Squid pro crow

1. Fashion EXPLOSION 2005! I especially like the one on the right, which looks like the poster for Office Space.
   
   
2. Surprisingly, improvised Russian alcohol beverages aren't very good for you. I remember reading in Spy in the 80s about a Russian method for getting high, which was: 1) spread shoe polish on some bread 2) leave bread on the radiator all day so that aromatic substances permeate it 3) scrape as much of the polish off the bread as possible 4) choke down bread. This produced some sort of high.
   
   
3. Happy Halloween. Here's where to buy skulls!
   
   
4. And now, the actual graphic FEMA uses to represent its activities. I guess this was on a Daily Show I didn't see. It's the eternal mandala of incompetence!
   
   
   
   
5. Flickr presents camera tossing!
   
   
6. Years after I stopped living in L.A. I am delighted to see that one of my favorite local madmen is still in action: The Robertson Dancer.
   
   
7. You've seen these photos mislabeled as "Katrina" or some other well-known storm probably; they're everywhere and poorly attributed. The real photographer's gallery has all of these amazing stormchaser pictures properly labeled.
   
   
8. This is some totally freakin awesome robot art.

CONSUMER ALERT

The Found Footage Festival stuff is available on DVD for sale on the interweb now! HURRAY!!!!

The face of evil

There's a new vaccine for cervical cancer caused by human papilloma virus (HPV). In its latest trials, it is 100% effective in preventing precancers and noninvasive cancers. Since 70% of cervical cancers result from high-risk strains of HPV, this is incredibly good news. Currently there are about 10,000 cases of cervical cancer in the U.S. alone each year, and roughly 3700 deaths. The amount of death and suffering that could be saved if this vaccine was universally available is amazing. One estimate is that a quarter of a million lives could be saved a year worldwide if this was widely distributed.

Does anyone think this is a bad idea?

Yes, someone does. Organizations like the Family Research Council, the Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership, and other sexual conservatives think that vaccinating minors against a sexually transmitted disease will encourage promiscuous sex. From their point of view, HPV infection only affects sexually active women with multiple partners and gay men. HPV is also their great example of why condoms "don't work", because it can be spread by skin contact other than the penis itself. So, no HPV problem means that condoms are 100% effective; can't have that.

Some pretty rich quotes from the FRC are in this article from New Scientist.

So, here we have a disease that kills thousands upon thousands of people a year, and causes incredible amounts of fear and pain even when it doesn't kill. It's spread by a virus. We have a vaccine that wipes it out. And these people don't like it because it might encourage extramarital sex among teenagers. Because to their mind their sky god has told them that sex outside of marriage is worse than death.

This why I am no longer a Christian. And why I am not the agnostic I was before Christianity, but a thoroughgoing atheist. This kind of behavior outweighs any good that may result from spirituality. Look, you can do what you want for your religion: wear 17th century clothing, refuse military service, eat a restricted diet, carry a little knife everywhere, wear magic underwear. But if you tell me that a quarter of a million people a year need to die for your abstraction you are my mortal enemy. I'm really uninterested in your arguments.

Der Panter

A poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. I think I posted this here before, but I cannot find it. In 1967, my father's colleague Hazard Adams was working on an anthology of literature in translation. He was after a translation of this poem but couldn't find a decent English version. My dad said "Let me take a look", and took the poem home for the evening. The next day he produced this, which is the one Adams used. Edit: Two typos fixed courtesy ch and fimmtiu. Thanks guys. Those typos have been there for years, too. Wow.

THE PANTHER

Jardin des Plantes, Paris

The bars go by, and watching them his sight
grows tired and fails to grasp what eyes are for.
There are a thousand bars, it seems to him;
behind the thousand bars there’s nothing more.

The supple gait of swift and powerful steps
pacing out its circle on the ground
is like a dance of strength around a center
in which a great bewildered mind is bound.
Yet now and then the curtain of the pupil
silently parts: a picture goes inside,
slips through the tightened limbs, and in the heart
ceases to be, like something that has died.