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Friday, December 31 2004

To Do in San Francisco, New Year's Eve weekend

Best bets for NYE: Opel party at Paradise Lounge. The price is $50 at the door, but they're open 'till 2:30pm Saturday; you can party till 2am, go home, then come back at noon for more. Or Club Six's lineup looks good ($25 at door?). Or for the uber-adventurous, go to the Debaucherama event at the Climate Theater ($100 per couple).
Saturday: recover from Friday night.
Sunday: see Century of the Self at the Roxie movie theater in the Mission, or the director's cut of Donnie Darko at the Red Vic in the Haight.

Tsunami, Relief, First-Hand Accounts

WorldChanging.org has been covering the earthquake off the coast of Indonesia, and the resulting tsunamis that have killed over 100,000 people and caused immense damage. They've even started a fund, in conjunction with Habitat for Humanity, to help victims of the disaster. Have a little extra cash this holiday season? Consider donating some.
Meanwhile, Evelyn Rodriguez, a Bay Area blogger, was caught in the tsumani; she's alive but injured and lost pretty much everything she was traveling with. She hasn't posted fully on what happened to her, but read what she's got so far. (Several blog entries after the linked one deal with the tsunami and the aftermath.)
Ogrish.com has some videos and photos of tsunami victims/waves/etc. Wizbang has videos too. (Recently, whenever I've flown on planes with my digital camera, I've made sure it was within arm's reach so I could video my last few 22 minutes 25 seconds of life if something bad happened. Seriously.)
Worth reading: a Daily Kos post regarding the tsunami, and Bush's slow response; and Juan Cole's post on the inadequacy of the eventual response:

"...US President George W. Bush has missed an important opportunity to reach out to the Muslims of Indonesia. The Bush administration at first pledged a paltry $15 million, a mysteriously chintzy response to what was obviously an enormous calamity. Bush himself remained on vacation, and now has reluctantly agreed to a meeting of the National Security Council by video conference... a gesture to Aceh from the US at this moment might have meant a lot in US-Muslim public relations."

Thursday, December 30 2004

Contest the Vote

According to this Daily Kos diary, Representative John Conyers, who's been holding hearings about voting problems in Ohio, "will object to the counting of the Ohio Electors from the 2004 Presidential election when Congress convenes to ratify those votes on January 6th." His contention: due to actions by Republican politicians in Ohio, as well as unelected Republican operatives, Ohio's electors were not "legally certified."
The Free Press has two articles summarizing the non-recount of Ohio's votes (presided over by Kenneth Blackwell, Bush-Cheney's Ohio co-chair), and some of the irregularities seen in Ohio. If you're concerned about vote suppression, you can sign a petition to encourage Congressmembers to contest the vote.

Tuesday, December 28 2004

MP3 Downloads

Strictly legal (or so it seems): MP3 4U. Community members find MP3s on artists' (or other) sites, and post a little review and link. Seems to add up to a few songs a day.
Generally amateur remixes/mashups - BoomSelection.

Sin City Trailer

The Sin City trailer is up at Apple's movie trailers site. Looks pretty good, same style/feel as the comic books; good cast (Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Brittany Murphy, etc.) too. Went to eBay to see if maybe I could profit off the early Sin City comic books I've still got lying around, but the prices people are bidding aren't quite stellar...

Thursday, December 23 2004

FreeBSD Foundation Seeks Donations

The FreeBSD Foundation supports the development of FreeBSD, a free operating system that runs many Internet sites (including this one, and yahoo.com). Due to various regulations, they're hoping to raise $30,400 in small donations by December 31st. If they don't manage it, their ability to support FreeBSD development may be compromised.
If you run FreeBSD, consider making a donation (or if your company does, get them to make a small donation). They're the "November 2004" charity of the month.
Don't use FreeBSD? Give something to the Free Software Foundation. Their work has done more to build an inexpensive, free-as-in-freedom Internet infrastructure than just about anybody's.

