Clipmarks | jklugman's clips

Book lifts (coffin) lid on star of eerie first Dracula film

Sat, 10 May 2008 22:09:54 GMT

clipped by: CarnivalBorn

The first screen portrayal of Dracula was so eerie, some critics asked whether the actor himself could be a vampire. But since his death, little has been done to resurrect Max Schreck's reputation -- until now

The rest of his career has been largely forgotten -- unjustly, in the view of German author Stefan Eickhoff, who has written what he says is the first biography of Schreck

Eickhoff's biography provides a detailed chronicle of the career of Schreck, a civil servant's son who appeared in around 800 stage and screen roles

Clip Source: www.reuters.com

The most revealing descriptions of the Berliner come from tributes paid to Schreck after he died suddenly in 1936

Contemporaries remembered Schreck, who was married but had no children, as a loyal, conscientious loner with an offbeat sense of humor and a talent for playing the grotesque

One recalled how he lived in "a remote and strange world" and would spend hours walking through dense, dark forests

Brandeis Student Gov Tables Resolution Commemorating Israel's 60th bday

Sat, 10 May 2008 21:52:41 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

About half of the Brandeis student body identifies itself as Jewish. Brandeis, which has 3,400 undergraduates, was founded by members of the American-Jewish community in 1948, when there were quotas limiting the number of Jewish students at prestigious universities.

Via Philip Weiss, who argues this portends a more critical apporach to Israel among young Jewish Americans.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Five students cosponsored the resolution to congratulate the Jewish state on its 60th birthday, which Israel will celebrate today. The sponsors say the resolution, brought before the student senate, was intended as nothing more than simple birthday greetings. That it would cause controversy at the nation's only nonsectarian, Jewish-sponsored university caught them by surprise, they said.

The resolution sparked more than two hours of debate on the senate floor on March 9, leaving some students in tears, according to a senator who was there. Critics questioned whether it was appropriate to have student leadership delve into Middle Eastern politics on a campus that hosts students from 100 countries, some of which oppose Israel's policies.

Following the discussion, student senators voted, 13 to 6, with one abstention, to "postpone indefinitely" a vote on the resolution, effectively killing it.

Tags: israel, judaism, zionism

Can syphilis be transmitted through toilet seats?

Mon, 05 May 2008 18:49:48 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: No.

Clip Source: joshreads.com

a quote from a doctor in the early 20th century, when it was still considered a live question as to whether syphilis could be transmitted by unsanitary bathroom facilities. “It’s really quite amazing,” he said. “All of my married patients have caught it from a dirty toilet, and all my bachelor patients have caught it from having sex.”

Tags: sex, humor

Fascist on the London Assembly

Sat, 03 May 2008 11:36:55 GMT

clipped by: Elfrida

Clip Source: www.socialistworker.org.uk

Millions of people across Britain will be shocked and horrified by the news that the fascist British National Party (BNP) has managed to grab an assembly seat in London – one of the most multiracial and diverse cities of the world.

While anti-fascist campaigning and the high turnout helped hold the Nazis back, it was not enough to prevent them from breaking through the crucial 5 percent barrier that guarantees a London assembly seat.

Much of the blame for letting the Nazis in lies with the political and media establishment that has whipped up a storm of racism against Muslims and immigrants

They have lashed out at Muslims to find a scapegoat for their disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and lashed out at Poles to deflect anger at the poor housing, decaying public services and dismal wages

The fascists feed off this climate of despair – and they will grow further if the anti-Nazi majority does not stand together and stand up to their politics of bigotry and race hatred.

American Views of Religious Groups and Atheists

Sat, 03 May 2008 11:30:31 GMT

clipped by: Djiezes
clipper's remarks: I find it remarkable that atheists are viewed almost as badly upon as Scientologists.

