Archive for April, 2010
After Four Decades In TV News, Bill Moyers Retires
It’s a sad day for journalism when someone like Bill Moyers decides to retire. On top of his work in the press over the years, his Power of Myth series brought the works of Joseph Campbell to millions. NPR reports:
Journalist Bill Moyers retires from PBS and his weekly show, the Bill Moyers Journal, on Friday.
In honor of the public broadcasting legend, Fresh Air is rebroadcasting segments from several Moyers appearances over the years, including conversations about his time in the Johnson administration and his thoughts on religion, war and the future of journalism.
Moyers, who has spent the past 40 years in broadcast journalism, started working for Lyndon B. Johnson in 1954, after writing the then-Senate majority leader a letter. He would later serve as a special assistant and a press secretary to the president.
Moyers left the Johnson administration in 1967 to work for the Long Island, N.Y., daily newspaper Newsday. For the next…
Whistleblower: BP Risks More Massive Catastrophes in Gulf
This whistle-blower’s report for Truthout ads new dimensions to the recent oil spills in the Gulf:
From Wikimedia Commons
British Petroleum (BP) has knowingly broken federal laws and violated its own internal procedures by failing to maintain crucial safety and engineering documents related to one of the firms other deepwater production projects in the Gulf of Mexico, a former contractor who worked for the oil behemoth claimed in internal emails llast year and other documents obtained by Truthout.
The whistleblower, whose name has been withheld at the person’s request because the whistleblower still works in the oil industry and fears retaliation, first raised concerns about safety issues related to BP Atlantis, the world’s largest and deepest semi-submersible oil and natural gas platform, located about 200 miles south of New Orleans, in November 2008. Atlantis, which began production in October 2007, has the capacity to produce about 8.4 million gallons of oil and 180 million…
The Unfriendly Skies: Toxic Airlines And The Aerotoxic Syndrome
A documentary by Tim van Beveren investigating fume events, tricresyl phosphate (TCP) and talking to researchers and pilots affected by the fumes. First broadcast on the German TV program Markt on 9 March 2009. English language version.
And Crowley Said: “Let There Be Rock”
What do Timothy Leary, Jennifer Lopez, Jimmy Page, Michael Jackson, Anton LaVey, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Sid Vicious all have in common? Aleister Crowley, of course.
Human Generator: A Man In Georgia Becomes A Scientific Phenomenon
From Staple News:
“Let there be light!” is a phrase that Zurab Bedia from Georgia takes to a whole new level as he lights fluorescent lamps with just the touch of his hand.
“My brother was really into radio,” recalls Bedia. “During one of his radio sessions, he was electrocuted and died instantly…
NIH Funds Massive Brain Mapping Project
The NIH is funding a $30 million project “using cutting-edge brain imaging technologies to map the circuitry of the healthy adult human brain.”
Besides circuits, the project will map different connection types, neurotransmitter levels, mRNA, neurotropins, and biochemical and biological variables, and gather demographic data on sensory, motor, cognitive, emotional, and social function. But here’s the best part. “Eventually the data might be used to construct human brain circuits — as well as to reconstruct damaged circuits.”
Pregnancy Helps Liver?
By Alla Katsnelson for TheScientist.com:
Pregnancy boosts the regenerative capacity of the liver in mice, a finding that may shed light on a process entirely separate from pregnancy — aging, researchers report in a study published this week in Genes and Development.
The findings are “really unexpected,” said Nikolai Timchenko, who studies liver regeneration and aging at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.
He noted that the researchers identified a specific regeneration mechanism present only during pregnancy and harnessed the relevant pathway to boost liver regeneration in aging mice. “I think from a molecular point of view this is the major discovery of this work,” he said.
[continues in TheScientist.com]
Three Sci-Fi Shows for HBO?
Science author Kyle Munkittrick notes that science fiction “is no more limiting than period dramas” like Mad Men and Rome, “which also require extensive costumes, elaborate sets, and an extra level of commitment from the actors.” And then he asks: why haven’t HBO, Showtime, or AMC made a serious science fiction show? “All SF does is move the timeline forward instead of backward.”
He ultimately suggests three dark candidates – Deus Ex Machina, Transmetropolitan, and Mass Effect – noting there’s “Three great SF shows, three awesome cable channels that pull off excellent cinematic TV, and a wide open market in which to execute them… You want to bring HBO down a peg or two? Get the nerds on board.”
Can Science Answer The Big Moral Questions?
Defenders of religion argue that no matter how much information science gives us about the world, it can never answer fundamental questions such as “Why are we here?” and “What is good/evil?” — That’s what we have religion/spirituality for.
Speaking at the TED conference, Sam Harris lays out how he believes science can in fact provide us with the answers to basic moral questions (and give us better answers than the Bible).
Why Apple Hates Flash
Steve Jobs himself, spell outs Apple’s reasons for not allowing Flash on their famed devices on Apple’s website:
Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage. Apple was their first big customer, adopting their Postscript language for our new Laserwriter printer. Apple invested in Adobe and owned around 20% of the company for many years. The two companies worked closely together to pioneer desktop publishing and there were many good times. Since that golden era, the companies have grown apart. Apple went through its near death experience, and Adobe was drawn to the corporate market with their Acrobat products. Today the two companies still work together to serve their joint creative customers — Mac users buy around half of Adobe’s Creative Suite products — but beyond that there are few joint interests.
