Marking time on society
Romanian horse ban
In case you missed it: A post to the Transylvanian horseman blog encourages people to lobby the President of Romania to change a law recently imposed. The law prohibits horsedrawn vehicles on National Highways.
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Running the numbers
Chris Jordan’s Running the numbers: an American self-portrait is a series of photographs that looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Here are images that give scale to the numbers.
»more»Bitter fruit
That fine photographer Paul Fusco has recorded the funerals of American soldiers killed in Iraq. He has web-published 44 of his pictures, with his voice-over narrative, under the title Bitter fruit.
Fusco is passionate, and thoroughly engaged with his subject. He takes us along on his private and independent quest. He is the antithesis of the embedded reporter. The work is published by Magnum Photos, the agency owned by Fusco and other photographers.
How the other half lived
My thanks to Paul Giambarba for a link to an online version of Jacob Riis’s How the other half lives.
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Self-service bikes
The French city of Lyon has set up a fleet of bicycles for anyone to use. Buy a plastic card (€5 for one year) which allows you to take a bike from a bike station. The first half hour’s use is free; after that it costs €1 per hour. Brilliant. Google helped me to translate this piece from the municipal website:
»more»Susan Sontag remembered
Among the many obits, I particularly liked William Drenttel’s In remembrance of Susan Sontag.
Farewell Theo Van Gogh
From Yahoo! News: Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh slain.
»more»Health versus Roads
A Sydney newspaper article reveals a piece of single-minded planning.
»more»Charles Cushman photographs
Charles Weever Cushman, amateur photographer and Indiana University alumnus, bequeathed approximately 14,500 Kodachrome color slides to his alma mater. The photographs in this collection bridge a thirty-two year span from 1938 to 1969, during which time he extensively documented the United States as well as other countries.»more»
Irish sock glue
The irishsteps.com website sells sock glue for keeping your socks secure while you dance. And I thought sock glueing was only a Japanese thing. What next? Hat glue, for windy weather?
Mobiles and the appropriation of place
Cultural anthropolist Mizuko Ito has written an article about the way mobile phones are changing the experience of being together for young Japanese people:
»more»The Kodak Brownies
George Eastman’s Kodak company launched the first Brownie camera in 1900. In 1950 Kodak gave free cameras to 500,000 children, to celebrate 50 years of the Brownie line. (And, perhaps, to ensure continued film sales).
»more»Revolutionary influence of the bicycle
The bicycle has been responsible for more movement in manners and morals than anything since Charles II. Chaperones, long narrow skirts, tight corsets have wilted, strong nerves, legs and language, knickers, knowledge of make and shape, equality of sex, good digestion and professional occupation have bloomed. In four words, the emancipation of women. — John Galsworthy (1867-1933), quoted on Ockhams Razor.»more»
Reclaim the beach!
See Peter Spearitt’s piece on the Brisbane Institute website in which he reveals the liberties taken by beachside developers to lure potential customers, and why we don’t have to keep off the beach, just because they say so. Yes, assert your right to walk on the beach!
»more»Baghdad snapshots
In New York thousands of pictures of people in Baghdad have been pasted up in the streets, a prompt to consider the human consequences of attacking Iraq. Join the campaign.
»more»The third gasoline war
From a piece by Professor Ian Roberts of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: The second gasoline war and how we can prevent the third:
War in Iraq is inevitable. That there would be war was decided by north American planners in the mid-1920s. That it would be in Iraq was decided much more recently. The architects of this war were not military planners but town planners. War is inevitable not because of weapons of mass destruction as claimed by the political right, nor Western imperialism as claimed by the left. The cause of this war, and probably the one that will follow, is car dependence.The United States has paved itself into a corner. The physical and economic infrastructure of the United States is so highly car dependent that it is pathologically addicted to oil. Without billions of barrels of precious black sludge being pumped into the veins of the US economy every year, the nation would experience painful and damaging withdrawal.
