Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:49 AM

As people may have gathered from previous posts, tonight after work through Sunday afternoon, I'll be attending Boskone. As such, I probably won't be spending any time online during that time.

Now, my reading list, both through LiveJournal Friends and blogroll has gotten quite long. And some of you are rather verbose. Not that that's a bad thing, but lately, if I miss just one day of LJ, I may have to go back over 240+ new entries posted in the duration to catch up. Just for one day! And I'm going to be offline even longer this weekend.

So, this is just a request that if you've written (or seen) something this weekend that you really think I ought to see, please drop me a note in these comments or in my LJ syndicated feed with the link.

Thanks!

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:05 PM

Today's Blogging of the President features a detailed account of today's debate in the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. And, apparently, one of the lawmakers claimed:

apparently the word "Nasty" comes from Thomas Nast's anti-Catholic political cartoons

Upon reading that, I checked the online OED. The earliest use of the word "nasty" dates back to the 1390s -- far before Thomas Nast's cartoons.

The OED suggests the word might have Dutch or Swedish origins. Dutch nestig (Middle Dutch nestich, nistich) foul, dirty, of unknown origin. with other possible sources in Old French or Middle English.

I've already seen this account quoted by Atrios. It's certainly a seductive and persuasive linguistic case, but it's false -- so let's try to nip this in the bud, shall we?

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:50 PM

Google on "answer to life, the universe and everything" (the phrase does not have to be in quotes). Here's a link, if you're feeling lazy. [As seen on Usenet]

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:25 PM

Meant to post about this story (from Mer's journal) last night:

The Bush administration has decided that people with bad hearing have bad judgment, too, and need special guidance from the federal government.

So the U.S. Department of Education is declaring about 200 television programs inappropriate for closed-captioning and denying federal grant requests to make them accessible to the hearing-impaired.

The department made its decisions based on the recommendations of a five-member panel. Who the five members are, only the government seems to know, and it isn't saying. But the shows they censored suggest a perspective that is Talibanesque.

Many of these shows used to be captioned, but now deaf people can say farewell to children's cartoons, sports programming, top-rated current shows and popular syndicated reruns. The National Association of the Deaf [NAD] provides the revised Approved/Disapproved list.

"They've suddenly narrowed down the definition of those three kinds of programming without public input," says Kelby Brick, director of the NAD's law and advocacy center. "Basically, the department wants to limit captioning to puritan shows. The department wants to ensure that deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals are not exposed to any non-puritan programming. Never mind that the rest of the country is allowed to be exposed."
<snip>
The censorship raises baffling questions about who gets in and who's left out. The government has rejected Nancy Drew but is accepting Andy Hardy. Cory the Clown has won approval, but the Cisco Kid is toast. Charlie Rose and Rod Serling are worthy of captions, but Catherine Crier and Dominick Dunne aren't. Go figure.
The Department of Education is refusing to reveal the names of the panel members whose opinions determined the caption grants and also won't disclose the new guidelines. By every appearance, the government has changed its definition of what constitutes a caption-worthy program. But it's keeping the new rules secret.
"They apparently used a panel of five individuals and then made the censorship decisions based on the individuals' recommendations," Mr. Brick says. "We have found the identity of one of the panelists. This individual tells us that he never knew he was on such a panel and that his views would be used for censorship. No panel was convened. The five panelists were contacted individually and separately."

As Mer put it, "when the government descriminates on the basis of content, we like to call that censorship. When the government denies access to the handicapped to things accessible to the nonhandicapped, we like to call that discrimination."

The FCC has a page of Excerpted comments in favor of closed captioning from people with hearing disabilities, with nearly fifty responses culled from their mail. Many of them consider closed captioning to be their lifeline for staying connected with the world. A few examples:

This is an important service for people with disabilities, which also benefits literacy in general. And don't feel blasé if you're healthy -- hearing problems increase with age.

The NAD is lobbying Congress to change the policy. The airwaves are public property leased to the networks (which is why Michael Powell's frothing about cable regulations are nonsensical -- airwaves are a limited resource, whereas cables and wiring can accommodate everyone) and should be as accessible and inclusive as possible.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:40 PM

Looks like the GOP is trying to draw attention away from their own troubles by smearing the other candidates. [Did you notice that Scott McClellan did not hold a briefing today?]

Matt Drudge is pushing a story alleging some sort of sexual relation with a woman not his wife. I don't like repeating the charges, but since some people have mentioned getting their news from RR, I thought you'd want to stay informed.

