I was taking a minute or two off here at my desk and was reading Fark. I came across a little gem that at least Carlos ought to find funny. It's perhaps the most obsequious error apology I've ever seen from a newspaper, and it comes courtesy of K-State's campus paper, the Collegian. To quote:
" In Thursday's Collegian, a mug shot on Page One identified Osama bin Laden as Pat Bosco, our dean of student life."

Priceless.

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In case y'all missed it, The Barrister's been having some fun. So far, one poor Nigerian has encountered an alcoholic body builder. Meanwhile, the Barrister's trying to collect on lottery winnings.

Tune in and don't miss the fun!

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Is it wrong for me to bait the undereducated and possibly impoverished with jokes and cultural asides that fly way over their heads? Or is it a just desert since they'd fleece me(or anyone else) for everything I have in a heartbeat, given the opportunity? Is the fax below hilarious or heartbreaking? Or am I just trying to get you to check out the Barrister Jubril Project in an act of self-promotion masquerading as an ethical crisis?

I guess that I just don't know.

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Media circles buzzed last week about a former Wall Street Journal reporter, harking way back to the 1970s, who's now homeless. First he got some sympathy, then a backlash: Guess that, while he complained of poverty, certain menial jobs were still beneath him.

The backlash reaches a climax today, when former WSJ reporter Jon Bigness submits his own tale of woe (about a third of the way down the page) to Romenesko's media gossip page. Jon-Jon is an old pal of mine, and I'm immensely proud of him for this bit of work.

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This story of potential book banning doesn't bug me much because the school boarded ultimately adopted a reasonable plan. But what bugs me is -- well, Stranger in a Strange Land? All props to requiring "Brave New World," but it seems to me that a kid can have a complete education without reading Heinlein's dull horse hockey.

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Stephenson Hall shows some school spirit. I still smile when I think of the 1992 victory over Oklahoma, featuring Mo Douglas's punishing ten yard touchdown run, and how part of the goal post came to rest in the backyard of Stephenson.

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If you're looking for the KU Stud, there's only one sure thing. Judging by the title page, I think you'll find recent contact info within.

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i need vance's phone number--have to cancel my seat at his reception, tsi! and i are not gonna be in town that long after all. anyone have it?

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I happily read this New York Times piece on Fear of a Black Hat, a fun movie I'd forgotten about. Most tickling is a mention near the bottom of the making another, apparently less well-done rap comedy, Malibu's Most Wanted, and how the white writers consulted a book, A2Z Book of Rap and Hip-Hop Slang, in creating black dialogue. Be careful, white boys: Remember what happened to The New York Times when its reporter called Sub Pop Records looking for grunge slang.

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• Everybody smokes, including the passengers waiting in line at the airport ticket counter and the civil servants who check your visa. Our proposed nation slogan: Spain -- You Can Smoke in Here!
• In Sevilla, we saw a lot of people from Michigan State.
• We were an hour out of Novelda, which we visited because it shares a name with Dr. No's twin sister, before it occurred to me that I should have asked somebody where the name came from.
• If you ever visit Spain, run don't walk to the mid-sized town of Cuenca. The old city was built on top of a sheer hill. The only thing worse that driving up it is walking up it -- two minutes would leave the most fit person sopping wet. But our hotel hung over a sheer cliff overlooking an illuminated statue of Jesus on a hill. Just amazing.
• Judging by the storefront displays in our neighborhood in Madrid, gay porn is the same the world over. I take some comfort in that.

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Long story short: my brother gets married tomorrow, I'm the best man, and I have to give a toast in front of 200-odd people. Needless to say, garmr wants to crawl back in his cave. So if y'all have a moment, tell me what you think of this:

To Lindsay & Benjamin:

May you look to God
For peace of mind in times of trouble.
May you look to us,
Your friends and family,
For support in times of material need.
And may you look to one another,
Ben and Lindsay,
For emotional strength
When we, your friends and family,
Make of ourselves
Burdens, embarassments, and stumbling blocks.