An Act to Protect Motor Vehicles from Dangerous Pedestrians
From the annals of wrong thinking — an American politician has tried to solve a problem by introducing a bill:
[Democrat Representative Christopher O’Neil] is sponsoring a bill to repeal Maine’s law that says a motorist must yield the right of way to a pedestrian who is crossing within a marked crosswalk.»more»
Fire at Mount Stromlo
The ABC website has a story about the tragic fires around Canberra. Four people dead, at least 368 houses destroyed, and the historic Mount Stromlo Observatory in ruins.
»more»Everything Bucky knew
Everything I know is a complete video, audio and text record of a Richard Buckminster Fuller talkathon:
»more»Blogging Australian historiography
My thanks to Dr Cathie Clements for pointing out her post on the Australian Council of Professional Historians Forum (14 January 2003). She starts with an annotated list of blog entries, signposting recent arguments about The Truth of what happened between Aborigines and Europeans.
»more»Signs of discrimination
The US Library of Congress houses the work created in the 1930s by Farm Security Administration photographers — Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans and others. On the library website is a collection of photographs of signs enforcing racial discrimination. From the web page intro:
»more»Rewriting Australian history
Gary Sauer-Thompson’s public opinion weblog carries a piece by Dr Cathie Clement — here’s an excerpt:
Australia’s past is under the microscope. Allegations are flying thick and fast as scholars endeavour to defend “orthodox” history against the tabloid version preferred by Keith Windschuttle and his supporters. The term “orthodox”, as it is being used in the press, is misleading because, until the battle over Aboriginal history began, the historiography now targeted by conservative commentators was generally viewed as left-wing rather than orthodox.
Traditional fire warning rhythm
Jeremy Hedley, an Australian in Tokyo, has posted a sound clip on his blog. He writes:
»more»4 wheel drivers
Just as I thought. From a book review in the Washington Monthly:
According to market research conducted by the country’s leading automakers, Bradsher reports, [Sport Utility Vehicle] buyers tend to be “insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are. They tend to like fine restaurants a lot more than off-road driving, seldom go to church and have limited interest in doing volunteer work to help others.” [Link from Arts & Letters Daily].»more»
World AIDS Day
Six weeks ago, the mother of a five month-old baby girl noticed that her daughter was breathing rapidly. She had never been to the pediatrician before — somehow, the mother had managed to avoid all of the regular infant visits — but she knew that there was something wrong with her daughter’s health, and felt that a doctor’s visit was in order… [Read the rest of this story in Q Daily News.]
Whale on the menu
IKEDA, Osaka — Children at public elementary schools in Ikeda will be feed [sic] whale meat with their school lunches for the first time in 23 years, education officials said Saturday. [From the online Mainichi Daily News today.]»more»
Rock art under threat
Robert Bednarik has published this web page about the threatened destruction of a rich collection of Indigenous rock art in north-western Australia:
»more»Waste management in Nevada
Steel cargo containers of solid transuranic waste are being stacked for above ground storage at the Nevada Test Site Area 5 Radioactive Waste Management Site. Each container holds up to 50 drums of transuranic waste.
This is a photograph made available by the U.S. Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Operations Office, Office of Public Affairs and Information.
»more»11 September
My sister, blogging vicariously, has asked me to mention an anniversary that’s coming up in a few days. OK Fiona, I’ll do it by quoting from Salvador Allende’s leftist regime 1970-1973:
»more»Disposable computers
The computer in front of me is my ninth. Its predecessors averaged less than two years on my desk. The superseded computers have trickled down to other people, then been sold or given away. When last seen, all of them worked well but couldn’t manage the latest software — practical proof of Parkinson’s law of data. Here’s the list of PCs and where I last saw them:
»more»Swarming
From an article in the Washington Post:
“A quite sophisticated text messaging network has sprung up,” an “insider” told the Scottish Daily Record. “If [Prince] William is spotted anywhere in the town then messages are sent out” on his admirers’ cell phones. “It starts off quite small. The first messages are then forwarded to more girls and so on. It just has a snowball effect. Informing 100 girls of his movements takes just seconds.” At one bar, the prince had to be moved to a safe location when more than 100 “lusty ladies,” so alerted, suddenly mobbed the place like cats responding to the sound of a can opener.
