Filed under: Tomorrow's BPP
Matt and Trish flash-forward to Friday:
Win Rosenfeld
5:28 PM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Filed under: City Living, Links From the Show
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.
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?
Pauline Bartolone
1:48 PM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | comments (14) | e-mail post
Filed under: News
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?
Rachel Martin
12:26 PM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | comments (11) | e-mail post
Filed under: City Living, Slideshow
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.
Laura Conaway
9:59 AM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | comments (19) | e-mail post
Filed under: Sound Off
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" »
Tricia McKinney
9:06 AM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Inside The BPP
Lee Siegel doesn't know from High School Musical.
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.
8:57 AM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Links From the Show
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
Will Hoffman
6:44 AM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
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
6:16 AM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
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.
Alison Stewart
5:02 AM ET | 01-31-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Here's Matt and Trish on what's cooking for tomorrow's show:
4:04 PM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
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.
2:39 PM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Election 2008
Voting in Clearwater, Florida
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" »
1:14 PM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Filed under: News, Video
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.
Sharon Hoffman
11:05 AM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Filed under: Music, Video
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":
10:45 AM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Filed under: City Living
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" »
Ian Chillag
9:28 AM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Stuff We Love
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.
8:39 AM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
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.
The homemade prison/ 71-year-old climbs seven summits/ Eli Manning and his mom/ Air purifiers emit pollution
8:27 AM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
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.
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
8:03 AM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
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!
5:30 AM ET | 01-30-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Filed under: The Dagobah System
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.
7:03 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Matt and Trish are here with the mid-week scoop:
5:04 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post
Lee Siegel could deal with a little less "noise."
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.
3:11 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Filed under: Music
LD Beghtol wrote the book on Stephin Merritt.
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:
1:15 PM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
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" »
8:49 AM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
From the Red Rose Nursery and Children's Centre in the Kibera neighborhood of Nairobi, Kenya
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" »
8:40 AM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
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
8:36 AM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
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.
Getting paid for a broken heart/ Black Death was picky/ NYC: Automotive Bermuda Triangle/ Worst thing to say at work
8:14 AM ET | 01-29-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
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.
7:34 PM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Filed under: Links From the Show, Tomorrow's BPP
Trish and Matt bring the skinny:
3:43 PM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Filed under: Video
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:
1:40 PM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (20) | e-mail post
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.
1:31 PM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Think of them as islands in the raging digital stream.
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
11:26 AM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
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.)
11:22 AM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Filed under: Sundance Fever 2008
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.
8:36 AM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
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" »
7:41 AM ET | 01-28-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Someone adorable is bringing you the rundown for Monday. And Trish's daughter is in it, too.
3:52 PM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Twitter is all the rage around here. (See?)
I'm scrounging around for legitimate Twitter feeds from the presidential candidates. So far, my list looks like this:
Ron Paul, @RonPaul2008, with 822 followers John Edwards, @johnedwards, with 4,282 followers Barack Obama, @BarackObama, with 6,654 followers Hillary Clinton, @hillaryclinton, with 197 followers
11:10 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Filmmaker Jamie Stuart is not your conventional journalist. Jamie takes his camera to movie premieres and red carpets all around the country finding moments that most press would ignore. He locates unguarded celebrity moments and the mayhem around the fringes of the poshest scenes. Jamie is maybe best known for his interview with Amy Adams, in which she simply took the camera and interviewed him.
Jamie met up with us at Sundance last week, to let us in on his festival coverage. Where did he want to meet? Not outside the premiere of In Bruges, not at the opening press conference, not even at one of the many hipster coffee shops.
We met at a supermarket parking lot, a mile away from the festival - because Jamie saw something there that inspired him.
Click below to find out what:
10:53 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Daniel Jones describes the new UK Church of the Jedi
Yoda your help needs.
Two brothers across the pond have founded the UK Church of the Jedi, which has no deity but follows the teachings of Yoda. The Star Wars Yoda. Daniel Jones spoke with us today, saying:
"We don't have a deity. We have the Force. It's more like self-belief. If you believe in yourself, and you manipulate the Force, you can achieve great things."
As Yoda might say, "Your help we need. Yes, hmmm. For yoda help us write scripture. New gospel, anyone, hmm? Or new 10 commandments, hmm? Yeesssssss."
10:13 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | comments (34) | e-mail post
Eric Lewis drew the cartoon above for the New Yorker. It didn't make the cut.
Continue reading "Rejected 'New Yorker' Cartoons" »
7:35 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Filed under: Slideshow, Stuff We Love
Romeo, the legendary wolf of Juneau, Alaska
Got this image and the one after the jump from the person who took those photos of Romeo, the legendary wolf of Juneau, Alaska. He asked if he could remain anonymous, because he has taken more guff than he'd like over photos of Romeo running off with a pug.
Romeo lives alone near Mendenhall Lake, outside Juneau, and he frequently approaches people and their dogs on the ice. Three times in the last year, Romeo has grabbed a smaller dog. The first two, a beagle and the pug, he turned loose. The third, a Pomeranian, is still missing.
Thanks for the pictures, Anonymous.
Continue reading "Romeo Update: Wolf Photographer Checks In" »
7:25 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | comments (15) | e-mail post
Olympic athletes are starting to get concerned about the excessive pollution in Beijing.
"Should I run behind a bus and breathe in the exhaust? Should I train on the highway during rush hour? Is there any way to acclimate myself to pollution?" asks Juliet Marcur.
Olympic training in pollution/ Text messages show Detroit mayor lied under oath Top Google trends/ Bedbugs attack New York City The $500 rule: How spending limits save relationships
6:54 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
"There was nothing left, not even a log," explains Lyudmila Martemyanova, a Russian woman who came home to a missing house. Her plot of land was empty . . . desolate. As it turns out, her home was mistakenly torn down by construction workers clearing a site.
In a way, it's probably a good thing Martemyanova wasn't there. Imagine waking up to a wrecking ball in your bedroom . . .
Woman's home accidentally demolished/ Couple protest jet noise with obscene rooftop sign/ New bill would end Virginia's sangria ban/ Sharapova hopes for a better outcome in Australian Open Finals/ Obama on Letterman Top 10
6:27 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Democrat Barack Obama showed up on Late Night with David Letterman Thursday. Remember his turn on Saturday Night Live?
Continue reading "Barack Obama Does 'Letterman' Top 10" »
6:15 AM ET | 01-25-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
7:04 PM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
You may have heard the recent story of Celebration Studios, a New York area photography service that recently went bankrupt, leaving many newlyweds without photos of their events, and many with upcoming weddings missing their deposits. Celebration Studios allegedly continued to take money from new customers even after they knew they were going under.
photographer Jason Groupp thinks it's a black eye on the industry, so he's running a contest on his blog. He's going to pick one couple wronged by Celebration Studios and do their wedding photography for free. He says the contest was inspired by his father. If you know anyone who's eligible, pass along the link.
Full disclosure: Jason Groupp did my wedding photography. There. I said it.
Dan Pashman
4:32 PM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Kim Brittingham's home-made book cover
But she does get ticked off at the comments and stares she gets from her fellow bus riders. So one day she decided to fight back. She created this fake book cover and "read" from it every day in public for the next four months. Read about the reactions she got, or better yet, listen to the BPP interview.
As far-fetched as it may sound, some people say being fat IS contagious. One 2007study says obesity spreads socially. I'm not entirely sold. What do YOU think?
2:35 PM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Yesterday morning, a 14-year-old boy in Bellingham, Washington, didn't show up to class to hand in a homework assignment. He was in the bathroom tied up, his pockets turned inside out. Police raced to the middle school restroom, where he told them a heavyset man wearing a mask and hoodie scoured the boys pockets in search of some cash.
Students throughout the school were immediately confined to their classrooms while police raided the school for evidence. After hours of no results, the boy admitted the robbery was a hoax. The young boy's motive: A legitimate reason to cut class.
Student fakes being robbed to skip class/ NPR's Chris Arnold explains how to retire with money/ School administrator's wife screams at student for wanting a snow day/ Lil Wayne arrested for drug possession/ High mercury levels found in tuna sushi
9:32 AM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
The good news: With growing competition from fast food rivals such as McDonalds and Dunkin' Doughnuts, Starbucks has decided to test $1 cups of coffee with free refills.
The bad news: As of now, the $1 coffee test is only taking place in Starbucks hometown of Seattle.
Starbucks Testing $1 Coffee/ The Drunkest U.S. Cities/ Tennis player Michael Chang elected into Tennis Hall of Fame/ Blue Man Group shove force camera down audience members throat/ Real life Bonnie and Clyde
9:20 AM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Extreme yo-yo guy Pat Cuartero just blew our minds in the studio. Pat runs a website called YoYo Nation, and he and his crew got together to show us some sweet tricks. Check it out.
Continue reading "Video: Yo-Yo Guy Bends Space/Time Continuum" »
8:39 AM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
A Billy Poole tribute
If you've ever seen one those crazy Warren Miller ski movies -- you know, the ones where the people become human bullets go ricocheting down ridiculous cliffs at speeds just shy of the sound barrier -- and wondered whether you really could die doing that, the miserable answer is yes.
Extreme skier Billy Poole made a bad jump Tuesday while filming a Miller movie in Utah. Poole became the first person to die on-camera in a Miller production, reports the Salt Lake Tribune.
8:27 AM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Listen to Alison and guest host Toure discuss six-word memoirs
There's a new book coming out that caught our attention, called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs By Famous and Obscure Writers. It's from the editors of Smith Magazine, and it's exactly what it says it is -- a collection of memoirs, each just six words long.
The idea stems from a literary legend. We don't know if it's true, but as the story goes, Ernest Hemingway was once asked to write a story in six words. His response: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." That's at least as good as The Old Man and the Sea.
The editors of Smith challenged writers to craft their own six-word memoirs, and got some interesting results. Most of them sound kinda like crosses between a personal ad and a haiku...
"Shy Jersey kid, overcompensating ever since." --Ariel Kaminer
"Being a monk stunk. Better gay." --Bob Redman
"Couldn't cope so I wrote songs." --Aimee Mann
Some of them are funny, others are pretty poignant. There's one that says, "Was father. Boys died. Still sad." That's from Ronald Zalewski.
The BPP crew is going to post our six-word memoirs, and we want to hear yours. Sum up your life in six words -- no more, no less. For best results, don't overthink it. And remember, it's supposed to be a memoir, not a fortune cookie.
8:02 AM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (772) | e-mail post
Filed under: Biking the Iditarod, Slideshow
Romeo, February 2007
Snow cyclist Jill Homer told us the story of Romeo, the legendary lone wolf of Juneau. Several of you wrote in with ideas for getting Romeo a little companionship.
Now a listener named Harry R. has added a few details. Harry says that the pictures of Romeo with the pug were taken by a local man. (UPDATE: I just talked to the man, and he still wants to be anonymous.) Here's the redacted message from Harry R.:
Romeo is a male Alexander Archipelago wolf, approximately 5 1/2 to 6 years old. I've known him well for 5 of those years. It is thought that he and his (dead) mate were the sole survivors of a pack that had been locally trapped. His mate was subsequently killed after being hit by a cab while pregnant with four almost born pups. Wolves often only have one mate in their lifetime. Solitary wolves are rarely accepted into a strange pack, but sometimes, several strays will band together for companionship.
While rarely seen in the summer, Romeo does live in the Mendenhall Valley area year round... he's just much more visible in the winter. His name was derived from his friendly disposition, and his well-known love for playing with dogs.
Though rumors have circulated, there is no evidence that any dog has ever been injured by Romeo. The pug shown being carried in the picture was owned by the daughter of a local [man]. He had brought the pug and two other dogs into the Mendenhall Lake area hoping to attract Romeo so he that could photograph him. The photographs in question are his... taken by a very fast and expensive Canon camera. In truth, Romeo picked up the pug in his mouth, carried him for about a 1 and half seconds, and then dropped him completely unharmed. The pug flipped to his feet and Romeo traveled about another 10 feet and stopped... end of story. [The man] (minus the pug) was out doing the very same thing the next day with the other two dogs. [He] later submitted these pictures to the Juneau Empire (anonymously) and to the Anchorage Daily News (where he was credited).
Romeo is a true wild wolf, and should be respected as such... but in reality, is far better mannered than many of our local dogs. Over the years, his presence has captivated hundreds of visitors and local Juneau residents. Concerned about his well-being, local Romeo supporters have formed a group called "Friends of Romeo" that look out for his interests and publish up-to-date news concerning his activities. Interested parties that supply an e-mail address can receive a free copy of their latest bulletin.
If anybody has any questions concerning Romeo, I'd be happy to answer them to the best of my ability...
6:15 AM ET | 01-24-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post
This past weekend we met up with director Mark Pellington at Sundance, and got a chance to chat with him about his new film, "Henry Poole Is Here," starring Luke Wilson.
Tuesday morning in Park City, Pellington closed a seven-figure distribution deal with Overture Entertainment. But making "Poole" was about more than a paycheck for Pellington, who lost his wife a few years back. He told the BPP on Sunday that the experience was part of the healing process.
The last time Pellington was at Sundance was 11 years ago, when he was screening his first film, Going All the Way. Since then, he's made critically acclaimed movies like Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies and a slew of notable music videos.
He's also responsible for the 3D concert film on megaband U2, which was another big ticket flick at Sundance this year.
6:40 PM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Here are Tricia and Matt with a sneak peek at the docket for Thursday:
5:36 PM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Buy two, give one free
The Apple Air laptop is pretty neat -- but in the wireless game, it may have some things to learn from the $200 XO laptop. That's right, the one built for kids.
For starters, the wireless neighborhood around the XO laptop appears on a dedicated screen, with different icons for various access points. And it links in a snap to other XOs, to the point that letters typed on one are seen immediately on the other. And if one has newer software, the other automatically updates, as well.
The XO is meant to provide affordable laptops to needy children. But after seeing what they can do, I snagged one for my nephews, under a deal where you buy one laptop and the company sends another overseas. The thing is fun enough to mess with that I came close to not giving it to 'em -- and at $400 for the pair, the total was about $1,400 cheaper than the Air.
After all, I'm needy in my own way: of a good, cheap way to get online anywhere.
