The Bryant Park Project
 
January 31, 2008

The Rundown for Friday

Matt and Trish flash-forward to Friday:



 

Yo, Peep, Yo! The Birth of a Gender Neutral Pronoun

On today's show, we did a story about a new use of the word yo. Apparently, it's not just a greeting anymore. Some students in Baltimore, Maryland, are using it as a way to refer to a third person, in a gender neutral kind of way.

Here's how a couple of students at The Baltimore Career Academy use the pronoun:



And there's a back story: The pronoun got attention when, a few years ago, a group of Baltimore teachers in a linguistics class at Johns Hopkins University shared with each other the spontaneous uses of yo they were hearing at their schools. Some examples:

"Yo handin' out papers (She is handing out papers)
"Peep, yo!" (Look at him!)
"You acting like I said what yo said" (You're acting like I said what he/she said)
"Yo been runnin' in the halls" (He/She has been running in the halls)

Elaine Stotko, professor of the linguistics class and Margaret Troyer, Stotko's student and Baltimore teacher, did a study on the use of the pronoun and published their findings in American Speech.

In one phase of the data collection, students were given a set of cartoon drawings with characters "made to look like the African American children at the school." The students were asked to fill in the conversation bubble using slang, which was defined as "informal language, the way you talk to your friends, not the way you talk in school." Below are the four drawings:

From the American Speech article:

"Of the 115 students who participated, 68 students did not use yo at all and 47 used,yo,as an attention-focusing device in one or more of their conversations. Eight out of those 47 students also used yo as a third person pronoun. There were 8 uses of yo in the subject position:

Yo look like a sack a** gump.
Yo is a clown.
Yo sucks at magic tricks.
Yo needs to pull his pants down.
Yo looks like a freak.
Yo is a straight clown.
Yo going to put that chicken in his mouth.
Yo, looka that dude pants. Yo is a clown.

What I want to know is, what the heck is a sack a** gump?

 

Tortured Cows in Your Kids' Lunch?

OK, the title is a bit extreme, but seriously, that's what this is about.

The Washington Post and a bunch of other outlets have been reporting the story this week. Apparently an activist from the Human Society finagled his way into a slaughterhouse in California and videotaped employees doing everything possible to get sick and lame cows into the killing room so they can become meat.

Now, I am not a big animal-rights kind of gal. I love dogs and had a bird growing up and even worked on a cattle ranch in Wyoming one summer, but I'm not big on cow rights. Having said that, this video is pretty tough to watch. The employees use forklifts and chains to move these sick cows instead of euthanizing them like they are supposed to. To make matters worse, the meat from this particular slaughterhouse is sold to a federal school lunch program. Why is this so bad you ask? According to the article in the Post and the Humane Society, meat from sick cows is not really that good for you.

So the federal government has weighed in on this and launched an investigation, and the parent company of the slaughterhouse has apologized and suspended operations. But the whole thing launched a conversation in our editorial meeting. Not so much about slaughtering sick cows for meat products -- more about the ethics issues surrounding the meat industry.

How do you feel about this? Would it bother you to know that the T-bone you bought at the grocery store had been prodded with electric shocks? Does it matter? Should it? Should it not?

 

Slideshow: Xtreme Knitters Rock the Yarn

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Click the image to view the slideshow.

 

On today's show, Sabrina Gschwandtner introduced us to the world of extreme knitting -- guerrilla artists who leave knitted "tags" as a new form of graffiti, people who knit with weird stuff like fiberglass and lead, people who get together for massive knitting parties and cover entire park benches with yarn. Wow.

Gschwandtner is the editor KnitKnit, a zine, and the new book KnitKnit: Profiles and Projects from Knitting's New Wave.


 

Simon Says: Google This

As Matt Martinez reported in The Most today, the number one search on Google Trends early this morning was the word "precocious." That's what "American Idol" judge Simon Cowell called a hapless hopeful, who will not be going to Hollywood. I guess he was referring to the fact that at the tender age of 16 she was attempting a Janis Joplin song. He didn't seem to mean it as a compliment, anyway.

But the singer didn't even know what "precocious" means, and apparently neither did a lot of viewers, who started typing the term into the ol' Googler to find out more.

Continue reading "Simon Says: Google This" »

 

Lee Siegel No Watches 'High School Musical'



Lee Siegel takes on the Bryant Park Project, day two
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Lee Siegel doesn't know from High School Musical.