Cheers

Any thoughts?

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After reading 00soul's declaration that Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback has jumped the shark, a declaration that I heartily agree with, I decided to go back to see whether TMQ's jump was a recent occurrence or whether it happened awhile ago. My finding: TMQ most likely jumped the shark when he moved to ESPN.

Since I didn't want to waste much time on this endeavour, I simply had MS Word count the number of words in the first column of each season. TMQ's first column on Slate ran a scant 2,471 words. The first column of the second season, also on Slate, saw a 44% increase in the number of words to 3,567. However, when TMQ moved to ESPN after his second season, his first column ran 6,691 words, a jump of 87.6%. This season, the opening week column held pretty constant at 6,841 words. Of course, this is excluding the 1,549 word paean to the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders.

It's debateable whether Tuesday Morning Quarterback could have avoided jumping the shark if he had remained at Slate with its superior editors, but it's obvious that ESPN lacks the ability or the editors to rein in Easterbrook's diarrhea of the keyboard.

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now i am not one to argue semantics, but i am not sure how queer eye qualifies as cable news (or nick and jessica, but i have no idea what that is).
we can all thank drudgereport for this.

CABLE NEWS RACE
TUES SEPT 23, 2003

MTV - NICK/JESSICA 2.3 [RATING]
FOX - O'REILLY 2.2
BRAVO - QUEER EYE 2.2
FOX - HANNITY & COLMES 1.6
FOX - SHEP 1.2
FOX - GRETA 1.1
CNN - LARRY KING 0.9
CNN - AARON BROWN 0.6
MSNBC - SCARBOROUGH 0.5
CNN - ANDERSON COOPER 0.4
CNN - PAULA ZAHN 0.4
MSNBC - HARDBALL 0.4
MSNBC - ABRAMS 0.3
MSNBC - OLBERMANN 0.3

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The fact that, gripped in the fear of terrorism, we feel the need to blow up boxes of candy that have been left for strangers to find or the fact that if I came across a box of candy just lying around, there's no way in hell that I'd eat it. I mean, there's no telling what sort of weirdo left it there. In this case, however, it was a bunch of Christians.

On a semi-related note, do any of you who read Tuesday Morning Quarterback feel that he's gotten a little too preachy about his whole "belief in Christianity" thing this year?

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Hot on the heels of Hellx's link, check out this story.

This is a great day for America.

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The Obscure Store had this link to a story in the Miami Herald about Diane Hodl, a woman who committed suicide by drinking six liters of vodka. I think it's a tremendously interesting article, filled with the sort of minutiae that I love.

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This week's Newsweek has an article about the growth of radical cheering. Norlos was totally embarrassed four months ago when we realized that we had totally missed the radical cheering meme. Of course, if Norlos had had the investigatory power of Newsweek at our disposal, we would have explored the connection between radical cheering and Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit video.

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Yesterday, I fell asleep during the 6:30 PM showing of The Simpsons on my local Fox affiliate. I woke up to the voice of our President, George W. Bush, talking to some interviewer from Fox News. Here is one of the first exchanges that I had full consciousness during:

HUME: Now, how about this big lawn out here? How did that get here?

BUSH: Isn't it fabulous? Well, we've come out here -- you know, a lot of times, well, after I -- after I made the decision -- not made the decision -- told Tommy Franks and Don Rumsfeld that they had -- that they had the orders to (extremely long pause - j.) move (pause - j.) in on Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was in the Situation Room, and it was a dramatic moment. It was a heavy moment for me, and I wanted to come outside and reflect, so I came out and got the dogs and we walked around the South Lawn a couple of times. And it was -- for me it's like going to walk in a forest. You know, it's my chance to...

When Bush paused after the phrase "orders to," my brain immediately thought "invade Iraq." Obviously Bush's brain was thinking the same thing at this point, but he remembered his handlers told him he couldn't say that so as the seconds progressed, I was on the edge of my seat waiting to see how he would get out of that conundrum. Eventually, he hit on the politically correct formulation of "invade Iraq." I didn't watch much more of the interview, though, because the following exchange made me gag:

BUSH: But this was getting away, and I came and walked a couple of times and gathered my thoughts and thought very seriously, a serious reflection about what I had just done, and said a prayer or two.