Bill Chappell
2:15 PM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Filed under: Slideshow, Video
Click the picture to view the slideshow.
Graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang is the author of American Born Chinese, the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award. On the show this week, and in the slideshow above, he talks about growing up inside and out of the culture.
1:57 PM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Jessica Ingram meets Robert Redford
The Cause Collective, a group of multimedia artists at the Sundance Film Festival, just met one of the world's most handsome men.
Special to the BPP from Jessica Ingram of the Cause Collective:
Mission accomplished! We went to the Director's Brunch at the Sundance Resort last week and met Robert Redford.
It was the most amazing drive out there. Mountains, snow, frozen lakes where people are ice fishing, and two bus loads of the directors for this year's films. On the bus we talked to the Zellner brothers, whose film Goliath is screening this year. We also talked to the directors of The Linguists, about two linguists traveling around the world documenting languages on the brink of extinction. Very cool. We just kept looking at each other like, "This is crazy that we are here. Totally wonderful and crazy."
Continue reading "Sundance Artists: Redford Stands for Change" »
12:50 PM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
LapDome in action.
No it isn't some cheeky euphemism. It's described as "the best friend your laptop will ever have." A LapDome is a computer case which pops up into a little tent for your computer providing shade and shelter.
Must have or a way to separate you from your money?
10:19 AM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Paper, canvas, or recycled? Soon, this is what you'll hear when checking out of your local Whole Foods Market. On Earth Day, Whole Foods will be eliminating the use of plastic bags at the check out lines of their grocery store.
Why? Well, each year 380 billion plastic bags are consumed in U.S alone. Plastic bags don't biodegrade. Instead, they end up in the mouths of sea turtles, whales, and other marine animals. Whole Foods wants to put an end to this.
Whole Foods to eliminate plastic bags/ Texas candidate: Elect me and I won't serve/ Ringo Starr walks off 'Regis and Kelly'/ Couple trades salmon fillets for moose and venison steaks
9:32 AM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Media, News
Stop wondering now.
There's a lot of speculation about what actually killed actor Heath Ledger, who was found dead yesterday. Until the autopsy results are in, nobody knows for sure -- except the New York Post. There it is right on the cover, "Heath Ledger ODs on Pills." They go even further in an online sub-head, adding a motive: "ODs on Rx Pills. Stressed Over Split."
In the actual story they back off a bit, saying Ledger "apparently" overdosed.
9:21 AM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Last September, after the sun went down, 18-year-old Jordan Burnham jumped out of his ninth floor window shortly after being nominated to his high school's homecoming court. Jordan smashed the ground 90 feet below at 50 m.p.h. and survived. Now, with his body badly broken, Jordan has had some time to reflect.
When tragedy meets miracle, it's the BPP's Most.
Broken body finds hope/ Piano composer finds harmony as rabbi/ Rich countries do $1.8 trillion damage to poor countries/ Man accidentally shoots co-worker during crocodile attack/ How to retire with money in the bank
9:14 AM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
In the last 24 hours I have become a big Barry Yourgrau fan. If you didn't hear him on our show today, here's the deal: on a trip to Japan in 2002, the writer noticed tons of people walking around accessing the internet on mobile phones. Since he generally wrote pretty short pieces, he thought maybe he'd write some pieces to be read on cellys (cellies?). Barry didn't even really realize he was part of the burgeoning cell phone literature phenomenon: five of the 10 bestsellers in Japan last year started as cell phone novels, or keitai novels, as they're called.
Unlike many keitai novels, Barry wrote individual stories, and he didn't write them on cell phones, he wrote them for cell phones. His self-imposed constraints: 350 words or less, with no opening sentence longer than the 12 words that could be viewed without scrolling. Short as they are, we still only had time on the radio show to hear one of them. But Laura tells me there's plenty of room left on our internet, so Barry's letting us post one more here.
MEANT FOR EACH OTHER
You make a date through the Internet. You meet the girl for the first time at a sake bar. She gulps down a whole bottle of sake by herself. "Okay," you think. "I guess we know what sort of problem she has. But man, is she cute."
The rest after the jump...
Continue reading "Barry's Texts Are Deeper Than Yours" »
8:30 AM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
The High Church of Celebrity News
Gawker guy Nick Denton has been making noise about making news. Seems Denton wants to crank up the news factor on his marquee site.
Before yesterday, we were thinking the Tom Cruise Scientology video was the best thing to happen to the gossip site since Michael Jackson walked.
Then Heath Ledger went and pulled a rock star. Sometimes, you need that exact mix of pathos, adrenaline and videos you know you shouldn't watch. Sometimes, maybe, you just need Gawker.
6:41 AM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
If you're like me, there's been no end to your frustration when trying to drink Pepsi in space. There you are, kicking back after a long day repairing the malfunctioning A.I. in the maintenance droid,* and you lean back to gulp down every effervescent drop, but everything stays in the bottle. Because, of course, there's no gravity. But don't worry, science has finally found a solution. The Corkscrew Cup:
So refreshingly spiraly.
*Everything I know about space I learned from the movie SpaceCamp.
6:32 AM ET | 01-23-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Earlier in the day before I was completely overwhelmed by fatigue I planned to get ambitious and make something with fresh ingredients and an exotic spice or two. Something NPR-worthy.
But this is me, and in this, as in so many other things, I dream big and deliver small.
So here's what I'm making for the McKinneys:
Pork chops grilled on one of those George Foreman-type-thingies--maybe in a marinade, maybe with just some ground pepper.
Some kind of frozen vegetable cooked in the microwave. I'm getting partial to these single-serving-sized packs of frozen veggies so I can have brussels sprouts while husband and daughter have corn. They don't do beans in these little bags yet.
And the piece de microwavable resistance? Mashed potatoes. But not real mashed potatoes nor those tubs of viscous, gluey potato-like pre-made mashed taters. These are frozen potato bits that you mix with milk and then microwave. I happened upon them at my hometown grocery store and ya know what? They're pretty good.
I am sad about all the packaging. Honest. But hey, I got my microwave for free on freecycle and although it's a million years old and enormous and not at all good looking, at least it sort of works and it's not in a landfill!
Next week I'll be good and organic and all that stuff. Cross my heart, NPR!
7:24 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Heath Ledger is dead. NYPD says he was found Tuesday in his Manhattan apartment and that drugs may have been involved.
Ledger was only 28 years old.
Click here for the details as of 6pm EST.
5:53 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Here are Tricia and Matt with a preview of tomorrow's BPP:
5:29 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Jordan Wright talks about his extreme hobby
Gold Water, from Barry Goldwater's campaign 1964
Jordan Wright has been collecting political memorabilia since he was 10 years old. Now he has over a million pieces. Kind of amazing, really.
3:04 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
We're hard at work on tomorrow's show. I'm setting up a guy who writes stories, 350 words or less, for cell phones. Pashman is working on a thing about six-word memoirs, and everybody else is still on the twitter crack, in 140 characters or less.
Yup, all sorts of people out there doing cool things with few words. But before six-word memoirs, before cell phone stories, before even cell phones, there was Felix Feneon. He reported tales of crime and depravity for the French newspaper Le Matin in 1906, always anonymously, always in three lines. Below, Feneon explained by Luc Sante, who translated his work. You'll want to click ahead to 24:30:
2:26 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
OK, so maybe the economy's in trouble. If we get to real free-fall you'll want to be ready with bread, beans, bullets and beer. Specifically, beer you brew yourself. Or says the Bear Ridge Project:
People in a depressed society look for an escape. The person furnishing that escape becomes invaluable to that society.
Others are among us are questioning/commenting here.
12:50 PM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Alison Stewart, still trying to get back from the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, sends this on the movies:
The New York Times takes the Cloverfield filmakers to the woodshed with a review that charges they should be ashamed of themselves for some spot-on visual allusions to Sept. 11, 2001. Critic Manohla Dargis writes:
Like Cloverfield itself, this new monster is nothing more than a blunt instrument designed to smash and grab without Freudian complexity or political critique, despite the tacky allusions to Sept. 11. The screams and the images of smoke billowing through the canyons of Lower Manhattan may make you think of the attack, and you may curse the filmmakers for their vulgarity, insensitivity or lack of imagination. (The director, Matt Reeves, lives in Los Angeles, as does the writer, Drew Goddard, and the movie's star producer, J. J. Abrams.)
I saw the film and there ARE two scenes which look more like footage from that sad fall day than a 2.0 monster movie.
What do you think? Tacky or realistic story telling?
-- Alison Stewart
Caitlin Kenney
11:51 AM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Y'all, on news that the Federal Reserve is whacking the interest rate by three-quarters of a point, the BPP is going all out on the economy. We need your questions/comments, please.
Specifically, we need questions from listeners about the economy -- anything and everything you that you're wondering about. The interest rate, the mortgage crisis, the national debt, the possible $800 tax rebate -- if you're wanting to ask, this is a great chance. We'll put the best questions to a guest on the air.
Second, we're wondering if anyone of you have noticed changes in your own spending habits. If you're worried about the economy, tell us what set those butterflies off. (Me, I started noticing that my pockets went empty a lot faster than I expected -- a brush with stagnant income in a world of rising prices. You?)
11:30 AM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post
Joel Rakes and Friends with Sufjan Stevens
Joel Rakes likes Sufjan Stevens. Nothing wrong with that. He and some friends saw him play in Brooklyn, and ran into him outside after the show, and took the above picture. Nothing wrong with that either.
The picture is pretty bad...the guy that was taking the picture didn't tell us he was pushing the button, which is why not many of the people in the picture (Sufjan included) look ready for the picture. We took the picture, said thanks and off we were. It was pretty quick as we didn't want to keep him from getting on with his life.
I didn't actually find out it was on the BrooklynVegan site until a week or so later. I'd actually been to BrooklynVegan a week or so the picture was posted and I check in from time to time. However, I noticed that my photo was getting tons of hits...like over 300 views which is a lot more than normal.
god sufjan looks like the most insufferable stick in the mud. Someone needs to smack him across the face and say "cheer up b***h you are popular and rich" that key foods across from southpaw has some bumpin' music. i hope Sufjan isn't trying to turn a whole generation onto the godawful goatee. that's some atrocious facial hair.
actually, I don't blame Sufjan for looking so down. wouldn't you be depressed if a bunch of tools forced you to take a photo with them? look at those people, complete tools.
Continue reading "The Internet Has No Feelings" »
10:16 AM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Filed under: Biking the Iditarod
Snow cyclist Jill Homer is training to bike 350 miles in February's human-powered Iditarod. Along the way, she's meeting some interesting critters. Homer sends this photo evidence.
UPDATE: Meet the Friends of Romeo.
8:39 AM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | comments (21) | e-mail post
In Egypt, getting a divorce is much more clear-cut than it is here in the States. According to Islamic law, a man just needs to tell his wife three times, "You are divorced." But what if a man proclaims his divorce through a text message? Does that count? Or is it too easy to end a marriage with your thumbs?
For more details, check out the BPP's Ramble.
Text message divorce/ Stranded Canadian survives on rotting meat/ Thieves grab bag of bread instead of money/ Texan woman has her power lines stolen
6:35 AM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
If you thought adolescence started at 13, think again. Puberty is starting for American girls younger and younger every year. Female bodies are starting to blossom as early at eight years of age. Some parents suspect chemicals in the environment, but doctors who've taken a closer look say they simply don't know what's causing the change.
It's BPP's the Most.
Girls are becoming teens at 8/ Muslim women are behind the wall of silence in Germany/ Patriots quarterback Tom Brady seen wearing a cast/ Plain White T's singer lands a date with Delilah
6:19 AM ET | 01-22-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
We're bumpin'. Here's a preview of tomorrow's BPP with Tricia and Matt:
4:24 PM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
It is true. A little surreal. They were interviewed and even hugged by Whoopi Goldberg. Kimya Dawson must be so happy. She expressed her love for Ms. Goldberg right here on the BPP last week. Take a listen.
1:50 PM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Sports
Normally Bill Wolff, BPP sports guru, and I watch sports together. That's because we are married, and because, well, I like to spend some time with him. This weekend I was romping around the Sundance Film Festival and he was doing his "research" for his Monday segment. So he sent me this e-mail, a 14-point e-mail, as soon as the games were over. Almost like being at home.
From: Wolff, Bill Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:00 PM To: 'astewart@npr.org' Subject: Monday sports! *Early game: the Patriots beat San Diego, as expected but by a margin (21-12) more narrow than expected. *New England is the first team to be 18-0. They will be in the Super Bowl for the fourth time in the last seven years.
Continue reading "Missive from the BPP's Monday Morning QB" »
1:48 PM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
He himself.
These days when I wrestle with race, I often think back to the fewer than 50 black kids -- in a student body of 1,200 -- at my college. And I think, man, I gave almost no thought at all to what that might have been like for them. It wasn't that I meant anyone harm; I just never considered the thousand little ways my being white may have made my experience that much easier. Now I can see that my whole known world depended on that one thing.
12:30 PM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Stay tuned for more nuggets of Sundance goodness throughout the week...
11:37 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Often called the godfather of rap, Gil Scott-Heron is a walking philosopher who has seen it all.
We asked Scott-Heron to come into our studio to mark Martin Luther King Day. Scott-Heron opened for Stevie Wonder in 1981 on his tour to promote the creation of the national holiday.
Now he's writing a book about that experience, which should come out in the next year. (Bonus: Scott-Heron reads from his book of poetry, The Last Holiday.)
Scott-Heron performed "Three Miles Down" at the BPP studios:
10:15 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post
If you've ever spent any significant time in Wyoming, you know it's a state where conservatives are old school. They are the cowboy variety who don't like government telling them what to do with their land or their guns or their money. It's the home state of Dick Cheney and, save for a small liberal pocket in Jackson Hole, he's a statewide hero.
So it's even more surprising to think that some tried-and-true Wyoming Republicans are considering voting for Democrats this year. It gets down to land -- apparently some ranchers haven't been to pleased about how big energy companies have been digging up their acreage in search of natural resources to help meet soaring demand. An editorial cartoonist from the Seattle PI drew up this cartoon that sums up this new political tension in Wyoming. Thought I'd pass it along for your viewing pleasure.
9:57 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Jessica Ingram works with the amazing Gigapan camera.
