Jul 01 2011
Our regular featured content-
These featured articles-
Tonight we will be featuring Translator’s Popular Culture and tomorrow ek hornbeck will launch his coverage of the 2011 Tour de France.
This is an Open Thread
Jul 01 2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
According to a CBS/NYT poll 71% of Republican voters want more choices. That doesn’t say much about the current field of candidates.
Overwhelming dissatisfaction with the direction in which our country seems to be heading, and mediocre approval ratings for President Obama, should provide plenty of opportunity for Republican presidential candidates to find traction.
But a new CBS News/New York Times poll suggests the current field have a long way to go to impress the nation’s conservative-minded voters.
Apparently the Democrats aren’t that enthralled about their current only choice:
And by the way, there were 428,000 new jobless claims filed. Where are the jobs?
Jul 01 2011
Greetings from Bahia Soliman, just north of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. If your Bloguero sent postcards, he would send you one like this:
On the back it would say, in your Bloguero’s miserable chicken scratch, “Having a great time. Weather slightly problematic. No matter.” You could take the postcard and stick it to the door of your refrigerator. A small window into a distant place. Maybe you could feel the heat and humidity and smell the salt on the breeze and hear the clacking of the cocos. Maybe you could feel the warm water of the bay on your face and imagine yourself sitting in clear water up to your neck with the sun on your face. Maybe you could hear the bird calls and the frog choir in the mangrove.
On the zero-to-ten scale of mellowness, what your Bloguero refers to as the “Donovan Mellow Yellow Index,” your Bloguero is hovering at about 7.6. He would be at 8.7 or so if it were not for his friends at Verizon and their shenanigans. Your Bloguero is not telling the tale here, because it is still ongoing. Suffice it to say, that the world record for annoyance while on hold might belong to Verizon. No, it’s not the sound of Kenny G playing in a lavatory somewhere. It’s commercials for handheld devices and is a bumper crop of techno-speak. Like your Bloguero almost cares what kind of processor this thing has and how it will make him into a worldwide badass communications machine. Your Bloguero don’t want to be no machine, gracias. He is trying hard to be a person, the dehumanization of hours on hold with Verizon notwithstanding. A question: is it mandatory that employees of Verizon who answer your Bloguero’s calls have to listen to the advertisements for altead ½ hour per week? It should be. Call the Public Utilities Commission.
A Short Walk With Michel Peissel recounts that explorer’s trek down the coast of Quintana Roo, right through Bahia Soliman, and your Bloguero’s following the same path.
No Warnings explains that although the precursor to what is now called Tropical Storm Arlene ran right over your Bloguero’s house earlier in the week, there was no word of warning from la Autoridad. All is well, nonetheless, but it would be nice not to be the last to know about these events. Not all ignorance is bliss.
A Haiku Pas De Deux marvels at a series of Haiku written in Spanish by Nobel Laureate Octavio Paz and translated into English by Eliot Weinberger. Your Bloguero loves to call to your attention such wonderful work. Aplauso!
A Love Letter is about your Bloguero’s house, that was built in what he calls “Estilo Robinson Crusoe” in the 1990’s. Your Bloguero lives in what has now become a museum of sorts, but he is still fully in love with the house.
The State of the Union recounts your Bloguero’s recent conversation with Manuel Acero, a fictional character, who is making trouble for your Bloguero and apparently trying to seize the means of literary production. The struggle may continues, but your Bloguero is hopeful that a collective agreement will be made. Your Bloguero is not yet wearing the prescribed t-shirt.
Being What They Aren’t worries that distraction has now made boredom virtually extinct. And soon, your Bloguero laments, all of the delicious fruits of boredom may also be gone. The loss of boredome is not a good thing.
This Week In The Dream Antilles is a weekly digest. Sometimes it isn’t actually a digest of essays posted in the past week. Sometimes, like now, it is. Your Bloguero solicits your support. No, not your money. Just leave a comment so that your Bloguero will not feel that he is speaking to himself on the stage of a cavernous, but quite empty concert hall. Your Bloguero does not want to feel like Prof. Irwin Corey. Or, easier, just click the “Encouragement jar” (if there is one).
