Wednesday, May 04, 2005

From the horses mouth

Crooks and Liars has the video:

Rev. Hutcherson says Microsoft caved in because of him. He appeared on Scarborough Country and called Steve Ballmer a liar.

Another family values hypocrite

"Congressman ‘sorry’ for pain to family: U.S. representative from Pennsylvania was accused of choking a woman, 29, to whom he was giving a back rub in his Washington apartment.”

That’s the headline, this is from the story:

The woman, Cynthia Ore of Rockville, Md., says Sherwood has been her lover since 1999.

“When I met him he told me he was getting a divorce...He never did get a divorce,” Ore has said. “He said he has to stay married to get elected.”

Via AMERICAblog: “So, that’s why they make such a big deal about marriage.”

Republican Congressman Don Sherwood has been a loyal supporter of conservative family values since he was first elected in 1998.

Chic Johns

On restaurant bathrooms in NY:

I couldn’t figure out how to trigger the electronic-eye sensors above the commodes, motion-detecting flushing mechanisms with enough of a delay that you were sometimes asked simply to trust in a cleansing aftermath to your departure. I’ve encountered religions with less daunting leaps of faith.

I couldn’t figure out how to tell whether commodes were occupied. Neither, apparently, could anyone else, because whenever I was using one, someone in the communal area would rattle the door, not to mention my composure.

And I couldn’t figure out why, in restaurant after restaurant, the attempt to relieve oneself turned out to be anything but a relief.

It’s an exercise in stress, an invitation to exasperation. You tread tortuous paths to befuddling destinations. You encounter too little space or too much whimsy, the funhouse flourishes sowing enough confusion to warrant operating instructions, which a few restrooms actually have. You wish - oh, how you wish - that you never had to go.

My favorite was the 3-man wide stainless steel waterfall that you peed into. I was at it by myself, but couldn’t imagine a couple of straight guys using the thing. I wonder if it’s still there?

UPDATE: I didn’t read close enough, Doug was rushing me out of the house:

There are no conventional faucets, just three broad metal chutes, which are activated via inconspicuous handles on their undersides. The sink is a slanting trough, and the water from the chutes travels down its slope to a lone drain in the bottom corner. If you’re the hand washer nearest that drain, you watch the runoff from any other hand washers go by.

Prem-on Thai, of course, belongs to a theatrical tradition established long ago by places like the Royalton, in Midtown Manhattan, where the urinal is more of a waterfall. That tradition is ably perpetuated by the likes of Peep, in SoHo, where the person using the centrally positioned commode can see through a mirrored wall into the dining room and must reassure himself or herself that the people on the other side do not have the same, um, privilege.

The waterfall is still there. I’m glad to see it merits mention.

Poor D. Ho.

Micheal Bérubé on foe D. Ho.:

OK, so everyone’s asking me if I’ve seen the profile of David Horowitz in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education.  Well, of course I have!  I’m a shadow member of the Network, after all.  And with all due respect to Siva, whose response you should definitely check out, I happen to think that the article is an important Next Step in the enterprise of getting Horowitz to discredit himself (thus distributing the “discreditingâ€Â� task more evenly and fairly).

When last we heard David’s fantasies about professors, he was telling people that we make $150,000 and work six hours a week.  Here’s the update:

To gain the recognition he believed he deserved, Mr. Horowitz established [the Center for the Study of Popular Culture], which features conservative programs such as catered lunches with right-leaning luminaries who discuss their latest books. “I don’t have a platform in The New York Times,” he says.

If he were liberal, he contends, he could be an editor at the Times or a department chairman at Harvard University. And his life story would have already been told on the big screen. Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey, his autobiography, has been out for eight years. “Someone would have made a film out of it if I was a leftist,” he says bitterly.

He claims he would make more money as a liberal, too, “at least three times,” what he earns now. According to the center’s most recent available tax form, Mr. Horowitz received an annual salary of $310,167 in 2003. He declines to give his current income, but in addition to his salary, Mr. Horowitz receives about $5,000 for each of the 30 to 40 campus speeches he gives each year.

To highlight how D. Ho. earns those speaking fees, he links to this commentary on Horowitz’s speech at St. John’s University.

Augmented Animals

Wired reports on the “controversial and sometimes unsettling book, Augmented Animals” by James Auger, a designer and former research associate with MIT Media Lab Europe. (Be sure to check out the photos.) You won’t find the book in any of the usual places, it’s a limited edition of 1,000:

Auger envisions animals, birds, reptiles and even fish becoming appreciative techno-geeks, using specially engineered gadgets to help them overcome their evolutionary shortcomings, promote their chances of survival or just simply lead easier and more comfortable lives.

On tap for the future: Rodents zooming around with night-vision survival goggles, squirrels hoarding nuts using GPS locators and fish armed with metal detectors to avoid the angler’s hook.

Given that I believe such augmentation comes along with the longevity boom in humans--and is good and inevitable--I think it’s okay for animals too.

I keep saying that the notion of porting my brain over to the web is appealing, but then, would I really want to be a * brain * in * a * vat?

For example, some theorists have floated a Matrix-like scenario that would use direct stimulation of the brain to fool livestock about the reality of their living conditions.

“To offset the cruelty of factory-farming, routine implants of smart microchips in the pleasure centers may be feasible,” says David Pearce, associate editor of the Journal of Evolution and Technology. “Since there is no physiological tolerance to pure pleasure, factory-farmed animals could lead a lifetime of pure bliss instead of misery. Unnatural? Yes, but so is factory farming. Immoral? No, certainly not compared to the terrible suffering we inflict on factory-farmed animals today.”

Suffering animals make me recall that I have no problem with cooking a rabbit, but I look my animals in the eye.