Union of Concerned Scientists

"October 2004" donation of the month: the Union of Concerned Scientists. This group of scientists and concerned citizens tries to inject a little scientific sanity into politically-sensitive debates:

"UCS is an independent nonprofit alliance of more than 100,000 concerned citizens and scientists. We augment rigorous scientific analysis with innovative thinking and committed citizen advocacy to build a cleaner, healthier environment and a safer world."

Reagan/Webb/Contras/Crack/Dead

Gary Webb, whose series of articles in the San Jose Mercury News in 1996 exposed drug-running operations by U.S.-backed Contras and the CIA's shielding the Contras from investigation, has died:

"Whatever the details of Webb’s death, American history owes him a huge debt. Though denigrated by much of the national news media, Webb’s contra-cocaine series prompted internal investigations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department, probes that confirmed that scores of contra units and contra-connected individuals were implicated in the drug trade. The probes also showed that the Reagan-Bush administration frustrated investigations into those crimes for geopolitical reasons."

Friday, December 17 2004

Election Problems in Ohio (and elsewhere)

People for the American Way (PFAW) says millions of Americans were denied their voting rights in the 2004 election. Members of Daily Kos are tracking irregularities in Ohio. Congressional Representatives are holding hearings on voter disenfranchisement, and voting fraud, in Ohio. Lisa Rein has a whole category dedicated to election shenanigans, and a video archive of Keith Olbermann's reporting on the issues.

Seymour Hersh. My Lai and Au Ghraib

A pre-election interview with Seymour Hersh, the journalist whose articles on the My Lai massacre shocked the U.S. in 1969, and whose articles on the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib shocked the U.S. this year:

"The interesting thing to me with this war is that the American public – left, right, and center – is not mad at the soldiers as they were in Vietnam. In this war, there seems to be an understanding that these Army reservists and National Guard members are as much victims as the people they have to kill and shoot and maim."

Thursday, December 16 2004

Human Target (Video)

Guy lets his buddies shoot a bunch of bottle rockets at him. Really dumb. Don't watch. Just move along.

Tuesday, December 14 2004

Make-a-Flake

Nice holiday flash app - Make-a-Flake lets you cut a piece of paper into your very own snowflake, and save your design, too.
(Of course, we all know that there are a lot of snowflakes that look alike, right?)

Friday, December 10 2004

To Do in San Francisco This Weekend

Friday night: Dhamaal Artist Collective and Cheb I Sabbah at 1015 Folsom ($10 guestlist or $20 at door) or Opel, Spundae, and Fatsouls do a benefit for NextAid (an org that helps African children orphaned by AIDS) at Mighty. $10.
Saturday: KPFA Crafts Fair at 8th and Brannan ($8), book and release party at Edinburgh Castle, or True Skool and others with a "hip-hop cultural shopping party" at Club Six.
Sunday: Naughty Santa's Black Market, $6, SOMARTS Gallery.

DNC Chairman Elections - Who Will Lead?

Early next year, the Democratic National Committee will choose a new chairman - someone to lead the Democratic Party for the next few years. Current chairman Terry McAuliffe is leaving after heading the party since 2001. MoveOn.org has weighed in, and wants you to sign their petition to the DNC members to reject "business-as-usual" and elect a new chair who "will declare independence from special interest politics and reconnect the Democratic Party with all of us outside of Washington, DC." Got an opinion? You can mail your local DNC member; the folks trying to get Howard Dean elected chair have a list of DNC members, and you can also get a list here. (The two lists almost match up.)
Daily Kos is covering the jockeying for position. Howard Dean is the Daily Kos favorite; a look at Dean's recent speech on where the Democratic Party needs to go shows you why. As was the case in the primary campaign for president, he's forceful, plain-spoken, and not going to pretend to support bad Republican policies. If you care about the policies and public face of the Democratic Party over the next 4 years - write a letter.
[UPDATE: Arianna Huffington's column on "the Great Democratic Party Identity Crisis of 2005" and her blog entry, with reader comments. And the Democratic Party wants feedback on this past election, and where the party should go.]