• Atrios notes that Rush and talk radio are already running with it.
• At the Agonist, Sean-Paul suggests " if the Republicans go down this path again, playing dirty politics likes this, I say we take the gloves off. Everything, and I mean everything becomes fair game. We are fighting for the soul of this country, so, as George is so fond of saying: Bring it on."
• Hesiod at Counterspin Central has more useful information, including evidence that this accusation is almost identical to a slander made against Clinton in the 1992 election that was utterly false.
• And, if you don't like that, here are rumors against GWB.
• Josh Marshall hasn't yet written on this, but he did notice the president's sudden decision to speak publically against same-sex marriage came right after his approval ratings dropped below 50% and the National Guard story hit big. And people have been speculating that they'd be looking for ways to shift people's focus and pump the president's ratings.
• Speaking of timing, VodkaPundit notes: "[B]reaking on a Thursday, no one will have any answers by tomorrow, which means the thing is gonna run all weekend, and right through Tuesday's primary votes."
• I just want to remind folks that the White House and RNC have used Drudge to slime their enemies in the past.

Meanwhile, in other more serious scandals, a Prospect story (via Atrios) begins:

Two government officials have told the FBI that conservative columnist Robert Novak was asked specifically not to publish the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame in his now-famous July 14 newspaper column. The two officials told investigators they warned Novak that by naming Plame he might potentially jeopardize her ability to engage in covert work, stymie ongoing intelligence operations, and jeopardize sensitive overseas sources.

Why does that not surprise me?

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:59 AM

For anybody else who might still be in need for parking near Boskone tomorrow night, Jill, in the comments, found a bargain!

Thanks a ton. I owe you lots.

BTW, back to the National Guard story, Kevin Drum has done some amazing reporting, and here's his latest must-read: an interview with the man who discovered Bush's records being cleaned up, providing exact details of what he saw and heard, when and with whom. Wow. In the comments, somebody speculates: "What if it looks like he was AWOL because the political fixers OVERSCRUBBED the records?" Curiouser and curiouser.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:40 AM

On the drive to work, I was thinking of one of the funnier exchanges from the last several days White House press briefings and I went searching through the official transcripts for that passage.

I couldn't find it, to the point I thought my memory might be playing tricks on me. Then I went to another site which quoted the line, found and confirmed the date, and re-checked the official transcript.

Guess what -- it's missing!

Read this lengthy exchange quoted by Josh Marshall. I can't find that anywhere in the official transcripts for that day or the day before. And there are some very searchable phrases in there, like "midnight oil"

What the heck's going on?

Am I just missing it? Did the White House clean the transcript? Is it located somewhere else on the site? Would Josh Marshall fabricate something like this out of whole cloth? (I doubt it). Or is something else going on entirely?

Oh, and the exchange I was looking for?

QUESTION: Any explanation as to why he served the minimum hours required?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, again, you have to look at the different time periods. And it showed that he fulfilled his duties, John.
QUESTION: But, still, it's the minimum requirement. You can go to college, you can get a C, or you can go to college and get a 4.0.

Me-yowch!

Posted by Lis Riba at 8:15 AM

People with long memories may recall that in the 2000 election, the Boston Globe did the most digging into the holes in Bush's National Guard story.

Well, that investigative team is back, and they found something new:

President Bush's August 1972 suspension from flight status in the Texas Air National Guard -- triggered by his failure to take a required annual flight physical -- should have prompted an investigation by his commander, a written acknowledgement by Bush, and perhaps a written report to senior Air Force officials, according to Air Force regulations in effect at the time.
<snip>
[Brigadier General David L.] McGinnis said there should have been an investigation and a report. "If it didn't happen, that shows how far they were willing to stretch the rules to accommodate" then-Lieutenant Bush.

There's something for the press gaggle at today's briefing! Either show us the results of the investigation or by their absence demonstrate that Bush benefitted from massive favoritism above and beyond the leeway given to most other men at the time! No win for McClellan this week.

Meanwhile, in other places, the Bush official story seems to be veering into desperation and farce. Late last night, the administration released Bush's 1972 dental records. But the fifth paragraph of the Associated Press story on the release states:

According to the White House, the dental exam shows Bush did report for duty in Alabama. The exam, however, was done after November 1972, when earlier reports have said Bush returned to Texas.

Whoops! They can't even keep their own story straight. The latest Knight Ridder story begins:

George W. Bush left his Texas Air National Guard assignment and moved to Alabama in 1972 even though the Air Force denied his request for a transfer, according to his military records.
In fact, Bush did not even ask for an official transfer until nine days after he moved to Alabama in May 1972.
The Air Force quickly rejected Bush's request, saying the fighter pilot was "ineligible" to move to the Alabama unit Bush wanted - a squadron of postal handlers.
Nevertheless, Bush stayed in Alabama until his Texas commanders finally gave him written authorization five months later to train there.

