derivative work

Eliot Spitzer could help us all, right now, by not resigning. It would do a huge favor to the ordinary non-politician people who have to live in America to resist the stupidity of letting the personal sex lives of our politicians affect our government. He could show a little “leadership” to his peer politicians in [...]

Intellectual property pops up in the strangest places. Browsing The Baby Name Wizard by Laura Wattenberg, for instance, I found this discourse on “stealing” baby names: Not long ago, I heard an expectant mother beside herself with outrage. She had just learned that another woman in her small town had “stolen” her baby name! No, [...]

Last weekend I was listening to a program on “Testosterone” on “This American Life” (archive) and, predictably, my interest in the topic was equaled or surpassed by my exasperation and annoyance at its handling. “This American Life” is a one-hour show, that aims to do something rather cool: Shed some light on a topic by [...]

PZ Myers has been fulminating about framing a lot lately, mostly in reaction to Chris Mooney & a few others’ ideas that we have to “frame” science and atheism better in order to win people to our cause. I don’t exactly disagree, because I’ve been tired of framing ever since the 2004 post-election dissections cited [...]

David Conniff on “Happy Days” in Times Select (sigh) writes about the human tendency to imitate and synchronize: Mirroring the people around us is also a way we communicate affiliation and affinity. Two people in a friendly conversation often match each other’s body language down to the crossing of their ankles or the waggling of [...]

Ah, a fine Sunday morning reading the paper, and trashing media bias and sloppy reporting at the NYT … This annoying NYT article (11/12) on police witness “sanctuary” policies is a perfect example of how articles can be technically “balanced” but still really suck present an imbalanced picture. The police witness sanctuary policies basically tell [...]

So, tonight I was in a NYC restaurant with a dear friend, when I got a call from an unknown number in Boston. The unknown number turned out to be a library science professor at Simmons College, whom I have never met, and he wanted to know if I’ve lost my wallet. I found this [...]

Fascinating. A pictorial history of an artist’s descent into schizophrenia. Louis Wain, 1860-1939, effects of late onset schizophrenia on cat drawings. Part of a larger piece on schizophrenia. [link from miscellaneous heathen] More info at wikipedia. The early paintings during the onset of Mr. Wain’s schizophrenia reminded me of some of the migraine paintings we [...]

Rosa ‘Lee’ Louise McCauley Parks, Feb. 4, 1913 – Oct. 24, 2005 photo grabbed from marian’s blog

9/1: Between work-stuff and watching Katrina, I’ve been too busy & too sad to post much the last few days. To sum it all up:, a letter from Switzerland (9/3) [via daily kos 9/4]: Watching the events in New Orleans unfold from here in Europe, mostly via BBC World, we have the impression that the [...]

Dept. of Homeland Security [DHS Website via america blog 9/3]: In the event of a terrorist attack, natural disaster or other large-scale emergency, the Department of Homeland Security will assume primary responsibility on March 1st for ensuring that emergency response professionals are prepared for any situation. This will entail providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal response [...]

The NYT profiled a new study that claims that bi-identified men really are either attracted exclusively either to men or women. And another new study is reported in The Scotsman about sex differences in the experience of and tolerance for pain. As a rule I don’t think very highly of research on sex differences; research [...]

The Stonewall Riots began June 27, 1969, at 130 am (or maybe it’s June 28; I can never remember, quite, in part because it’s always confusing to me whether you count 130 am as “the night of” the night before or “the night of” the next morning, if you know what I mean). At any [...]

A couple of blogs [Matthew Yglesias, Volokh Conspiracy 1 and 2] have been running long comment-thread arguments about US women changing their names on marriage. Most comments fall into one of a few categories: Rationalizing / defensive about the decision w/in their marriage for the woman to change her last name to the man’s: “It [...]

The plaintiff and the defendant were in a long-term committed relationship. Early in the morning of September 24, 1994, they were engaged in consensual sexual intercourse. The plaintiff was lying on his back while the defendant was on top of him. The defendant’s body was secured in this position by the interlocking of her legs [...]

So, the NYT reports today about a new service that baby stuff suppliers are offering: Expectant parents, who want to be “surprised” by the sex of their child, but still want the nursery perfectly decorated, can have their decorators & baby store registry folks check with their OBs directly. This way, their friends & family [...]

Old white men meeting to discuss US intelligence “failures” on Iraq weapons — notice the uniformity of dark suits? Ah, but look at the rainbow of ties! Peeking out beneath the boring suits are a springtime explosion of color, patterns — perhaps even delirious textures. These men crave to express their individuality but are bound [...]

good point: it’s 2002, for pity’s sake – don’t you think that “Women have brains” is slightly stale news? xrrf [no rock and roll fun]

someone keeps stealing my letters…: Just Letters i tried to get people to dance with their letters, first by demonstrating (wiggling a letter around flirtatiously) and then by spelling out lets dance … nobody else seemed to pick up on it. or maybe they just weren’t interested? longest lasting words that i placed on the [...]

reuters on ancient iranian women warriors’ tombs [sat 12/4] [via brutal women which i found via whumpdotcom] TEHRAN (Reuters) – These days Iranian women are not even allowed to watch men compete on the football field, but 2,000 years ago they could have been carving the boys to pieces on the battlefield. DNA tests on [...]