HUME: Now, your faith is an integral part of your life. How often do you pray? Where you do you pray? Talk to me about that.

BUSH: Well, I pray daily, and I pray in all kinds of places. I mean, I pray in bed, I pray in the Oval Office. I pray a lot. And just different -- as the spirit moves me. And faith is an integral part of my life. I -- I...

HUME: How do you hold the situation in Iraq in juxtaposition to your faith?

BUSH: Well, I -- first of all, I would never justify -- I would never use God to promote foreign policy decisions. I recognize that in the eyes of an almighty, I am a lowly sinner, and I ask for strength and wisdom and I pray for calmness when the seas are storming, and I pray for others. I pray for -- I pray a lot for families who have lost a life. I went to Walter Reed, was struck by the braveness -- bravery of our soldiers, and kind of got a quiet moment afterwards and prayed for them and their families.

The other thing about America that is amazing is a lot of people pray for me. And -- little old me. Seriously. And it's a powerful thought when you think about it. I'm not so sure how you translate that into would I behave differently or not, but it gives me strength and humility, to think others would take time to pray for me.

The scary thing is, makes Bush seem much more eloquent than he actually seemed as he was speaking.

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Every year my neighborhood hosts a real down-home affair: the Willy Street Fair. There are no national performers and no corporate sponsors; it's just a bunch of people from Madison getting together and acting weird. There's something immensely enjoyable about getting out of bed, walking onto your normally quiet street and dodging stilt walkers on the way to get your morning coffee. This year's fair featured Dean supporters and a Willy Street Fair regular, my friend Hannah. She's the small thing with red hair on top of the car in the above photo. Her theme: a demented Pippi Longstocking. To get a sense of what the fair is like, here are some photos from a prior fair. The band in the first photo is Yid Vicious.

My Co-op is having a special on Ben & Jerry's ice cream. When I saw it, I realized that I've never eaten Ben & Jerry's. Of course, why would I eat ice cream made by Unilever when some of the best ice cream in the world is made right here in Madison?

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My Mom asked me to get some sort of idea about the number of people who will be attending my little birthday fiesta at their house. Here are the stats once again:

Location: 1118 West Hills Parkway.

When: October 3, say sevenish.

Please either e-mail me or RSVP in the comments section. Come for the garish bathroom fixtures, stay for the food.

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No one copy-edits anymore in this digital age, do they?

From the Emusic website:

Alto saxophonist Charlie Parker was the most important figure in be-hop, the musical form that revolutionized jazz in the mid-Forties. Also known as "Bird" or "Yardbird" (the stories vary about how the nicknames came to be), Parkers innovative conceptions of jazz harmony and rhythm along with an incredible command of his instrument made him the most venerated musician of his time and a legend even before his untimely death at the age of 35.

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• Costa del Sol should be renamed "Costa del Flabby Brit." If I wanted to see their nasty dimpled thighs and fried food, I¥d go visit London
• Dr. No assures me that the only thing hotter than the young flamenco dancer with the thousand-watt smile and the flowing red skirts is the male flamenco dancer with long dark hair and an unbuttoned shirt. I might have agreed had he not showered us with sweat from those aforementioned flowing black locks
• When you turn 60 here in Spain, the government issues you a uniform of porkpie hat, cardigan sweater, cane and dark slacks. Then it requires you to sit in the middle of the town and shoot disapproving glares at young people on mopeds, itinerant tourists, and just about anybody else.
• Downtown Cordoba and Sevilla were built centuries upon centuries ago. They are, therefore, no intended for driving. For fuck¥s sake, let¥s get out and walk!
• Beach toplessness is tolerated. Beach nudity is not. We learned this in Malaga, where a naked woman of about fifty walked by our seafood stand as we sat peaceably eating. The beach patrol rolled by a few minutes later in pursuit.
• For those wondering about Dr. No and beach toplessness, we¥ll keep you in suspense

Having a good time; not thinking of any of you.

