Dowbrigade

The
tsunami that devastated south Asia coastlines and killed more than 200,000
people last December is a powerful reminder of just how dangerous those
waves can be to humans.

Such reminders have been delivered periodically, sometimes several decades apart,
during the last half-century. But the lessons have been largely ignored or forgotten
by most people who didn’t suffer direct consequences, said Jody Bourgeois, a
University of Washington Earth and space sciences professor who studies historic
and pre-historic tsunamis.

Bourgeois this week will urge fellow scientists to find ways to use the current
heightened awareness of tsunamis as a means for broad public education about
tsunami dangers and prudent safeguards. Such education should be conducted matter-of-factly,
without playing on the fears engendered by December’s events, she said.

from a University of Washington press release

Dancing eunuchs, over 300 invitees and a marriage procession
befitting a king! It was the perfect nuptial for Shamsher and Diana,
a canine couple from Jaipur who tied the knot in a traditional Hindu
ceremony.

The groom, owned by a wealthy dog lover, was escorted to the marriage venue
with a band of self-styled musicians and dozens of friends, family and
of course dogs.

The marriage lawns were bedecked with flowers, particularly Jasmines -
the bride’s favourite — and policemen had been deployed to keep at bay
the gatecrashers.

from WebIndia123

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The University of California,
Berkeley has suspended a fraternity whose members hazed a pledge by repeatedly
firing a BB gun at him, the school said on Monday.

The prospective member of Pi Kappa Phi had been shot on April 8 at least
30 times and was later treated at a local hospital for welts and bruises.

School officials placed the fraternity on a so-called "interim" suspension,
which bars members from any fraternity activities and strictly limits their
use of their chapter house to residential purposes, such as eating and
sleeping.

"We’re also investigating students who were actually involved in the
alleged shooting," said university spokeswoman Marie Felde.

Earlier this year, a pledge at a California State University, Chico fraternity
died from water poisoning in a hazing incident there.

Is this the school US
News and World Report ranks as the Number
One Public University in the United States? We always knew there was
a reason
we decided not to move to California, despite numerous attractive offers….

from Reuters

When
we saw it this morning in the Boston
Globe Sports section, we thought it was a typo.  It
still amazes us that after 45 years of doing crossword puzzles and
playing Scrabble (not to mention almost 30 years of teaching English),
there are words as, shall we say intriguing, which we have never
even heard of, other than as an affectionate nickname
for the bushes outside our old Fraternity House.

During Games 1 and 2, Ainge shuttled between the locker room, coach
Doc Rivers’s office, the vomitories on both ends of the court, and seats
where friends and family sat. He was nowhere to be found on the Jumbotron.

Looking “vomitory” up in the online
dictionary revealed its existence, as well as it’s " Etymology:
Late Latin vomitorium, from Latin vomere; from its disgorging the spectators:
an entrance piercing the banks of seats of a theater, amphitheater, or
stadium.” Obviously Roman in origin, as the original vomitories were undoubtedly in the Collesium, from whence the gladiators, Christians and lions inevitably errupted.

Googling
"Vomitory" produced the icing on the cake; a German
heavymetal band by the same name, rubbing our faces in it, so to
speak.
Picture above. We can’t wait to spring this one on our unsuspecting Mom
during a late-night Scrabble showdown….

original
column from the Boston Globe

In the same week that it detected more than 10 million
blogs for the first time, Intelliseek’s BlogPulse.com also noted a shift
in conversations in the blogosphere

CINCINNATI, OHIO (April 26, 2005)
— Since the end of 2004, the late Terri Schiavo and the late Pope
John Paul II have overtaken President George Bush as the most-discussed
personalities
among bloggers, while the San Francisco Chronicle and News.com have
emerged among the top news sources cited by bloggers.

Moreover, Boing Boing remains the most-cited blog, joined by Engadget.com
(up from No. 13 in 2004 to No. 2 in 2005), MichelleMalkin.com (No.
23 to No. 7) and
 Gizmodo.com (No. 17 to No. 8).

Those are just a few of the findings from BlogPulse.com,  http://www.blogpulse.com)
a free blog portal from Intelliseek that tracks posts from blogs to uncover
key trends, issues, personalities and other data.

from Intelliseek

stats from BlogPulse

Of course, no list involving something as mercurial and fluid as wireless
cyberspace could ever be complete, but we were disturbed and disappointed
to note that the latest list of Boston
area Wi-Fi hotspots from the Boston
WAG (Wireless Advocacy Group) included not a single node in Watertown.
Moreso, as we used one regularly.

