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I can't see that anyone's posted this yet, so here's the companion piece to John W. Dean's article. It's called ...or Protect Secret Sources. And also, again from the L.A. Times, a little excerpt from All the President's Men where Bernstein and Woodward speculate about Deep Throat's reasons for doing what he did.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:01 PM on February 6, 2005

oh, I should mention that ...or Protec Secret Sources doesn't reveal anything about the identity of Deep Throat. Unless, of course, it was Kelli Sager, the author of the article who was Deep Throat! She would have been 13 at the time but that's about as opposite from what Woodward and Bernstein wrote so that it must be true! I can't believe it, I've figured it out!



...so where's my Pulitzer already... I don't have all night, y'know
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:09 PM on February 6, 2005

amberglow: she's got a ph.d. in economics.

delmoi: Apparently her hairdo is known as a Ukrainian braid and is the traditional 'do of Ukrainian women. That she pulls that off is really impressive.

muckster: Well, he's a green, in some quarters greens are automatically considered hip. I know too many greens to really subscribe to that worldview. That's a hilarious picture by the way. Fischer looks like a kid whose mother bought him a suit he'd "grow into".
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:25 PM on February 5, 2005

saydur: a friend of mine said that the Democrats needed someone like her for '08
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:39 PM on February 5, 2005

languagehat: well, I was originally just reading about the situation in Ukraine, but then I was struck by the fact that she doesn't look like a politician, which I find fascinating. The way people dress themselves is very fundamental to how they present themselves to the world, what message they are sending. I'm not entirely sure what message Timoshenko is going for but what I get is "I'm not your normal politician. I'm exciting. I'm new". I'll admit to falling for… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 8:13 AM on February 6, 2005

davy: Are you saying image is not important to a politician? I'm not assuming anything, just wondering.

I'm not putting Timoshenko up there with MLK, however she was one of the prime movers and shakers in the Ukrainian Orange Revolution, which gives her hip credentials right there. Oh, and if you're looking for a politician that was possibly hipper than anyone in the 20th century, look no further than Che Guevara. I personally am not a big fan of Che, but I recognize… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:05 AM on February 6, 2005

oops, due to sloppy editing on preview I excised a rather significant part of my last comment. Are you saying image is not important to a politician? should have been: Are you saying image is not important to a politician, or rather, that image is not the primary attribute voters use to judge a politician?
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:12 AM on February 6, 2005

languagehat: Jeez, "they were endorsing a presidential decree. I don't see why that's such a bad sign" -- is that the attitude you'd take if it was Bush's presidential decree?

I just did. To quote myself:

The country's been in turmoil, and when that happens, politicians try to support the status quo. Think of what happened in 2000 after the election brouhaha then. Remember the scene from Fahrenheit 9/11 when… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:36 AM on February 6, 2005

dhartung: Well, it's hard to figure out exactly what plans Yuschenko and Timoshenko have. They're both liberals in the eastern European sense, i.e. for privatization of state-run enterprise and "modernization" of markets. They also seem to support more social liberalism, but then in many ways Ukraine is more socially liberal than Russia, for instance HIV/AIDS is more acknowledged as a problem there, while in Russia it's mostly ignored.

emdog: well... she made… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:12 PM on February 6, 2005

andrew cooke: Look, not every single person who's made money in the former Soviet Union is a crook. Everyone who does is accused of being a crook, to which there is a big difference. A few, some, most or even all might be corrupt. I don't know and you don't know because no one really knows. It's one of those instances which Rumsfeld would call a known unknown. However, we do know that a substantial number of people in the former Soviet Union made money in illegal and immoral… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:57 PM on February 6, 2005

emdog: I'd say realistic is the golden mean between naïve and cynical, however, it's one of the harder ones to attain.

I do think that ultimately, to the level of brain chemistry, everyone's in it for personal reward, but that doesn't denigrate anyone's contributions to society. To quote Adam Smith: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest"
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 7:35 PM on February 6, 2005

I don't know if it's the best one, but the one that's stayed with me constantly since I bought it was Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News.

Other ones that I listened to a lot that were published last year (i.e. near constantly for periods of two weeks or more) were:

Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
The Libertines - The Libertines
Elliott Smith - From a Basement on the Hill
Animal Collective -… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:03 PM on January 1, 2005

I like how in #11 it looks like Santa's bawling too. And #15 looks like some evil wizard from a bad seventies fantasy flick. Oh, and #17 is skeeeeevy.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:16 AM on December 18, 2004

y'know, I was actually going to spend my internet time productively...

dam you anomie, damn you!
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:48 AM on December 17, 2004

I first read about Harold Holt in Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. Fascinating story.

I find Australian politics in general fascinating. To give an example why, here's a story about the Australian prime minister Bob Hawke (from australianbeers.com):

[T]his country’s most famous drinking record was set by the legendary Australian Prime Minister Robert (Bob) Hawke in 1955. He drank 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds at University… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:33 AM on December 17, 2004

can't have it uncanny, it's mine and I belong to a special club...

oh, and milovoo, yes it's a daaamn long time ago, when the hell did the web get so old?
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:10 PM on December 16, 2004

Well, according to them, Blair 1 was originally published in the winter of 94.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:57 AM on December 17, 2004

Y'know, I enjoy the Bulwer-Lytton post every year it's posted. It wouldn't be Christmas without it


...whaddayamean all the others were posted in July? Don't dump on my cherished traditions.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:39 PM on December 16, 2004

This picture has my undying love for all of eternity.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:54 PM on December 11, 2004

The word McCaffery coined for poems like Carnival was typestract. Oh, and Lyn Hejinian is indeed mad wicked cool awesome.

