September 2007

It’s not in today’s New York Times front section of the print edition.  However, I know the Times published an article last night about the Lieberman-Kyls amendment which passed yesterday. I know because I searched high and low last night for some insight into  how the US media was handling this news. 

I’m sure the article simply didn’t make the print deadline for today’ s papers. However, the article is still not a headline in the  online edition either.  Rather it is buried below the  fold as a third item under "World".  Shame on the NYT for not emphasizing this historic event.

The long and short of the amendment enables the US to assert "military instruments" to stop Iran from its nuclear ambitions.

The amendment, notoriously controversial, had two key paragraphs which hope to quell the voices of the strongest opponents. This worked in some cases, in others not so much.

Still, it passed 77-22.  Here’s the details of how our Senators voted.  Let’s hope the 22 raise their oppositional voices even louder now, hopefully with the  backing of others.

Otherwise, this is essentially the type of ambiguous documentation which can be easily read as a declaration of war.

Unbelievable.

more info:
Senate urges Bush to declare Iranian force a Terrorist group  (Haaretz)
BREAKING: Lieberman-Kyls amendment passes (Think Progress)

Happy Birthday Michael!

No longer counting the age,  but the experience (as it were).

We all miss you madly.

xo,

us

—–
If anyone ever missed out on the golden era of comedy/TV or 70s sitcoms– here’s a good starter list, courtesy of some of my old man and father-person’s work, Mike Marmer:

Inventing Late Night: Steve Allen and the Original Tonight Show
The Best of Ernie Kovacs
The Smothers Brothers Show (1965) – to be released
Smothered – The Censorship Struggles of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (2002)
The Carol Burnett Show  – Collector’s Edition Vols 1-5 
Get Smart the Complete Series — Seasons 1-5 DVD Box Set
The Best of the Flip Wilson Show
The Best of Bizarre: The Uncensored, Vol. 1
The Best of Bizarre: The Uncensored, Vol. 2
The Love Boat ( to be released)

last but not least, Lancelot Link Secret Chimp

Last weekend I had the chance to spend a day in meditation practice and listening to a wonderful  Zen priest, named Zoketsu Norman Fischer. Here’s a poem from his book, Slowly but Dearly, published by Chax Press:

ANOTHER PLANET

in tall grasses
we are thinking
of what we are in
sunshine wondering
where we came from
among flowers listening
to sounds of birds, black-
birds trilling lasciviously
extending themselves toward us
beside the pond we are dutifully
imagining what our life will be like
after we are dead and will have no wish to
think or feel or worry about anything anymore
in the sky we fondly speculate about dear loved
ones who are lost far away probably also looking
for us among the tall grasses of our displaced thinking
we who are still thinking  beside the pond as the frogs
croak and the cicadas shriek and the owls strangely (because
it is day) hoot as they never have before under the clouds in the trees whose
branches are knocking together in the breeze among the shade of the trees beside
the creek winding by where the willows are gesturing flagrantly in new bud we
are calculating how we’ll spend our remaining days our lifetime storehouse of
gathered information and music sensation and grief: how strange that in these
               purported places we mimic
a colorful life we’ve never lived worry about a determining death we’ll never die
scheme  out desires we’ll never fulfill sighs we’ll never sigh loves we’ll never love
and dreams too painfully real for our impassioned slumbers

– Zoketsu Norman Fischer

Much like the southern California crowds rushing to Countrywide branches to withdraw their savings, customers are queuing outside Northern Rock in the UK. Northern Rock is the UK’s 5th largest mortgage broker.

In the past few days over

Here’s a clear-cut  BofA phishing attempt to steal my info.

What I find so amusing about this is the Gmail/Gtalk function which allows a user (me) to invite the phisher ("Bank") to chat.

A few comments on the design:

First, if Gmail assumes this is a phisher and displays the alert (in red),  the design should not accommodate the invitation functions.  The message has already been filtered as a high probability of fraud. Why bother with friendly, viral, initiations to fraudsters?

Secondly,  the Invite <user> to chat  function is displayed when an email is sent from another Gmail account.   I’m sure we can safely assume Bank of America will not be sending out messages regarding "Unauthorized Activity" from a free and public email account.

Just a hunch, but I’m guessing a lot of people don’t click on Invite Bank to chat.   If users did click on it,  in this case it would essentially be inviting the  thief of your identity to chat before or during the time your personal data is actually stolen.

On the other hand — kudos to the Gmail team for creating awareness through the design of phishing alerts in the UI.  I hope this makes a  big difference for folks who are not familiar with phishing.  A small step, but headed in the right direction.

Learn about phishing:

Requisite (and beloved) Wikipedia resource
Report phishing activitites
Microsoft on phishing filters
OnGuard Online (FTC source) – Phishing

Cleaning out a laptop bag last night,  I found an envelope of about 10 photos dating back to the early 1960’s. I acquired this set of photos from my uncle at the wake for my grandmother (Nana Dorothy) in April.