Thursday, December 9 2004

Comic Book Speculator's History

An ex-comic book retailer spills the beans on the rise and fall of the comic book market in the 1990s - the price-fixing, the hype, the speculation, the terrible artists striking it rich, the honest retailers losing their shirts. Reads a bit like the Internet bubble, or any speculative bubble - it's only a good market until people realize the inherent value of the goods doesn't match the money invested...

Best Boardgame Gifts, 2004

At The Morning News: the 2004 Good Gifts Game Guide. Includes Ticket to Ride, Cranium Hoopla, and a few others.
Personally, I'm partial to Why Did the Chicken? It's a fun little party game, 4-8 players, where in each round, you pull 1 random question (like "What happens when you cross ____ with ____?") and 2 random nouns (like "a woodpecker" and "a pirate") from the deck, and players compete to see who can come up with the most interesting answer to the resulting question. ("What happens when you cross a woodpecker with a pirate?" "Sinking ship and dead woodpecker.")
But I'm biased, as I know the people who published Why Did the Chicken?

Wednesday, December 8 2004

Torture Much?

When talking to the press, George Bush's administration claims that we as a country do not condone torture; but as the ACLU says in an action alert:

"He [Alberto Gonzales, attorney general nominee] wrote a memo denigrating the Geneva Conventions, and ordered and reviewed legal memoranda that stated that some of the laws against torture did not apply in Afghanistan -- and that many horrific interrogation techniques did not constitute 'torture.' These memos triggered dangerous changes in the treatment of prisoners by military interrogators."

"... what stands out about this administration is not the willingness to sacrifice certain civil liberties safeguards in the face of demonstrable necessity, but the eagerness and almost delight in doing so... the most basic, test of whether strong measures are compatible with a free society is whether the government is willing to be open with the public about what it is doing in their name. By every measure, this administration is not."

Tuesday, December 7 2004

Care Not Cash: Update

The San Francisco Chronicle is running a series of articles on the progress San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom has made in fighting homelessness.
The verdict so far? Hundreds of homeless are getting off the streets and into supportive housing; but most are the "functional" homeless, people who already had a decent chance of making it back into mainstream society, rather than the long-term homeless - those whose problems are so severe (due to mental instability, drug problems, etc.) that success for them is a much iffier proposition.
I still see homeless folks in the city every day, but still, Care Not Cash seems to be helping alleviate things.

FAIR, New York Times, and Casualties in Fallujah

Speaking of people dying in Iraq: FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) issued an action alert regarding the New York Times' coverage of civilian deaths during the U.S. attack on Fallujah. The issue: the New York Times was reporting that it was unconfirmed that civilian casualties in the city were "unconfirmed," despite reports to the contrary from a variety of trustworthy sources on the ground in Iraq.
The New York Times "public editor" Daniel Okrent responded to criticism and admitted that the paper's coverage was wanting; but FAIR doesn't think the admission goes far enough.

Achewood. Best Comic Strip Online.

Achewood is a great little comic strip put out by Chris Onstad. Quirky (mostly male, not that cute) cats deal with piss shiver (Zyrelax???), group therapy, robot dogs, relationship issues, accidentally shooting each other, and more. Try it out.

Monday, December 6 2004

People Are Still Dying in Iraq. Lots of 'em.

Some Americans, a helluva lot of Iraqi "insurgents" and civilians, and of course coalition fighters and workers from other countries. 1260 dead U.S. soldiers according to the Washington Post's Faces of the Fallen feature (which includes pictures, and names, of our soldiers.) Over 100,000 Iraqi civilians ("The troubling thing about these results is that they suggest that the US may soon catch up with Saddam Hussein in the number of civilians killed.") according to British medical journal The Lancet ("... we think that about 100000 excess deaths, or more have happened since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Violence accounted for most of the excess deaths and air strikes from coalition forces accounted for most violent deaths...") (Response to the U.K. government's dismissal of the Lancet study.)
Want to see what's going on in Fallujah, the city bearing the brunt of combat in Iraq right now? Pictures of dead, wounded, and mourning U.S. soldiers and Iraqis (fighters and civilians) at Fallujah in Pictures.

