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Although
Dayton City Paper is an excellent example of progressive media in
action, I am disappointed time and time again by the Focus Forum
feature. The tired old formula of pitting partisan Democrats against
partisan Republicans hardly makes for compelling reading. As DCP
obviously tends to lean to the left, the column by the former local
Republican Party Chairman, David H. Landon, is an anomaly that serves
only to prop up the media’s clichéd panacea of “equal time.” Landon’s
feature in DCP is like the left’s version of the strange bedfellows of
Fox News and Alan Colmes. (As if any of us truly believe that one
so-called “liberal” amidst a sea of conservative partisan rhetoric
amounts to “fair and balanced” coverage). DCP would do well to fully
embrace its role as the progressive minority of the Dayton media. Leave
the hackneyed partisanship to Fox News, Sinclair Broadcasting and Brown
Publishing.
Thomai
and I have been married for nine years as of today. For our first
dance as husband and wife, we danced to "our" song, "Little Wing" by
Jimi Hendrix. We got a lot of compliments for choosing such a
cool song. What a great day that was.
Sometimes
we look at ourselves in our wedding portrait and we ask each other:
"Who are those people in that picture?" because so much has changed for
us in such a short time. Other times, we talk about what kind of
advice we would share if we could somehow go back in time and talk to
our younger selves that we see in that picture. It's probably
better that we'll never get the chance to do that, because we have
learned an awful lot along the way and we have grown so much together.
Greek
riot police have surrounded the biggest rubbish dump in Athens to block
people protesting against the transfer of sewage to the site.
It follows clashes on Tuesday between police and residents of Ano Liossia as the dumping of sewage resumed.
Ano
Liossia was chosen after Athens' main sewage plant on nearby Psitalia
island was told to stop dumping sludge in trenches near the sea. (full article)
Now when I first read that
article, I thought the passage in which the Ano Liossa site was
described as as "a volcano which has sewage in it, instead of lava,"
was describing the bathroom of the Athens McDonald's. What a wild
scene that was, friends. Too bad I didn't take any pictures, but
I'm sure you all get the idea.
One would think that the cradle of Western Civilization might do better
on the matters of where and how to dispose of excrement. I hear
that there are some abandoned venues from the 2004 games that are
pretty big...
Thursday,
investigators will look into who paid for the golf and whether that
person had any business or lobbying interest with the governor.
"I take full responsibility for the
error and omissions that occurred. We're going to cooperate fully with
the Ethics Commission investigation," said Taft. (full article)
Apparently, at least one of the outings was with Tom Noe, who is
reportedly responsible for the $12 million that came up missing from
the Bureau of Workers' Compensation rare coin investment fund.
Better check those vending machines at the golf course clubhouse.
There's a good chance that Taft and company might have used some gold
doubloons to buy Twinkies and Ding-Dongs.
I have been fiddling a bit with GarageBand
again. Since I have built a little cache of material, I figured
that it might be about time to post some selections on the site so that folks can
have a listen. The newest "song" is called "A Piece of the
Action" and it's very similar to one of my previous attempts, "Who Are
Our Enemies?" Both tracks are included in a new section of our site
entitled Music for the Masses. I will include some notes about each of the tracks on that section's index page.
Most of content of each of the above-mentioned selections was created
using the loops in the basic GarageBand package. I added some
samples and sound effects here and there. "A Piece of the Action"
includes a teensy bit of me playing guitar towards the end. (I am
afraid I am not good enough to play a lengthier or better solo, so this
will have to suffice for now.) I use an iStudioLink cable to link my guitar to the computer. This allows me to lay the guitar track down by playing directly into GarageBand.
I may include some other tracks in our music section from previous
projects that went absolutely nowhere. More on those another day...
...A big thanks to Corey, who piqued my interest in crafting music on my computer!
Earlier
in the week, I stopped into my favorite thrift store to have a look
around. I was looking for something specific (a wooden chair for
a desk that I had bought there several days back) but it wasn’t too
long before I was horribly sidetracked.
As usual, I
ended up in the book and magazine aisle, wandering from shelf to
shelf. The shelves were poorly organized and filled with a lot of
things that most folks might not find very interesting. But
experience has proven that if I look long and hard enough, I might
find a rare gem. Sure enough...
