arse poetica

Verizon Finds Spine, Remembers 1st Amendment

Assholes. I'd already sent my email informing them of my decision to find a new provider, since they thought they were living in some fascist information-controlling state. Ahem.

Verizon Reverses Itself on Abortion Messages.

Saying it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” text messages, Verizon Wireless last week rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, the abortion rights group, to make Verizon’s mobile network available for a text-message program.

But the company reversed course this morning, saying it had made a mistake.

“The decision to not allow text messaging on an important, though sensitive, public policy issue was incorrect, and we have fixed the process that led to this isolated incident,” Jeffrey Nelson, a company spokesman, said in a statement.

“It was an incorrect interpretation of a dusty internal policy,” Mr. Nelson said. “That policy, developed before text messaging protections such as spam filters adequately protected customers from unwanted messages, was designed to ward against communications such as anonymous hate messaging and adult materials sent to children.”

Mr. Nelson noted that text messaging is “harnessed by organizations and individuals communicating their diverse opinions about issues and topics” and said Verizon has “great respect for this free flow of ideas.”

They have great respect for the free flow of money. Let's not pretend.

Don't Be Hatin'

cos I'm color-coordinatin'.

That's right.

You Can Sell Anything

I have a visceral reaction to stories like this. (You can't sell that! It belongs to the world!) Why am I so offended?

::sigh::

Magna Carta Is Going on the Auction Block.

The 2,500 words fill a page that is a couple of inches shorter than this one, but almost as wide. The faded letters in Latin are unreadable in places. Something that looks like a scraggly, russet-colored tail hangs from the bottom.

It is the document that laid the foundation for fundamental principles of English law. Angry colonists complained long before the Boston Tea Party that King George III had violated it. The men who drafted the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights borrowed from it.

It is Magna Carta, agreed to by King John of England in 1215 and revised and reaffirmed through the 13th century. The tail dangling off the page is a royal seal.

And it is about to go on sale.

[snip]

Mr. Redden arranged the Magna Carta auction quietly, so quietly that Sotheby’s did not tell its own employees why it was changing arrangements for other auctions. James Zemaitis, the director of Sotheby’s 20th-century design department, said he was asked to give up a room at Sotheby’s headquarters on York Avenue at East 72nd Street that he had reserved for a pre-auction exhibition of his own.

“All they told me was: ‘David Redden is selling this really important document, the most important document of all. Can you give up this room for us?’ ” he recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Sure, but what is he selling, the Magna Carta?’ ”

Yeah.

Yes, I am Getting My Sister This for Chrismaramakwanzakah

Hee.

Girly: Guess What Chicken Butt T-shirt (white).

This Just In: Black People Are Articulate! And They Dance Well!

Honestly. HON-estly.

Media Matters - O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants.

During the September 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, discussing his recent trip to have dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at Sylvia's, a famous restaurant in Harlem, Bill O'Reilly reported that he "had a great time, and all the people up there are tremendously respectful," adding: "I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship."

Black people are just like regular people!

Later, during a discussion with National Public Radio senior correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams about the effect of rap on culture, O'Reilly asserted: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.'

Sometimes black people can speak without using the word m-therf-cker!

You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all."

Black people can go into Italian restaurants in the suburbs and order and have fun! Or something! (No one said Bill-O was a genius. -- Understatement Ed.)

O'Reilly also stated: "I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves."

Sometimes black people are able to function without white people telling them what to do! Even though white people do this for black people's own good!

&@#$@*%!!

There Are Good Books and There Are Bad Books

And the government knows which are which. They also know where you're going and with whom you're staying. Now, don't you feel more safe love Big Brother?

Collecting of Details on Travelers Documented.

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

Wow. I wonder what camp I'll fall into if I'm reading the Koran, Michael Moore's latest screed, and whomever was declared the Unpatriot of the Week.

I'm reminded of something...what is it? Oh, right, it's this: Fourteen defining characteristics of fascism.

[photo credit: Library of Congress, created back when the government functioned for (some) good.]

Wordy, But I Like It

Okay, so it sounds exactly like what I listened to when I was 14. That's a given. And, yes, it is practically identical to 99.99% of my iTunes inventory. Sure. And so it's a little twee. Is that so wrong?? ^_^

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart--Doing All the Things That Wouldn't Make Your Parents Proud (mp3)

Get your hipster tunes--of wider/broader/more adventurous sensibility than mine--here: Stereogum mp3s! [via]

[photo credit: ae | 09.08.07 | Winston-Salem, NC (at a Wake Forest football game where, inevitably, WFU blew it in another of a long string of shoulda-wons)]

Friday Finny Blogging

Our freckle-faced puppy is a sweetheart and a total punkass. She's going to go down in history as one of the best dogs we ever had, I know it. I lover her personality, which is all doggie curiosity and goodness w/ a healthy dose of "I'm doing this now, watch me" thrown in, and I haven't met another dog quite like her. Certainly not one so babygoat-stinky!

Reason #2987847756307181-b Why Gloria Steinem Should Run the World

Not my favorite interview ever with Gloria Steinem, who, regardless, deftly handles the sometimes silly questions.

Has Gloria Steinem mellowed? No way.

My favorite moment:

Q: Do you see the world through the prism of gender?

A: No, the world looks at me through the prism of gender.

Honestly, it's like a balm. If I could just apply a heaping handful of Gloria Steinem to my brain every day, I would be a much saner human being.

[via]

Resista, Tourista

Just as I was thinking I was dying to have lunch at this spot, I thought it ain't going to be a "five-star wilderness" for v. long if we have to helicopter to it.

Five-Star Wilderness.

Heck. Why can't I be like the Repugnicans and not care? Frickin' "do unto others" gene. Grr.