K'Naan's post-concert ordeal in Sweden (w/a Lupe instrumental)

K'Naan - Kicked Pushed

Re-post of the re-do of a Facebook mutation of a 2003 "BBC's Big List of Books They Think People Haven't Read"

I first saw it on Facebook, courtesy of Jennifer Hoffman. But, I now am wiser and that know this is merely a reconstituted meme (thanks to The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent. ).

I like to think of it as the next "25 Things" or "The three English words that end in -gry" riddle . Here's how it was presented to me:

The BBC's Big List of Books They Think People Haven't Read

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
Copy this, then open "write a note". Copy it in.
Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.

Tally your total read at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen  (X)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (X)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (X)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X)
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte  (X)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (X)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (X)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott 
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (X)
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (X)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (X)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell 
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (X)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy 
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams 
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh 
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame 
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen 
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini 
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne 
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (X)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown 
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving 
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (X)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding 
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan 
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel 
52 Dune - Frank Herbert (X)
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (X)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (started it 2 nites ago)
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold 
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas 
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens 
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker 
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett 
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome 
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (X)
80 Possession - AS Byatt (X)
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (X)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro 
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (X) 
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White 
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (X)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (X)
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams 
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole (X)
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (X)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl 
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo 

Methinks my tally is 25.5.

attempting to login: blip.fm

strangeness galore...first, a brief flash-y on-screen progress indicator with the blip.fm color scheme, followed by this quasi-DOS visual assault:

Happened twice.

books - where what & how

Funny that today I should find Luc Sante's "The Book Collection That Devoured My Life" having just started a book purchased long ago but unpacked only last week - Nicholas Basbanes' A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles, Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books. What do we do with all those books...a questions not fully fathomed until you've moved into your beloved's family home (a row house in DC - see photo) and discover it already full of three generations of stuff belonging to those who've moved on (to wherever comes next or my by moving beyond the District) - all including the deceased continue to receive mail. There are elegant solutions even if not do-able at the moment because of repairs needed/lack of space/et cetera. It is still fun to visualize. I already had some 300 books by the time I was a sophomore in college. And I'm the interloper here surrounded by things not mine to toss. So while not a collector in the obessessed-possessed way, I do love my books. And have missed them much since some have been boxed for years now. Now back to trying to find places to put them when there's no room...

Cities reflect its creators/developers...?

Cities do not change over the centuries. They represent the aspirations of particular men and women to lead a common life; as a result their atmosphere, their tone, remain the same. Those people whose relations are founded principally upon commerce and upon the ferocious claims of domestic privacy will construct a city as dark and as ugly as London was. And is. Those people who wish to lead agreeable lives, and in constant intercourse with one another, will build a city as beautiful and as elegant as Paris.
   + Peter Ackroyd, in Dickens

Science (+ Math) vs. News: Who trumps whom?

Topic: phthalate plasticisers.

In the domain of things we wished didn't happen...aka, when bad things happen to good points of view. OK, that's a bit over the top. How about -- "There is no such thing as objectivity?"

Regardless of the frame, over at the thestatsblog some poignant issues are being raised as to the merits of phthalate bans and PBS's failure to cover both sides of the matter.

Black Rabbi in Chicago crossing boundaries

A-A authors who converted to Judaism:

• Julius Lester
• Carolivia Herron

This NY Times article "Black Rabbi Reaches Out to Mainstream of His Faith" reminded me of my youthful days of reading Chaim Potok whose Hasidic depictions enraptured me.

I grew up Southern Baptist and consented to being baptised, late as a teenager, merely to please my mother who wanted to have a place to bury me if I were to die. For seven years I attended a single-sex Episcopal school where I attended chapel daily. I went off to college where I probably claimed to be agnostic. Then, I stopped affiliating. When I had a commitment ceremony, it was in a Unitarian Church. And, matters of faith still intrigue me. I like ritual; perhaps that is some of the appeal.

Colt .45 in comics: sippin' and chillin'

I rarely drink alcohol since personally it's not as yummy as orange soda or an IBC Root Beer. And, I have absolutely no idea what Colt .45 tastes like since I never ran in those circles. But, being an overly educated brown-skinned person who's only lived in urban areas, I know what it signifies to me:

• a cheap high
• more bang for your buck

packed in a whopping 40 ounces. So it's amusing to read at MSNBC's Ads of the Weird about the effort to upscale the thin swill with a big kick.

So I got curious about the actualities of the demon brew.

Would you have imagined that malt liquor has been the subject of a PhD dissertation? I kid you not (and, the first twenty-five pages are allegedly available for free):

Brown Taylor, Didra. 2000. Knowledge, Attitudes, and Malt Liquor Beer Drinking Behavior Among African American Men in South Central Los Angeles. Thesis (Ph. D)--California School of Professional Psychology, 2000a.

In the wings, there are more scholars waiting. [What did we do before we had the web?] See what further unblinking can unearth. Now, go forth, read and become more truly aware with "A Story without Heroes: The Cautionary Tale of Malt Liquor".