Clip Source: scienceblogs.com

American Views of Religious Groups and Atheists

Gallup has released a survey measuring Americans views on various religious groups

Tags: religion, atheism, scientology, survey, gallup, us, usa, stats, society

Hong Kong's 'cage homes'

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 20:38:30 GMT

clipped by: boozich
clipper's remarks: Cage dwellings are just one example of worsening poverty in this southern Chinese territory, where only 35 percent of the 3.4 million working population pays income tax and the top 100,000 earners contribute 60 percent of salaries tax.

Built in the 1940s to accommodate a wave of Chinese refugees fleeing the civil war on the mainland, about 100 cage homes remain, housing some of Hong Kong's poorest and most downtrodden.

Clip Source: news.sawf.org

Tai Yum-po, 78, sits on his bed in a "cage home"

Hidden behind the high-rise office blocks and glitzy shopping malls of Hong Kong, a huge number of ordinary people have been left behind by the economic boom since the city returned to Chinese rule a decade ago.

As as international financial hub it boasts some of Asia's richest people and more Louis Vuitton shops than Paris or New York.

Yet out of its seven million residents, an estimated 1.25 million -- people like Kong and Tai -- live below the poverty line.

They share a room with nine other men in one of Hong Kong's notorious "cage dwellings" -- small, dingy flats that have been further subdivided into cages where there is no room for anything other than a bed.

the absence of a minimum wage policy was also to blame

Jobs are getting fewer and fewer but we have more workers with no minimum wage protection

people who live in what is termed "inadequate housing."

Swimming pools, Islam, & Judaism

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:46:17 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: southjerusalem.com

Mondays are women’s nights at the Jerusalem Pool, where I swim every day. From the hours of six to nine p.m., this South Jerusalem pool is closed to me simply because I’m a male. On Wednesday nights, women get the same treatment.

Daniel Pipes spends some of his no doubt precious time chronicling swimming pools in North America and Europe that have separate men’s and women’s hours. These pools have instituted separate sex hours to accommodate Muslims, where as in the case of the Jerusalem Pool, it’s to accommodate Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jews.

Tags: islam, hypocrisy, judaism

John McCain's revolutionary foreign policy proposal

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 02:04:05 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

Fareed Zakaria said:

In his speech McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia from the G8, the group of advanced industrial countries. Moscow was included in this body in the 1990s to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large chunks of the old Russian Empire as well. McCain also proposed that the United States should expand the G8 by taking in India and Brazil—but pointedly excluded China from the councils of power.

Via Laura Rozen

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

We have spent months debating Barack Obama's suggestion that he might, under some circumstances, meet with Iranians and Venezuelans. It is a sign of what is wrong with the foreign-policy debate that this idea is treated as a revolution in U.S. policy while McCain's proposal has barely registered. What McCain has announced is momentous—that the United States should adopt a policy of active exclusion and hostility toward two major global powers. It would reverse a decades-old bipartisan American policy of integrating these two countries into the global order, a policy that began under Richard Nixon (with Beijing) and continued under Ronald Reagan (with Moscow). It is a policy that would alienate many countries in Europe and Asia who would see it as an attempt by Washington to begin a new cold war.

Tags: john mccain, foreign policy, cold war, russia, china

Milton Friedman's legacy

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:49:10 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks: By Doug Henwood.

Via Brad DeLong

Clip Source: www.leftbusinessobserver.com

But there’s a radical way of expressing the insights of Friedman and the others who came to power and influence in the late 1970s. Capitalism simply cannot live with low unemployment rates. Workers gain confidence, resist the direction of the boss, and wages are forced up. Add to that a welfare state, which cushions workers against the risk of job loss, and things are even worse from the bosses’ point of view. Their plight was evident in the depressed profit rates of the leisure-suit decade.

Sure enough, the application of the Friedman agenda raised profit rates and ended the great inflation—though it put the working class into a semipermanent state of anxiety, which was part of the point.

Tags: capitalism, milton friedman, economics, unemployment

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 00:22:18 GMT

clipped by: rmowery
clipper's remarks: At the rate we are going, perhaps it will happen again?

