Aside

Slate: Even if that were so, why would anybody assume that she is the one to do the face-to-face spinning? Wouldn’t it be better to find someone who—oh, I don’t know—speaks the language, knows the culture, lived there for a while, was maybe born there? Put the shoe on the other foot. Let’s say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans’ image of Islam. It’s doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who…

The Wanderlust Geek is going to Istanbul ! That’s right, folks, you heard it here first. For a week, give or take, toward the end of October, Rebekah and I will head to Istanbul, where we’ll meet up with my buddy from Columbia, Tom Grove. With any luck, I can swing a stopover in Paris to see my family there. 🙂

But I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky. — Bill Bennett, Former Sect. of Education under the Reagan Administration,…

InfoWeek: Q: Will there be an acquisition in the security space? ELLISON: Sure, it’s possible. ARGH! I hate the use of the word “space” in business/technology journalism. It’s so meaningless. What’s wrong with these other possibilities? Will there be a security acquisition? Will there be an acquisition in the security sector? Will there be acquisition in security? I’m reading John Battelle‘s The Search right now and he’s as guilty of it as anyone. I swear, if I hear about it…

SF Weekly (August 31, 2005): I throw out a little heavy metal, meathead philosophy. “When I was little, I didn’t go to church. Metal was my religion!” I explain, throwing my fist in the air. “Metal concerts were my church — except, unlike the other church, I’d drink a 12-pack before attending services!” As the cameras roll, I share my decadent metal days in my former, non-Christian speed-metal band Skull Fuck! “I gave into all of the devil’s temptations. Satan…

Thursday, November 3 & Friday, November 4 Bimbo’s 365 [Just bought tickets to the Nov. 4 show.] A completely different set each night! They Might Be Giants Thursday – Doors at 7 p.m and show at 8 p.m. Friday – Doors at 8 p.m. and show at 9 p.m. Tickets are $25. 18 & over are welcome

Someone at Vandenberg Air Force Base and at the Department of Homeland Security turned up in my referral logs this morning. Whoa.

NYT: September 25, 2005 As Test Scores Jump, Raleigh Credits Integration by Income By ALAN FINDER RALEIGH, N.C. – Over the last decade, black and Hispanic students here in Wake County have made such dramatic strides in standardized reading and math tests that it has caught the attention of education experts around the country. The main reason for the students’ dramatic improvement, say officials and parents in the county, which includes Raleigh and its sprawling suburbs, is that the district…

East Bay Express: “Comin’ up,” Deputy Bob Brandt called out to his partner, John McDonnell. He nudged the throttle with his right hand as the August Vollmer, Alameda County’s antiterrorism gunboat, lifted its nose and motored away from its Alameda berth toward the Bay Bridge. It was just after 10 a.m., and the boat skipped over tiny ripples in the green bay waters, which resembled a rumpled sheet of AstroTurf. To the left, San Francisco was still capped in morning…

So my maternal (read: Berkeley) grandparents and I are working on a family history project to digitize a whole mess of family archives (photos, cassette tapes, letters, military certificates) that they have, some of which go as far back as the late 19th century. This is one of my favorites. It depicts my grandparents in 1943, dressed up and on their way to a Southern Ball in San Francisco. My grandfather (John Hadsell) and grandmother (Virginia Hadsell) got stuck on…