Nike celebrates a century of Converse shoes

In college I was the proud owner of a pair of black leather "Chucks" -- and, I just realized that actually everyone in the family has a pair. So if you don't need to quibble over the actual birth day and the cheap marketing ploy, you can probably enjoy the photos @ Boston.com.

Inhabitat » VIDEO: Grow a Treehouse

Just another nifty notion from people with way more time and brains than I in this "Grow a Treehouse with Terreform" video on Inhabitat.

Why I'm Thinking Obama Can

If it was just about who I want, I'd vote for Hilary in a heartbeat even as I am cognizant of what happened the last time Bill got bored in the White House -- think back to 1995 & re-think Monica Lewisky as a presidential distraction because he had time on his hands because of Congress' government shutdown.

But if the question is who I think can win, then I'm another vote now squarely behind Obama. (Especially, now that Romney has dropped out and I think Obama v. McCain is a more winnable battle.)

Folks (both, in print and in person) have convinced me that there is substance behind Obama's "Can't we just all get along" affect. So I gladly hear the history, and the uplift, of the moment arriving in this song -- masterfully choreographed by will.i.am:

Now, if someone can just keep Nader from spoiling the party again!

Classroom Incident Sparks First Amendment Debate - News Story - WISC Madison

Of course, this wanna-be librarian thinks tearing up a book is sacrilege but would I feel threatened by someone ripping pages out of the Bible? Doubtful unless maybe if it had some significant historical import...and I knew that was why said person was desecrating the book. Then, I would consider the act one of terrorism -- to use a much overused word. And that would be equally true for historic books I know to considered sacred or valued by others even if I don't follow or know the belief system.

Listenin to...

remixes uploaded and created by Dez

When USB accidents happen

The Risks Digest offers up a scary tale of what your cell phone may be doing to your laptop when you're not looking. Caveat emptor!

Do you buy meat thinking it's been carbon monoxided?

Regardless, you may want to read ABC News: Hill Debates 'Carbon Monoxide Meat' where you can learn that CO makes meat and fish look fresh indefinitely.

The FDA's David Acheson, who along with other FDA and USDA officials sat at a table covered with various samples of year-old meat that still appears fresh, and said that 'this particular issue is not a safety concern even remotely high on our radar screen.' He added that he believes that most people are aware that meat is packaged with carbon monoxide...

It just makes me wonder what exactly would make this a bad idea to officials; I can only guess their thinking...since it don't kill it's okay for corporations to add whatever they deem necessary to the food web.

20071117 info UPDATE: Even after reading about the scientific merits of the minute levels of CO exposure, I still think it's a slippery slope ... because of unanticipated consequences and strange coincidences. I still want greater assurances ... with regard to actual habits of those increasing numbers at the margins -- on the street, or unsupervised -- along with the unknown animals being fed whatever from who knows where ... ! I understand the need to save the many over the imagined or projected unknowns but recollections of efforts to track down mad cow disease makes me pause and ask do we really ever know what monsters we're creating.

"If you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security"

Fav infosec guru Bruce Schneier clarifies what's important -- and ignored in by most current government attempts to makes "US" safe in Schneier on Security: The War on the Unexpected, which originally appeard in Wired.com.

"the Chemistry Set is toast"

The 12 Angry Men Blog's recalls my own youth with two chemistry sets in its take on the "Endangered Species - The Chemistry Set.."

Is saying you got kiddie porn the same as actually having it?

What a slippery slope the porn plane becomes if the Supreme Court agrees with Slate Magazine's characterization of the legal merits when the Solicitor General Paul

...Clement says that to be liable under the PROTECT Act, you need not be selling or advertising the porn. It's enough to say you have it.

A sad day indeed. Oral arguments were yesterday.

DNA Pioneer, Suspended Over Racial Comments

The Wall Street Journal's Health Blog brings us old news from the UK where the October 14, 2007 The Sunday Times Magazine displayed more than we wish to know about how Doc Watson thinks.

But, a few days later he goes on to assure us, he didn't really mean what his words said:

To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologise unreservedly,” he said. That is not what I meant. More importantly, there is no scientific basis for such a belief.

Early onset... Or, perhaps, he needs a better keeper.

Street Mathematics vs School Mathematics

I love what I know of the mathematician Keith Devlin -- aka The Math Guy on NPR's Weekend Edition -- who is a researcher at as well as the executive director of Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. Here are two good reasons for my adoration:

1. His October 2007 "Devlin's Angle" at MAA Online wherein he adds fuel to my qualms about school math in

   Kinds of Math

2. Mathematics, the Science of Patterns The Search for Order in Life, Mind, and the Universe. New York: Henry Holt, 2003.

By the way, yesterday I finally saw Danica McKellar's Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail which I only wish also came out with a boy-cover....maybe I'll design one to print up so I can try using it w/J. Check out a review at MAA Online.