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The Darmstadt Diamonds are an American football team located in Darmstadt, Germany, a city near Frankfurt. Complete with cheerleaders and a star running back named Aaron Brown, the Diamonds are currently in second place behind the Simbach Wildcats in the 2. Bundesliga Sud.

Germans like American football.

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are Canadians so cool? It appears we may have a cow gap, people. Turn up the volume a little for full effect.

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Dr. No and I are outta here 'til the 27th. But that doesn't mean you're safe from terrorism until we land on the other side of the water.

Unless we find a cybercafe somewhere, we'll post atcha then.

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Is this week the best opening weekend for movies this year? This week we have two strong productions by the Coppola family, Sophia's Lost in Translation and Nicholas Cage's (Sophia's cousin) Matchstick Men, as well as two entertaining movies in Cabin Fever and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

Updated at 14:38:

Okay, maybe not. Both Matchstick Men and Once Upon a Time in Mexico got less that sterling reviews in Slate. all four movies pretty good reviews, though.

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You can read the story here. Carlos, didn't you have a run-in with Ron Olin in your undergrad days?

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Posting the obituary of Johnny Cash? Or posting the obituary of John Ritter?

Or how about the Pope's? He's ain't exactly looking spry these days.

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A while back I heaped praise on a new publication, The Believer. The initial issues I read were lively and funny. I couldn't wait for more.

Sadly, now that I've received two more, I could easily wait a dozen years for the next one. The August edition had a fun interview with ?uestlove of the Roots. But it also had a fawning apology for calling the Landmark Forum a cult. (Hey, Landmark lawyers: It's a fucking cult! No amount of court documents could convince me otherwise.) It ran an unreadable essay on psychoanalysis. It took a wild swing at Rudy Giuliani, which fine, because Rudy deserves a haymaker or three thrown in his direction. But one that portrays itself as a look at Rudy the man, then simply excoriates him for all his deeds, promises more than it can deliver.

Then there's the latest issue. It's leads off with a comparison between Goodfellas and the Godfather movies. Then it veers erratically into a comparison with the anti-heroes of those films with members of the Bush administration. Both the movies and the men in power get things done with a can-do attitude, the piece argues, and don't care who gets in their way.

This is both condescending and wrongheaded. Sure, Americans like can-do people, explaining part of the Bush mystique. But they don't like mobster movies because the mobsters are "can-do" people. And it doesn't come close to explaining the Bush administration. Love em or hate em, these guys aren't cynical. In fact, their problem is the opposite. They believe in their own righteousness. George W.'s on record as saying he believes God wanted him to be president. Cynics have doubts. Messiahs don't.

A piece on Howard Dean was simply unreadable. An editor, please? A Q & A with Andy Richter devolved into an unfunny joke in which Andy inserted after-the-fact rebuttals to his own answers. Then there was the piece about the Roman Empire falling because its citizens sat around and read aloud too much poetry. That's the other trouble with the Believer. It's part of the McSweeney's camp, where irony was invented. So it's hard to tell what's irony and what isn't. Dave Eggers would tell us that's part of the attraction. I think it's simply precious.

Finally, its Web site is home to SnarkWatch, which chronicles excessively tough literary criticism. Read it, and you wonder whether it's meant to be ironic, since the complaints themselves are often mean-spirited. Some are certainly dubious. But maybe that's part of the irony of it? How meta. It's not my head -- the room's spinning!

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My favorite source for information today, Newsday is reporting that Wesley Clark is poised to enter the Democratic race for president. I have to say that I'm kind of excited about this since my boy John Edwards hasn't been able to gain any traction among the Democrats flocking to Dean.