Jill Krementz

In his ongoing critique of the Bryant Park Blog and Twitter feed, Lee Siegel offers a true confession: He has no idea what High School Musical is. And the wonderful thing is that he's cool with that.

Siegel's the author of Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, a little book worthy of a big stir.

Today, Siegel's on about the cult of popularity. I've also seen him Tweeting on our Twitter feed this morning. Earlier in the week, we went around with Siegel about our Chekhovian potatoes and a cupcakes post that served as an island refuge.

 

Linkfest: Chewing on the Perfect Ice

Most people associate ice with chilling beverages, keeping food cold, or as something to use in order to prevent swelling. Did you know that ice is also a popular snack? So popular, that some Sonic Drive-In franchises actually sell it to go.

But is ice a healthy snack? The American Dental Association says that ice-chewing can damage teeth. Obsessive ice-chewers have found ways to make ice a safer snack, swapping tips on preparing the perfect ice at IceChewing.com.

It's the BPP's Most.

Chewing on the perfect ice/ British judge gets cranky on American Idol/ Soldier suicides at record level/ Putting an end to fractions/ Los Angeles adopts marijuana vending machines

 

Linkfest: Swimmers' Sunscreen Killing Off Coral

Over a million Americans were diagnosed with skin cancer in 2007, making it one of the fastest growing types of cancer in the United States. UV exposure is the leading cause of skin cancer and to avoid overexposure many people protect their body with sunscreen.

Unfortunately, if people are protected the coral reefs suffer. A new study finds that chemicals in sunscreen wash off swimmers and awaken dormant viruses inside coral reefs.

Researchers from the online journal Environmental Health Perspectives estimate that "4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen wash off swimmers annually in oceans worldwide, and that up to 10 percent of coral reefs are threatened by sunscreen-induced bleaching."

It's the BPP's Ramble.

Swimmers' sunscreen killing off coral/ Cop's report that woman attends church with crowbar in her pants/ Space race anniversary / Playground for 60-year-olds

 

YouTube: Guerrilla Knitting

Purl one, knit two has gone political, as a new wave of knitters create everything from installation projects to sexy outfits to multimedia presentations. On today's BPP, we continue our series on extreme hobbies as we have an avante-knitter in studio. I'm nor sure this guy is the best knitter or drummer, but he apparently can multitask.

 
January 30, 2008

Thursday's Rundown

Here's Matt and Trish on what's cooking for tomorrow's show:



 

Phraselator Revisted

Earlier today, Morning Edition ran a piece on the Phraselator, a new handheld device L.A. police officers are using to issue vocal commands in several different languages. This $2,500 crime-fighting tool allows officers to translate phrases such as "Hands behind your back!" or "Show me which way the suspect ran" on the fly.

"The main idea is for police to use the Phraselator for crowd control. A language barrier played a role in the chaos that ensued last year during the May Day immigration rights march in MacArthur Park, when police in riot gear used batons and rubber bullets to disperse crowds," says Capt. Dennis Kato of the LAPD.

The Phraselator has found its way into many hands -- first as a help for the military, then as way for linguists to translate and preserve Native American speech, and now with the LAPD. Kind of cool for one little gizmo.

 

Photo Evidence: Voting in Florida

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Voting in Clearwater, Florida

Courtesy of @kittydew
 

Voters in Florida went to the primary polls Tuesday. Or some of them.

Turnout was reported to be "brisk in Clearwater," the town where these photos were taken. More after the jump.

Continue reading "Photo Evidence: Voting in Florida" »

 

Never Forget: The 75th Anniversary of Hitler's Rise



Pinchas Isaak tells the story of his unlikely escape.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of Hitler and the Nazi party coming to power in Germany. That's the news peg for an interesting story in the New York Times about how modern-day Germans continue to confront and process Nazi history. The reporter was surprised to find that young Germans don't attempt to put the past behind them, but rather immerse themselves in it -- building new monuments to honor the dead, using their difficult history as the inspiration to become activists for human rights.

When I was growing up and going to Hebrew School, milestones like today's anniversary -- and there have been many markers like that, in my lifetime -- were always used as teaching opportunities: on the 50th anniversary of this, or the 55th of that, we were somberly told to never forget that human beings have the power (and, sadly, the instinct) to commit extreme evil. These days, of course, we've got more than one model for that disappointing lesson, and American Jewish kids are as likely to rail against genocide in Rwanda, Darfur, or the Congo as they are against the Holocaust.