Bringing dummies to life
The Homeland Secuirty Home Page [sic] promotes a line of dummy security officers, intended to stand around giving people a sense of protection: These are no ordinary dummies. They are robotic and made to fool even the biggest skeptic. There are two models, a full length standing figure of 6’2” that gives the impression of a man that would weigh 220 pounds although he only weighs 35 pounds, and an above-the-waist-only figure designed to lurk behind rooftop parapets (adjustable for different parapet heights). The pictures and video clips did not convince me. One of those loudspeakers that says woof! woof! would make me feel more protected.
Hats of meat
To follow yesterday’s piece about animal glue, I want to thank SauteWednesday for this link.
Zanzibar in Dublin
When I wondered yesterday what does a themed bar look like when it’s in Ireland?, I should have known the answer would be on the web: The theme is African/Middle Eastern and thankfully there’s not too much wood. Lots of marble effect, big paintings and drapes. A huge place with a very high ceiling, it can hold around 1,500 people. A most impressive pub. And as for the women…hey, hey, party on.
»more»Irish themes
Around here a lot of hotel bars are turning Irish. It seems you can pull in more drinkers by calling your bar Molly O'Somebody's Irish Pub and laying on draught Guinness and fake wooden beams. This piece from Dublin makes me curious; what does a themed bar look like when it's in Ireland?:
»more»Pebbledash people
The BBC’s E-cyclopedia: the words behind the headlines explains a new British use of pebbledash as a term indicating suburbia. Pebbledash people is spin doctor's shorthand for a social group.
Thought to be Tories' paradigm target voter, numbering 2.5 million in 178 target seats. Derives from “pebbledash subtopia”, one of 52 postcode categories employed by market research specialists Experian. Average household income: £25,000; likely to read Daily Mail; not very neighbourly; keen on DIY.»more»
Country log caskets
Another thing you didn’t know you needed — a coffin made in the form of a log cabin. Choose the Pioneer (US$3,995, with saddle-notch corners and full leather lining), the Rancher, the Trails End, or the Countryside ($2,295).
Socks glue
Something you didn’t know you needed. A supplier of Japanese socks glue. Explanation:
Japanese high school girls wear outrageously oversized socks called ‘loose socks.’ How do they keep their socks from falling down? You guessed it — they use ‘socks glue.’ Here’s some authentic socks glue for you, straight from Japan.
Feline reactions to bearded men
A scientific study has some surprising findings.
Ugly quilt
An ugly quilt is a sleeping bag that’s been made from scraps, old clothes, bedspreads, and any material you can spare. It is an inexpensive way to make a difference in a homeless person’s life. [Quote from the ugly quilts website].
Sumo aprons in triplicate
See this photo essay on the retirement ceremony for Akebono, the Japanese sumo champion. Akebono was born in Hawaii of Irish-Hawaiian and Cuban-Hawaiian parents. He was the biggest yokozuma (203cm, 233kg), and the first foreigner to gain this rank. The emotional climax of the ceremony was the cutting of the champ’s topnot, involving 300 VIPs. Read closely to discover why yokozumas have aprons in sets of three.
Brand new BMW for $495
That’s US dollars, about $1,000 Australian. A bargain? Well no, it’s not a car, just a skate board called the Street Carver. Ask Santa, he just might… Sure, and pigs might fly.
World AIDS Day
I’m prompted by the Link and think campaign to mention William Yang’s wonderful performance piece, Sadness. In this show he stands in front of the audience telling his story and working a set of slide projectors. With his quiet voice, his deadpan photographs, the varied pace of the story and the way he engages us with it, this goes way beyond the old living room slide show.
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