The Cause Collective, a group of multimedia artists at the Sundance Film Festival, have moved toward the whiskey. At last. As Jessica Ingram writes, their video mosaic "Along the Way" is up and running. Now it's time to party.
Greetings, all! Or greetings, poochies, as we like to say in the Cause. We are seriously digging Sundance. This morning we split up. Hank Willis Thomas with Will and Minette to deal with yet another computer switch, while Ryan Alexiev et moi stayed home to work on the website, blog, work on promotional biz, and most importantly, wait for Bayete Ross Smith to arrive.
We all met at 2 at the New Frontier on Main venue for the public opening of our piece. It's great to watch people watch our piece. I watched a 5-year-old mesmerized . . . it's exciting to complete a project and go through all the ups and downs, to work so hard, and then to still enjoy it.
Continue reading "Nail-Biting Artists Now 'Seriously Digging' Sundance" »
9:22 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Gil Scott-Heron, the man who's credited with laying the foundation for modern hip hop and rap, stopped by for an interview. Scott-Heron was also a key figure in the movement to create a holiday celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. He's got a new book coming out called Last Holiday, all about the history behind the holiday. He talked with us about how Stevie Wonder toured the country back in the 80's trying to convince the country at that time that this needed to happen. Scott-Heron was with him on that tour.
He also played a couple songs in studio and read a poem he wrote about MLK day. Here's the poem:
8:37 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post
It started oratory, and then went to longhand, then to the typewriter, followed by the computer, and now -- well... the cellphone.
When I first heard that some of Japan's best-selling novels were written on cellphones, I wondered that could even be possible. I mean, I've gotten pretty quick on T9, but a novel? A plot with characters and arcs and emotions? Come on...
But hey, as culture progresses and people evolve, why shouldn't storytelling?
Cellphone novel/ Soldiers warned not forward Obama propaganda on official computers/ "Cloverfield" rips apart the box office/ Texas congressional candidate photoshops some weight of his body/ Google trends
7:04 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
In recent world news: "SANTIAGO (AFP) -- An 81-year-old man in the small Chilean village of Angol shocked his grieving relatives by waking up in his coffin at his own wake, local media said on Sunday."
I'm not exactly sure how local doctors or the family could prepare a man for his wake without taking a pulse. Well, we all know what they say about assumptions...
Chilean man wakes up at his wake/ Bode Miller wins 28th World Cup title/ Introducing females to the Smurf commune/ New computer translates dog barks
6:40 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Music, Sundance Fever 2008, Video
Ingrid Michaelson is 28 years old and she lives with her parents.
She doesn't have a record deal or a huge publicity machine -- but she does have a huge hit. She produced her album Girls and Boys by herself, and thanks to the power of the Interwebs, it's skyrocketed up the itunes chart. It also grabbed the attention of the folks at Old Navy, who decided Michaelson's "The Way I Am" would make the perfect soundtrack to their latest ad.
Here's Michaelson in Park City, at the ASCAP Cafe, singing "Breakable."
11:17 AM ET | 01-20-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Sundance Fever 2008, Video
The Saga Continues...
11:11 AM ET | 01-20-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Yes, the winners of the Nevada caucuses (Hillary and Mitt) and the Republican primary in South Carolina ( John) are pictured above the fold of the paper. Sharing the front page below the fold? It's the arrival of Bono and The Edge taken at premiere of "U2-3D" at the Sundance Film Festival last night. The BPP is scheduled to speak with the film's director today....which was pushed to later this afternoon because...well... there was a premiere party last night...you get the idea. Here's the trailer.
10:43 AM ET | 01-20-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Today we're gonna go meet filmmaker Jamie Stuart in the parking lot of the Albertson's grocery store in Park City (apparently the place where everyone here runs into each other). Jamie has carved out a little niche for himself making digital shorts about movies -- especially film festivals. His movies are poetic little glimpses into the culture of filmmaking. Even if you don't always know exactly what's happening, they're always beautiful, full of sly visual cuts, and often very funny.
Check out his work from Sundance last year.
My favorite joke in that one? The name of the movie you never actually hear Sienna Miller and Steve Buscemi talking about? Interview.
You can see more of Jamie's stuff at his website, The Mutiny Company.
1:22 PM ET | 01-19-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Two days down at Sundance, and here's how things have gone:
Thursday - we tried to get our bearings, did some interviews, gathered audio and video, and got ready for our remote broadcast of Friday's BPP radio show from KCPW in Salt Lake City.
Friday - left the hotel at 3:15 am (gotta love that time difference) to get to KCPW for the big show, finished and left KCPW before the sun came up, drove up to Park City. We felt a little more confident yesterday, having completed one show successfully, but we're nowhere near the seasoned Sundance pros that have just blanketed the city in the past 48 hours. Grabbed a couple of interviews with filmmakers, chatted with Alex Rivera, saw Morgan Spurlock and his moustache, and tried in vain to get a wi-fi signal to work at the Sundance press hq.
After two indie-heavy days, we had big plans to come back to SLC and catch a showing of Cloverfield, but sometimes life has other plans for you. After sitting down on the bed at 7pm to "check my email," I woke up at 2am, fully dressed, and had to decide whether it was worth the energy it would cost to reach over and turn off the light next to my bed.
Similar fates for Win and for Alison, who reported at breakfast that she woke up being choked by her Sundance press credentials. Metaphor alert!
Jacob Ganz
12:12 PM ET | 01-19-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Greetings from the land of The Great Salt Lake.
8:13 PM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Look! It's our video!
The Cause Collective, a group of multimedia artists, got tapped for the Sundance Film Festival's New Frontier division. The program displays art at the intersection of film and just about every other kind of creative expression. The Cause Collective is showing a video mosaic called Along the Way. After a rough start, Jessica Ingram says they finally got through the worst of it.
OK, Laura Conaway wasn't kidding in the blog she wrote for us -- which we couldn't write because we were maxed out trying to get our piece ready for the New Frontier Opening. After we stayed up ALL night Wednesday, we finally took a nap around 9 a.m. while our piece rendered for an hour. I woke up to Ryan Alexiev screaming three floors below, "Let's go, Oakland!" -- which is what one of the people in our video portraits screams.
Continue reading "Too Much Stress at Sundance. Whoa." »
4:05 PM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Fridays are for dancing. Here's a preview of Monday's BPP.
3:56 PM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Why won't this thing work?
The Cause Collective, a group of multimedia artists, got tapped for the Sundance Film Festival's New Frontier division. The program displays art at the intersection of film and just about every other kind of creative expression. The Cause Collective is showing a video mosaic called Along the Way. As Jessica Ingram wrote earlier this week, they've kind of been up against it since they arrived.
Special to the BPP from Jessica Ingram of the Cause Collective.
Greetings from Park City, Utah! It was so exciting to arrive in snow-covered Salt Lake City Tuesday. It was 22 degrees when I landed and -2 degrees by the time I got to Park City. It is seriously cold here. I learned a new expression yesterday: "It's colder than Vernal!" Vernal is a town near Salt Lake City that is always MUCH colder than anywhere else around because of its elevation (it has a high of 3 degrees today). So when you're somewhere seriously cold, you exclaim, "It's colder than Vernal!"
It is a definite winter wonderland and everyone in Park City is gearing up for the Festival. Including my colleagues Hank Willis Thomas, Ryan Alexiev, and me, Jessica Ingram...
I arrived to a tense environment at the condo -- Hank and Ryan got into a huge fight and started screaming at each other. I seriously thought they were going to throw down in the snow.
Continue reading "Nail-Biting Artists Save Show at Sundance" »
3:43 PM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Here's the lovely miss's latest missive from Sundance:
I am in a single-person screening room watching Goliath. It is about a divorced, not-so-loveable loser who only seems to have gotten his beloved cat out of the marriage and now GOLIATH (the cat) IS MISSING!!!!! Win and Jacob are catching up with Alex Rivera. More later. Snowing and 19 degrees in Park City.
Win and Jacob are catching up with Alex Rivera.
More later.
Snowing and 19 degrees in Park City.
1:12 PM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Get your card here.
NPR's Robert Smith just created a soothsaying tool for Election 2008 -- Candidate Bingo. Smith says he wanted a new way to tell whether a particular person was or was not about to run for president starting with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He writes:
I made up a BINGO card with all the attributes you see in candidates these days: an overwhelming desire to kiss babies and shake hands, the verbal tic of always mentioning "change" and the excessive quoting of John F. Kennedy, or Reagan, depending on your political bent. I followed Bloomberg around for the week and marked off the squares. And let's just say, I never yelled BINGO.
Get your own Candidate Bingo card from the NPR mothership.
12:35 PM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
We noticed that Super Tuesday falls on Mardi Gras this year, February 5th. Now, Louisiana is holding its primaries 4 days later on February 9th. Does the decision not to participate in Super Tuesday have anything to do with Mardi Gras? Well, does it, Julie Vezinot, Communications Director of the Louisiana Democratic Party?
Exactly. We knew if we held the primaries on Mardi Gras, turnout would be nominal, cause it's a holiday throughout New Orleans and the state. To do the elections justice, and to do the candidates justice, we're holding them on Saturday. So they'll have the full attention of the voter.
Now Julie didn't say people would be too drunk to check the right box if asked to vote on Mardi Gras, but we're guessing that factored into the decision.
12:05 PM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Host Alison Stewart sounds in fine form after our three-studio extravaganza today. We had Korva Coleman newscasting from D.C., Rachel Martin hosting from home base in New York and Alison in Salt Lake City at member station KCPW.
Alison writes:
OUR FIRST REMOTE! And it went off pretty smoothly. We had the iChat going, e-mail and in-house ENPS to make it all go well.
It was disorienting to go into the studio when it was dark (3:40 a.m.) and leave the studio when it was still dark (7:15).
The plan today...head to Park City and talk to filmmakers of Goliath. Please watch this trailer. It's great.
Then we might stay and watch some documentaries and such...although I bucking for a BPP field trip to see CLOVERFIELD.
More to come ..
P.S. -- It's up to 23 degrees.
10:09 AM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
The news of Washington says President Bush is considering a tax rebate as a means of getting the sluggish economy going again. We're talking up to $800 for individual taxpayers.
If I get one, it's going to fix the roof -- whether that stimulates the economy or not. You?
8:12 AM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | comments (16) | e-mail post
After 25 years, a boomerang from an Australian museum finally comes back. "I removed this back in 1983 when I was younger and dumber," said the guilt-ridden American who stole the boomerang from the small mining town of Mount Isa.
Boomerang has 25 year toss/ European-based clubs ask to have African football championship start earlier/ Green Bay TV pulls 'Seinfeld' to disrupt Giants quarterback/ Iranian female race car drivers/ Utah students ask gym to stop playing sexual content
7:23 AM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Found this through @yndygo's Twitter feed. She's wrestling with the nature of the Twitter.com social experiment, and she writes:
It's like being at a cocktail party -- and in the same room as you, there are thousands of other people milling about. Some of them are "notable" folks and some of them are standing in the corner talking to themselves. You can walk up and talk to them too -- and just like at a cocktail party, you might get ignored politely, or you might end up having an extended chat with them. Or you can just stand near them and listen sometimes and learn much.
6:52 AM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
I always find it interesting when kids have directly opposite interests from their parents'. You know, the father's a cop but the son's a drug dealer, or the mother's a teacher but the daughter drops out of school.
Well, how about the father leads one of the world's largest terrorist organizations and the son wants to be a peace activist? This is the case with Osama bin Laden and his son Omar Osama bin Laden.
I've heard that kids seek to live out their parents' subconscious. I don't know if this is true, but in a strange way it makes a lot of sense. It's like humans have an innate impulse to balance out humanity. What do you think?
It's the BPP's the Most.
Bin Laden's son is aspiring peace activist/ Romney has heated exchange at press conference/ What is the only even prime number?/ Give me liberty of give me death/ Haggis a.k.a. sheep stomach lasagna/ 1971 time capsule found in Mexican bell tower
6:16 AM ET | 01-18-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Yesterday, we were thirsty. Today, we're hungry. Here's a preview of tomorrow's BPP.
2:57 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
An update from Alison Stewart, at the Sundance film festival in Park City, Utah:
Just interviewed first-time Sundance-goers on shuttlebus for a movie called The Execution of Solomon Harris. First screening tomorrow. We will air part of the interview tomorrow. Valiant filming on Win's part.
2:40 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Today on the BPP, we had a story about the "Rebels to the Pebble" a group of seventh-graders in Dillingham, Alaska who are protesting the development of the Pebble gold and copper mine.
If granted the permit, the mine could not only become the world's biggest project of its type, but could also include the world's biggest dam, smack in the middle of the world's largest salmon fishery.
Continue reading "Alaskan Kids Say No to a Gold Mine" »
2:26 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post
From Cause Collective's 'Along the Way'
Right this second, as I'm typing, Ryan Alexiev and the rest of Cause Collective are showing off their big installation art project at the Sundance film festival. They're in a category called New Frontier that's designed to show off art at the intersection of a bunch of different media including sound.
Which sound, as I'm typing, is Ryan's big problem. The group commissioned new music for their 20-minute video mosaic, titled "Along the Way" -- check it out on their site -- and it all worked just fine. Until they got to Sundance.
Continue reading "Artists Bite Nails at Sundance Opener" »
1:30 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Alison, Jacob, and Win are surrounded by beautiful white snow, and we here at the BPP office are jealous. Alison writes:
Just left KCPW. Really great folks. All set for tomorrow's show. Station located across from a gorgeous public library. Entire area surrounded by HUGE snow covered mountains. Flurries as we drive out of town to the festival. Just passed the stadium where the Olympic torch was as well as the fine culinary establishments CHUCKARAMA and the WONDERBREAD outlet. Win is testing mics in the back seat. Jacob is driving and I am the bberry queen. Off to the press conference. Details to come.
1:00 PM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
The scene at Virginia Tech
Is New York City some kind of no-snow zone anymore? When I first moved here -- from MAINE, where it snows! -- a New Yorker told me, "We're too big for the weather."
At times like these I thank our Twitter friends. Twitterererer @girlinblack sends this image from her school today. More here.
Bonus: Join our Twitter-lution.