Donohue’s of
Watertown, one of the best little sports bars we know, has had excellent,
free, anytime Wi-Fi for about 8 months now.  In addition
to being a block from our home, this bright and breezy pub has excellent
if standard bar food, a zillion screens of various sizes, and amazingly
polite patrons. A great place to hide out when Norma Yvonne is on the
warpath (like now).

We have emailed the WAG to update their
list. Any Boston-area readers knowing of
other spots not listed should do the same.

Boston Globe review of Donahue’s

In
our tireless search for scandal and sources of righteous indignation,
the Dowbrigade recently uncovered a snippet of video floating around
cyberspace so shocking and objectionable it tested the limits of decency
and credibility.

It was reported to be a North Korean propaganda video of a mutant Korean
punk rock band slamming out their anthem, the unforgettable "Fuckin’
USA."

Now, in a further Dowbrigade exclusive, we have obtained, not only the
original sheet music (in Korean, of course), but also an
expert source who claims to have definitive evidence that THE VIDEO IS ACTUALLY A SOUTH
KOREAN MISDIRECTION PROPAGANDA PLOY.

I think I would be remiss if I never
mentioned "Fuckin’
USA." The subtitles reveal this as a North Korean produced video,
and while the visuals may in fact be North Korean in origin, I’d have
to say the song is a product of my current nation of residence.

Take “Korea” for example.

In the South, people use the word, “?? (??)” when talking about North Korea. In the North, people use the word “?? (??)” instead of “??.” “Fuckin’ USA,” makes use of the word “??,” a
term no self respecting North Korean would to refer to their home country.

If this analysis holds up, it portends a scandal on the level and in
the mold of the Faked Rather Bush letters! Great Caesar’s Ghost – hold
the presses! Anyway, check out kim
chi& me for the scoop in the original
Korean characters (which we have installed in our browser, but apparently
not in our html editor). It’s
quite a nice blog, actually, from an ESL teacher prowling around Seoul
with a decent digital camera and a quirky
take on what he sees, like the accompanying disturbing shot from a Korean
horror movie called "Red Mask Ghost."

from kim
chi& me

see the FU*KING
USA VIDEO for yourself

Postscript – It seems worthwhile to post this note, which arrived via a comment to this post: you neglected to insert the best part of this blog posting — the collection of North Korean music located at: http://218.40.68.133:5634/ It is truly awsome.
Mr. Kim

        punk rock band slamming out
their anthem, the unforgettable "
      USA.
     

        original sheet music (in
Korean, of course), but also
        expert
source
      KOREAN MISDIRECTION PROPAGANDA PLOY.      
     

       

          mentioned "Fuckin’
          USA."
The subtitles reveal this as a North Korean produced video,
          and while the visuals may in fact be North Korean in origin, I’d have
        to say the song is a product of my current nation of residence.

       

         
          In the South,
people use the word, “북한 (北韓)” when talking about North Korea.  In
the North, people use the word “조선 (朝鮮)” instead of “북한.” 
“Fuckin’ USA,” makes use of the word “북한,” a
          term no self
respecting North Korean would to refer to their home country.
       

     

        the mold of the Faked Rather Bush letters! Great Caesar’s Ghost – hold
        the presses! Anyway, check out
        chi& me
        Korean characters (which we have installed in our browser, but apparently
        not in our html editor).

        quite a nice blog, actually, from an ESL teacher prowling around Seoul
        with a decent digital camera and a quirky
      take on what he sees, like the accompanying disturbing shot from a Korean
        horror movie called "Red Mask Ghost."
     

          chi& me
     

      USA VIDEO
     

Before we forget, there are a couple of additional
strands to the emerging tapestry of Citywide
Wi-fi in Boston. First, City
Councilor John Tobin and WAG are
sponsoring a Wi-Fi summit next month at the Science Museum. As far as
we know it is open to all but we have not been able to find
a Summit Web Page yet, just mentions in blogs and press releases.

BostonWAG is one of several local organizations involved in a special
task force formed to plan the WiFi Summit, which will be held on Thursday,
May 19 at the Museum of Science, Boston. The task force is now seeking
input from community residents on how they think wireless technology
could be used to make Boston a more attractive place to live, work, go
to school and conduct business. Representatives of local community groups,
grassroots organizations, and non-profit agencies are invited to participate
in the forum.