Now, I would
like to think that I am past the point in my life in which I am tempted
to buy things strictly based upon their weirdness or comedic value, but
I guess some things are just too difficult for me to resist. In
this particular case, I felt that I could not part with a very strange
magazine that I found jammed in between volumes of romance novels and
self-help manuals. The magazine in question was the May 1968 issue of "Sets in Order: The Official Magazine of Square Dancing". The advertisements alone made this purchase well worth its 59¢ price tag.
As a product of
Kentucky public schools (K through 6), I have some personal experience
with square dancing because it was a mandatory part of the curriculum
back when I was in grade school. So at the very least, I know enough to
honestly and steadfastly say that I never want to square dance
again. The main reason I picked this magazine up is to keep it as
proof that I had actually laid eyes on it. A list of some of the
featured articles in the magazine might give you a fair idea of its
contents. Here’s a sample:
"The Ten Commandments of Square Dancers"
"Dialog: How Does one Go About Learning the Calls?"
"Phrasing: Part II" (this article explains how one matches the square dance "calls" to the beat of the music)
Now I don’t
think mere words could do this justice, so I will include a few scans
with this article so that you folks can experience the wonder
firsthand. Choose from a fashion tip and a music advertisement.
In its heyday,
"Sets in Order" was apparently one of the most authoritative sources
for the up-and-coming square dancing aficionado. As of May 1968, "SIO" was in its 20th year of publication. There
are some passing references to this magazine (called "SIO" by the
square dancing elite) here and there on the Internet. If
anything, the May 1968 issue of "Sets in Order " is certainly proof
that obscure media outlets were around long before public access
television and the Internet.
We were recently contacted by Alex of Greeklish.net, who shared news of his Greeklish Nowhere! site. Greeklish Nowhere! features a free Internet editor with an automatic Greek keyboard.
While the editor
still may require some fine tuning, it is already a great endeavor and
a valuable tool for people who use Greek text for web-based
communication and related projects.
We’ll be adding a link to Greeklish.net to as a permanent feature in our site's web links collection.
"Let me say, with the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love. It is impossible to think of an authentic revolutionary without this quality."
Wikipedia
is a great resource. I use it frequently and I am often impressed
with what I find. But there are certain times in which one can't
rely on a wiki entry to get the whole story. For instance,
consider what happens when one searches the term "Chavez Ravine."
The reader is immediately routed to the entry for "Dodger Stadium" with
the note: "Redirected from Chavez Ravine." The explanation for
this is embedded in the first paragraph of the entry:
"The
park is still also sometimes referred to as Chavez Ravine (more
formally as Chavez Ravine Stadium), after the name of the site where it
was constructed, and the name used by the Angels organization during
their tenancy."
Here's what's
missing: Before 1952, Chavez Ravine was home to hundreds of Mexican
Americans who had lived there for generations. The planning phase
for the initial development of the Chavez Ravine was undertaken in
1949. Residents were promised their choice of units from Federal
housing projects in exchange for the sale of their property. But
ultimately, the land was developed as the site of a new baseball
stadium, which is now the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Homes
were leveled, buildings were buried and lives were destroyed all in the
pursuit of sports and entertainment. Frank Wilkinson, the
assistant director of the Los Angeles City Housing Authority, opposed
this plan in favor of proceeding with the housing development, but he
was effectively neutralized following relentless persuction by HUAC and McCarthyite cronies.
Obviously, the
writer of the wiki entry is more a fan of baseball than of human
dignity. The story of Chavez Ravine takes a back seat to the
analysis of "power pitching" and the engineering feats of the stadium's
designers. The true story of Chavez Ravine is presented by
Wikipedia in a rather gilded package:
"The
land for Dodger Stadium was expropriated from the local residents in
the early 1950's by the city of Los Angeles. The residents were told
that it was to be used for low-income housing and that the residents
would have their choice on the new homes. The city however used the
land to induce the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers to relocate the
franchise in Los Angeles."
No in-depth
analysis of coercion or forcible eviction in that paragraph, eh?
The controversy over something called "O'Malleyburgers" gets a longer
blurb in the wiki entry than the people of Chavez Ravine could merit.
The Independent Lens documentary "Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story"
tells the story of Chavez Ravine in vivid and painful detail. The
film includes interviews with eyewitnesses and archival footage of
Wilkinson's testimony before HUAC and of the razing of Chavez
Ravine. In other words, the film tells the truth of the
matter. If you're looking for the whole story, you need to dig
deeper than Wikipedia for this one. And when doing so, you might
as well skip the LA Dodgers' official history of Dodger Stadium, which seems to bear no mention of Chavez Ravine whatsoever.