And USA Today writes about possible "cleansing" of Bush's records, with this bombshell:

A second former Texas Guard official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, was told by a participant that commanders and Bush advisers were particularly worried about mentions in the records of arrests of Bush before he joined the National Guard in 1968, the second official said.
<snip>
Two forms in Bush's publicly released military files ? his enlistment application and a background check ? contain blacked-out entries in response to questions about arrests or convictions. Bush acknowledged in biographies published in 1999 that he was arrested twice before he enlisted in the Air National Guard: once for stealing a wreath and another time for rowdiness at a Yale-Princeton football game.
The nature of what was blacked out in Bush's records is important because certain legal problems, such as drug or alcohol violations, could have been a basis for denying an applicant entry into the Guard or pilot training. Admission to the Guard and to pilot school was highly competitive at that time, the height of the Vietnam War.

[I am also amused by this line in the USAT piece: "Contacted at home Wednesday night, he refused to talk to a reporter. He said: "Don't ever call me again at home. I'll call your publisher and sue you."" I guess they're trying to show their thoroughness?]

All the articles are pointing out that Bush told Tim Russert he'd "absolutely" "authorize the release of everything," but since then he and his staff have been refusing most questions and requests. Yesterday's press briefing, like that the day before, is laughable:

Q How is asking that question engaging in gutter politics?
MR. McCLELLAN: But I think the American people -- I think the American people deserve better.
Q Scott, how does that engage in gutter politics if I ask that question?

Karl Marx once said "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." This is clearly the latter, so which story qualified as the former?

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:01 AM

The story on DoJ subpoenaing medical records has made the New York Times. They list more of the hospitals involved, and include comments from another judge far more sympathetic to the DoJ's demands. The article also includes this comment:

The University of Michigan, which initially refused to turn over the subpoenaed records because of privacy concerns, said it was discussing ways of deleting enough identifying information to comply with the subpoena. Other hospitals said they remained concerned.

Remember, in the Chicago ruling the DoJ said that "the government has reserved the right to request or subpoena additional patient identifying information -- so such anonymity as UM is trying for may only be a fleeting sanctuary.

Washington Post also has an article on the case with not much further information.

Added a few minutes later... The New York Times story includes the following quote:

In light of "modern medical practice" and the growth of third-party insurers, [the Justice Department said, "individuals no longer possess a reasonable expectation that their histories will remain completely confidential."

What do you think about this. Do you think you've waived your right to medical privacy by having insurance? Did you know that's what the government apparently thinks?

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:30 PM

Note the fifth paragraph of an AP article:

According to the White House, the dental exam shows Bush did report for duty in Alabama. The exam, however, was done after November 1972, when earlier reports have said Bush returned to Texas.

It seems the press is no longer taking administration claims on face value...

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:15 PM

I get out of work at 5:30 PM Friday, and there's a 7PM panel I want to attend at Boskone. Ian's working that evening (scheduled for enough hours that he probably will have to forgo attending altogether and transfer his membership) so I think I'm going to need to park downtown for the evening.

I know this is probably a lost cause, but does anybody know of some more reasonable parking in the vicinity of the Hynes Center and Newbury Street areas?

I'm so glad to provide humor for your humdrum lives. You can stop laughing any time.

[Arrgh! I just discovered that Sunday at 2pm, Michael Anderson will be presenting another performance of Freestyle Shakespeare I've been wanting to see it live since Arisia. Normally, that timeslot is the end of the con when things are winding down, but the preliminary schedule shows Teresa Nielsen Hayden on "The Dreaded Mary Sue" followed by the usual laughfest generated by a panel with both Michael A. Burstein and Keith R. A. DeCandido... Decisions, decisions...]

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:55 AM

Trying to post a few shorter things, so Livejournal doesn't choke on my RSS feed (it won't accept anything over 150k).

Yesterday, as I was looking for places to pimp promote my Bard In Boston list, I came upon the World's a stage LJ community -- a Shakespearian RPG, where people can assume the roles of Shakespeare's characters and interact.

Now, I've seen and read other such communities (mostly HP Dungeons). On the one hand, I know they can be incredibly time-consuming; on the other hand, looking at the member journals, I'm not sure how active this still is. Thirdly, the character I'd instinctively gravitate towards is already taken.

I don't know... I'm already dealing with too many interests I wish to pursue and not enough time. But it is tempting...

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:35 AM

Stayed up far too late last night following the investigation into Bush's National Guard records. CalPundit is all over these records, trying to parse what they actually tell us, and noting inconsistencies. Fascinating to watch as the new information trickles in. And get a load of the press vs. Scott McClellan yesterday. The press isn't letting up...

Outsourcing:
The President is also in hot water over comments that outsourcing jobs to foreign countries will be good for America in the latest annual economic report. To quote: "When a good or service is produced more cheaply abroad, it makes more sense to import it than to make or provide it domestically." And he's no longer just talking about manufacturing, but more white-collar jobs are being shipped overseas.

