The best of RobotWisdom WebLog

[links updated]

Dec 1997

17Dec

first post:

A thread about gangs on chi.general led me to this reference source on Chicago gangs: [Wayback] which offers a ton of details-- names, symbols, alliances-- you never see anywhere else. In the newsgroup discussion [new url], "Tommy the Terrorist" wisely suggests that if gangs have corrupt cops watching out for them, then their territorial boundaries ought to match those cops' precincts' boundaries as well.

18Dec

I enjoy "Dilbert" (http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/) as much as the next nrrd, but FAIR's Norman Solomon is arguing that it's sneaky capitalist propaganda. See his regular column in the Portland Alliance for May 1997: [new url]. (Many of Solomon's other commentaries are archived [new url] at DejaNews [GoogleGroups].)

23Dec

The next time you're headed for the library, spend a half-hour with Danny Yee's book reviews first: [new url] He has excellent taste...

Sam Smith... offers a nice fantasy of what a real newspaper should be, USA Tomorrow at: http://emporium.turnpike.net/P/ProRev/usat.htm.

Salon.com... offers a cute new (though obvious) gif

25Dec

YAY! One of my favorite culture critics-- Candi Strecker-- has found a niche on the Web, at Tripod. [Wayback]

One of my very favorite singers, Mary Coughlan, a smoky Irish blues singer, formerly very obscure, now has a harrowing biographical sketch online at [Wayback] . "...during one point in her set Mary kept the audience transfixed as she sang 'Strange Fruit' without musical accompaniment, If you were to drop a pin you would have been beaten up for it... The greatest, sexiest redhead since Rita Hayworth" -The Times

JM Graetz was present at the creation of the first videogame, Spacewar, and tells it like it was: [new url]

At least someone is trying to keep an eye on netnews society: [new url]

27Dec

Michael Parenti is a GREAT political speaker who's put out a lot of tapes (on the net in RealAudio format, if you can handle that). His newest book, "Blackshirts and Reds", is an attempt to rehabilitate communism. From the preface at [new url]: "U.S. leaders have been dedicated above all to making the world safe for global corporate investment and the private profit system. Pursuant of this goal, they have used fascism to protect capitalism, while claiming to be saving democracy from communism." ...the book's first chapter document[s] the forgotten story of how Mussolini and Hitler were funded by rich capitalists, to crush the labor movement. And there's a horrendous compilation of the statistics of American misery ("37,000,000 regularly use emotion controlling medical drugs"): [new url] And a nice dismantling of the myth of free speech in the USA: [new url] The three [one] online chapters of his "Against Empire" give[s] a taut portrait of recent US imperialism, [new url]: "In fact, the lands of Asia, Africa, and Latin America have long produced great treasures of foods, minerals and other natural resources. That is why the Europeans went through all the trouble to steal and plunder them. One does not go to poor places for self-enrichment. The Third World is rich. Only its people are poor--and it is because of the pillage they have endured."

Among many outstanding essays on another site: [new urls]

Parenti spells out explicitly his prescription for healing the USA, and debunks terrorism hype especially against Libya.

28Dec

[pending]

29Dec

[pending]

Gorillas make gorgeous representational art! [new url]