Americans And The Environmental State In The 1970s
Via the Atlantic, a snippet of the EPA’s DOCUMERICA project, which involved the taking of thousands of beautiful, fascinating, sometimes harrowing photos of how Americans lived and how they interacted with the environment (expanding the definition of “environment” beyond what we usually think of):
As the 1960s came to an end, the rapid development of the American postwar decades had begun to take a noticeable toll on the environment, and the public began calling for action. In November 1971, the newly created Environmental Protection Agency announced a massive photo documentary project to record these changes. More than 100 photographers not only documented environmental issues, but captured images of everyday life and the way parts of America looked at that moment in history. The National Archives has made 15,000 of these images available.
Death to All Cheerleaders!
[Here's a hilarious piece from the early days of Disinfo.com. For more, make sure to check out our archives. Also, if you like Marty Beckerman's early writings, please check out his latest book, DUMBOCRACY: Adventures with the Loony Left, the Rabid Right, and Other American Idiots.]
You Just Can’t Lose when Jesus is on Your Cheerleading Squad
Marty Beckerman is an 18-year-old humor and opinion columnist living in tropical Anchorage, Alaska. His award-winning writing has appeared most frequently in The Anchorage Daily News, though occasionally manages to pop up in finer national publications.
It should be noted that Beckerman was forever banished from The Anchorage Daily News on July 25, 2000, after asking a cheerleader how it feels to be a urine stain on the toilet seat of America.
As it turns out, neither the cheerleader nor Beckerman’s editor found that interview question particularly amusing.
Beckerman’s first book, Death to All Cheerleaders: One Adolescent Journalist’s Cheerful…
Buckminster Fuller — Lost Interviews Part 1
“I feel like a kid in a candy store.” The Interview begins…
“After reading your material, I realize you know so much about so many things.”
Interview continues. Interviewee asks questions to a man well into his 80’s, about trying to think.
What ensures is a glance into the mind of the worthiest intellect. Enjoy.
Preface to King Kill 33
If you haven’t read it before, it’s news to you!
The preface to perhaps the most insanely paranoid conspiracy theory ever.
Written by James Shelby Downard.
You know you love it.
Robert Anton Wilson – Everything is Under Control Interview
A lovely little video interview with Bob that took place ten years ago. In it, Wilson talks about his new book “Everything is Under Control” which for my money, is the greatest encyclopedia on Conspiracy theory:
Animals tortured and killed for your coat
We received a lot of e-mails about the animals
This Is Not Art 2007
‘This Is Not Art has grown and developed over the last nine years, providing an annual extravaganza with a variety of workshops, panels, performances, speakers and exhibitions on all kinds of important topics. We
Van Halen Reunites
‘Eddie Van Halen’s son looks like Peppermint Patty. There’s no getting around it. I wish things could be different. As do, presumably, fans of Van Halen. This week, the long-beleaguered pop-metal behemoth disembalms original singer David Lee Roth for what is surely the Chinese Democracy of reunion tours, a long-threatened and oft-aborted rehash of those early-’80s glory years, before jovial, tequila-hawking asshat Sammy Hagar took over and turned the band into wusstastic chart-toppers. The Rothian diehards are (cautiously) elated. But the thorn on this particular rose lies in the absence of beloved bassist Michael Anthony, the bearlike dude with the Mickey Mouse watch collection and (lasciviously) angelic harmonies, kicked to the curb for I’m sure just totally rational reasons and replaced by . . . Eddie Van Halen’s son. His name is Wolfgang. He is 16 years old. And in fascinating rehearsal pics released last week, choogling merrily behind the…
Dan Rather Stands By His Story
‘Dan Rather’s complaint against CBS and Viacom, its parent company, filed in New York state court on Sept. 19 and seeking $70 million in damages for his wrongful dismissal as "CBS Evening News" anchor, has aroused hoots of derision from a host of commentators. They’ve said that the former anchor is "sad," "pathetic," "a loser," on an "ego" trip and engaged in a mad gesture "no sane person" would do, and that "no one in his right mind would keep insisting that those phony documents are real and that the Bush National Guard story is true."
‘If the court accepts his suit, however, launching the adjudication of legal issues such as breach of fiduciary duty and tortuous interference with contract, it will set in motion an inexorable mechanism that will grind out answers to other questions as well. Then Rather’s suit will become an extraordinary commission of inquiry into a major…
American Sex Portrait
‘Kinsey’s pioneering work is still one-of-a-kind because in all the time since, only a handful of sex researchers have even tried to match his breadth, depth, and scale. For all our obsession with sex, we’re skittish about studying it. There’s one major exception: a large survey, conducted in the 1990s, that far outdid Kinsey in terms of statistical reliability. It’s the most authoritative sexual self-portrait the country has. But you’ve probably never heard of its author, because unlike Kinsey, he has worked hard to keep it that way.