10:43 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Just when some of us might have forgotten about the violence in the aftermath of the recent presidential elections, conflict erupts again in the East African nation. This time in Kenya's third city, Kisumu.
This Frontline World dispatch by Kenyan-born Edwin Okong'o puts the conflict in context. Okong'o (a friend and colleague of mine) is Editor of Mshale, a newspaper for the African diaspora in the U.S. He says ethnic tensions are fueled by politicians playing the "tribe card."
Most Kenyans are not tribal fundamentalists, as they have been portrayed in foreign media coverage of the ethnic violence that broke out after the December 27th presidential election. Since independence from Britain in 1963, Kenyans from different tribes have lived together in peace. Intercultural marriages and relationships, once taboo in many tribes, have become increasingly common. In Kenyan cities, people do not live in segregated neighborhoods. Most people in Kenya respect each other. There are no groups anywhere in Kenya publicly claiming tribal supremacy.
During election years, politicians work night and day to make sure that Kenyans replace their religious faith and political beliefs with tribal extremism.
What Kenya does suffer from are some politicians who use the poor for political gain, including the two men on top of the current political gridlock....
Keep reading.
9:52 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
The view outside the office window
Twitter friend @gubilla says it's snowing in Charlottesville, Va. (Don't miss our big Twitter-lution, complete with the BPPdiner.)
9:25 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
We had a guest who didn't quite show up this morning. Which means we suddenly had a vast plain of dead air looming in the last 20 minutes of the show. And whenever that nightmare scenario arrives, it's time for an emergency replay of radio genius Robert Krulwich.
It also means it's time to change the sign.
Some say we'd reached double digits.
9:18 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Jonah Fisher reports from a Greenpeace Ship
A standoff between anti-whaling activists and a Japanese whaling fleet is heating up in the Antarctic, and now the Australian government is getting involved.
Australian officials say they will send a boat to retrieve two anti-whaling activists who boarded a Japanese whaler on Tuesday. The men are from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, an aggressive environmental group, which has in the past rammed and attempted to sink boats they believed to be violating international law.
The men are still on the ship and Sea Shepherd says they have been mistreated. The Japanese deny those allegations; they say the men broke the law and are acting like pirates.
BBC reporter Jonah Fisher is reporting on the story from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza, which is also following the Japanese fleet. We spoke to him this morning.
Follow the story: Jonah and the Whale-Chasers
7:39 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
On Jan. 14, 2008, NASA's Messenger flew past the other side of Mercury for the first time. (Bonus: Summer Ash explains it all.) During the flyby, the Messenger captured an image of a hemisphere that was never seen before.
So how does Mercury's mysterious side look? Um....exactly the same as the other side.
Check out where the grass is always greener, with the BPP's Ramble.
New side of Mercury exposed/ Just under a 12-year run, 'Rent' is to close/ Why men and women are more attracted to longer legs/ Father arrested after forcing a Packers jersey on his son/ Newly proposed lyrics for Spain's national anthem caused a stir amongst citizens
6:46 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Breaking World News: "STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- A Swedish bomb squad called out to disarm a suspicious package on Wednesday did not find a ticking bomb. But they did find a vibrating sex toy."
What better place to get globally informed? It's BPP's the Most.
Sex toy triggers bomb scare/ Obsessive popcorn eater sues after developing lung disease/ Richard Knerr, inventor of the Hula Hoop and Frisbee. dies at 82/ Wealthy may be to suffer in U.S. home crisis/ Jenna Bush to be married in May
6:30 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Inside The BPP, Sundance Fever 2008
It's a crazy life here at the BPP. People start coming in around 3:30 a.m., or even 3. They work like mad on the show, and then they just keep going.
Wednesday, host Alison Stewart and director Jacob Ganz charged out of the office around noon and headed for the airport.They were on their way to Park City, Utah, where they're meeting up with video producer Win Rosenfeld. They'll cover the Sundance Film Festival and broadcast Friday's show. Alison sends this travelogue from Wednesday:
Landed 8:30mt. Jacob sat next to a Mormon dude who is torn about voting for Romney -- likes his religious dedication but hates his CEO approach. Win in from LA noticed the temp difference. It's 8 degrees. I was almost run over by some Entertainment Weekly gals. In the hotel an by 9:45. We have been up 20 hours. Gnite!
6:29 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Alison, Jacob and I just hit Salt Lake City, psyched to kick off our Sundance coverage.
2:14 AM ET | 01-17-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Quench your thirst. Here's a preview of tomorrow's BPP.
4:21 PM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post
The scene outside the Serena Hotel, two days later
Lisa Gans writes a riveting letter to her friends about somehow, somehow surviving the bombing and shooting Monday at the Serena Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan. Gans is due on our show Thursday. Meanwhile, we'll leave you with this, originally published on the Huffington Post.
Special to the BPP from Lisa Gans:
Hi all,
An hour ago I was rescued from the basement of the Serena Hotel in Kabul by ISAF forces. I'm a member of the gym there and had gone to work out. I'd just gone into the reception area to ask for an internet access card when several blasts shook the building and I and the only other person in the reception, a woman from the Phillipines who worked in the hotel spa, heard gunfire and grenades. A young man who also works for the hotel ran in screaming that there was someone shooting people in the hotel lobby. He ran into a back room and I ducked behind a desk as the sounds got louder, and the shooting more rapid. I peered out from the side of the desk as a man, dressed as a member of the Afghan security forces with a long beard came from the men's locker area, firing an AK-47. He turned his head, saw me crouched behind the desk, looked directly at me and then fired into the chest of the other woman. She fell to the ground and he ran out, stepping over her body. As I sit here now, I still don't know why he didn't shoot me. I heard more gunshots and someone screaming in agony as he ran down the hall.
Continue reading "Twice Alive: Lisa Gans on the Kabul Hotel Bombing" »
3:54 PM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
NPR guy Andy Carvin, one of the humans most responsible for our great Twitterlution (aka the Twitternado, says Ian Chillag), has taken this great experiment to a new level. And all.
Andy created the BPPdiner, which pulls together all the BPP-related posts on Twitter.com. Sign up to follow it, and then you'll see all the BPP-related posts. Lost? Me, too. Here's Andy:
BPPdiner is an automatic aggregation of every post on Twitter that uses the word bpp. That way, it makes an easy way to create a group on Twitter. Just tell people to mention bpp (or @bpp) in their Tweets, and it'll be posted to BPPdiner. So it kinda is like a listserv for twitter.
The idea, I think, is to help us all keep talking. It should come in especially handy each morning, when the show is broadcasting live. Wander over to the diner. I've seen @robpatrob pouring fresh cups of coffee over there all day.
3:20 PM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post
On April 18, 2007, Erin Davies -- then of Albany, N.Y. -- found the words "fAg" and "u r gay" spray painted on her VW Beetle. Instead of removing the graffiti, Davies decided to take her bug on a 58-day cross-country tour and make a documentary about it.
Davies told us all about today on the show, and she sends a few clips from the film in the making. I'll drop one here and two more after the jump. You can follow her progress on her website, Fagbug: Activism on Wheels.
From Erin Davies: In Vegas, as I was interviewing a young woman who had also been a victim of a hate crime, this gentleman pulled over to talk to me after seeing me on the news. Several people have said they would respond to something like this with violence. I'm trying to put a non-violent message out there. I feel my actions are enough in continuing to drive the car and not letting the person who did this get the best of me.
WARNING: Content Contains Some Language That May Not Be Suitable For All Audiences.
Continue reading "The Incredible Adventures of a Car Named 'Fagbug'" »
12:42 PM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | comments (10) | e-mail post
From a restaurant in Beijing that probably does not serve fortune cookies
I got Chinese take-out the day Matt and Sharon interviewed me for the job here at the BPP. My fortune cookie:
YOU WILL SOON MAKE A CAREER CHANGE
No joke. And now I pretty much believe anything the fortune cookie tells me to believe. Including, recently:
YOU ARE PRETTY
YOU LIKE CHINESE FOOD
Not really fortunes but definitely true. Anyway, I bring this up because I just saw an article in the New York Times that says the fortune cookie's country of origin is not China, as some people thought, or an american Chinese food restaurant, as I thought, but Japan.
Pashman noticed it too and he's thinking about tracking down the researcher who figured it out. In the meantime, got any fortunes? Even the kind that aren't really fortunes?
10:14 AM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Filed under: Inside The BPP, Sound Off
Thanks to the really smart Rob Paterson, we're going over the edge with Twitter. Twitter, for the rookies, is equal parts cocktail party, Instant Messenger and microblog. You can check out our feed, twitter.com/bpp, complete with on-air posts from show host Alison Stewart.
We love this thing already, but Rob Paterson has an idea for taking it a step further. Here's the deal. "Follow" our feed. Then "follow" each other's. I'll be sending out an e-mail of volunteers for this little experiment later. If you want to play, leave a note in the comments, please. After the jump, a list of volunteers. "Follow" their feeds, everyone, and volunteers, return the love.
Report back, please, in the Twitter-verse!
Continue reading "Listeners, Unite: Join the BPP's Twitter-lution!" »
9:26 AM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | comments (33) | e-mail post
Rob Paterson, aka @robpatrob, checks in from Canada
Way up in Prince Edward Island, Canada, Rob Paterson streams our show. Now he's given us an idea for making it better. And he blogs about us (blush) in a post titled "Future of Radio -- Bryant Park -- Twitter -- My Diner in the Morning." Specifically, Paterson's on about our Twitter feed:
From my part it introduces the many to many while the one to many is still going. This I think is the future of Radio and TV. To wrap the Program with a society.
We had Rob Paterson on the show today. Love him. And come join our Twitter feed. While you're at it, join each other's.
9:05 AM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Hello Oprah! Discovery Communications announced yesterday that Oprah will launched The Oprah Winfrey Network in the second-half of 2009. This is Oprah's next step to fulfill her mission of creating "mindful -- not mindless -- television."
Oprah gains entire cable network/ NYPD reminds cops to stay clean-shaven- unless you're sporting a mustache/ Virginia introduces a new bill that bans displaying human genitalia on motor vehicles/ Actor Matthew McConaughey to be a dad/ "High School Musical" star Zac Efron has appendix removed/ Actor Brad Renfro in top 5 of Yahoo's photo search/ Hillary Clinton talks to Tyra Banks about Bill's infidelity
7:05 AM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
So who's Aqualung and why is he missing? Well, Aqualung, also known as Bill Dunn, was a homeless man who was given a house by the ever so generous Clay family in West Virginia. After Aqualung moved in, the Clays decided they wanted do some minor renovations -- fix the cabinets, repair the walls and replace the fridge. They wanted to clean up the place. This refurbishing did not go well with Aqualung. He packed his bag and left without a trace.
Curious about Aqualung? Check out the Most.
Cruise's Scientology rant/ American Idol is back on the air/ Homeless man abandons donated home because he doesn't like renovations/ Country singer Shelby Lynne releases new album
6:35 AM ET | 01-16-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Update @ 8:59: Kucinich ain't there.
Update @ 8:35: MSNBC's spokesman says Kucinich will not be on stage tonight.
Update @ 8:20: MSNBC's spokesman says the Nevada Supreme Court ruled in MSNBC's favor. Kucinich's spokesman says he hasn't heard anything official yet. I guess we'll find out in about 40 minutes whether Dennis Kucinich will take the stage at the Democratic debate or not.
No word yet on whether the Nevada supreme court will make MSNBC let Dennis Kucinich take part in its Democratic debate tonight. But while you're waiting, you can read NBC's petition for an emergency hearing to vacate the county court judge's injunction. Courtesy of the New York Times.
They have about 2 hours to settle this before showtime.
6:58 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
January's the month to click for company.
That's according to a story this month in the Seattle Times. They call this period between New Year's and Valentine's Day "hunting season," when the internet dating business is busiest and most profitable.
It's not hard to think of reasons for the surge: New Year's resolutions, familial pressure leftover from the holidays to find a honey, or just the wintertime cold and loneliness. One thing's for sure, people can't stand the thought of being alone this Valentine's Day.
Makes me wonder - there must be a plethora of untapped stories surrounding internet romance. I know what my friends have told me, but we want to hear from you.
What's the worst internet dating experience you've had? Know anyone who's gone to great lengths to find a mate? Perhaps you're addicted to match.com, or you're the lucky one who's met the love of your life.
In honor of "internet dating month," we're farming your stories. Email us, or post a comment. One of these days, we'll ask you to call in.
5:22 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Mac and Tricia with a preview of Wednesday's show. Yes, it's Mac to you.
4:16 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
I just got word from MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines that the Nevada Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today on NBC News' appeal of the ruling ordering them to let Dennis Kucinich take part in tonight's Democratic debate. Gaines says the oral arguments will be heard at 1:30 PST today. That's about an hour from the time of this posting.
3:33 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Listen to KT Tunstall's in studio interview and performance on the BPP
Musician KT Tunstall came into the BPP studio for an interview and live performance, then she stuck around to demonstrate how she uses a loop pedal to layer multiple rhythms and guitar parts on top of each other to create a one-woman band. She's not the only musician to use one of these pedals, but she's definitely made the technique her own. Click here to see her on The Today Show using a loop pedal to perform "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree." And check her out at BPP HQ providing a little tutorial...
Special props go to Zena Barakat, who's helping us out with videos this week while Win Rosenfeld goes to video camp. (It's pronounced ZAY-na. You can't possibly think of a reference to the Warrior Princess she hasn't heard, so don't bother.)
2:37 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (10) | e-mail post
The New York Times had a great article Monday about Americans at all economic levels cutting back on spending. The Times says a decline in personal consumption would be the first since 1991, and it could send the economy into a recession.The article quoted a number of retail professionals and also some regular people.
Jinal Shah, 22, a college senior in New York, said she wanted to buy the popular Nintendo Wii video game system as a gift for herself this holiday season, but had second thoughts because of the $250 price tag. She ended up not purchasing it. "You have to make choices," she said. "I get the Wii, or I go out more. I am just much more aware of the tradeoff now."
As I read this article, I realized that even though I don't have any major financial concerns- I've been cutting back too. I haven't been going out to eat as much and I've started buying some products in bulk at Costco. Anyone else feeling the squeeze?
