidiary, which has been testing PDF downloads of first chapters for some of its books, will start to offer first chapters of all new fiction titles beginning March 17 at penguin.co.uk. Penguin Tasters will work on iPhone, Palms or Blackberrys and can also be read on computer screens or printed out. Plans are in the works to make Tasters available in the U.S.
At the lunch, Makinson said sales of e-books in the first two months of 2008 are running ahead of the comparable . The Kindle generated a spike in interest, but Genevieve Shore, global digital director for Penguin Group, said sales have come across all devices, with the most sales coming from the Sony Reader. While the number of dedicated e-book readers has proliferated in recent months, Shore said she believes the long-term trend is toward one device that will eventually allow consumers to do a range of things from reading content to making phone calls.
Nine more Penguin E- Book Classics are scheduled for release this autumn:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
- Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass
- The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
- The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
He’s Michael Bay/He’s got the power!
Michael Bay Must Be Stopped!
This is a nightmare of satanic proportion – there are some movies, nay masterpieces that must never be remade. Bay is a fine director no doubt, however, Roman Polanksi is an auteur. “This is no dream, this is really happening.” – Editor
snipped from MediaBistro.com
Michael Bay To Remake Rosemary’s Baby
Rosemary’s Baby was that most rare of beasts: A horror film set on the Upper West Side. It’s also a time capsule of New York maternal anxiety c. 1968 filtered through the minds of Ira Levin and Roman Polanski. You know, a classic.
A classic which may very likely be remade by Michael Bay (Transformers, Armageddon, Bad Boys).
Paramount, the owner of the Rosemary’s property, is close to completing talks with Bay’s Platinum Dunes production company to approve a remake. Platinum Dunes, which is helmed by Bay alongside Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, has been on a horror movie remake kick as of late. The other films they’ve landed the rights to include:
- A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
- The Birds (2009)
- Friday the 13th (2009)
Platinum Dunes were also behind the recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Amityville Horror and Texas Chainsaw Massacre remakes; it’s odd company for what’s widely considered to be one of the best psychological horror films of all time.The current word is that Fuller is currently soliciting pitches from various horror-oriented Hollywood screenwriters.
Iowa Man Celebrates 100th Birthday With Wings and Women at Hooters
from the Des Moines Register via FoxNews
If turning 100 doesn’t win you the right to celebrate with busty waitresses in tight clothes, Iowa resident John Persinger can’t imagine what does.
The centenarian rang in his entry into the triple digits at Hooters on Wednesday, according to a report by The Des Moines Register. His late wife Vi wouldn’t have objected, since she was a regular with him at Hooters, the infamous chain known for the cleavage it serves up with beer and buffalo wings.
The Register notes that Persinger is one of only a few thousand American men that are 100 or older.
“I don’t know how I did it,” Persinger told the newspaper. “Good living, I guess. A lot of good food. Steaks, fried potatoes.”
The 120-pound World War II veteran and retired diesel mechanic lives alone in a one-bedroom house, according to the Register. His children and grandchildren look in on him often and help him with chores — but mostly he does his own cooking and housework.
New Titles Out Next Week
snipped from Shelf-Awareness newsletter
Selected new titles out next Tuesday, March 18:
Seen It All and Done the Rest: A Novel by Pearl Cleage (One World/Ballantine, $25) follows an actress as she copes with reaching middle age.
Charley’s Web: A Novel by Joy Fielding (Atria, $24.95) chronicles a newspaper columnist’s interviews with a convicted child killer.
The Dark Tide by Andrew Gross (Morrow, $25.95, 9780061143427/0061143421) examines the aftermath of an explosion in Grand Central Terminal that kills a hedge fund trader.
Black Widow by Randy Wayne White (Putnam, $24.95) is the 15th thriller featuring marine biologist/government agent Doc Ford.
Dead Heat by Joel C. Rosenberg (Tyndale House, $24.99) follows the Secret Service’s attempts to stop a presidential candidate’s assassination.
Hooker Prize Winners @ AbesBooks
from AbesBooks.com
Our Recommended Books – The Hooker Prize
- The Happy Hooker
Xaviera Hollander
- Callgirl
Jeannette Angell
- Mayflower Madam
Sydney Biddle Barrows
- Love for Sale
Nils Johan Ringdal
- Brothel
Alexa Albert
Kate Christensen Wins 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Kate Christensen, The Great Man
Kate Christensen’s novel The Great Man (Doubleday) has been selected as the winner of the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The announcement was made March 12 by the directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, Patricia Griffith and Robert Stone, Co-Chairmen.
The judges—Molly Giles, Victor LaValle, and Richard Bausch—considered close to 350 novels and short story collections by American authors published in the US during the 2007 calendar year. Submissions came from over 70 publishing houses, including small and academic presses. There is no fee for a publisher to submit a book.
Download the press release [Word Doc]
2008 FINALISTS
- Annie Dillard, The Maytrees
- David Leavitt, The Indian Clerk
- T.M. McNally, The Gateway: Stories
- Ron Rash, Chemistry and Other Stories