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Once again, an artwork that uses the U.S. flag is a less than respectful manner is upsetting some people, according to Newsday. The piece of art, "What is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag" by Dread Scott, is currently being displayed at Nassau Community College's Firehouse Art Gallery. Two quotes that I just love are:

Many people writing in the book since the exhibit opened Sept. 2 say, "We're a free country, but people don't feel it's appropriate the flag is on the floor," [Lynn Rozzi Casey, director of the gallery and curator of the exhibit] said.

That's such a typical passive-aggressive American comment. You're free to do anything you want in America as long as it doesn't upset people. I also love this one:

[Robert] Fountain [commander of American Legion Malverne Post 44] said he planned to visit the exhibit today and consult with other members of his post. "Even if the Supreme Court said you can burn it," he said of the flag, "don't do it front of me."

Dude, they're not doing front of you. You're making a point of going out to see it. In totally unrelated news, Newsday is also reporting that archive of Amy Fisher's columns at the Long Island Press.

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Today's forecast calls for bromides, tirades, platitudes, exhortations, declarations, condemnations, indignation, salutations, lots of flags and a big mess on my way to work.

Good deed for the day: Correcting anybody who mentions Iraq.

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(This one requires some background. The Center for Consumer Freedom is sponsored by restaurants, food makers and other makers of fat-ass products)

Dr. Phil is Dr. Fat, According to Uncle Sam

Pop TV Psychologist Promotes Best-Selling Weight Loss Book,
Yet Skewed Government Standards Still Label Him Nearly Obese

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- A USA Today story reports that he runs five nine-minute miles every morning, lifts weights daily, plays tennis every afternoon and watches what he eats. But at 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, Dr. Phil is still considered very overweight and on the edge of the dreaded "obese" label, according to skewed government fat standards.

Despite his model healthy lifestyle, Dr. Phil's height and weight demonstrate one of many flaws with how the government measures the nation's waistline and confuses the debate about how serious the nation's obesity really is. In 1998, the U.S. Government changed the standards by which Body Mass Index (BMI) is measured. As a result, over 39 million Americans were shifted from a government-approved "healthy" weight to the overweight category -- without gaining an ounce.

Dr. Phil is in good company, though. "Bad Boys II" star Will Smith and "The Matrix Reloaded's" Keanu Reaves join him in the "overweight" bunch, while Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe qualify for Uncle Sam's "obese" label.

These rigged government scales tip the balance in favor of trial lawyers, food cops and public health zealots who want "fat taxes" on our favorite foods, and who are filing lawsuits against restaurants and food producers.

The Center for Consumer Freedom has posted the "Does the Government Think You're Fat?" test on its website at www.BMIscale.com. Users can plug in their height and weight and get an instant verdict on how their BMI stacks up against their favorite celebrities and athletes.

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices. To learn more, visit
www.ConsumerFreedom.com.

/CONTACT: Mike Burita of the Center for Consumer Freedom, +1-202-463-7112/ 11:43 EDT

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...if you know what I mean

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While Austin's Drums & Tuba has made a name for itself by using the tuba in contemporary music, this is probably the only musical genre where Madison is actually more progressive than its sister capital city to the south. The matriarch of Madison's tuba scene is Mama Digdown's Brass Band. A fixture in Madison's music scene for ten years, Mama Digdown helped serve as an incubator for Madison's most innovative band: the Youngblood Brass Band (clicking on one of the unmarked ten quares at the bottom of the page will play one of their songs).

Combining traditional New Orleans brass band stylings with hip-hop and urban stylings, these Wisconsin boys are definitely at the top of their game. Some of the people who have collaborated with the YBB include Talib Kweli and Ike Willis. They are beloved from Fargo to Germany, which, when you really think about it, isn't too far, culturally speaking.

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Opus will be starring in an eponymous comic strip to run on Sundays.

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Want to know what it's like to see a Lightning and Thunder show? Their webpage comes amazingly close to capturing the essence of the duo. The couple has spread joy and love throughout the midwest with their faithful renditions of Neil Diamond, Abba and Patsy Cline songs. They have also been immortalized on celluloid.