1:42 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Maura sends this link to a Flickr'd up cartoon about the power of the popular vote.
Anyone recognize the artist?
1:20 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
A Nevada judge has ruled that NBC News has to let Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich debate on MSNBC tonight.
But as of late yesterday, MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said the network is filing an appeal with the Nevada Supreme Court. Kucinich campaign spokesman Andy Juniewicz told me he had the 112-page filing in his hands, but couldn't tell me if the Nevada Supreme Court will hear the case or when.
Juniewicz tells me the candidate is on a plane bound for Las Vegas right now and is planning to attend a rally somewhere near the debate site this afternoon. When I asked him if Kucinich will be at the debate, he told me the candidate has a ticket -- it's called a signed court order.
The issue? Kucinich's camp says their candidate was initially invited to the Democratic debate, but was later cut from it. MSNBC's side? The network decided to go with the top three candidates after the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries -- that's Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards.
They don't have a ton of time to figure this out. The debate is scheduled to happen at 9 p.m. Eastern time -- 6 p.m. in Nevada. It's about 10:42 a.m. there as I post this.
1:15 PM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
William Henry Bonser Lamin fought for England in World War I.
When Harry Lamin was sent to the front lines of World War I in 1917, letters were the only way he could communciate with his family. Without phone calls or instant messages, his family back in London would eagerly await the day's mail, wondering if it would bring loving words from Harry or a telegram from the war office notifying them of his death.
Harry's grandson Bill knew of these letters as a child, but it wasn't until recently that he sat down to read them. When he did, he knew he had to publish them. He's been posting Harry's letters online in a blog ever since. Each letter is posted online 90 years to the day from when it was written. We spoke with Harry's grandson, Bill Lamin, on the show today.
11:50 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Lou Ann Walker has an amazing article in New York magazine about deaf culture and the growth in popularity of Cochlear implants. Something like a third of the kids at one school for the deaf in the Bronx have the implants -- which, as Walker writes, are not exactly a perfect fix for hearing impairment. Deaf activists fear, with some reason, that deaf children will end up fluent in no language or belonging fully to any culture, as the teaching of American Sign Language begins to fade. She writes:
If French is the language of lovers and German the language of commerce, then perhaps sign is the language of humans connecting. You can't sign to someone if you're standing next to that person. You have to look full-on at each other, watch each others faces and necks, shoulders and elbows, hips and knees. You have to stand a bit farther backs than you do with spoken language so that you can take in the entirety of the person, and take in that entirety you must. A mother cannot stir the soup and shout over her shoulder for her child to finish homework. Instead, she puts down the spoon, goes to find the child, faces the child, and signs. She watches the child's response carefully and responds to what the child is doing or not doing, saying or not saying.
11:40 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
A note to all psychics and those who listen to them: ESP is not real. Using high-tech brain scanners, two scientists from Harvard draw the bottom line on the legitimacy of extrasensory perception.
It's BPP's the Ramble.
ESP: To Be or Not to Be/ French president secretly marries supermodel/ Players on the Chicago Bulls bench rookie teammate/ Texans spot UFO
11:30 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
As seen on the Guardian Unlimited
Editor's note: Our own Angela Ellis blogged this cartoon of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama. With the ongoing politicking over race in South Carolina, it seems worth a second look. You can check the original round of comments here.
I pretty much had an immediate and visceral reaction to a cartoon this week labeled "Target Man." I saw it Wednesday -- the same day that a Hillary Clinton supporter at a Dover, New Hampshire, rally introduced the candidate like this: "Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated."
It's been clear to most in the press that it was a reference to Barack Obama, whose message of hope and magnanimous public speaking style has been likened to JFK's.
Back to the cartoon. It's from the U.K.'s Guardian Unlimited and billed as cartoonist Steve Bell's commentary on Democrat "Barack Obama's sprint to the White House."
Here's my question: Is this a commentary on Obama's being the biggest threat to his opponents' campaigns, therefore making him the focus of their strategies? Is it a play on how Obama has come under fire by the Clinton camp after his Iowa win? Or is it a reference to stories that many people -- especially some in the African-American community -- feel anxiety and fear for Obama as he advances in the campaign because he could possibly be the target of an assassination attempt? And if it is reference to those fears, is it an insensitive one?
On first glance, I felt the latter -- again, in no small part to the New Hampshire rally comment. But now I'm wondering if that's too reactionary. What if the cartoon showed Mitt Romney, a candidate also heavily pounded by his rivals? Or Hillary Clinton? Would it be offensive to show any other candidate with a target on his or her chest? Or does it just seem wrong because Obama -- as the nation's first viable African-American presidential candidate -- really could be a target for the people whose threats have necessitated 24-hour Secret Service protection for the candidate? What do you guys think?
11:16 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Bill Wolff on the pennies
Got this amazing correction from astrophysicist to the (radio stars) Summer Ash:
BTW, I know I'm a day late, so maybe someone else caught it, but I have a correction for Thursday's show. During the ramble, Bill Wolff was talking about the story with a quadrillion pennies that would reach to Saturn and he incorrectly said that they would melt. Could you inform him that space is cold, not hot? I just looked into this a bit and it appears that metals exposed to the vacuum of space actually undergo a "cold-weld" effectively bonding together without the aid of a bonding medium. This doesn't happen on Earth because the surfaces are oxidized, but in a vacuum, if the oxide films on the surfaces of the pennies were cleaned off, they would not return and the surfaces at which the pennies touched would effectively weld together. So I guess you might have a solid rod of pennies from here to Saturn, but thanks to the cold, not heat, of space.
10:04 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Feel good about getting a good deal? Well, maybe you'd feel even better if you didn't. In a recent study, scientists have shown that the brain gets more pleasure from expensive products. So next time you can't decide between two products, the answer's simple: just pick the pricier of the two.
But how could you put a price tag on this news? It's the BPP's Most.
Pleasure is in the price tag/ Top 5 headache triggers/ German historians identify Mona Lisa/ Chicago senior citizens want free public transportation Naomi Campbell allegedly having an affair with president of Venezuela The Hindu young world quiz
9:40 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
See for yourself.
I'm excited about our show's Sundance trip. I'm also nervous about the Sundance trip. Sometimes nerves can cause little mistakes. I'd like to come clean with you about a little mistake.
When we were talking about Sundance on the show this morning, I got on the air and talked about the new boots I bought in anticipation of snowy snowy conditions in Park City, Utah. And I wasn't entirely accurate in describing one of the features. I think I described the boots as having "fur."
Hold on a sec while I check the tape.
Yep. "I have boots. They have fur."
Which was, as I mentioned above, inaccurate. The truth: I have boots. They have faux fur. I know you hold the BPP to the highest standards of truth and accuracy, and I would hate to think that my blunder might cause your faith in us to falter.
So. Just to be clear. No animals were harmed in the making of the faux fur collar on my new boots.
I'm pretty sure the leather on the boots came from a real animal, though.
9:19 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Listen to KT Tunstall's entire in studio interview and performance
Two years ago this week, Scottish musician KT Tunstall appeared on the Today Show with nothing but an acoustic guitar, a tambourine, and a array of foot pedals on the floor in front of her. It's pretty rare in this multimedia era that just a couple TV performances have much of an impact on someone's career, but folks on her message boards are still competing to find the highest quality video of that performance.
Next, Katharine McPhee covered Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on American Idol. Then Tunstall's music was included in the film The Devil Wears Prada and she was off. Her debut album, Eye to the Telescope, went on to sell four million copies worldwide. Her sophomore effort, Drastic Fantastic, debuted in September at number nine on the Billboard chart.
But what seems like an overnight success story is actually the result of more than 15 years of hard work. And if Tunstall has anything to say about it, there will be many more chapters written. In an interview with the BPP today, she talks about the impact of success on her music, the genesis of her guitar style, and what it's like to play music for her deaf brother.
8:46 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Listen to today's edition of The Most
Moments after I made my contribution to The Most today, I realized I might have taken the wrong approach to the story. Here's an excerpt from today's LA Times:
When it comes to wine tasting, pleasure is in the price. Using brain scanners to monitor the minds of wine drinkers, scientists found that people given two identical red wines got more pleasure from tasting the one they were told cost more. The study, reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrated for the first time how marketing tactics -- such as raising the price of a product -- can cause the brain to play tricks on itself.
When it comes to wine tasting, pleasure is in the price.
Using brain scanners to monitor the minds of wine drinkers, scientists found that people given two identical red wines got more pleasure from tasting the one they were told cost more.
The study, reported Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrated for the first time how marketing tactics -- such as raising the price of a product -- can cause the brain to play tricks on itself.
Perhaps the most interesting part of this story is that more expensive wines don't just elicit better reviews on a conscious level. It's not simply that we assume something more expensive must be better. As the article states, "Brain scans showed that activity in the part of the brain that detects pleasure also moved in lock step with price."
When I did The Most today, I took the same approach as the writer of this piece, pointing to the study as evidence that we trick ourselves into liking higher-priced wine. But now I wonder, Are we really tricking ourselves? If our brains tell us we like something more, doesn't that mean we like it more? What is pleasure besides the experience of our brains telling us we're experiencing it? In other words, maybe this isn't a trick at all. Maybe spending more money for the same product is actually money well spent, as long as you don't know it's the same product.
Am I making any sense? Do you like this blog post? What if I charge you 50 bucks for it?
That's what I thought. Best. Blog post. Ever.
7:26 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
David Brown of Navy Times talks about the "Filipino Monkey"
On today's show, we talked with David Brown of the Navy Times about the Jan. 6 incident in the Strait of Hormuz, when U.S. ships off the coast of Iran were approached by several small Iranian boats. Brown raises the possibility -- just the possibility -- that the threat coming over the radio came not from the Iranian boats, but from a prankster.
Wherever the truth lies, one fact that has come out of the story is that the audio and video above were mixed together by the Pentagon, to give, in their words, a "better sense of what is happening." This must be what Iran was talking about when they claimed the U.S. fabricated the audio of the incident. Not so much fabricated, but remixed. Either way, we didn't know the Pentagon had iMovie, and it freaks us out a bit.
By way of comparison, check out the footage from Iranian state-run TV:
6:07 AM ET | 01-15-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Laura Conaway, this blog's esteemed editor, has been harassing me to start blogging what I make for my family for dinner every night. I have no idea why she would find this interesting. We McKinneys must represent the typical nuclear family or something. If so, I feel sorry for this nation.
Here's what we consumed chez McKinney this evening: beef stir fry with peppers. It was purchased pre-chopped at Stop and Shop with a sell-by date of today. I glopped way too much pre-made black bean sauce from a jar all over it. I served it with brown basmati rice. My daughter's portion was sauce-free.
Happy, Laura?
8:24 PM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post
Here's Tricia and Matt with a preview of tomorrow morning's broadcast.
3:57 PM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Hello, Newton Corner, Mass. Courtesy of DougH
Hello, Newton Corner, Mass.
Listener DougH sends pics and video from his family's snow day in Newton Corner, Mass., not far from Boston.
Good grief, I wish we had some snow here in New York.
However it seems to y'all up there, it looks like heaven to me.
2:19 PM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
I was all like: cuteness over time is an upside-down bell curve.
Then I watched this and I was like: no matter how cute you are plus drum equals cute.
100 people, age 1-100, banging a drum. It's that simple.
1:23 PM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Rising.
Our own beloved astrophysicist to the (radio stars), Summer Ash, sends a primer on the MESSENGER spacecraft's dance with Mercury. You can get more Summer on her blog, Newtonianism for the Ladies.
No, not the quicksilver kind. That will make you batty. I'm talking about the planet Mercury. NASA has a playdate with the first rock from the Sun coming up on Monday the 14th, its first in more than 30 years. The spacecraft MESSENGER (an acronym for mouthful called MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, Geochemistry, and Ranging) will flyby Mercury on Monday on its way to eventually settling into orbit around the planet in 2011. Why isn't it going into orbit now instead of doing a flyby of its supposed target you may ask? Welcome to the world of gravity assists. You may think that gravity always keeps your feet on the ground, but in the case of cruising through the solar system, it can also give you a swift kick in the pants, metaphorically speaking of course.
Since its launch on August 3. 2004, MESSENGER has rendezvoused with Earth once and Venus twice. After dashing past Mercury on Monday, it will fly by the planet three more times over the next four years before finally dropping in to orbit it once and for all. While this sounds like a long and winding road all over the inner solar system (and it is), believe it or not, it is also the most efficient and therefore the cheapest route.
Continue reading "Astrophysicist Checks In: Playing with Mercury" »
12:58 PM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
My favorite online game.
I freely admit I am a big Scrabble dork, and lately I have been really into playing online at Scrabulous. Scrabulous is a site that allows you to play Scrabble with your friends over email and most recently on Facebook. My friends and I are addicted to this game, so imagine my horror when I read Shawnz twitter that Hasbro, the maker of Scrabble, is trying to shutdown the site.
Apparently Scrabble recently inked a licensing deal with video game manufacturer Electronic Arts. Now they don't want the two India-based brothers who created Scrabulous to profit from it.
A Facebook group has already been started to save the site. Last time I checked, they had 233 members.
11:47 AM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Listen to Jack Hitt categorize the Hillary haters
Hillary Clinton has so many haters, writer Jack Hitt coined a verb: hillarating. Hillaraters see many types of Clinton, as Hitt told the BPP today. There's the "Dianne Feinstein" Hillary, a centrist hiding as a liberal. The "Tammy Wynette" Hillary stayed with her husband after the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Then there's the "Lady Macbeth", the "Lisa Simpson" and finally, the cold and calculating "Ms. Frigidaire."
So all you hillaraters out there--which category do you fall into? Why do you hate Hillary?
And we know there are plenty of Hillary supporters out there too. Why do you think the former first lady remains such a lightning rod? Is it her politics, her gender or her personality? Hitt says there is no single reason. As he writes in the current issue of Mother Jones, "No part of her life, however sacred, is off-limits."
11:36 AM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (30) | e-mail post
Last week we interviewed one of the geniuses behind No Pants 2k8, the annual improvisational event in which random people ride the subway sans pants. The 7th annual version of the event happened on Saturday. No one here at BPP world headquarters joined in.
Or so we thought....