For the Jews of my generation, though, discussions of the Holocaust have always and instantly turned personal. I was surrounded, growing up, by members of my father's family -- all from Germany -- who lost brothers, sisters and parents in concentration camps. There are great-uncles and great-aunts I didn't get to know because they were killed. The survivors aren't immersed in sadness and pain now, but that era in history has shaped their lives, and their faith, totally.

But it's my grandparents' story that I think of first and last whenever I hear or read about the Holocaust. I've been lucky enough to grow up with them, and know them well; my two sons have lit Chanukah candles with their great-grandparents for many years. I've been sorting through my memories a lot recently, because my grandfather, Pinchas Isaak, died a few weeks ago at the age of 91. I've marveled at his strength, who he is and what he stood for, and how he spent his time on earth. And I've re-learned the fairly breathtaking story of how he and my grandmother, Martha, survived the Holocaust themselves by the skin of their teeth. It's pretty dramatic, especially the part when they finally get out of Germany and into Italy. There, they waited six weeks for the papers that would allow them to fly to meet family in (the relatively safe haven of) London. Finally, the papers arrived -- but with a hitch. On video above, recorded by volunteers for Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation in 1996, Pinchas Isaak tells what happened next. You can read the rest of my grandfather's story here.

 

Video: The Whigs Live at the BPP

A year ago, Rolling Stone called the the Whigs "the best unsigned band in America." With the combination of ink like that and their trademark ear-blistering live shows, it wasn't long before Dave Matthew's ATO Records took notice and signed the Athens, Georgia, band to a multi-album deal. Their second record, Mission Control, has drawn gleeful comparisons to both Nirvana and Superchunk by critics and fans alike.

Here's a (rare) unplugged rendition of the first track off of Mission Control, "Like a Vibration":



 

Burned! Urban Lead Legend Is True

For a long time, girlfriend Nora and I used a French press to make coffee in the morning. I, wanting to minimize time between waking up and drinking coffee, would take hot water from the faucet, put it in the kettle, get it to a boil and make coffee from there.

We lived in an old house with old pipes, and Nora would argue that we shouldn't be drinking from the hot water side, saying that it was likely to have more bad stuff in it than the cold water.

I responded that even if it did have more bad stuff, we were boiling it so it didn't matter. Turns out, as usual, I was wrong.

Continue reading "Burned! Urban Lead Legend Is True" »

 

How Do You Say OMGOMGOMG in Polish?

Confession: I love High School Musical. Love it hard. I know I'm not alone, but I'm realizing I'd grossly underestimated the reach of the Cult of Troy and Gabriella. Dubbed versions of HSM2 were a success around the world, so much of a success that it was worth it for Disney to film videos of the song "All for One," with local actors doing local versions for local markets. Montage above.

The version from the Philippines uses Filipino actors, but they're singing in English. The Indian version makes one thing clear: High School Musical was Bollywood to begin with. I got goosebumps somewhere between Norway and Hungary, which means nothing but is humiliating nonetheless.

High School Musical 3: Senior Year is out here in the USA in October. You'd think the fact that the subtitle is Senior Year would do something to temper my excitement, given that I'm 29 years old, but no.

 

Linkfest: A Homemade Prison

In a small corner of southwestern Pennsylvania, police say an enraged grandmother created a homemade prison -- actually, it was more like a homemade torture chamber, for her 10-year-old grandson.

Rhonda Lehman, the 51-year-old grandmother, "locked her 10-year-old grandson in a feces-filled dog crate for about 90 minutes because he told his family he had been spiking their drinks with lamp oil and household cleaner," police said.

If a dog cage filled with poop sounds too harsh, consider this. Police say that when Lehman called the Mental Health/ Mental Retardation office, she threatened to bury the boy alive in the back yard if an official didn't come to handle the situation.

It's the BPP's Most.

The homemade prison/ 71-year-old climbs seven summits/ Eli Manning and his mom/ Air purifiers emit pollution

 

Linkfest: Busted for Breaking into Parking Meters

Some people rob banks, others rob storefronts and many pick pockets, but police in Charleston, W.Va., say William David Salisbury robs parking meters. The 44-year-old was recently arrested a fourth time for breaking into parking meters.

How much money can these things hold? I mean, it's a tall skinny pole with a football sized collection chamber that holds coins. It's like a piggy bank on a pole. According to police, Salisbury pocketed about $170 from breaking into seven double-headed meters -- but he had some misadventures along the way.

It's the BPP's Ramble.