I wanted to jot down some of our…
U.S. Military Lost In A Sea Of PowerPoints
The New York Times reports on our military’s obsession with PowerPoint presentations — and suggests that overuse of the alternately vague, simplistic, and confusing slide shows contributes to questionable decision-making and a separation from reality. Does PowerPoint hold some small share of blame for the Iraq War?
“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina.
“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”
Image: U.S. military slide presentation via New York Times
24 Hours Inside Walmart
If ants ever make it to the top of the food chain, it might look something like this. From Bernstein & Andriulli:
Stephen Wilkes took a photo every 10 seconds of the day for a time-lapse video inside Walmart for Fortune magazine. All in all, 8,640 frames were taken (1,800 that are actually used) and the entire 24 hours is compressed into two minutes. The shoot took place on April 6, 2010 in New Brunswick, New Jersey from 9:14 am [sic] to 9:14pm. Says Photo Editor Lauren Winfield, “The inspiration was to show that Walmart never sleeps… open 24 hours with no real daylight, you have no sense of what time of day it is. We wanted to see what the traffic flow of people coming in and out of the store looks like as a day in the life.”
La Revolución Will Be Twitterized
Love him or loathe him, you can now follow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Twitter: @chavezcandanga. (It might help if you habla the Español.)
Malcolm X Killer Freed
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
It’s been nearly fifty years since the murder of Malcolm X, and Thomas Hagan still claims that there was no conspiracy behind the crime. What are the other theories explaining who was behind the murder of X? UPI reports:
New York corrections officials Tuesday paroled Thomas Hagan, the only man who admitted his role in the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X.
Hagan, 69, who has been on work release since March 1992, was released at 11 a.m. from the Lincoln Correctional Center, which is on Malcolm X Boulevard in New York, CNN reported.
Hagan was sentenced in 1966 to 20 years to life in prison and had gone before the parole board 15 times since 1984. Two other men convicted in the killing, whom Hagan said were innocent, were released in the 1980s.
“I can’t really describe my remiss and my remorse for my actions,” Hagan has said.
Malcolm, 39, was shot to death Feb.…
Let’s Give Goldman Sachs Their Own “Shitty Deal” (On Twitter)
In celebration of this paragon of capitalism, Goldman Sachs, on April 30th we’ll be giving away copies of Danny Schechter’s latest documentary on Wall Street fraud, Plunder: The Crime of Our Time (available now on DVD and iTunes) for those who Tweet the following:
Let’s Give Goldman Sachs Their Own “Shitty Deal” #Plunder #GoldmanSucks #FreeFriday http://bit.ly/cuUXky
(If you haven’t heard of the “shitty deal” yet read here.)
As always the more you Tweet the above phrase, the greater your chances of receiving a copy of Plunder on DVD. Here’s the trailer:
Robert Greenwald Challenges ‘JFK’ Actors
Robert Greenwald. Photo: Sam Smith (CC)
It’s good to see that the Hollywood hacks are paying attention to Robert Greenwald’s message to the actors in the controversial History Channel Kennedy miniseries. From The Wrap.com:
Left-wing documentary firebrand Robert Greenwald Thursday challenged actors Greg Kinnear and Katie Holmes – who were cast this week to play John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie in a miniseries about the Kennedys – to “insist on a historically accurate and politically unbiased script.”
In February Greenwald corralled a group of prominent historians including former Kennedy advisor Ted Sorenson who in a video took objection to the script, calling it a politically-motivated “character assassination.”
The eight-hour miniseries is being produced by Joel Surnow, the executive producer of the hit action-torture series “24″ and an outspoken political conservative.
The miniseries is scheduled to air in 2011 and marks the channel’s first foray in scripted drama. It is also in keeping with…
Man ‘Survives Without Food’ For 70 Years?!?
Please make up your own mind about this one. Sky News reports via Yahoo:
Indian doctors are studying a remarkable 83-year-old holy man who claims to have spent the last seven decades without food and water. Military medics hope the experiments on Prahlad Jani can help soldiers develop their survival strategies.
The long-haired and bearded yogi is under 24-hour observation by a team of 30 doctors during three weeks of tests
Is Puerto Rico About To Become The 51st State?
Howard Portnoy writing in the Examiner:
Although it has not received much play in the mainstream media, the U.S. House is voting today on a bill that could ultimately result in Puerto Rico becoming the fifty-first state. The notion of Puerto Rican statehood is nothing new. Residents of the commonwealth have voted three times on the question of whether Puerto Rico should become a state, most recently in 1996. Each time, residents voted to retain the island’s extant status.
This time could be the “charm” for Democrats in Congress, who see a golden opportunity in winning Puerto Rican over as a state. Seating two more senators and as many as six Congressmen likely to align themselves with the Democrats would give the party in power even more control going forward.
The resolution before the House, which leaders hasten to assure worried Americans is non-binding, would work differently from the previous measures voted on…