Also, and who knows whether this is all part of a subtle
public opinion campaign to influence public opinion in favor of the emerging
everywherenet, yesterday’s Boston
Globe had a looong article titled, "The
Year of Living Wirelessly":

Hotels, airports, stadiums, municipal buildings, hospitals, libraries,
planes, trains – our entire environment is being "unwired." Wi-Fi
is connecting whole neighborhoods and public parks, like New York City’s
Bryant Park, creating so-called hotzones and hotcities. The Boston
Foundation, a charitable group, has given the Museum
of Science $25,000
to study
unwiring swaths of the city, particularly parks and open spaces. Next
month, civic and technology leaders plan to meet at a Wireless Boston
summit to discuss the idea.

This is happening, folks. For better or worse, happening people will
soon be online, all the time, everywhere. At least in Boston’s parks
and open spaces.

from the
Boston Globe

By far the most interesting angle of last
Thursday’s visit from Boston City Councilor John
Tobin to the Berkman
Bloggers Meeting was the news (to us) that Boston is one of a handful
of cities around the United States considering the installation of city-wide
Wi-Fi connectivity.

The Museum of Science and The Boston Foundation are working with Tobin
on a feasibility study for free, city-wide access, Besides the obvious
(it would be vedy cool, it would attract tech companies and wired workers)
the project has legs because it “bridges the digital divide”. The idea
is that the homeless, shell-shocked, Desert Storm vet sleeping on a grate
behind the library will have the same access as Abbigale Johnson, the
richest
woman
in the United States, who happens to work nearby.

We hope the city is planning a massive giveaway of portable computers and
wi-fi cards, or at least am interest-free "pay by the week" plan that
might pry a few of desperately poor and low-income workers away from
the scratch cards and onto online gambling.
No, forget that, this would merely divert the revenue stream away from
state coffers. We are trying to bring business INTO Boston, not drive
it away.

Meanwhile, those of us who yearn to post from wherever inspiration
or opportunity strikes have limited options, especially if we are unable
or unwilling to
pay usurious charges to get online (Starbucks slime). Here is a list
of free Wi-fi
hotspots around the area, from the WAG
(wireless advocacy group), but
as you can see, it’s pretty skimpy.
The WAG site is worth a look-see, however.

In the past we have seen a fine and impressively outlaw war blogger’s
site where you could enter a zip code or address and see a real-time
map of all of the nodes in the area, represented as colored circles on
the map, with size representing strength, and color representing open,
closed, public,
etc.
Unfortunately, we can either not find the bookmark for this site or have decided
to refrain from posting the address from fear of hacker retribution.

The Dowbrigade believes that within our lifetime (and we are getting
pretty old) we will see an ubiquitous, all encompassing internet, accessible
from
everywhere and offering everything (if one knows how to find and access
it). Some people will be on-line, with at least some part of their consciousness
ALL OF THE TIME. The questions of who will control access to this universal
net, and who will impose and collect the fees for installation and maintenance,
are the key issues of our times. Public or private? Low-level free access
and increasingly expensive tiers of ascending access? Pay-by=the-byte?
Pay-by-the minute? Pay by the service used?

Some sort of free universal access to the rapidly evolving internet
is inevitable and desirable.  This is the Interstate Highway System
of our generation, and just as importance to the commerce and personal
lives of its citizens. It will entail a significant initial investment,
but barely a fraction of what has already been spent on Iraq. In fact,
all of the cities on the East Coast could be wired for wireless for less
than the cost of the Big Dig ($14 billion dollars and no end in sight).

Most of the money will flow right back into
good old American high-tech companies,
and our competitive advantage would be protected for decades to come.
And whoever controls this "free, universal access" will have a vice
around the balls and necks of every
American
who uses it.

The WAG also have a very
interesting Wi-Fi poll on their site.  Check
out
the results,
so far.  Can you identify which are the Dowbrigade’s
answers and comments? Interesting that although 94% of respondents used
the internet for email, 74% for news, 64% for shopping and 63% for research,
only 10.9% visited chat rooms and only 27% visited sports sites. Take
the poll – it only take five minutes and lots of people are entering
home bases outside the city of Boston.

This is an idea whose time has definitely come. Tobin reported
that in the three years he has been on the City Council this is the issue
that has generated the most interest, and from widely diverse sources.  The
politician who succeeds in making this a reality will gain national prominence
and potential.

There have already been partial efforts, with varying degrees of success,
in Long Beach, San Diego, Denver, and other smaller cities.  Pittsburgh
is currently starting a more ambitious project, and is encountering some
problems. On this issue at least, we can wholeheartedly support John
Tobin and his vision of the future of Boston.  Online, all the time,
everywhere.

