January 2008 @ our Wall.

drainshots by enpen

                                                          2008 @ the Wall.

photo by enpen

12 mini-reviews for the short attention span, taken from dark corners of stevenl's video vault:

Men in Black / directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (1997, VHS). Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D'Onofrio, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub, Siobhan Fallon, David Cross. A buddy film that could be called "Dragnet in the Twilight Zone." A very well made comedy action story playing with our urban legends regarding UFOs and government coverups. It feels like a watered down Tim Burton film. Great chemistry with the cast, particularly Jones' poker-faced Jack Webb deliveries combined with Smith's wiseass asides. D'Onofrio appears to have had the greatest acting challenge in this movie, playing a giant insect inside an ill-fitting human skin, and he is hilarious. Gun enthusiasts probably won't appreciate the way they are portrayed through D'Onofrio's character (Alien: "Place projectile weapon on the ground." Edgar: "You can have my gun, when you pry it from my cold dead fingers." Alien: "Your proposal is acceptable.") The special effects are fun, and I was impressed by the expressions given to the various aliens. One unintentional chilling moment: Smith asks Jones about the secrecy and coverups, "Why the big secret? People are smart, they can handle it." Jones replies, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." And in the background shot we see the yet to be destroyed World Trade Center.

Worth reviewing and thinking about today and everyday:

  In 1857 Frederick Douglass said:

"The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. 

Please note this from the end of the AP article:

"It's time to move past describing disparities and work on narrowing them," said Dr. Thomas L. Fisher, an emergency room doctor at the University of Chicago Medical Center who was not involved in the study.

Fisher, who is black, said he is not immune to letting subconscious assumptions inappropriately influence his work as a doctor.

"If anybody argues they have no social biases that sway clinical practice, they have not been thoughtful about the issue or they're not being honest with themselves," he said.

Indeed, if anybody argues that social biases, such as race, don't impact education, medicine, law enforcement and the justice system, they have not been thoughtful about the issue or they're not being honest with themselves.  I think that sums it up.

This article is based on a report/study that is published in the Journal of American Medical Association.  If anybody wants to deconstruct the scientific method of the study that produced the report, I guess it's time to round up 400 prominent scientists to shed some darkness on what otherwise would appear to be quite clear. 

Here is the AP article: 

ER docs give whites narcotics more often

By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 51 minutes ago

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Bringing life to a lifeless computer

Submitted by security_six on Tue, 01/01/2008 - 6:44pm.

After rather foolishly crunching the hard drive on my old computer, I decided to start building a new desktop to go with the comcast internet service I am ordering.  Today I was given a most amusing old doorstop.  A Compaq Presario 1247 with a 400mhz AMD K6-2 3d processor, 4gig hd, and a whopping 32mb of RAM!  I was able to quickly max out the RAM to 160mb with some old parts I had laying around.  I am currently downloading an older version of Slackware Linux in hopes of getting some real use out of this dinosaur.  Yeah I'm bored, but since my Linksys wireless G USB wifi device installed I figured I may as well d something with it. Maybe I can give it to someone who needs a typewriter/email machine when I am finished. 

Was inspired to install Slackware after reading this page.   

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12/31/2007 (goodbye 2007)

Submitted by enpen on Tue, 01/01/2008 - 2:08pm.

• art
• capitol theater
• capitol theater free wall
• free wall

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photo by enpen
mouseout photo by enpen

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mouseout photo by enpen

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How about we start the New Year by collecting money to fix the tracker?

Submitted by Mike on Tue, 01/01/2008 - 11:33am.

Anybody up for that? I will hit the donation bucket later today for some programmer time and to pay for a little bandwidth.

Anybody else want to commit a few bucks?

I dare you.

400 prominent bloggers have come out with a study that shows websites work better if the donations keep pouring in.

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Journalism, Archives, and Catalytic Converters

Submitted by Mike on Tue, 01/01/2008 - 11:15am.

Now that JT has posted about the collective wisdom of the 400 prominent scientists who have voiced profound (I think that means Exxon grant-funded) reservations about the science that indicates man's activity, the burning of fossil fuels, is the primary cause of global funding, I went to search for Olycop's earlier tome that the primary cause of global warming were the kooky environmentalists who forced patriotic americans to put up with communist-inspired catalytic converters on our cars, and guess what?  Olycop's collective wisdom is gone. 

One of the features of journalism that I like is the historical chronicle it provides.  It is possible to look back and see what folks thought and said.  Now for better or worse, looking backwards in these historical chronicles can make any of us look a little silly or ill-informed at times, but that is a function of journalism.

The "disappearance" of the chronicles is essentially rewriting history.  It's not a good idea.

For example, upon hearing of Bhutto's asssassination in Pakistan, republican candidate for POTUS Huckabee figured we better strengthen and secure our border with Mexico to stop the influx of illegal Pakistani immigrants that he apparently thought would be streaming north in to the US due to the Pakistani crisis.   

My guess is that Monsieur Huckabee would like to "clean up" the historical record now and have all reference and record to his thought that Pakistanis streaming north across our border with the Mexican evil empire expunged.  But journalism says it is not to be, and rightly so. 

The ability to go back and reference the statements, presentations, and views of public figures over time is an important feature of journalism.  

In that sense, I think it is important that Olyblog, to the extent that it identifies itself as journalism, preserve the historical record.  

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