Friend of the BPP and sometime cohost Mike Pesca sent out an e-mail this morning with a link to a picture of some pants-free riders. One of them looks a lot like NPR audio engineer Josh Rogosin. It's the guy 2nd from the left.
Josh says that it's not him, though he does acknowledge a resemblance. And I tend to believe him, because the picture was taken in Boston, one of the 9 participating cities.
11:36 AM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
No, not the green that smells and needs to cleaned up and thrown away. That green has been around for awhile... It's environmentally green diapers that are becoming more and more popular. Take a look on BPP's Ramble.
Diapers go green/NJ Governor signs a bill to eliminate Electoral College's power Adult Entertainment Expo: A sex shop on steroids/ Millions of teens try to get high on cold medicine/ Scientists grow a living, beating heart in a jar
11:32 AM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Trevor Paglen on the BPP
Trevor Paglen decodes the acronym in the audio above.
If you're part of a super-secret, clandestine, covert military unit, seems like you wouldn't want to advertise it. Turns out, some "black ops" personnel do. They come up with cryptic designs -- things like dragons wrapped around the earth or naked women riding killer whales -- to put on patches that commemorate their missions. What they mean and the details of the missions are almost impossible to figure out.
We talked to Trevor Paglen on the show today about his quest to collect and decipher black ops patches, which he assembles in a new art/history book, I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me.
After the jump, more patches.
Continue reading "You Don't Get These for Selling Girl Scout Cookies . . ." »
Angela Ellis
11:22 AM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
The average price for a pound of fresh coffee is around $10. Kopi Luwak's gourmet coffee sells for $200 a pound. So what makes Kopi Luwak's coffee taste so good? The answer is simple and, well, disgusting: Cat poop.
But not just any cat poop. Take a look at some sophisticated kitty litter on the Most.
Cat feces in gourmet coffee./ MacBook Air: Apple's rumored super-slim laptop./ Burried bombs hidden in Orlando, Fla./ Macaw! Macaw! A shouting bird scares off burglar at pet store./ Looking for good tunes? Check out the new NPRmusic.org
11:08 AM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Alex Rivera heads for Sundance
Bright lights, big opportunity
This week we're taking the BPP on the road -- to the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. While we're there we'll talk to filmmakers and newsmakers, and hopefully immerse ourselves in the unique culture that has made Sundance one of the most prestigious events of its kind.
We have a lot of stuff on the docket, but we are particularly excited about spending time with first-time Sundance filmmaker, Alex Rivera.
Filmmaker Alex Rivera is going to Sundance.
Alex has been making movies for a long time, but Sleep Dealer is his first full-length feature -- and it's his most ambitious project to date. He's spent the last 10 years of his life writing, shooting and editing, and the finished product has finally emerged, just days before it gets screened for the first time in Park City.
Sleep Dealer is an exploration of immigration policy and the technological age. But it's more than that -- it's science fiction, too. Rivera imagines a future where migrant workers jack into a computer network that allows their labor to transmitted to the United States, while their physical bodies remain south of the border. Alex's influences are equal parts Brazil, Blade Runner and El Norte.
So stay tuned to the BPP over the next few days for updates, both video and audio, of how his journey is progressing.
Continue reading "The BPP Goes To Sundance" »
9:58 AM ET | 01-14-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Matt Martinez just looked up at MSNBC and saw this story: snow fell in Baghdad today for the first time that anybody can remember. He uttered the quip that I stole for the title of this post.
3:05 PM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Matt and Trish with the "low down" on Monday's BPP...
2:29 PM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
. . . but it a reality in the UK.
Sometimes CNN's most popular list is scary.
1:04 PM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
We talked with Alan Corey, author, improv actor, serial reality TV show guest, former restaurant/bar owner and, last but not least, millionaire. Sound hard to believe? Check out this montage of his appearances on a variety of reality TV shows.
12:48 PM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Costas Christ on farther frontiers
On today's show we interviewed Costas Christ, National Geographic Adventure editor and columnist, about adventure travel. He's been to more than 120 countries across six continents, including some of the world's most remote wilderness areas and archaeological sites. We had one more question for him to answer off the air, and that is:
Q: What can you tell us about the tiny pockets of the planet that are popping up because of global warming?
Here's what he told me off the air:
There are little pieces popping up because sea levels fall and land is exposed. For example, in Greenland, people have found what appears to be an island, something like a big sandbar. As ice melts, land is exposed. The tricky thing is that we don't know how quickly that ice will melt. The flip side of icebergs melting and exposing land is that we'll actually end up with fewer places, for example, the Maldive island could completely disappear due to global warming. I'd like to return to something Alison asked me about on the air, and that's the idea of responsible travel. Tourism can be an opportunity or a threat and when we travel in responsible ways, for example, patronize companies that contribute to protecting nature and sustaining the well-being of local people in the places they are visiting, that's known as sustainable tourism. It's transforming the tourism industry, and I think it is one of the most revolutionary ideas in the history of modern travel. A vacation is not just the experience of a lifetime. We should give back to the places we visit and not let them be loved to death. We've got to protect the final frontiers for future generations to explore.
A vacation is not just the experience of a lifetime. We should give back to the places we visit and not let them be loved to death. We've got to protect the final frontiers for future generations to explore.
Lauren Spohrer
12:37 PM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
The makers of Wine Cellar Sorbets
Courtesy of Wine Cellar Sorbets
Take your taste buds for a whirl with Wine Cellar Sorbet, a tasty alcoholic dessert. We talked with the creators, Bret Birnbaum and David Zablocki, who made it clear that this is not wine-flavored sorbet. It's actually made from real wine -- cold, scoopable wine.
It currently comes in six flavors and is stocked in the tri-state area. For more information about this adult dessert, or to order a pint online, check out http://www.winecellarsorbets.com.
12:06 PM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
This morning our little radio show went 82 flavors of "WHERE'S THE RIGHT PIECE OF TAPE!?!?"
(Careful listeners will notice a glitch as the segment begins. Everyone will notice by the end.)
9:33 AM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Are you getting older? It's OK. So is everyone else around you. We can't stop the seconds from ticking but we can read what Charla Krupp has to say in her new book How Not to Look Old: Fast and Effortless Ways to Look 10 Years Younger, 10 Pounds Lighter, 10 Times Better.
Aging sucks, but author Charla Krupp has some helpful tips./ As if the writers strike isn't enough, Hollywood payroll firm implodes./ Couple finds $12L in their refrigerator./ Mt. Everest's first climber, Edmund Hillary, dies at age 88./ Iraqi women goes into labor during U.S. airstrike: Soldiers help with delivery.
7:42 AM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Do you have hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia? How about globophobia? We all know that we humans are fearful creatures, but let's take a look at what we're afraid of.
Don't worry, it's BPP's Ramble.
An A-Z of irrational fears./ Tennis star Serena Williams gets dumped and publishes her woes./ Russian thieves steal a 200 ton bridge: Police scurry for answers./ Skiing under the influence? Watch out, you could get 6 months in jail or $1000 fine. Can you draw? The New Yorker is looking for the next Eustace Tilley.
7:11 AM ET | 01-11-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
8:00 PM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink | comments (15) | e-mail post
Producer Dan Pashman has skills.
5:57 PM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Jill Homer's boyfriend, Geoff Roes, will race the human-powered Iditarod on foot.
When the weather outside is frightful, snow cyclist Jill Homer grabs a tent and a sleeping bag and heads for the woods. Homer is training to bike 350 miles in February's human-powered Iditarod. These days, she's working on the mechanics of spending a week or more sleeping in the enormous freezer of the Alaskan interior.
-- Special to the BPP from Jill Homer:
I crouched over the snow to rearrange my stack of twigs, rain-glazed and frozen to a hard sheen. Behind me, the ice spires of Herbert Glacier glowed an eerie electric purple in the moonlight. A stiff breeze tore across the glacial moraine and stabbed at my campsite on the edge of the snow-covered mudflats. The temperature before wind chill registered 10 degrees.
Continue reading "'Down Time': Snow Cyclist Seeks Shelter " »
1:46 PM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Craig Preston has had quite a week.
He's the CEO of the tiny 25-bed San Juan Hospital in Utah. On Sunday night, his phone rang. A tour bus had rolled off the road in nearby Mexican Hat, Utah, and 26 patients, many seriously injured, were headed his way. Twenty-five beds, 26 patients.
"It pushed us to the limit. I won't say it was chaos, because that implies people were running around not knowing what to do. It was busy."
Preston implemented the hospital's emergency disaster plan, which meant calling in every available doctor and nurse, including reinforcements: physicians from a nearby hospital in Colorado. Every available bed was used. Patients were put in labor and delivery rooms.
"One thing that stands out...I went out back as the ambulances were coming in," he said. "We had to have had over twenty ambulances, and just to see the ambulances, just the number of them. We took them two at a time, as other ambulances lined up."
Out back, watching the patients come in two by two, he noticed road crews were clearing a path for the emergency vehicles through the snow. "They just heard the call on the radio. They heard what happened, and they just showed up and started helping with nobody asking them to. In a small community, people have a sense of response, and they come and make it easier."
Preston, like all the doctors and nurses, didn't leave until after the sun came up. Patients were transfered to other hospitals as the week wore on. The last one left yesterday.
1:22 PM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles has begun issuing subpoenas in the case involving the suicide of Missouri teenager Megan Meier. According to the Los Angeles Times, prosecutors are reportedly looking at charging Lori Drew with fraud. Drew allegedly created a false MySpace account and used it to communicate with Megan. This case created a national uproar about protecting children online and some people say these fraud charges don't go far enough.
Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, told the LA Times:
"I doubt it's really going to lead to the type of punishment people really want to see, which is this woman being held responsible for this girl's death."
On the show today, we spoke with P.J. Huffstutter, Midwest bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times.
12:40 PM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Hurricane Katrina, body heat, NJ escapees, and Spider-Man: It's BPP's Ramble.
Katrina victim sues U.S. for $3 quadrillion./ Crematorium considers using body-burning furnaces to keep mourners warm./ Two New Jersey escaped inmates are back in custody./ Spider-Man divorces Mary Jane: Fans enraged.
7:24 AM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Looking for outlandish surprise? Check BPP's the Most.
A Polish man is shocked to see wife when visiting a local brothel./ Two men wheel a corpse down NYC streets in hope to cash the deceased's $355 check./ Facebook photos get high school kids into trouble./ 'Meanest mom on planet' sells son's car after finding liquor under front the seat./ Parents seek to get 5-month-old daughter photographed with every presidential candidate.
6:23 AM ET | 01-10-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Filed under: City Living, News, Video
A hops shortage has beer brewers scrambling worldwide. The cost of this key ingredient went up 400 percent last year. Add to that increasing barley prices and it means bad news for the beer drinkers AND the brewers. You can blame it on the bad weather, growers going to other industries, even ethanol subsidies.
But the bottom line is that some pub-goers in Manhattan are already dishing out 50 cents more for a pint of microbrew. That may not seem like much, but prices might shoot up even more this year -- in some markets by up to three more dollars more per six pack.
Chris Sheehan, the head brewer at New York City's Chelsea Brewery, let us in on how a good beer-maker copes with tough times like these.
6:35 PM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Because rundowns are like snowflakes...
6:30 PM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
BPP listeners -- most recently Stewart -- have gone back and forth about some past newletters from GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul.
As the New Republic reports, some of those newsletter items aren't exactly, you know, pro-diversity. James Kirchick examined many, including one from 1992, after the Rodney King riots:
"Order was only restored in L.A. when it came time for the blacks to pick up their welfare checks three days after rioting began," read one typical passage.
Kirchick writes that the pieces don't have bylines, so we can't really know who wrote them. His interview with Paul's campaign yielded this quote from a spokesperson:
"A lot of [the newsletters] he did not see. Most of the incendiary stuff, no."
Read the full New Republic report, Angry White Man.
3:05 PM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Sarah Polley, so on our show
Sarah 'Big Brain' Polley
Ever since she came limping back in for her shift at the grocery store, in Go, I've been a Sarah Polley fan.
Polley visited our show this morning -- and my goodness, what a brain. Worth your ears. And maybe your fandom, too.
1:21 PM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Double sigh.
Yeah, that's not going so well.
11:29 AM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Check out today's Ramble.
80-year-old woman shoots a mountain lion to protect her dog./ Indian call center employees suffer from heart attacks, ulcers, and insomnia./ Anti-obesity drug acts as inverse marijuana./ Madeleine McCann: The Movie
9:59 AM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Bloggers search for signs of meaning after New Hampshire
Which way now?
As goes Dartmouth, so goes Dixville Notch. Barack Obama's big lead in the polls turned into a second-place finish in New Hampshire's Democratic primary Tuesday. And Republican John McCain may have turned that race upside down with his win over Iowa victor Mike Huckabee and former next-door governor Mitt Romney.
A couple of bloggers hashed it out this morning's show. Your turn's waiting in the comments.
9:35 AM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (10) | e-mail post
Glue your eyes to BPP's the Most.
Why play hooky when you can just glue yourself to the bed? This 10-year-old Mexican boy did./ North Vietnamese made hoax calls to get the US military to bomb its own units./ A conservative pastor fights gay rights by promoting Microsoft stock./ Military officials debate over the effectiveness of 30,000 troop surge./ Redskins coach Joe Gibbs resigns.
9:26 AM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Remember when? We've had this clip stuck on repeat in the newsroom all morning.
6:51 AM ET | 01- 9-2008 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post
Another report from a voter drive at Dartmouth College. Kathleen Onufer is working a van shuttling students to cast ballots in Tuesday's presidential primary, and she says:
My informal exit polling indicates that Dartmouth students seem to be voting for Barack Obama in a 10-to-1 ratio. Or perhaps Obama voters are slightly less inclined to walk back to campus. And given the unseasonably beautiful 50 degree with ample sunshine weather, students feel a little guilty for taking the rides. As one environmental activist said, "I can't believe I'm taking this ride while holding a sign to 'Make Global Warming a Priority.' So much for carbon emissions."