Last
night we watched "Fever
Pitch" the new comedy starring Drew
Barrymore and Jimmie Fallon and set against the backdrop of the Red Sox
run to
the World Championship.

Since the version we watched quite clearly said, "Review Copy," we guess we should review it, if only to maintain
some pretense of conventional journalism as part of our life-long quest
for legitimacy.

Basically, this movie is an almost complete
waste of time and hardrive space.  The location scenes around
Boston, which with the exception of one scene in Kenmore Square were
completely devoid of shots of any
of the stars, probably allowing them to be filmed weeks before or after
the real talent was in town, compared unfavorably with footage shot by
our Japanese students with hand-held digital cameras on their first day
in
the country.

The romantic story line, nerdy boy meets geek girl, overcomes an
annoying but not debilitating handicap (he is a fanatical Sox fan),
leading to a dramatic Fenway Park proposal, is so lame that it begs
for deletion, and yet is not bad enough to be camp or provide a satisfying
laugh.  Finally, the tacked-on ending was rewritten after the
Sox won the Series during the filming, in a form so transparent and
tacky
on
that
it detracted from our real memories of the blessed moment and turned
it into a crass commercial tagline attached to a shitbox vehicle for
two aging youth stars coasting on quickly diminishing career momentum.

Quite frankly, Drew Barrymore peaked in E.T., and her career trajectory
has been been downhill ever since. Admittedly,
she had a subsequent short but stimulating return to significance when
she showed some mature promise and exposed skin in Bad
Girls (1994).as the teenaged sexpot in a group of badass
women wranglers. But
of course,
she achieved
this
promising presence
by

playing on every existing twisted stereotype
and fetish of middle-aged, middle-class American males,
like Jane Fonda in Barbarella, but damn, did she ever look good in those
skimpy cowgirl corsets and lacy intimate wear. Like la Fonda, she
later
repented and tried to transition into
deeper roles and leftish political positions, As a result
of those doomed efforts and a bizarre marriage to certifiable madman
Tom Greene, her image instead morphed into slightly skanky eccentricity,
which she in turn tried to counter by fleeing into ever more ridiculous
romantic comedies.

The poor woman seems trapped by the public’s insatiable desire
to see her in cute dating flicks. Her "serious" movies
(like "The
Amy
Fischer Story" or "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind") have
been flops, pretty much, so far as we can tell.We hope she finds some
decent roles soon, as she is becoming
a one-trick pony
real quick, and it’s a disgusting, treacly trick at that.

Jimmy Fallon, meanwhile, has managed to prove he can do "serious" comedy
as well as the ridiculous SNL sketches like "Mango", and little else.
We doubt Chase, Akroyd, Martin, Meyers and Carvey are looking over
their
shoulders
at this rising young stud.

We would not recommend wasting your hard-earned money on this bomb
– it is sure to hit cable within months, where at least you can change
the channel when the nausea hits.

The
much anticipated main attraction at last Thursday’s
meeting of the Berkman
denizens whom the lovely Norma Yvonne refers to
as "our cult" was a guest appearance by Boston City Council
member John Tobin,
an earnest, dyed-in-the-wool old-school political animal.  He
opened by telling us of growing up in a neighborhood where every other
person was an elected official and the other half were unsuccessful political
candidates.

He was convincing in a smarmy, student council sort of way. One got
the impression that he really liked getting out among his constituents
and finding out what their concerns are, in an attempt to do something
about them, within the system and its limitations. He found his way to
the Blogger’s Cabal thanks to inveterate group member and poster boy for
Video Blogging, Steve Garfield.

Turns out Tobin had the good fortune to run into Steve outside an ice
cream parlor
in Jamaica Plain, part of his City Council district. After introducing himself,
Steve went into his heartfelt spiel about how a good blog can transform an
idea, or a project, or a politician, making them accessible and understandable
to a whole new segment of the population.

Turns out Tobin also had the good sense to listen to Steve, and eventually
hire him to set up and maintain a blog, prominently featuring Steve’s
prodigious video blogging talent.

Early results are mixed. The site
itself is clean and well designed.
It features useful information for constituents as well as promoting
the activities of Mr. Tobin himself. Steve’s videos are, as usual, professional
and inventive, and show Mr. Tobin in some off-the-record and behind-the-scenes
moments to do convey a sense if intimacy and personal connection. There
are also intriguing links to an initiative Mr. Tobin is involved with
to bring city-wide Wi-fi connectivity to Boston. For this alone he deserves
support.