All is not happy fun time in the land of Lightning and Thunder, however. The elderly, apparently enraged at the rock and the roll music that these kids play, have been waging a war of terror against Thunder for years. In 1999, Thunder lost part of her left leg when a 74 year-old man tried to run her down as she worked in her yard. The attacks continued yesterday when a 79 year-old man literally shook foundation of Lightning and Thunder when he crashed his car into their house. It is time for us to stand up to the elderly and state unequivocally that we will no longer let them attack our idols with impunity.

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I've been seeing a chiropractor. A typical appointment goes like this: I'm busy at work. Meetings, phone calls, staring thoughtfully into space. Ten minutes later, I"m half naked in a tastefully lit office staring at the cover of Highlights magazine across the room. A friendly, androgenous woman named "Sydney" comes in and gives me a short "massage". Sounds nice? Think again. She pokes me all over, asking, "Is this tender?". When I say no, she moves somewhere new and pokes again. When I say yes, she pokes harder for awhile. She asks, "How's this pressure?". Even after several attempts, I've not been able to determine what the right answer to this question is. Do I get better faster if I can take more poke-pain? Is this supposed to be relaxing? Does it only work if it hurts? I don't know. But, in the words of Red Forman, "That's why it's called work and not Happy Fun Time or Zippety-Doo-Dah", I guess. Time passes. Eventually we run out of places that hurt when they are poked, so it's time to stop poking.

Then a new woman comes in. She's very nice, but clearly not to be messed with, I think as she takes my head between her hands and twists my neck in ways I didn't even know it went until some kind of bone-breaking pop squirts out. I'm sure she knows at least 14 ways to kill a man with her bare hands. Then we "adjust" my back. Ten minutes later, back at work. But then, later that same night, my whole body is sore. Like I just climbed Mt. Fuji. And all I did was lay there. Did I just pay two ladies to beat me up?

So, after having climbed out of my Epsom salt bath for the night, my Norlos.com quiz question is: Chiropractice - miracle naturopathic cure or black art, along the lines of necromancy and the Illuminati?

I threw that last part in 'cuz I just finished reading Foucault's Pendulum. It's messed up, but that's a whole 'nuther story.

Discuss.

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The latest member of our weblog needs no introduction for the vast majority. And really, how could we exclude her? Her cred's impeccable:

• A member of that seminal art-funk band, the Podunk Willies
• A proud Kansas Jayhawk
• Beloved patron saint of drunk and overly ambitious men at the Winedale, once one of Big D's finest watering holes.
• She's, like, tall. I mean, damn.
• She had barbecue at her wedding. Too cool.
• She's perhaps the webmaster's oldest friend. We met at KU freshman orientation 12 freaking years ago. Whoa.
• Her family parties. Hard. If you haven't been drunk at a Malin party, you'd better turn in your Norlos.com badge now.

Welcome aboard, Miss Congeniality!

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Late summer and early fall in Madison is a busy time. The second to last weekend in August saw the Orton Park Festival and the Madison Blues Festival. It was beautiful hearing the sounds of Al Green cross the lake as I swam in the dark off BB Clarke beach.

Labor Day weekend brings the always awful Taste of Madison with its drunken gluttonous hordes. Plus this year we were on the one hundred years of Harley-Davidson circuit as well. This weekend brought the Madison Folk Festival, the first Badger football game, the the Wisconsin Ironman and the KU-UW women's soccer game. While I turned out to support the Hawks, unfortunately they ended up on the wrong side of the score.

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$87 Billion is $299.65 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

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Dr. No and I spent Saturday afternoon applying for an international driver's permit for next week's Spain adventure. Well, "spent," "afternoon" and "applying" are all misnomers. We filled out a form, paid $20 each and got ours in 15 minutes. We just flashed our regular ol' driver's licenses.

Is it just me, or should a U.N.-related permit to drive on the world's highways involve some kind of test?

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For those who think the life of a reporter is glamorous work, lemme tell you about Friday.