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Humans nearly wiped out 70,000 years ago, study says

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests.

The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," said Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence.

"Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA."

Tags: prehistory, humans, dna, survival

The GOP is not the Nazi Party...right?!?!?!?

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 21:09:54 GMT

clipped by: ratilfar
clipper's remarks: I don;t think so, someone should tell that to this moron!

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: politics, political, race, racism, nazi, gop, say what?

Guantanamo is driving detainees crazy

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 13:08:13 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Next month, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni who was once a driver for Osama bin Laden, could become the first detainee to be tried for war crimes in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. By now, he should be busily working on his defense.

But his lawyers say he cannot. They say Mr. Hamdan has essentially been driven crazy by solitary confinement in an 8-foot-by-12-foot cell where he spends at least 22 hours a day, goes to the bathroom and eats all his meals. His defense team says he is suicidal, hears voices, has flashbacks, talks to himself and says the restrictions of Guantánamo “boil his mind.”

“He will shout at us,” said his military defense lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer. “He will bang his fists on the table.”

His lawyers have asked a military judge to stop his case until Mr. Hamdan is placed in less restrictive conditions at Guantánamo, saying he cannot get a fair trial if he cannot focus on defending himself.

Tags: guantanamo, detention, detainees, human-rights, unfair-prosecution

In defense of William Ayers

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 12:30:57 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

Wonderment said:

But to call Ayers a "terrorist" and throw him in the Osama bin Laden pile is a reach for the moral high ground by the very people and political establishment that secretly carpet bombed Cambodia, murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians.

...Ayers is no martyr, and he's no role model. But he doesn't deserve to be the punching bag of the moral cretins who still celebrate lying wars of aggression and the pointless slaughter of untold thousands.

Clip Source: bloggingheads.tv

Ayers makes the claim that the use of violence, particularly with the aim of zero loss of life, was justified as a form of protest and pressure to end the Vietnam and Cambodian War. If you look at the crimes of the Johnson and Nixon administrations in their historical context (napalming civilians, Agent Orange, torture, starvation, mass murder, carpet bombings, persecution of dissidents in the US, including the murder of college students by the National Guard, pro-war police riots, disproportionately race-based conscription of 18-year-olds, etc. etc.), there is a case to be made that taking up arms against such a regime is justified.

Now you may argue that the prospects of achieving success in ending the war through "revolutionary" violence were slim to none. I agree.

Tags: william ayers, vietnam, cambodia, hypocrisy, war, civilian-killings

DHS: Don't describe terrorists as jihadists

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:12:12 GMT

clipped by: jklugman

Clip Source: apnews.myway.com

Federal agencies, including the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the National Counter Terrorism Center, are telling their people not to describe Islamic extremists as "jihadists" or "mujahedeen," according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. Lingo like "Islamo-fascism" is out, too.

The reason: Such words may actually boost support for radicals among Arab and Muslim audiences by giving them a veneer of religious credibility or by causing offense to moderates.

U.S. officials may be "unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims," says a Homeland Security report. It's entitled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims."

"We are communicating with, not confronting, our audiences. Don't insult or confuse them with pejorative terms such as 'Islamo-fascism,' which are considered offensive by many Muslims."

Tags: islam, war on terror, war-on-terror, dhs, bush administration

Human brain appears 'hard-wired' for hierarchy

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:50:36 GMT

clipped by: wildcat

Clip Source: physorg.com

Human imaging studies have for the first time identified brain circuitry associated with social status, according to researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the National Institutes of Health. They found that different brain areas are activated when a person moves up or down in a pecking order – or simply views perceived social superiors or inferiors. Circuitry activated by important events responded to a potential change in hierarchical status as much as it did to winning money.

“Our position in social hierarchies strongly influences motivation as well as physical and mental health,”

Tags: brain, hierarchy, social