(The Dowbrigade will have a separate post on this topic at some point
this weekend, and will backlink to this when we do.)

However, if Mr. Tobin expected unqualified kudos for courageously entering
the blogging arena, he came to the wrong place.
The most important thing we personally noticed absent from his blog, and it’s
parent
site,
is any trace of Mr. Tobin’s own personal voice.

As we pointed out at the meeting, since the media frenzy of last fall’s
presidential election, every Tom Dick and Harriet
of an elected official, and scads of wannabees, have established blogs.  Almost
without exception, they simply went out and hired a blogger or other techno-weenie
or drafted a teenaged relative to actually write the damn thing.

We told Mr. Tobin on Thursday that if he wanted a "real" blog, one that
would connect with our constituents, he needed to invest
something of himself, and take the time to write regularly, not
delegate or dictate. And not just stale PR pap, we want
real insights into who he is, what it is like to be a Boston City Councilor,
the pressures he is under, the difficulty of the decisions he has to make, how
he goes about balancing legal, political and moral priorities. Like all bloggers,
letting his readers, in this case his constituents, get to know him as a person.
Scary stuff.

What we didn’t say, but fervently believe, is that any authentic, worthwhile
blogging involves some real element of risk. It can’t be faked, or copied,
or mailed in. The blogging audience is highly discriminating.  Anything
that is ghost-written, that is boilerplate, that is safe and bland, will
wither
on the blogging
vine.  Any
good blogging, maybe any good writing, involves taking real personal risks,
exposing
at least a part of the soul. Blogging is not for sissies, or hypocrites.  On
the other hand, it
is
hard
to
convince a politician to take risks, especially with anything related to their
public
image. Real blogging for pols is not an easy sell.

We know. We have tried. Since well before the elections last year one
of the ongoing group goals among the Berman
bloggers was to offer, entice, facilitate
and
support
politicians
who wanted to blog. As far as we can tell, Steve recruiting John was
the first real fruit this effort has borne. We personally have tried
to convince three pols (2 sitting and one candidate), to take the plunge.
After we
gave our impassioned rant on the impact and potential of the new media
movement, we noticed little besides the normal crude, cunning calculus
as they processed the stereotypical calculation – how could this help
me?

The only way to do it is to convince them of the truth – that the political
landscape has changed, is changing, and that the old recipes won’t work
anymore. For decades, centuries, politicians survived by maintaining very
separate public and private personalities. Outside of a handful of personal
aides and regular contacts, no one in the country actually saw the elected
officials, other than at highly staged campaign rallies at election time.

Before the invention of television, and the rise of mass media, no one
knew what their leaders even looked like, much less how they acted, walked,
ruminated, relaxed, ate, reacted to attack, behaved when sick, on little
sleep, or when surprised or angry. Before CSPAN and paparazzi and TV
"news" magazines and doggedly persistent blogs, a politician was wise
to present a public persona markedly different than the private man.

But today that is a flawed and doomed strategy.  The public has
too much access.  The coverage in constant, intuitive, all consuming.
The result is that people perceive the underlying falseness of the dual-persona
approach, and as a result distrust all politicians. The political class
can no longer get away with this deep duplicity as a way of life.  People
are on to them. Of course, the insult and indignation they feel is thus
far unfocused, because as of today there are no alternatives.

The closest we have seen was the instructional case of the daring Dr.
Dean, who really seemed to be speaking from the heart and letting us
all in on what he really thought.  And we all know how savagely
he was eviscerated by the mainstream media when they realized that he
really
did believe all that stuff and the eventual result, should he have been
elected, would have been the loss of their monopoly on the American consciousness.

The younger generation especially, and as usual, have highly developed
bullshit detectors these days.  The old politics will not fly in
a world where anyone who cares can follow a candidate or politician virtually
24/7.  The
new politics demands a new breed of politician – less consumed, more
transparent, more wysiwyg.

Perhaps, rather than getting politicians to
blog, it is time for bloggers to enter politics.

Eventually, someone will create a tidal wave in the new media of sufficient
magnitude and depth to withstand and overwhelm the evisceration that
derailed the Dean train. When such a figure emerges, the Dowbrigade,
and we suspect
millions
of others, stand ready to go to the mattresses when the the shit hits
the fan. But you’ve gotta know somebody pretty good, pretty intimately,
to get to that level of commitment. A lot better than we’ve ever gotten
to know anybody over our TV set.

Here are the notes
from the meeting, and here is Steve’s
Video of it