‘As a pioneer in the field, Kinsey had methodological strengths. To begin with, he was a counter, to the core. He gathered his data by conducting detailed, face-to-face interviews, occasionally lasting six hours or longer, and then tabulating how many people said they did what. He was an innovator in this regard, zeroing in on behaviors (whether a person had a homosexual experience…
Irish Gulags For Women: ‘Everything You Know About God Is Wrong’
The following is a small portion of Sam Jordison’s "’Irish Gulags for Women’: The Catholic Church’s Magdalene Asylums," one of 41 articles in Disinfo’s new anthology, Everything You Know About God Is Wrong: The Disinformation Guide to Religion, edited by Russ Kick. Other contributors include Richard Dawkins, Neil Gaiman, Douglas Rushkoff, and H.G. Wells. All major religions, and some minor ones, are covered. (More information is here.)
Here is the first fifth of Jordison’s article:
Al-Qaeda’s Forerunner
‘Not many people can tell you much about the November 1979 takeover of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, by Islamist militants. That’s partly because the Saudi authorities, as is their way, kept a tight lid on information during that fateful two-week period when the regime’s survival seemed, for the first time, in danger. Little changed afterward by way of transparency (even if the Saudis released a fascinating Arabic-language video on the event, pouring opprobrium on the militants). That is why Yaroslav Trofimov’s just-published book The Siege of Mecca is so valuable a document, not only in describing the murky events surrounding the takeover almost 28 years ago, but also as a backgrounder on the depth of Salafist tendencies in Saudi Arabia and the later emergence of Al-Qaeda. Trofimov, an Asia-based reported for the Wall Street Journal, has written extensively on Islam and the Middle East. An earlier book, Faith at…
The 9/11 Survivor No One Can Remember
‘Ms Head’s account made her one of only 19 survivors who had been at or above the point of impact when the planes hit. But no part of her story, it turns out, has been verified.
‘The family and friends of the man to whom she claimed to be engaged say they have never heard of Tania Head and view the relationship she describes with the man, who did die in the north tower, as an impossibility.
‘A spokeswoman for Merrill Lynch, where she told people she worked at the time of the terror attack, said the company had no record of employing a Tania Head.’ (Guardian article).
Sui Generis?
‘Did the prisoners at Leavenworth consider suing Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel for ripping off the saggy belt-less trousers they wear in the prison yard? Did hundreds of anonymous graffiti artists sue Stephen Sprouse for printing tags on Louis Vuitton satchels?’ (Village Voice article).
Outlaws
‘As "The Kingdom" progresses, the role of the F.B.I. squad begins to inflate. At first, under the guiding hand of the local investigator, Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), the agents are largely confined to their quarters and barely permitted to disturb the crime scene. As the rules relax, the film turns into "C.S.I.: Riyadh," with Sykes fishing around in bomb craters for twisted clues, and, by the end, the fantastic four
The Weirdest Sex Stories Of 2007
‘2007 has been a great year for sex. OK, every year is a great year for sex. But this year is especially interesting, with reports of sexsomnia, vegansexuals, man boobs, female promiscuity, double penises, horny old folks, cosmetic vagina surgery, publicly funded sex-change surgery, and the decline of marriage and co-sleeping. Among this year’s hundreds of Human Nature stories, five trends and discoveries stand out.’ (Slate Magazine article).
Jim Marrs: America’s PSI Spies Penetrate The Kremlin
Behind the doors of the CIA and U.S. Army Intelligence, science and ESP come together like a movie in the electrifying scenes of Jim Marrs’ new book, PSI Spies: the True Story of America’s Psychic Warfare Program. The author of best-sellers that have revealed the secrets and the conspiracies of the Federal Government, Marrs traces in PSI Spies the evolution of remote viewing and the use of this mental technology from the hidden laboratories of the 1970s to a new generation of viewers now being trained by former PSI spies.
Datarock’s Binary Numbers
‘Who knew music this shit-hot could come from a mountainous Norwegian town known as the "City of Rain"? Following in the footsteps of fellow townspeople Royksopp, Kings of Convenience and Sondre Lerche, Fredrik Saroea and Ketil Mosnes formed Datarock in 2000 while students in Bergen, Norway (where "there’s still lots of black metal"). Or, as Saroea once put it in an online interview, "We fell in love. He became pregnant and gave birth to a small Casio watch. As our love grew, the Casio watch grew to become a Casio keyboard. And that’s how we became Datarock."
‘They gigged around for a couple of years, released a few EPs and finished their full-length debut in 2005 on their own label, Young Aspiring Professionals. After signing with Canada’s Nettwerk Music Group this winter, Saroea (vocals, guitar) and Mosnes (backing vocals, bass) finally saw the stateside release of Datarock Datarock, an album of…
