Cyrus Farivar

Then you’d be living in Pitcairn Island, one of my favorite geographical oddities. This island, population 46, currently has seven of its men undergoing a total of nearly 100 counts of sexual abuse, including the mayor. These charges stem from 1999, when a British policewoman visiting the island was told of abuses by a local Pitcairn girl. The residents of the island are descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty and the local Polynesian population in 1790. I love…

So it completely slipped my mind. If you want me to send you a postcard from lovely NYC, drop me an email (not comments) with your address.

Today we hit up the courts in downtown Manhattan. It was the opening of the murder trial of NY rapper Freaky Zeeky who was injured in a gun battle in May 2003 that left him injured and his bodyguard dead allegedly at the hands of Chauncey Dillon, 29. Our whole RW1 class went down into the courtroom and watched from the very beginning as they went through the jury selection process and everything. Wow, that’s amazingly boring. They have about…

Well, technically it was the comedian Darrell Hammond, he of “Saturday Night Live” fame, a man whose imitation of the former president is so dead-on it is difficult to separate the two in your mind. Mr. Hammond, who had dropped in unannounced with a Yankees cap on his head, took the stage and promptly started a pretty good imitation of the current president and his use of the word terror. “I like the way he says it: `Tear-ah!’ ” Mr.…

Eight female Muslim students were the victims of a hate crime Thursday night when three males threw water on them and screamed derogatory statements, police said. The UC Berkeley students were stargazing from the Vista Parking Lot at the Lawrence Hall of Science when they were confronted by three white males in a black car about 10:30 p.m., said UC police Capt. Patrick Carroll. The males sprayed the victims with water and threw water bottles at them before driving off,…

I hope that all who are observing Yom Kippur have an easy fast this weekend. And particularly to Shawn Green, who has found a way to balance his heritage with his duties as a baseball player. And for this weekend, for those who care — GO BLUE! He is someone who does not practice his faith but wants to honor it nonetheless. He is someone who does not consider baseball more important than life, but who does not want to…

For all you folks still in the Berkeley/San Francisco area, if you’re interested, go check out my friend Katie Saxon’s singing trio from the University of Oregon who will be performing in Berkeley this Saturday: “Real Gothic Death Metal: Secular Songs of the 14th Century.” 7:30pm, September 25th at the Dzogchen Community West 2748 Adeline Street, Suite D, Berkeley, CA 94703 $10 at the door, $5 students and seniors www.sospiro.org

“Macs are the shit,” Ledy said. “They’re the easiest to use and Apple’s interface is just so slick. [By comparison] XP looks like Fisher-Price.” “First iPods, Now Computers: Apples Are In” By Owen Hearey Columbia Daily Spectator September 22, 2004

From Boing Boing: WASHINGTON (AP) — A London-to-Washington flight was diverted to Maine on Tuesday when it was discovered passenger Yusuf Islam – formerly known as singer Cat Stevens – was on a government watch list and barred from entering the country, federal officials said. United Airlines Flight 919 was en route to Dulles International Airport when the match was made between a passenger and a name on the watch list, said Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the Transportation Security…

Somehow, Sacha Baron Cohen, in the guise of a British would-be gangsta with a penchant for malapropisms and misunderstandings, managed to secure another passel of interviews with people like former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman (who conceded that, yes, whale feces “have got to be massive”) and archconservative Patrick Buchanan (who said that Saddam Hussein “was using BLTs on the Kurds”). In one episode, Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of the CIA, found himself debating whether terrorists could drive…