San Francisco DJ Dream Team

Live in San Francisco? Got an opinion on who are the city's top DJs? Vote in NiteVibe.com's DJ Dream Team poll. Deadline: December 17th.
My picks: 4 of the 5 Brass Tax crew (I won't say which), and Adam Ohana.

BzzAgent: Word-of-Mouth Marketing

BzzAgent is one of many companies that recruits agents - average Americans from any walk of life, often unpaid - to tout products through word-of-mouth campaigns:

"Finally, while BzzAgent tells its volunteers that they are under no obligation to hide their association with the company and its campaigns, the reality is that most of them do hide it most of the time. They don't tell the people they are 'bzzing,' that they really found out about the sausage, or the perfume, or the shoes, or the book, from some company in Boston that charges six-figure fees to corporations. 'It just seems more natural, when I talk about something, if people don't think I'm trying to push a product,' Karen Bollaert explained to me. Other agents said the same. Gabriella, for instance, insisted that she really does think Al Fresco makes the best sausage around. Basically, they trust BzzAgent, and they trust themselves, so they don't see a problem."

Sunday, December 5 2004

Un-Reality TV

Joel Stein, writing for the LA Times, reveals that so-called "reality" shows are actually scripted - writers come up with storylines and scripts for the stars, whether celebrities or stars, to follow:

"So the women [Hilton and Ritchie] go to a bar to score some condoms. The producers had pre-interviewed a guy in a baseball cap who would agree to take them to his apartment to give them some rubbers. But the ever-confused Hilton and Ritchie went up to the wrong guy, who, not surprisingly, happily agreed to take them to his place.
The producers, however, yelled, 'Cut,' confusing everyone in the bar, who thought they were at a reality show taping."

"At times I would try to say things that might lead to what I really felt about the daters but I was asked to change what I said. Each time I tried to veer from the program they claimed it was not exciting enough. 'You're the Fifth Wheel; you’re supposed to be wild. Come on, have fun with this.'"

Friday, December 3 2004

Buy Nothing Day (Already Gone)

From the people who brought you TV Turn-Off Week: it's Buy Nothing Day - the day after Thanksgiving, people across the world pledge to buy nothing, and in some cases go to their local malls to protest the culture of consumerism (we used to call it "keeping up with the Joneses") that surrounds the Hannukah/Christmas/Kwanzaa/Winter holidays. (Some even get arrested for their efforts.) If you missed it this year, just keep it in mind for next. But check the video of Kalle Lasn on CNN discussing BND.
Why the day after Thanksgiving? Because it's Black Friday: "... when retailers went from being unprofitable, or 'in the red,' to being profitable, or 'in the black'."
(I have to admit I bought a digital camera on BND, but just because I lost my old one on my plane flight and needed a new one quick...)

Orgasms

Salon.com interview with Jonathan Margolis, author of O: An Intimate History of the Orgasm. He argues that sex's effects on individuals, groups, and societies are wildly underappreciated; and sex and orgasms are terribly misunderstood.

"When you look at the history of human orgasm, so much has been explained by sexual jealousy, sexual passion. We have an entire dynasty over here in England, not just the royal family but the whole political-religious system, that changed because Henry VIII wasn't satisfied with the sex he was getting with his first wife. More than 50 percent of the people in Western, urban cultures divorce at some stage, and you don't have to be a marriage counselor to know that practically all the problems stem from sex. Sex is the battleground on which marriages are fought."

Thursday, December 2 2004

Most Influential Modern Art

Via Metafilter: the 10 most influential pieces of modern art. Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (a toilet hung on a wall) was chosen as number one: influence, not quality, was the criterion.

About this site

This is the personal web site for Edward (Ed) Piou. Consisting mainly of a blog (operational since 1999) and various photos.

Some online projects I'm working on

Politics

Charity, Non-profits...

A while ago, I decided to put my money where my mind is on a (roughly) monthly basis and give to:

Photos

Public events documented through pictures...