I had no idea I was carrying these images with me day in and day out for a little over 4 months. What’s so strange is that this imagery is of my parents. The photo above is a nice shot of them in front of my father’s black Thunderbird, out in LA of course. From the look of it, they were Godard fans from the beginning.

The photo above is dated January, 1964.  During this month a lot was going on all around the  couple, here are a few highlights*:

• January 3

Eytan Fox’s new film, ‘The Bubble’, opened in SF on Friday. The film was released last year in Israel and has already made its way to western Europe and was featured in the 2006 Toronto Film Festival.

Having recently watched "Walk on Water" for the second time  with Joel (for his book), I was looking forward  to seeing ‘The Bubble’ last night. Unlike Joel, I hadn’t read up on the film but I was somewhat aware of the Israeli context for the term "Bubble".

In the words of Eytan Fox:

"The Bubble" is a term used by many Israelis to describe life in the
heart of Tel Aviv. It’s where a large number of all the young people in
Israel arrive after the army to try and have a nice, regular,
twenty-something experience. In order to maintain it, they try to stay
away from politics-as-usual and just concentrate on fun, sex, and plain
old getting by.

The narrative includes four main characters, but is focused on the  relationship between Noam, an Israeli, and his boyfriend, Ashraf, a Palestinian. While the conflicted love story is compelling enough on its own, the relationship also serves as a vehicle for describing multiple themes related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The film is not just "queer cinema", nor can it only be appreciated by Israelis, Jews, or Palestinians. The specificity of location and subject matter couldn’t be more central to the film, yet the larger themes are entirely universal.

The cinematography beautifully expresses the stark contrasts between uber-hip Sheinkin street  in Tel Aviv and the Occupied Territories.  The film also enables the viewer to easily grasp the underlying fantasy of life in a beautiful land without endless wars.

Overall, a breathtaking film. Between ‘The Bubble’ and ‘Walk on Water’, Eytan Fox is clearly becoming a master-storyteller en par with the world’s best.

More:

• ‘The Bubble’ official website
• indieWire Interview: "The Bubble" Director Eytan Fox
• SF Chronicle: Eytan Fox’s ‘The Bubble’: A gay love story in Israel

In recent days I’ve encountered different articles featuring retrospectives of ‘ugly’ and ‘worst’ cars. The articles were not found in the glossy pages of auto-fanatics’ niche magazines like Car and Driver or Motor Trend. Surprisingly, they’re features in more MSM pubs like Business Week and Time.  The native Angeleno in me had to take a closer look.

The first article is Business Week’s "The World’s Ugliest Cars". I didn’t see many traces of objectivity or data-fueled reasoning for such a strong proclamation as the title suggests. Granted people may not dig some of these cars, but isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder? Even if the beauty explodes in a minor fender bender?

Without any substance to dive into, it was easy for me to get a little teary-eyed in response to some of the cars I was looking at.

Take the Pacer (shown above). I remember seeing these around when I was a kid. I didn’t think much about it, but  I do recollect that the Pacer seemed a little bloated, even back then. About  11 years ago, I came across  a Pacer in the Castro and it blew my mind.

This particular Pacer I saw in 1996 was in mint condition, absolutely spotless inside and out as if it were driven right out of a 1978 showroom.. The car was parked on Castro at 18th street, complete with ‘For Sale’ signs. The absolute clincher was the personalized license plate. The California plates were 80’s era with the sun on the horizon.  The plates on this perfectly maintained Pacer read "FAT CAR".  Damn, if I had the cash, I’d a handed it over right there.

The other car striking a chord for me is the Pinto. It seemed like everyone talked about the flawed design of the Pinto in the 70’s. The gas tank exploded when the rear bumper was hit by another car. Chock it up to poor design and an even worse damage to the Ford brand for doing nothing about the problem. That was until 1977 when Mother Jones discovered the Pinto Memo  and exposed Ford’s cost-benefit analysis for fixing the problem.   Apparently, Ford chose to save money over human lives for eight long years.

Time’s special feature "The 50 Worst Cars of All Time" is a much more expansive retrospective of ‘bad cars’, but  the editorial and any true analysis is still lacking. Why is this? And why the new fascination/media attention with inferior cars over the previous decades?

Is it possible these sudden retrospectives of poor car design are
strategically timed for the US slowdown in auto sales? If enough people
are able to compare yesterday’s design flaws with today’s
award-winning accessory-loaded design spectacles, could it incite consumers
to commit to that new car purchase or at least lean in the direction?  Is it so crass of
me to think this way?

When my drivers license expired in July,  I was working in NY. I remember thinking, "When I get back home