But while driving students less than a mile to the polls may seem like a particularly lazy form of helping out with the primary, it's been nothing short of inspiring. There's a celebratory mood to the whole thing--though I'm sure the sunshine doesn't hurt. Friends are going to vote in groups after lunch, and everyone wants to talk about how great it is that we--and thus our generation--is finally all getting out to the polls. The seniors who voted in the last presidential election are trading stories with the newly minted freshmen, voting for the first time. Plus, it doesn't hurt that our votes in this primary are significantly more influential than they will be in the general.
By the end I even started inviting people to the van with "Come join the party! The polls are where all the cool kids are!" And it's true. At least for this one day in January, civic participation is the trendy way to spend the afternoon.
2:18 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Nations Sees Clinton's Tears (Almost)
A while back, New York Magazine ran a profile of the women who run Hillary Clinton's campaign. There are a couple of takeaways from the article. First, she has assembled a fiercely loyal cadre of aides and advisers. Second, the campaign is watertight, always on message -- no mistakes.
Lots has been made of both Hillary and Bill Clinton's campaign discipline -- much of it developed over 15 years of being in the spotlight. It makes me wonder whether Senator Clinton's sudden "emotional" momentin New Hampshire last night was sudden at all. Did one of the most disciplined candidates on the campaign trail break down just because she was tired and really, really, really cares about this country?
Both of these things may very well be true, but part of me doesn't buy this as a spontaneous political moment -- maybe there was some calculus behind this. I can imagine someone in the campaign raising their hand and saying, "Well, you know, if you shed a couple of tears we have numbers here that say it could bump you up a few points."
What do you guys think? Is this me being a too skeptical journalist? Or did we see a little chink in the armor last night?
Matt Martinez
1:59 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
Tyler Frisbee on the BPP
Tyler Frisbee (left) with roommate Claire Dunning in 2004
Another update from Tyler Frisbee, who's getting out the vote at Dartmouth College:
We're keeping busy here at Vote Clamantis. Dartmouth's president, Jim Wright, and his wife voted this morning, so we're happy that our most visible partnership has fulfilled their civic duty
Head quarters is actually quiet right now, all of our vans are out and about and our phone lines have quieted down. The vans are full of students who finished lunch, so they're working hard, but it's nice enough (a balmy 54 degrees in Hanover) that a bunch of students are walking as well. We're psyched to get our voter turnout numbers back later tonight -- we think we have reason to be optimistic!
1:25 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Listener/cartoonist/general genius Hugh MacLeod is singing a song for the creative types. Lesson one from "How to Be Creative":
1. Ignore everybody.
From there, it's on to dream big, work hard and grow old easy. Hugh, we're with you.
12:36 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Feeling blue? Check out today's Ramble.
A real life "Papa Smurf."/ Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter pulls a fast one on press corps./ Country singer Miranda Lambert has wine named after her songs./ Can't figure out the best time to get divorced? Britain declares Divorce Day.
12:35 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Boing Boing picked up a YouTube video in which user Beatlepuzzle isolated the tracks from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Not only does it sound amazing, but watching the sound waves becomes a little hypnotic. It kind of reminds me of the duo LoVid (they make art using homemade audio and video synthesizers). We're trying to figure out who this Beatlepuzzle person is so we can ask them how the heck they did it. Dear Beatlepuzzle, please email us. Love, the BPP.
12:21 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Sigh.
I have to get going.
12:20 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
First comes love then comes rape? Check out BPP staff picks for the Most.
One of People magazine's "Most Eligible Bachelors" accused of rape./ Her? Him? Or we? Changing abortion's pronoun./ Say 'bye-bye' to daycare: Parents bring babies to work./ An Oregon mayor strips to her underwear on MySpace./ Feeling forgetful? Take a nap.
12:08 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
They did it in Iowa and now they're doing it in New Hampshire. Young people are getting out the vote today in the presidential primary. Thanks in part to Tyler Frisbee, senior at Dartmouth College and president of Vote Clamantis, a non-partisan student-led voter registration and participation program. She was a guest on our show this morning, and agreed to send us dispatches about the voting effort on the Dartmouth campus. Here's the first:
We've got six vans running right now, taking students to the polls. There's been a huge rush of students after the Obama rally ended around 10, so things have been busy there. We're trying to get the name of every Dartmouth student who votes today, in order to create a database for next year and the general election. Everyone is really pumped about what's going on and our vans have been really full. Drivers have made "Election Day" playlists and are blaring the music as they drive around campus, so we're getting a lot of attention.
12:07 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
The name "Tata" is coming up a lot these days. The Indian automobile company is making a bid to acquire the Jaguar and Land Rover brands from Ford, and they're introducing a $2,500 car on Thursday. While the bargain model is being criticized for environmental unfriendliness, Tata is not done yet: This year they'll be producing an air-powered car invented by a Frenchman.
12:04 PM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Found in the vestibule.
Do you wonder what was fashionable in the 1980s? I mean, what was really fashionable -- as in, stuff you could make yourself and then wear? Well, imagine getting two years' worth of vintage Vogue Patterns magazines delivered to your door.
That's what happened at my apartment last month. Every few days, a new Vogue Patterns would show up in the day's mail, addressed to my landlord -- who hasn't lived there since the late '80s, from what I understand.
My roommate and I were shocked, amused and uncertain what to do. It just seemed entirely wrong to throw these things out, after they've spent 20 years in transit, struggling to deliver their message of What's Hot Now! -- even if "now" is really 1987. For now, they're on our coffee table.
11:44 AM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Michael Pollan defends food
None other than the author of Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food talked us through the politics of eating right. Prompted by a listener question, Pollan revealed his own "guilty pleasure" snacks:
Cracker Jack and corn chips.
I'm with him on the corn chips. You?
9:58 AM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (21) | e-mail post
News you missed while (we hope) sleeping like a regular person:
Residents of two tiny towns stayed up late to give Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain early victories in the New Hampshire presidential primary.
In Hart's Location, Obama received 9 votes, Hillary Rodham Clinton 3 and John Edwards 1. On the Republican side, McCain received 6 votes, Mike Huckabee 5, Ron Paul 4 and Mitt Romney 1.
In Dixville Notch, Obama got 7 votes, Edwards 2 and Bill Richardson 1. Among Republicans, McCain got 4 votes, Romney 2 and Rudy Giuliani 1.
The New York Times/AP notes that the early voting follows pre-election polls. But the results may not mean much -- Wesley Clark took almost half the Democratic ballots in the early voting back in 2004.
6:08 AM ET | 01- 8-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Ramble this:
Extremely normal fashion: handbags the size of small garbage cans/ "I'm sorry, we amputated the wrong arm." Abbreviations put patients' lives at risk. / Low-energy light bulbs: good for the environment, bad for your skin. / Chicken wings so hot patrons must sign off their rights to eat.
2:11 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
A shout-out for the first listener who finds these words in recent content from NPR:
"Bastard spawn of Russian boars"
Don't bother Googling it. But it is real. Promise.
2:00 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
The BPP staff picks for the Most.
McDonald's Customers Are Biting Back/ A New Remedy For Your Runny Nose: Flush It Out!/Queen Elizabeth 2 Sets Sail For Its Final Voyage./ A User's Manuel to Seat 21C/ Wiki Search Is a Complete Letdown
1:46 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Tomorrow Michael Pollan, author of The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma, joins us to talk about his new book, In Defense of Food. Pollan's books are at the forefront of an increasing focus on how and what Americans eat. If you have a question for Mr. Pollan, drop it in the comments section. If we pick your question to ask on the air, you'll win the privilege of having your question asked on the air. Enter now!
1:05 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (11) | e-mail post
Filed under: News, Slideshow
Ken Okoth on trying to get his family out
As seen in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, last week.
Ken Okoth sends these images through his relatives in Kenya. They live in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, and have fled to Tanzania. Okoth checked in this morning with news of his family. He writes:
They are glad to be out of immediate danger in Tanzania, but they are also shocked and scared at how fast their lives changed and how vulnerable they felt. My little niece is helping everyone keep a high morale through her playfulness. She saw destroyed buildings, fires, and heard lots of gunshots, but I am told she did not see any dead bodies or other really traumatic things as the troubles unfolded. For her, age 5, all this is now a great adventure because she does not understand what exactly is going on. She has been told it's just a special vacation trip.
Bonus: Gallery: Kids share a haunting view of Kenya Okoth's Facebook gallery Okoth's Red Rose Nursery and Children's Centre The Children of Kibera Foundation
12:50 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Election 2008, Sound Off
Gail Collins summed up the choice between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Sunday's New York Times:
How could you be 21 and not be for Barack Obama?
How could you be 53 and not wonder how this relative stranger will hold up when the disasters arrive, when things get truly nasty and the crowd starts seeing him as mortal?
Anyone relating to that?
11:18 AM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post
I was out sick on Friday, and so the rest of the BPP crew did the video rundown for today's show. Posterity demands that it get posted:
9:58 AM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post
Britain's Channel 4 put together a riveting documentary on the phenomenon of fake babies -- incredibly realistic dolls that adults purchase in most cases to, well, fill some sort of need. But those needs and motivations vary, which is why the subject warranted a documentary.
It's posted on YouTube -- not embeddable, sadly -- in five parts. Enjoy...
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
9:45 AM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Director Sean Donnelly
I Think We're Alone Now is a new documentary about two extreme fans of 80's pop icon Tiffany. The film follows Jeff, a 50-year-old from Santa Cruz who is living with Asperger's syndrome, and Kelly, a 35-year-old intersexed person from Denver. While these two exhibit some disturbing behavior, first-time director Sean Donnelly says the film is really a story about unrequited love. We spoke with him this morning.
8:59 AM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Just heard from Ken Okoth. If you remember, he's a Washington, D.C., history teacher who grew up in the Kibera shantytown of Nairobi, and we talked to him last week on the BPP about getting his family out of Kenya in the wake of post-election violence. He sends along this update:
Ken says it's primarily the poor who are seeing their lives changed by the post election chaos.
One of the toughest things to think about is that the city is divided very clearly between the poor and the middle/upper classes. 40% of the population of Nairobi (more than 1 million people) live in the slums, and they have been affected big time. The other parts of the city have been barely touched, and the folks who live in many parts of Nairobi can almost go on with their regular lives without feeling the chaos and violence felt by the poor.
We'll stay in touch with Ken as the situation in Kenya develops.
8:13 AM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Not many ways to get here.
Jill Homer hit a snag last week in her preparation for February's human-powered Iditarod. An old knee injury flared up, forcing her to take a break from her day-long rides through the snowy mountain woods -- just as she was about to enter the peak phase of her training for the 350-mile ride.
After a few days off, Homer reports, she's back on the bike. But she did use the break to calculate her miles in 2007. Try 6,572, and that's with an extended layoff for the original knee problem. If that sounds unimaginable, just check out the photos above. Happy trails, Jill. Keep pedaling.
Bonus: Up in Alaska, Jill Homer's blog Biking the Iditarod: The NPR series
7:21 AM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
No video rundown today, folks. Our video producer, Win Rosenfeld, is out sick and he's the one who usually films me and Trish. (aka Turner and Hooch) Actually, we tried to do it ourselves. BPP Director Jacob Ganz filmed us -- we even made paper versions of the opening graphics and I hummed the theme song. It was low-fi-tastic. But, alas, we did not know how to put the moving pictures into the fancy computer machine Win got for Hanukkah. So, you are stuck with this text version of what's on the show Monday. I know, boooooooooring! We apologize.
-- Jim Vandehei from Politico is here to talk about the New Hampshire Primary. (Which is Tuesday, mark your calendars.)
-- Jeffrey Toobin will be on talking about the Supreme Court's decision to hear a case about whether a state can execute someone convicted of raping a child.
-- Bill Wolff will put the NFL playoff games in perspective.
-- Indie music bands need publicity. Big corporations exploit their music through marketing campaigns. Indie music bands get publicity, become popular and lose indie cred. Someone has to be the devil, so is it the corporations? We'll discuss.
-- Sean Donnelly is the director of a new documentary that follows two "fans" of 80's pop star Tiffany. It's hilarious and disturbing all at once. He'll be on the show to talk about it.
See you on Monday!
5:00 PM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
David and Crista Keagle and their family with Ron Paul
We met David Keagle through our blog post titled "Who Are Ron Paul's Supporters?" Keagle answered:
I am 37 year old Christian husband and home school father of 8 children. We live on a small farm in Iowa. Doctor Paul cured my apathy. Now, our whole family greatly enjoys spreading the message of liberty and freedom through Constitutional government. Our older children make phone calls and pass out Ron Paul literature while the younger children help decorate, dress-up and ride in our parade floats for Ron Paul.
Keagle and his wife, Crista, caucused for Paul on Thursday in Martinsdale, at the Martinsdale Community Church. Paul pulled about 10 percent statewide -- and about 10 percent in Martinsdale. A Republican physician with strong libertarian views, Paul got 21 votes at the Keagles' caucus spot, or 18 more than they'd counted on.
David Keagle gave the address on behalf of Paul. "I told them our party needs reform," he says. "We really got clobbered during the midterm elections, and there's a reason for that. We've really had enough of big-spending Republicans who wear liberal stripes."
Keagle said he wouldn't get excited about the prospect of voting for the winner in Iowa, Mike Huckabee, because he's not different enough from President George Bush. The race continues in New Hampshire, where voters head to the polls on Tuesday.
2:56 PM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Filed under: Iraq
Army Major Andrew Olmsted
Blogger and soldier Andy Olmsted was killed yesterday in Iraq. Olmsted had been writing for the Rocky Mountain News. He'd left behind a final blog post with a friend just in case:
I suppose I should speak to the circumstances of my death. It would be nice to believe that I died leading men in battle, preferably saving their lives at the cost of my own. More likely I was caught by a marksman or an IED. But if there is an afterlife, I'm telling anyone who asks that I went down surrounded by hundreds of insurgents defending a village composed solely of innocent women and children. It'll be our little secret, ok?
Whether you'd read anything by him before or not -- I hadn't -- it's worth a few minutes of your time.
2:10 PM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (32) | e-mail post
Still looking for a clip from Mitt Romney after his second-place finish in Iowa's Republican caucus yesterday. For now, here's Romney on FOX News.
11:39 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
It was We-owa, but now it's just I-owa. The candidates have turned their affections toward New Hampshire, so the talking heads are all talking to someone else. But Iowans, they're just like you and me. And when we get lonely, where do we go? We go to craigslist.