Jul 01 2011
This chart is only the beginning of the story, and for the tiny fraction of 1% of records that sell (for example) 100,000 full-price copies, the record company will make about $1,000,000 and the average musician will make about $15K.
100,000 copies at $16.98 = $1,698,000.
Record company’s share = 63% = $1,069,740 – $100,000 for recording, promotion, etc = $969,740.
Four musicians share 13% = $220,740 – (28% of $220,740 for management, lawyers, producers) = $158,932
$158,932/4 = $39,733
But then…
The band has to pay back every dime of expenses to the record company!
So that glorious $158,932 turns into $58,932, and when you split it between four musicians, that leaves each of them with…
$14,733.
This is the background of my previous diary about Obama’s plan to lock you off the internet for sharing mp3’s with your friends.
And meanwhile all those shared mp3’s attract more bodies to your favorite band’s crappy little bar venue, where the band gets to keep a relatively whopping 50% of the $5 cover, $2.50 instead of 58¢ from a selling a cd.
Jul 01 2011
Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima
Internal emails seen by Guardian show PR campaign was launched to protect UK nuclear plans after tsunami in Japan
Rob Edwards
guardian.co.uk,British government officials approached nuclear companies to draw up a co-ordinated public relations strategy to play down the Fukushima nuclear accident just two days after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and before the extent of the radiation leak was known.
Internal emails seen by the Guardian show how the business and energy departments worked closely behind the scenes with the multinational companies EDF Energy, Areva and Westinghouse to try to ensure the accident did not derail their plans for a new generation of nuclear stations in the UK.
Jul 01 2011
Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette
People camped out last night outside the FEC headquarters in Washington,DC to get a seat in the hearing room this morning. Why? Because Stephen Colbert would be testifying about his request to form a super PAC to raise campaign money. This morning the FEC approved his request:
Stephen Colbert learned an important lesson Thursday at the Federal Election Commission: Even a gifted comedian can’t make campaign-finance law funny.
In a meeting devoid of anything beyond a gentle chuckle, the FEC decided that Colbert could go ahead with his plans to form a self-titled “super PAC” that could raise and spend unlimited money on the 2012 elections.
snip
The real parody came outside the FEC building, where Colbert began accepting donations from fans for the newly registered “Colbert Super PAC.”
“Some people have said, ‘Is this some kind of joke?’ ” Colbert told the crowd. “I for one don’t think participating in democracy is a joke.”
Colbert continued being coy about the ultimate goal of his new PAC, and whether he would take advantage of a loosened campaign-finance environment to solicit big money from corporations and others. When asked by a reporter when the first ad might run, Colbert said: “I’ve got to get some money first.”
Jul 01 2011
 Muse in the Morning |
Time for a break from poetry…in order to create some art.
| I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
–Abraham Lincoln |
 Blitz 3 |
Jul 01 2011
It was a few days ago when I went to see this.
I was in the D.C. area and since I was recently unemployed I figured “while i’m here” and went to have a look around to see what the climate was like. What I saw was the vision of our job future.
A woman walked out from behind the booth at this one station and screamed “Ok, PhD’s in this line, all others in this line!”
I laughed to myself as I continued to enjoy my sweet potato fries watching this ridiculousness from the sidelines go on. All these well-dressed people, huddled in lines, and then split by order of their degrees.
But behold, the tragic comedy reached a new high (or low?) when an Alpha Plus said to the woman “I have my PhD and some of these people on line only have their Masters, shouldn’t I be in front?”
At that point my laughter had become external and highly audible seeing as everyone was looking at us.
I explained I was a sociologist who was just “enjoying the view”….
Jul 01 2011
If you do not get Current TV you can watch Keith here:
If you can’t watch here Timbuk3 has supplied a link to DU
