Save the Date

When one of your Google search results is a blog, it looks like Google now tells you the date of the most recent post. Nice idea.

PBSGOP

Two days ago, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Labor, Health, Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies voted to substantially cut the congressional monies for PBS.

Yesterday, PBS announced that it would hire an ombudsman, "update" its editorial standards, and explicitly label commentary and editorial content as such.

Of course, there's no connection at all between these two events.

One Week in New York

Having lived in New York for a little more than a week, I feel obligated to share a couple reflections: (I apologize in advance if this blog becomes a little Gotham-centric as I acclimate to my new surroundings.)

New York (and when I say New York, I by-and-large mean the Upper West Side, my new home) is at once dirtier and cleaner than I expected. On the dirty side, the mountains of trash bags that accumulate on the sidewalk must be seen to be appreciated; when a few of them break open, the effect is disgusting. On a cleaner note, I'm pretty sure that trash day is every day. The sheer effort that sanitation workers, porters, and building supers go through in order to keep the city clean is really quite impressive.

Everyday, I see a New Yorker treating the city with gentle respect while another New Yorker treats it like a dump. The tragedy and charm of the commons are in full view. At the dog park or at Central Park, I see thousands of New Yorkers using common resources in a manner that is almost delicate. On the way back from the dog park, I see a man toss a wrapper over his shoulder immediately onto the sidewalk.

One block down from me, there is a stable with horses in it. In the middle of Manhattan. The Claremont Riding Academy. Awesome. City kids ride horses while old Puerto Rican men play dominoes across the street.

While walking Maggie Beagle and Molly Beagle, more people have stopped me to say hello in the last week than in the previous 6 months. My dogs seem shocked by the number of dogs they have met since we arrived.

I Moved to New York

Citizens,

Steph, Maggie, Molly & I have made it to New York safe and sound. Our stuff won't arrive until June 10, and I'll like be more-or-less offline (Hurray for neighbors with unprotected wireless!) until then -- so I won't be posting much for the next two weeks.

In the meantime, I just learned that the North Korean People are All out to Build Great Prosperous Powerful Nation. What great news.

Cheers,
Andy

Palo Alto, California: 1 Police Officer per 673 Residents

It's been quite a week for the Palo Alto Police.

The 92 officers of Palo Alto's finest started off the week handing out We're Bored tickets to cyclicts for riding while talking on cell phones (an activity which, as you guessed, turns out to be legal). The cops ended the week befuddled by an anarchist rally downtown.



(I'd heard before that Palo Alto had more police per capita than any comparable US city. Although I haven't found a good online resource to back up this factoid, here's a point of reference: With slightly over 9,600 police officers and a population of 9,871,506, Los Angeles has 1 police officer per 1,028 residents.)

Is It Something That Surrounds Us & Binds Us?

Nobody does absurd, entertaining web promotions like Burger King. Following on the heels of Subservient Chicken, it's 20 questions with Darth Vader.


Source: sithsense.com

After Two Jail Terms, Society Blesses the Letourneau/Fualaau Union

Mary Kay Letourneau, 43, recently wed her former student Vili Fualaau, 22.

Ms Letourneau did a couple turns in the slammer for conducting a sexual relationship with Mr Faulaau when she was a 34-year-old married mother of four and Fualaau was a 12-year-old elementary school student.

...and yet gay marriage is illegal in the US — since allowing gay marriage would somehow harm the sanctity & dignity of our holy matrimonial bonds.

Someone at Google Finally Caved In

Google takes a page from Yahoo's playbook, and consolidates all its services into a Google personal homepage.


Source: Google

This may seem like a minor change, but resisting the temptation to put cluttered -- busy -- full -- feature-rich pages online has been a big part of Google's design aesthetic over the years. I'll be interested to see if this homepage makes its way out of the labs and onto Google's main page.

Senator, Chancellor, Emperor

Whether or not you've already seen the new Star Wars movie, you'll appreciate what Max Baucus (D - MT) had to say in the US Senate yesterday.



In passing, if you haven't seen the new Star Wars movie yet, you should.

Finally, Lucas makes a prequel movie where he doesn't devote half the movie to explaining the inner workings of his world. Lucas still can't write dialogue, but the pacing of the movie is fantastic. Oh, and Jar-Jar only appears once.

A Bug in Big Brother

Just as I suspected. People who like my band also like to read Dostoyevsky and to rapidly learn Italian.


Source: iTunes

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