My daughter, Katie, has a way of getting her son Mike to come to her. He is just over 2 so it might not work for an 18 year old. It might, though. She reaches out holding something he wants and, as he reaches for it, she pulls it away from him and towards herself, keeping it just our of his reach. He moves closer to her to get at what she is holding and she pulls it back towards herself until Mike is in reach.

I've been working on a project like that. Only I'm Mike. I keep thinking I'm almost finished and then, somehow, I'm not quite there. I swear that it's almost done. Maybe tomorrow.

I did finish a facelift of a site for Ace Leather Goods. The have great leather products that they make. Soft leather and tooled leather. Really good stuff. Check it out and, if you buy anything, let them know Gordy sent you.

George Harrison

Craig, at BookNotes has an excellent set of George Harrison links. I want to say something but how do you say something about losing someone like George?

WFUV

My LOML, Zoe, does Christine Lavin's web site. Pete Fornatale does a program at WFUV, public radio from Fordham University in New York City. What is the connection, you might ask? Pete had asked Christine, who also lives in New York City, for some funny music for his Saturday show Mixed Bag with Pete Fornatale to be aired today (it's after midnight so it's Saturday but it really is still Friday for me.) Christine is swamped and asked Zoe to put something together for Pete. Zoe burned a CD's worth of funny songs for Pete. Some are local NW artists, others are gems that she has come across from outside the NW. Even a couple of Christine songs, of course. He sent Zoe a big thank you for the CD. His show is on between 5pm and 8pm (eastern standard time). WFUV is streamed so you can hear it via Windows Media Player. We will be listening to hear if he plays some of the songs she sent.

Music Industry Notes

How the music industry blew it

John Alderman's new book, "Sonic Boom: Napster, P2P and the Battle for the Future of Music," is a useful correction to this new consensus. Just as it was once necessary to criticize dot-com boosters, it is now important to challenge the Net pessimists. In "Sonic Boom," John Alderman tells the cautionary tale of a rich and powerful industry that was determined not to get it -- and how it suffered the consequences of this mistake. During the late 1990s, while so many others were succumbing to dot-com hype, the music business stubbornly resisted any accommodation with the new technology. Its corporate leaders used all of their lobbying power and legal resources to attack the Net. They had the copyright laws strengthened, blocked software development and closed down Web sites. They even successfully prosecuted Napster -- one of the most popular services on the Net. Yet, despite these triumphs, all their efforts could only delay the inevitable. For while others might comfort themselves that nothing much has changed, the music industry is finally realizing -- much to its horror -- that the Net is transforming everything.
[read more]

Fat Chuck's corrupt CDs

These are the music CDs that either:
1. Prevent you from copying it for personal use or
2. Prevent you from playing on computerized devices (computers, DVD players, game consoles like PlayStation, MP3 players, consumer CD duplicators, high-end stereo equipment and car CD players).
3. In the United States, Canada and the UK, these CDs are not marked as "copy-protected" on the outside. Once you buy it, you cannot return it for your money back, you can only exchange it and hope.
[read more]

thanks to MetaFilter

the problem with music

Whenever I talk to a band who are about to sign with a major label, I always end up thinking of them in a particular context. I imagine a trench, about four feet wide and five feet deep, maybe sixty yards long, filled with runny, decaying shit. I imagine these people, some of them good friends, some of them barely acquaintances, at one end of this trench. I also imagine a faceless industry lackey at the other end, holding a fountain pen and a contract waiting to be signed.

Nobody can see what's printed on the contract. It's too far away, and besides, the shit stench is making everybody's eyes water. The lackey shouts to everybody that the first one to swim the trench gets to sign the contract. Everybody dives in the trench and they struggle furiously to get to the other end. Two people arrive simultaneously and begin wrestling furiously, clawing each other and dunking each other under the shit. Eventually, one of them capitulates, and there's only one contestant left. He reaches for the pen, but the Lackey says, "Actually, I think you need a little more development. Swim it again, please. Backstroke."

And he does, of course.
[read more]

thanks to MetaFilter

Beaver Reaport - Day 8

There seemed to be some fresh chips around the base of the tree but it didn't look like he did much, if anything. Maybe he's saving his strenght for a final burst. Maybe not.

Presidential Elections

HISTORY, SLAVERY, SEXISM, THE SOUTH, AND THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE:
Part One Of A Three-part Series On The 2000 Election And The Electoral College

On the first anniversary of the very odd election of 2000, it's hard to look back without fixating on Florida and the courts. But these absorbing soap operas should not obscure the other historical headline: the national popular vote loser nonetheless won the electoral college vote.

Is this a flaw in our Constitution? Should we scrap the electoral college in favor of direct popular vote? Practically speaking, can we do so?

Our analysis proceeds in three parts. Today, we will critique standard historical accounts of, and justifications for, the electoral college. In our next column, we will consider prominent modern arguments on behalf of the current system. In our final column, we shall show how Americans could adopt popular election without amending the Constitution.
[read more]

thanks to wood s lot

War

US patrols off Somali coast point to expansion of campaign

The prospect of the American-led coalition expanding its "war against terrorism" beyond Afghanistan increased yesterday with reports of US warships patrolling off Somalia.
[read more]

Asscroft

Ashcroft Seeking to Free F.B.I. to Spy on Groups

Attorney General John Ashcroft is considering a plan to relax restrictions on the F.B.I.'s spying on religious and political organizations in the United States, senior government officials said today.

The proposal would loosen one of the most fundamental restrictions on the conduct of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and would be another step by the Bush administration to modify civil-liberties protections as a means of defending the country against terrorists, the senior officials said.

The attorney general's surveillance guidelines were imposed on the F.B.I. in the 1970's after the death of J. Edgar Hoover and the disclosures that the F.B.I. had run a widespread domestic surveillance program, called Cointelpro, to monitor antiwar militants, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Panthers and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among others, while Mr. Hoover was director.
[read more]

C-SPAN and Afghan women

Last night Zoe called to tell me about George. She had been watching a program when the news scrolled across the bottom of the screen. The program was a Senate hearing being broadcast on C-SPAN. Hillary Clinton was leading the hearing, titled Discussion on the Future of Afghan Women. Hillary and some other women Senators were asking questions of a group of Afghan women. Zoe was pretty excited about the show and asked me to look it up on the web to see if they had a list of the women.

I went to C-SPAN.org and found that the entire show was there in RealVideo. All 90 minutes of it. It sure helps to have DSL. Excellent comments.

It also seems that much of what C-SPAN broadcasts is archived. You can listen to and see their live broadcasts via streaming video and audio. An incredible resource.