• Wake at 4:30 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. flight from Newark, N.J., to Greensboro, N.C., by way of Atlanta. Only slept a few hours because I was in an unfamiliar place: A hotel outside the Newark airport. Why crash there? Long story. But some related advice: When an editor begs you to squeeze in another 45 minutes of work just as you're leaving to catch your evening flight, say no.
• Land in Atlanta at 8:30 am. I hate freakin' Atlanta. Airports as a rule offer wonderful people watching, but Atlanta combines long terminals with slow trains to make itself the absolute worst airport in which to get around.
• Buy an earlier flight to Greensboro. This required spending $100 more of the shareholders' money than I was otherwise authorized to blow. So I'm watching my budget now. This will be important later.
• Land in Greensboro at 11 am. No, I don't want to upgrade to a bigger car for just $5 more a day. Climb into one of those cars you never see or hear of except when you're driving a rental. Mazda Prion?
• Miss my turnoff, but still arrive at destination on time. It's now 12:30 pm. Spend the rest of the afternoon at a bearings factory. Those uninformed of the important role bearings play in the manufacturing process might consider such an event boring. Frankly, they'd be right.
• Leave the factory at 5 pm. Return flight isn't until 8 pm. My first free hours! Drive to Greensboro to seek out that North Carolina barbecue that's all the rage. Verdict: Not too shabby.
• If it's 10 pm, we must be back at Hartsfield. Airtran puts my flight at the very end of Terminal A. Connecting flight back to Newark is at the very end of Terminal B. Those who know Hartsfield know that the traveling distance between the two points is the farthest possible, evem though it's only a few yards if you bust out a window and walk across the tarmac.
• Back in the air to Newark by 10:30 pm. The guy sitting next to me is an asshole who begins to bitch when I move his handbag, which hogs the bin above us, to make room for my suitcase. I consider reminding him that this is communal space. Considering my current state, I decide there's no way I can say this and sound reasonable. Meanwhile, I meet the same flight attendant who gave me coffee this morning. Yeah, her day has sucked, too.
• Land in Newark at 12:30 am. Hmm. How to get to New York? There are all kinds of helpful men offering a ride "at a very reasonably price, sir." Your correspondent wasn't born yesterday. But he has initial trouble finding a ride. Then considers that he spent an extra $100 already that he'd have to explain, plus the Newark hotel room (My God, I was just leaving this same city 20 hours ago?). He decides to take the train. You know that feeling you get in horror movies, when the hot chick in the tank top dismisses all reasonable options and decides to see what's inside that dark closet? Onlookers watching my decision-making process might feel the same way.
• A tram takes Newark passengers from one terminal to the next, to parking, and finally to the New Jersey train stop. It typically takes all of five minutes. Not tonight. The tram I'm in stops one stop shy of the train stop and announces it will be going back the other way. A grumbling dozen of us get off and wait about 20 minutes for another one. It's 12:45.
• A second tram finally puts us at the train platform. At this point, a New Jersey Transit employee tells us we missed the train. Next train: 1:46 am. So that backwards tram caused us an extra hour's wait? One small, pretty woman wasn't going to take that. I've seen some fights here in the Big City, including a couple of kids going at it in a crowded subway car and a sloppy fistfight at Penn Station. This woman was ready to rival them in the violence she threatened to inflict on this poor conductor. Turns out he was simply misinformed, as the train showed up mid-rant. A moment of camraderie when we all tapped the woman on the shoulder before we boarded
• Penn Station, New York City. 1:30 am. Find an Eighth Avenue train. Then get off at the next stop when I realize it's not going to Brooklyn. I wait for an express. Two locals have to come and go first. The evening stretches on. Someone's roasting smoky meat on the surface above us, and you can both smell it and see the smoke eddy around the subway tunnels. On the next platform, some kids sing along with a poor woman trying to belt out Mexican standards for spare change.
• This A train takes me to a Brooklyn F. It shows up immediately. Too immediately. This makes me suspicious. But it's an uneventful ride home from there.
• Trudge the short blocks home. Time of arrival: 2:45 am. I've had four hours of sleep in the past 48. What would you do upon getting home? That's right: I had a drink.

