Published on Mon Jun 28, 2004, 11:10 pm .
The “Boston Stranglers’ Scooter Rally”:http://www.bostonstranglers.com/rally2004/ was 2 weeks ago, and neglectful as always, I never posted “my pics”:http://scoot.net/gallery/2004/06/bssanc/nedward/.
One highlight of the weekend was getting an escorted ride for 50+ scooters along the Charles River Esplanade, and then continued on along the “Emerald Necklace”:http://www.emeraldnecklace.org to the “Larz Anderson”:http://www.mot.org park, overlooking the city. Presley and I were joined by “Sam”:http://scoot.net/gallery/pic.html?pic=86053 and her cute “Metro”:http://powersports.honda.com/scooters/model.asp?ModelName=Metropolitan&ModelYear=2004&ModelId=CHF504, and we met a lot of new people.
And, I avoided the combination of drinking and riding my “Vespa”:http://scoot.net/gallery/pic.html?pic=86049.
Published on Mon Jun 28, 2004, 1:13 pm .
We went to see “Fahrenheit 9/11″:http://www.fahrenheit911.com at the “Fenway 13″:http://www.nu-news.com/news/2003/05/28/Style/Best-Movie.Theater.Amc.Fenway.13-437198.shtml on Saturday night, and I became uneasy before the movie, because there were rent-a-cops milling about and checking bags. Were they expecting violence? Like a modern day _Outsiders_, with “MoveOn.org”:http://moveon.org members clashing with the Young Republicans?
There has been “much”:http://www.slate.com/id/2102723 made of Michael Moore, and the controversy surrounding whether he can correctly claim the title of _documentarian_. On the “Today”:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3032633/?ta=y show, pseudo-journalist Matt Lauer nitpicked and argued with Moore as if he were host of “Fox and Friends”:www.foxnews.com/foxfriends/. Truth is, the journalists who think Moore is utterly ruinous, (”Gwen Ifill”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_06_27_atrios_archive.html#108845977472633882 comes to mind), are making this judgment from a pretty skewed, “elite” frame of reference.
It is, after all, a _movie_, which intends to bring important information to the masses, wrapped in an entertaining package. It is _not_ journalism, and I am fine with not calling the film a “documentary”. Let’s call it Op/Ed.
Moore is shameless, manipulative, and yes, he has an opinion. But I simply refuse to hold him to a higher standard than I do Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Ann Coulter. He makes me laugh, he makes me sick, and he presents a point of view that is totally _american_.
Other reactions:
* “Slate’s David Edelstein”:http://slate.msn.com/id/2102859
* “Slate’s Christopher Hitchens”:http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723
* “Gothamist”:http://www.gothamist.com/archives/2004/06/28/fahrenheit_911_boils_box_office_and_conservatives.php
* “Kottke”:http://www.kottke.org/04/06/fahrenheit-911
* “Boston Common”:http://www.boston-online.com/common/002685.html
* “Defamer”:http://www.defamer.com/topic/monday-morning-box-office-michael-moore-is-our-new-master-016891.php
* “Bossanova”:http://bloodymortyvane.typepad.com/bossanova/2004/06/f911.html
Published on Sat Jun 26, 2004, 5:34 pm .
Since the licensing structure has been revamped, I thought I’d spend a few minutes updating “Suckahs.org”:http://suckahs.org (and all it’s weblogs) to “MT 3.0″:http://www.movabletype.org/get_movable_type_personal.shtml.
Honestly, the motivation for the upgrade was recent barrages of comment spam. “MT-Blacklist”:http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/ was a good patch, for a while, but I think the only safe method to both allow comments, and stop your site from becoming a 1-stop billboard advertisement for “penis enhancements”, and mortgage financiers, is comment registration.
If you’d like to comment, (there are 1 or 2 of you), I’d suggest registering with “TypeKey”:https://www.typekey.com/. Registered commenters will be posted right away, and everyone else will need to be verified first.
Published on Thu Jun 17, 2004, 2:07 pm .
We were sitting at work, having lunch, when a hawk landed just outside our window. I half expected him to have a _mouse_ in his mouth, but no luck on that front.
I wonder what kind of hawk this is? They are common in eastern Massachusetts, because I’ve seen them around Boston…
Published on Mon Jun 14, 2004, 1:39 pm .
Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits has written a book, Web Standards Solutions, which arrived today with it’s familiar cover.
I’m interested in streamlining my site, improving on semantic markup, etc., so I hope that Dan’s book will be a good reference. Oh, and I love his redesign.
It seems that everyone is refreshing their sites these days.
Published on Sun Jun 13, 2004, 5:58 pm .
pet-pieve: I answer the telephone, (though it reads “unkown caller”), the voice on the other end asks for someone who does not reside here, and when I politely inform them of this fact, they hang up without response.
And, they call back _twice_, with the same bad manners.
…no wonder I never answer.
Published on Thu Jun 10, 2004, 3:56 pm .
I suspect much of this country feels, as I do, that Ronald Reagan was not the saint that the radical Right would like us to believe. Still, the media coverage this past week has not only been gushingly positive, but also all-consuming.
While watching that carriage parade around for 4 hours last night, and suffering through Dick Cheney’s political eulogy, I kept thinking of the horrible things this guy was responsible for—and many of them meet my definition of High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
- He gave Iran weapons, laundered money through Saudi banks, and funneled the money to the death squads in central America, after Congress specifically passed a bill forbidding any help to the Contras.
- He sold cocaine (see the report prepared by a certain Sen. John F. Kerry in the early 90s), to fund the death squads in central America. 500,000 people died in these wars.
- He pulled us out of Beirut. And then, invaded Grenada like the next day, so he didn’t look like a total wuss. Islamic extremists cheered, and no one could figure out what the hell Granada did to warrant invasion. Bait and switch.
- He created the homeless problem, and said that people “choose” to be homeless.
And yet, no articles of impeachment in eight years… don’t get me started on what they did to Clinton.