An alleged parking meter thief/ Town fines out-of-town drivers for car accidents/ Nose means new Thai PM in sign language/ Middle age makes you miserable

 

Miss Utah Owns a Tiara and a Helmet

Jill Stevens is a nurse, a great cook...oh yeah, and the first Miss America to have served in a combat zone. Jill Stevens spent two years in Afghanistan as a medic. We will talk to her today on the BPP!

 
January 29, 2008

TED Pass Going for Big Bucks on Ebay

The TED conference happens next month. Since it's an invite-only event, most of us won't be going. But somebody is putting his VIP pass up on ebay. Current price? More than $33,000.

It's not just a pass to the conference. You also get to have lunch with Meg Ryan.

My favorite part? You have to sign a waiver agreeing not to be annoying and try to sell your products and/or services to other TED attendees.

By the way, the ticket is being sold with the blessing of TED. The proceeds go to charity.

 

Hump Day Rundown

Matt and Trish are here with the mid-week scoop:



 

Siegel to the 'BPP': Where Are the Comments?



Lee Siegel takes on the Bryant Park Project, day two
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Lee Siegel could deal with a little less "noise."

Jill Krementz

Lee Siegel and his new book -- Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob -- are everywhere right now. Siegel's even quoted on that television thing in our office elevator. The powerhouse critics has agreed to critique the Bryant Park blog and Twitter feed this week.

In our conversation on day one, he cautioned against mere talkativeness, then relished a Tweet about cupcakes. Today he's onto a Tweet about our daily breakfast order, and also an anonymous comment about him. Someone wrote, "Lee Siegel is a genius," and signed it "Sprezzatura." That's Siegel's onetime nom de net, one that got him into something of a pickle, let's say. He's brave about it.

 

Attracted by the Magnetic Fields? A Guide

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LD Beghtol wrote the book on Stephin Merritt.

Robin Holland


LD Beghtol played and sang on the Magnetic Fields' epic 69 Love Songs and later wrote a field guide to the album.

Now the Magnetic Fields, a brainchild of Stephin Merritt, are back with a new disc, Distortion. On today's show, Beghtol talked us through it -- we call it an assisted listen to the latest work of a tres important pop musician.

Beghtol also sends a cut from his new record, Amoral Certitudes, with his outfit LD and the New Criticism. It's got Dana Kletter on vocals, and it's so worth your ears, we're going to paste it below in its own special player.

LD and the New Criticism's What You Will:



 

After SOTU: Candidates Not So Twitter-pated


Democrat Barack Obama tweeted this video response.

Twitter Nation reported a rash of finger injuries last night, as the citizenry tweeted along with every line of President Bush's final State of the Union address.

As of 8:30 or so this morning, the Twitter response from the presidential candidates looked like this:

Continue reading "After SOTU: Candidates Not So Twitter-pated" »

 

A Teacher from Kibera Checks In

Red Rose Nursery

From the Red Rose Nursery and Children's Centre in the Kibera neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya

Courtesy of Ken Okoth
 


It had been a couple weeks since we heard from Ken Okoth, friend of the BPP who grew up in the Kibera shantytown of Nairobi, Kenya. It's nice when he checks in, but given how things have turned worse in Kenya, I was a little nervous to read his latest note.

Dear Friends --
Greetings to you and your loved ones. The news from Kenya is not encouraging at all, and I am told that anything you can see on BBC, CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, etc, is just a shade of how bad things really are, because the journalists can't even get to report as freely as they would like.

Continue reading "A Teacher from Kibera Checks In" »

 

Linkfest: Deaf Boy's 'Q-tip Cure'

When he was two years old, Jerome Bartens was diagnosed as deaf in his right ear. Jerome struggled with his impaired hearing for nine years but the other day, he was suddenly cured.

After hearing a popping sound, Jerome found a tip of cotton wool bud in his ear and quickly pulled it out. "It was just incredible -- his hearing returned to normal in an instant," said Jerome's father Carsten.

It's the BPP's Most.
Deaf boy's 'Q-tip Cure'/ A camel named Princess picks Giants to beat Pats/ Brazilian woman has 42nd plastic surgery/ Lazy boy scouts achieve Eagle status/ Google trends

 

Linkfest: Getting Paid for a Broken Heart

In recent world news, a Japanese marketing company gives their staff paid time off after breaking up with a partner. CEO Miki Hiradate says, "Heartache leave allows staff to cry themselves out and return to work refreshed. Not everyone needs to take maternity leave but with heartbreak, everyone needs time off, just like when you get sick."