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Here's a photo of my friend Robert looking all professional and a list of places that I like to eat:

Bon Appetit

Lazy Jane's Cafe

Lao Laan-Xang

The Weary Traveler

The Opus Lounge

Marigold Kitchen

The Orpheum

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Unfortunately, most of the links I have on this topic are either reactionary, inflammatory, or both, and you have to do some research to get to the actual information. Regardless, I'm dropping a post in here because in spite of all that, the implications are beyond scary.

In short, many counties, states, etc. are switching over to electronic voting systems for their next elections. This is mostly, of course, because of the Floridians. The reasons why are now irrelevant however. What we're left with is the bitter truth: That software corporations will hold our votes in their little error-prone hands.

The name most commonly mentioned in stories about this stuff is Diebold. Their security problems have been in the news lately because of buggy software and an unforgivable lapse in security: They left a huge collection of files (40,000 or so) from some internal server wide open to access from the internet. As a result, people have been poking through their programs and finding actual voting records from California. The potential for voting fraud in this system is pretty large. You may say there is a similar risk of fraud in the existing system, but the main difference lies in how much easier it is to hide your tracks when you mess with the records electronically. Since voting systems must be built with anonymity as a top priority, it makes data-alteration virtually undetectable.

So, with that in mind, here are some of the inflammatory links. First, a story that appeared today on Slashdot. Second, the article/commentary that's referenced in the Slashdot story. This commentary shows some signs of technical weakness which I'll try and summarize, but in general it's rather scary.

At one point, the author mentions how any system with a modem that can send information out is therefore open to have information sent in via that same connection. While this is potentially true, this has been a known issue for decades. Computers are commonly configured such that data may be sent out, but not allowed to come in, or vice versa. Unfortunately, computers also commonly have security holes in that system which allow people to circumvent the protections. For example: Microsoft. In this case, people are scared because Diebold in particular has already demonstrated that they're unable to keep their own asses from hanging out in the breeze, as it were.

So, to borrow a phrase my supervisor is fond of using... Electronic Voting: Threat or Menace?

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It's been a while since we had us a fiery little argument here at Norlos.com, so I'd like to throw a little kerosene on the embers. One word: Religion.

Oh, and let's throw in naked women, too.

I had a recent conversation with a native New Yorker that turned to the subject of Hasidic Jews. I related the story of Dr. No's first encounter with one: In the process of showing her an apartment to rent, he refused to shake her hand. "I don't shake women's hands," he said, tersely, as he shook her male friend's hand. Dr. No left the encounter seething. It didn't help that the apartment was wildly overpriced and a shithole to boot. We weren't gonna rent it. No question.

This friend, in hearing the story years later, didn't understand. Hasidic Jews don't shake women's hands. They just don't. Why don't you understand that? It's a matter of faith.

Sure it is. So's the fact that the sun revolves around the earth. After all, some book or wizened old religious dude says so.

Most of you know that I'm a big fan of relativism. Of course it has its drawbacks. But it's the only way to function in a rapidly changing world. And even its opponents are guilty: How many opponents of gay sex and masturbation do you see shunning blended cloth and avoiding shellfish? In a way, I don't blame them for this bit of hypocrisy. You might be able to live by the Old Testament's dictates in the modern world, but it's gonna be tough. You'll at least have to give up those quarter pounders with cheese.

But, in typical hypocritical fashion, my tolerance for relativism crumbles on issues of faith. A rabbi might explain that male Hasidic Jews avoid any contact, however brief, with any woman other than their wives or (so I understand) their female relations out of respect. To which I say "horse puckey." It's no more respect for women than is the extreme Muslim dictate that women must cover themselves head-to-foot in sackcloth. The justification for this falls along similar lines. But it comes to the same conclusion: Women are objects of lust that drive men into a frenzied sexual heat. So they must be contained at all costs.

In areas where it's quantifiable, the least restrictive societies socially offer much more to women. Women have higher incomes in the Western industrialized world. They hold more positions of power in politics and business. They're also more open s