Even bigger picture
11:26 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Grateful no matter what
Went looking for a clip from Hillary Clinton's speech after her third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, and first found the short message -- screengrabbed above-- that she's sending Iowa. A couple of clicks away, the campaign posts the speech.
10:11 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Iowa: Been there, done that.
Went looking for a clip of Ron Paul after Thursday night's Iowa caucus and found this instead: The Internet phenom candidate's site stuck on yesterday: From RonPaul2008.com:
Iowa is a key state in the political process and Ron Paul may be our last hope for America. There is no better time to join the freedom movement. The three main thrusts of the Ron Paul Revolution here in Iowa are voting in the caucus, calling precincts to find Ron Paul supporters and becoming a delegate to the county conventions. These are the actions necessary to win Iowa. It is up to you to carry them out.
For the record, Paul finished fifth in the Republican field, with 10 percent of the vote. Not that you'd know it from looking at his website -- yet.
9:55 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
A clip from John Edwards' speech about his second-place finish in Iowa's Democratic caucus.
9:30 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
With thanks to the daily Huckabee Hound, a clip from Mike Huckabee's victory speech in Iowa.
9:22 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
With thanks to Andrew Sullivan, a clip from Barack Obama's victory speech in Iowa.
9:15 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Returns from the Iowa caucus look like this:
On the Republican side, in order, it's Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson/JohnMcCain, Ron Paul.
On the Democratic side, in order, it's Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd are calling it quits.
And what, gentle listener, are you calling it? Can Romney recover? Did Clinton pay too little attention to Iowa, or too much? Anyone see a John Edwards surge in the making? And what happens now for the passionate supporters of Ron Paul?
Hit the comments, please. We're looking for you.
6:50 AM ET | 01- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (12) | e-mail post
We ended Wednesday's show talking about Festivus -- the end-of-year "holiday" made popular by the creators of Seinfeld. The celebration's strange rituals have been picked up at parties nationwide. It's full of grievances, bare aluminum poles, and "feats of strength."
Continue reading "The Festivus 'Feats of Strength'" »
3:40 PM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
The affair started back in the spring. First came the staffers, then the volunteers, the press and finally the candidates themselves. They wined and dined Iowans, showed them a good time -- Oprah, Kevin Bacon . . . even Chuck Norris. And when caucusers finally put out . . . the good word for their chosen candidate, not 24 hours passed before the presidential hopefuls moved on to the next conquest in New Hampshire.
Oh, sure, there were the "Let's keep in touch" moments as candidates thanked Iowans for the good time, but let's face it, Iowa's off the radar again. Larry Hejtmanek, director of a Des Moines mental health center says that the people most active during straw poll season are disappointed when the process moves on: "It's all over . . . you have a normal letdown."
But most Iowans -- especially those who weren't among the chosen few who caucused- are saying good riddance. Here's a video of Jason Walsmith, the lead singer of the Des Moines rock band, The Nadas, performing "Get Outta Our Town: Caucus Lament."
3:17 PM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
On tomorrow's show: A lot of caucus, a handful of films and one Folkenflik.
Aussi: au revoir, fum??e de cigarette.
3:11 PM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post
Ken Okoth on his family's escape
Kenya, as seen through the eyes of the child. Click to see the full gallery.
Ken Okoth grew up poor in Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya. Now a history teacher in Virginia, he still spends summers in Kibera. Okoth runs the Red Rose Nursery and Children's Centre, an orphanage for neighborhood kids.
In the summer of 2007, Okoth gave disposable cameras to kids from three local schools. The result, "Kibera Through My Eyes" is enchanting, ghostly, beautiful.
The gallery above give the barest glimpse of the project. Okoth links to all the images from the Red Rose website. You can learn more about Okoth on our show today, where he talks about helping his family escape the current violence there.
2:48 PM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Links From the Show, Stuff We Love
Charlotte King, queen of 'geosensology'
Went looking for websites that help you predict things -- part of a segment we had on the show today -- and came back with The Charlotte King Effect: Biological Earthquake Prediction.
Turns out Charlotte King's first claim to fame is that she predicted the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helen's with 12 minutes. Don't try that at home -- unless you so happen to be a fellow "biological sensitive." King writes:
If you walk into a room and bump into furniture or you go to pour some juice and miss the glass, or go to put sugar in your tea and end up with sugar on the table, you may be clumsy, or you may be a potential biological sensitive..
If you go to pick up your car keys or a book and drop it, and pick it up again and again it slips through your fingers, these are all symptoms of problems being caused by depth perception, which is affected by the EMF changes your body is responding to..
After the jump, more prediction sites (and please, add your own faves in the comments).
Continue reading "Fun With Predictions" »
1:26 PM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Laura Lee, author of 'Bad Predictions'
Here are the predictions I promised on the show today, one mind blowingly bad, one eerily right. The bad one comes from Dick Morris.
The accurate one, written in 1988 was by . . . I won???t tell you just yet. Guess. Hint -- it???s a guy known for his contribution to the field of perception.
From Dick Morris, a week after Hurricane Katrina wrecked New Orleans:
But make no mistake about it: Every day for the next year, voters will see nonstop scenes of federal relief, rebuilding, renovation and reconstruction along with the empathy, sympathy and compassion these efforts imply in the heart of George W. Bush. He may have had a terrible first week, but he will rebound big time in the months to come. The aid an administration gives in the aftermath of a momentous disaster will be covered continuously by the media. Every relief convoy will get a wide slice of publicity. As the pumps run and the city and the gulf region drain, the nation will feel a surge of heady optimism at our ability to bounce back from disaster. Happy visuals will replace tragic ones, and interviews with homeowners joyously moving back in will run instead of the tearful stories of refugees.
After the jump, the anonymous prediction:
Continue reading "Predictions, Right and Wrong" »
Mike Pesca
1:04 PM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (4) | e-mail post
If you're unsure about what to do with those old and unwanted toys abandoned after Christmas, consider toy hacking. Massimo Banzi of Tinker.it came on the show this morning to tell us how, with a few simple tools and some instructions, you can break into the brains of electronic toys and make them do things their manufacturers never imagined. Check out this hack, in which an electronic cat and some LEDs were turned into a homemade laser tag game.
11:52 AM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post
Filed under: City Living, Sports, Video
If you caught our segment on "Kettle of Fish," the New York City haven for displaced Green Bay Packers fans, you have an idea of how serious these folks are. But to get the full picture of Cheesehead dedication, you need to see Packer fans in their natural element.
Check out this slideshow, accompanied by the music of Green Bay fan Eddy J Lemberger.
See the video here and hear Dan and me talking about it with Alison and Mike Pesca here.
9:33 AM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post
Jill Homer hit a snag last week in her preparation for February's human-powered Iditarod. An old knee injury flared up, forcing her to take a break from her day-rides through the snowy mountain woods -- just as she was about to enter the peak phase of her training for the 350-mile ride.
8:50 AM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Links From the Show, Slideshow, Stuff We Love
One guy's science tattoo
Science tattoos are the rage among the brainy set. We here at the BPP are sticking with butterflies and "Mama Knows."
Carl Zimmer Flickr'd up a bunch of the other (read: intellectual) kind. Hit the image up there for the pictures. Or read about it on his blog.
8:47 AM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Green Bay, Wisconsin, is the smallest city in America with a pro sports team. Throughout the state, the Green Bay Packers reign supreme. But hundreds of miles away, in New York City, a Packer fan can feel pretty lonely. Fortunately for New York's small band of cheesehead expats there's the Kettle of Fish, a Greenwich Village bar purchased in 1998 by a transplanted Wisconsinite and transformed into the Big Apple's number one spot for Packer Backers. But game days at the Kettle of Fish aren't just about football, beer, and Wisconsin cheddar cheese. They're also about finding a small piece of home in the big city.
And by the way...Bonnie Wasserman, the woman featured towards the end of the video, may seem a little tipsy, but she's no slouch.
6:26 AM ET | 01- 3-2008 | permalink | comments (6) | e-mail post
On Thursday's BPP, we'll hear from Ken Okoth. These days, he's a history teacher at the Potomac School outside D.C., but he grew up in the giant Nairobi slum of Kibera. He spent much of Wednesday trying to get his family out of the country to escape the violence there.
He runs a school in Kibera, the Red Rose Nursery and Children's Centre. I asked him if he wanted to tell us a little bit about it, and he sends this along:
It is not always easy to get a full picture of the communities being covered in media reports about the violence in Kenya. In the Kibera slums of Nairobi for instance, tribal rivalries do not define everyday living. Kibera's urban poor classes, many of them unemployed and economically marginalized, suffering from the greatest incidences of HIV and AIDS, identify more with each others' struggles and share a common identity as the downtrodden class of Kenya's successful economy and many years of political stability.
A sense of coexistence, dignified struggle, and community is more apt to describe the life of people in Kibera. The HIV/AIDS epidemic has left an estimated 20000 school age orphans in Kibera's population of more than 800,000 people. There is no established network of orphanages or schools to provide shelter, feed and educate these children. The government public schools are overcrowded, and turn away orphans who lack adult advocates. However, the majority of the orphans in Kibera are being raised by other equally deprived families in the slums, sometimes relatives, oftentimes just friendly neighbors, who take the Good Samaritan approach and adopt the children.
The Red Rose School is an example of the small community initiatives that these families have put up in Kibera, to provide regular meals and quality education for orphans and vulnerable children left out of the government's free public schools.
3:35 PM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Kenya, gay divorce and the return of late night television on tomorrow's show:
And yes...he said "Rock Snot."
3:20 PM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Science tattoos are all the rage among the brainy set. We here at the BPP are sticking with butterflies and "Mama Knows." Carl Zimmer Flickr'd up a bunch of the other (read: intellectual) kind. Hit the image up there for the pictures. Or read about it on his blog.
1:53 PM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Reports out of Kenya paint a blood-red scene of a nation under a virtual state of emergency. More than 300 people have been killed in ethnic/tribal/class violence after the contested election of incumbent President Mwai Kibaki.
We're booking guests to talk about this for Thursday's show. For now, I'll drop links to people blogging the story from Kenya. Here's a taste of one, Kenyan Pundit:
Drove to a friend's house less than ten minutes away and had to go through a police checkpoint. Very scary.
I have no news to report. It's a total total blackout. Watching TV feels like watching TV under some crazy dictatorship. I mean we all know that the country is on fire, but KBC is airing Just for Laughs.
And this, from Zax Diary:
People are being burnt alive. Homes are being torched in daylight. Shops are closed. TV and Radio have been in a blackout. Kisumu City has been shut down by KPLC, no one can access Electricity. Tomatoes are going for 20/= a single one in my estate. Eggs are 15/= for a single one. Buses are charging 100/= for my usual 20/= journey. My brother and sister have moved away from our upcountry home because they are scared. Mum and dad are staying with policemen in the house. My friends are asking for airtime in kakamega and Kisumu. 9 people were slaughtered near my upcountry home--and their cows taken! Women are being raped. Children have no food. What the hell is going on?
Other Kenyan blogs and Kenyan blog aggregators, after the jump:
Continue reading "Kenya Blogs: What to Read Right Now" »
12:02 PM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Every year, the World Question Center at The Edge poses a Big Question to scientists and thinkers of every stripe, and this year it's "What have you changed your mind about? Why?"
The list of answers is staggering to look at, both because they get to big questions--the existence of God, the path of evolution, the way human beings work--and because looking through the list, you get a sense of just how many people way, way smarter than you are out there.
As for me, like computational neuroscientist Terrence Sejnowski, I've changed my mind about cortical neurons. I definitely started out 2007 firmly against them, but now I'm totally into them. They're awesome.
Anyway, check it out, and do let us know if you've changed your mind about anything this year.
7:42 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
They're bound to tangle.
Summer Ash, astrophysicist to the (radio stars), sends a primer on why your Christmas lights are going to tangle -- no matter what.
--Special to the BPP from Summer Ash
On the Mathematics of Christmas
Post-Christmas, actually. Time for all that glitters, sparkles, blinks and sings or dances at the flip of a switch, to be packed away until next year. Time to wonder just how it is that Christmas lights to tie themselves in knots no matter how hard you try to outsmart them.
Each year, you open the box to find a tangled mess, right? And after each Christmas, possessed with renewed determination, you scheme to store them more carefully this year, convinced you have finally come up with a fool-proof system. So maybe you roll each strand in a loop around your elbow and then lay it carefully in a box, or you return each rolled strand to its original box, or perhaps you wrap each one in tissue paper, secure them all with a rubber band, twist tie, or God forbid, even a scrunchy. Then next Christmas rolls around, and you retrieve the box full of lights only to open them and discover a twisted, tangled mess, taunting you.
Good news!...sort of.
Continue reading "Knot Theory: Why Everything Tangles" »
7:00 AM ET | 01- 2-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
Filed under: Music, Stuff We Love, The Best Song In The World Today
If I ruled the world, I'd pick "Bodysnatchers" from Radiohead's In Rainbows for a Best Song in the World Today. I realize this means my mama may not have raised me right.
Bonus: The whole Scotch mist movie thing.
9:41 AM ET | 01- 1-2008 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post
Y'all, it's the first day of the year, and here in the studios, we're all drunk on coffee cake. Must be time to post the Best of the Bryant Park Blog.
Forthwith, a sampling of stuff we loved. A lot.
1) Sigur Ros Gives Almost Silent Interview
2) Ron Paul's Many Wonderful Supporters
In which we discovered the limits of our ability to publish comments.
3) The Daily Video Rundown
4) Braver Than I Am: Jill Homer Bikes the Iditarod
With special thanks to Jill Homer, amazing athlete, photographer and writer. Jill, happy New Year. We're rooting for you. And following you.
On the best days, 'snow' equals 'smile.'
9:13 AM ET | 01- 1-2008 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post
Alexis Hulme, aka Relex109, set an interview we did with an eyewitness to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and posted it on YouTube. The original interview, with Farah Ispahani, a member of Bhutto's media team, is tough stuff. After the jump, Hulme gives his take on the process of remaking it:
Continue reading "Listener: Why I Made that NPR Mash-up" »
7:15 AM ET | 01- 1-2008 | permalink | e-mail post
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