Heartbroken or not, paid time off is good time off.

It's the BPP's Ramble.

Getting paid for a broken heart/ Black Death was picky/ NYC: Automotive Bermuda Triangle/ Worst thing to say at work

 
January 28, 2008

What I Made for Dinner, 1/28/08

Tonight's dinner was made with the help of BPP resident astrophysicist Summer Ash, who took her head out of the heavens long enough to recommend a tasty dish. It's a simple pasta and sauce, the sauce being diced tomatoes, olives, capers and anchovies. I swapped ground beef for the anchovies because I'm just not that adventurous. I think I overdid the spices a bit. I never know when to leave well enough alone.

 

Tuesday's Rundown

Trish and Matt bring the skinny:



 

Ida Performs at the BPP

Formed in 1992 by Daniel Littleton and Elizabeth Mitchell in Brooklyn, Ida was recognized immediately for its innovative indie-rock-meets-folk flavor. Since then, they have toured the country with Sunny Day Real Estate and Low, among others. But when Littleton and Mitchell had their first child, Storey, a new chapter opened for Ida...they started making music for children, too. Now Ida has two audiences, but they think of their music as one cohesive whole - and they hope that none of their music has an age limit.

Check them out doing "Green Green Rocky Road" on the BPP last week:



 

Admit It: You've Had Tech Rage

I'd be willing to be that every single one of you has had a technology-related emotional meltdown at some point, as spelled out in this recent piece from ABC News, "Yelling at Tech Support Does More Harm than Good."

You know how it goes down ... you're on deadline for something or other and your screen freezes or your Internet connection cracks or a file won't upload correctly. You call the 1-800 tech support number or drag your office IT guy/gal over to fix it, and as nice and earnest as they may be, you end up taking all your tech angst out on these people.

OK, sometimes they deserve it. But most of the time, they're just trying to do their job -- and their job means having to be the receptacle for all of our pain, anger and lost dreams linked to the inevitable tech meltdown.

Share your stories. What's the worst tech meltdown you've suffered? All IT folks out there -- What's your nightmare client story. We wanna know.

 

Siegel to BPP: 'Your Cupcake Is an Island Refuge'



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Think of them as islands in the raging digital stream.

Charley Gallay/Getty Images

This week the Bryant Park Project is proud to host the amazing Lee Siegel, a senior editor of the New Republic and author of Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob.

The New York Times calls Siegel a "swaggeringly abrasive cultural critic" and says his skinny little book about the Internet is the work of an observer who's "impressively tough, cogent and furious."

Someone (another someone, not me, no, no, no) thought it would be a good idea to have him spend this week taking a look at us. And son of gun, Siegel likes our cupcakes -- at least that's his opinion of our blog and Twitter efforts on day one. Stop by tomorrow for day two with the good doctor.

Bonus:
Lee Siegel on today's BPP
The post about the spy satellite

 

Wow: Hillary Clinton's Inner Tracy Flick

From the wilds of the electronic void, host Alison Stewart has plucked a video in which Hillary Clinton does an unwitting update of Election. We'd embed it, but it starts with a great big ad, and you know how we feel about that. (IMHO, it's still worth the click.)

 

Jamie Stuart's Sundance Film

Last week, we introduced you to filmmaker Jamie Stuart. He wrapped his Sundance coverage and posted it this morning. While our meeting in the Albertson's parking lot got cut - Jamie's final product includes an interview with George Romero, mysterious text messages, and an ending where "reality wins."

Check out Jamie's piece for Filmmaker Magazine here.

 

Look Out Below! Spy Satellite Falling to Earth

Got this from our own astrophysicist to the (radio) stars, Summer Ash. She blogs regularly at Newtonianism for the Ladies.

Special to the BPP from Summer Ash:

Heads Up, Earth!
The Return of Chicken Little
The Sky Is Falling, the Sky Is Falling -- U.S. Spy Sat to Splat

That last one is my favorite, and it's the only real headline -- used by Satnews Daily. But it's all real news, of a sort. A large U.S. spy satellite really has lost power and is now falling back to Earth.

Continue reading "Look Out Below! Spy Satellite Falling to Earth" »

 
January 25, 2008

The Littlest Rundown

Someone adorable is bringing you the rundown for Monday. And Trish's daughter is in it, too.



 

Candidates Stump in Twitter Nation