/me takes fan club pin out of lapel, breathes on it and shines it with my shirt and puts it back in its place

Mars: To be Captain Obvious for a bit, shouldn't it be classified as writing, since it's made up of words (and, more importantly, sentences)?

Oh, and thanks trharlan for the… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:59 PM on December 5, 2004

Ooh, Languagehat... that was mean, taking me all literally in a thread about poetry.

What I meant, and took to be obvious, was that a bunch of readable sentences constitute writing of some sort.

A good example would the be extant corpus of Sappho. She is considered among the greatest of the greats of world literature, but what we have of her work is haphazard and random. It's been put in a blender, if you will (not literally :) ). Her current… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:30 PM on December 6, 2004

oh, I realized that the last sentence could have come off as snarky, when it was supposed to come off as silly. Anyway, it's supposed to be silly and lighthearted.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 3:17 PM on December 6, 2004

The tablescraps I was talking about were the one complete and few partials that remains. Most of the rest would hardly qualify as crumbs.

But since her complete works (as known a millenium after her death) came to about 10000 lines, all of which was considered to be great. I suspect a better analogy would be if all we had of Esra Pound were a few of his Cantos.

You know what, I almost posted the same Perloff/McCaffery quote as you did in support… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:29 AM on December 7, 2004

Thank you, languagehat, and I enjoyed your comments.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:59 PM on December 7, 2004

Rowan Atkinson has done some wonderful religious humor. Here are a couple of sketches from a fan website:

And now from Nazareth, the Amazing...

The Devil Sketch

Both from his hilarious (mostly) one man stageshow which is available to buy on video.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:03 PM on December 7, 2004

I liked the fact that The Doors got a pounding (no pun intended, but I'll leave that in there so you can feel superior to me).

It's not that I hate all of it, just Jim Morrison's singing and lyrics and Ray Manzarek's keyboard solos*. Unfortunately, that accounts for 90% of their recorded output. I think Krieger's an excellent guitarist and Densmore's equally good as a drummer.

I can articulate exactly what I don't like. Jim Morrison's style of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 10:27 AM on December 5, 2004

The Card Cheat: Y'know, even though Yves Klein is my favorite artist of the 20th century, with Duchamp hot on his heels, I really liked this painting of shirts by Judith Kudlow. Also, for someone who says of paintings: "They leave one positive and feeling optimistic" to then go an recommend the work of Andrea Smith beggars belief. Seriously, I say this without sarcasm, never have I looked at a bundle of asparagus with such dread.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 9:45 AM on December 4, 2004

Over sixty comments and no one's called it 'bitchfork' yet?

Can't tell whether that's a good thing or bad.

For the record I like Pitchfork. I also like NME, so make of that what you will. As with every publication some reviewers are better than others (and even good reviewers have off days, and sometimes bad ones produce good stuff).

I found Pitchfork back in '99 looking for reviews of Blur's 13. I liked the review and… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 12:59 PM on December 1, 2004

I'm Icelandic. I know the success of The Broken Social Scene here in Iceland (where a number of my friends and acquaintances listen to them) can almost entirely be attributed to Pitchfork. If PF hadn't championed them, most of these people would barely have heard of them.

Which makes me guess that while PF may not have a huge influence in places that are the engines of indie culture (New York being the most obvious example. Same goes for large… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:33 AM on December 3, 2004

Murakami is truly mindbogglingly good. I too consider Wind-up Bird his masterpiece. Wild Sheep Chase was the first one I read so it holds a special place in my heart. But if I'd be pushed against a wall and a gun pressed against my temple and I was forced to choose a favorite book of all time, I'd go with Wind-up Bird.

I once went to a Murakami talk and he talked about how what he was trying to do with his fiction was to go into the "basement" of the psyche and… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 4:08 PM on November 30, 2004

ChrisR, agree, I'm atheistic (if not anti-theistic, though don't get me started on the subject of mediums) and I can't say I was particularly bothered by either post. As someone who belongs to an opressed minority here on mefi (non-American "help! help! I'm being repressed!") I don't see why other opressed mefi minorities don't get their posts in the sunlight ;)
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 11:42 AM on November 29, 2004

criticalbill, I'm getting that too, as well as:

Sorry, no matches when searching for...

"E" Anywhere in record and only display records that have digital images

Please try again.

I was wondering if they were restricted to users within the US since I'm in Europe.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:31 AM on November 28, 2004

The bio she wrote on her userinfo page is pretty hilarious (unintentionally I'm sure). Here it is in its entirety:

I live in the suckiest place on earth, a shit hole in alaska. I have a wide viritey of interests and talents.
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 2:21 PM on November 27, 2004

I agree taz, that is bizarre. I've been wondering how she did that.

I once saw a 48 Hours thing some time ago that was about kids who'd been tried as adults. One of the segments was about this guy who had served 16 years for a murder committed when he was a high schooler. A female classmate of his had gotten him to murder her father who had been abusing her. The girl was let off on probation, but the guy got 8-24 years.

It makes me wonder whether… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 5:13 AM on November 28, 2004

Christmas displays can mean a lot to people. Where I live (Reykjavík, Iceland), there's this guy who lives on one of the main traffic arteries who has had a lavish Christmas display for at least a decade now. It's got nothing on Mr. Aerts's display, and there are other more elaborate ones elsewhere in the city, but because so many people pass by there, it holds a special place in the heart of many. A few years ago he broke his leg when he fell out of a ladder putting up lights and a bunch of… [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus at 1:52 PM on November 27, 2004