"Maybe we will outsource a few radiologists," [Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers] Mankiw told reporters. "What does that mean? Well, maybe the next generation of doctors will train fewer radiologists and will train more general practitioners or surgeons?. Maybe we've learned that we don't have a comparative advantage in radiologists." [LA Times]

It seems as though no careers are safe: Nathan Newman discovered Reuters just announced outsourcing some of their financial reporting -- the kinds of low-level jobs that might otherwise be an entry into the field. [Julia wonders whether this might account for some of the increasing press skepticism, as journalists find themselves threatened by Bush administration policies.]

But John Kerry got the best dig:

"I've got a feeling this report was prepared by the same people who brought us the intelligence on Iraq."

Kerry also deserves credit for a quick and decisive reaction: When he discovered that a firm they hired was outsourcing calling to Canada, they immediately severed the relationship. Of course, the GOP outsourced calls to India much earlier, and as far as I know, they haven't changed those policies...

Trying to wrap up this issue, Susan quotes E.J. Dionne:

The strange thing is that while Bush is determined not to repeat the mistakes his father made 12 years ago, he is in the process of repeating, almost precisely, the first Bush administration's fatal mistake.
The president and Karl Rove, his top political adviser, see Bush 41's problem as his estrangement from the Republicans' conservative political base.
<snip>
Here's what's missing from this analysis: The first Bush didn't lose because of defections from the right. He lost because mainstream, middle-class Americans decided, fairly or not, that their president just didn't understand much of anything about their lives. They were worried about their jobs, their health care, their pensions, their housing and sending their kids to college.

Valerie Plame:
Things aren't going well for the White House in that investigation. A news story end of last week that the investigation was focusing on Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Libby's deputy, John Hannah.

The strategy of the FBI is to make clear to Hannah "that he faces a real possibility of doing jail time," as a way to pressure him to name superiors, one federal law enforcement official said.

We're talking about the VP's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff -- how many superiors do they have?

Last night, Lambert posted more details on corrente: part 1 and part 2, including names of other staffers in Cheney's office under the microscope. This is big and growing.

Thefts by GOP Senators:
Well, the GOP tried to stem the outrage by firing a prominent sacrificial lamb, senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist Manuel Miranda. But the Dems aren't rolling over! Senate Democrats are demanding a criminal investigation, noting (1) in the three months of the investigation, Sergeant at Arms Bill Pickle still hasn't questioned certain GOP staffers that Miranda confirmed accessed the memos, (2) the extent of the theft has expanded to over 4000 documents, and (3) New York Times reports "one aide said Mr. Pickle said the breach in security was the result of a person 'hacking,' or working to gain entry into the Democrats' files. After that initial hacking, the documents were easily available on the network." -- so it wasn't the simple "glitch" Republicans try to make it out to be.

Meanwhile, demonstrating more of the illogic that's making him famous, Sen. Santorum is trying to turn the issue around to the content of the stolen material.

Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes, "Each time the Republicans accessed the Democrats' files without authorization, they at a minimum violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 USC Sec.1030(a)(2)." That statute includes anyone who "intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains 3; information from any department or agency of the United States." [The American Prospect]

Osama?
After months of silence, the Bush administration is suddenly talking tough about capturing Osama. And enough prominent Republicans are suddenly speaking so certainly that he will be caught before the election, that many people are starting to wonder whether officials already know his whereabouts and are deferring capture for an October surprise.

• Jan. 22: rumors start spreading that we already captured Osama
• Jan 29: Military spokesman Lt Col Bryan Hilferty said the military now believed it could seize him within months.
• Feb. 4: Senator Charles Grassley says "It will happen"
• Feb. 8: When asked by Tim Russert whether he has a "pretty good idea where Osama is" Bush played coy and said he's "not going to comment on that."

9/11 in 2004:
It's becoming increasingly clear that the 2004 campaign will be focused around 9/11. The Tim Russert interview (yes, I did watch it) made it clear to the general public, but they've been fine-tuning that message in rallies for a while now.

Tristero suggests some means of retaliation/rebuttal. Jim Henley is optimistic because John Kerry is already accusing the GOP of creating a "culture of fear"

Ian's concerned that the GOP may switch over to the same-sex marriage issue to carry the day and perpetuate the culture wars in its campaigning.

Because, of course, the other big issue of the day is the Constitutional Convention going on in Massachusetts over (among other issues) same-sex marriage. But I'll defer that post for later...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 PM

If you want to vote in the Massachusetts primaries on March 2, tomorrow — Wednesday, February 11 — is your last day to register to vote (or to declare yourself a Democrat). You know you want to. [via Philocrites

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:21 PM

I found the full text of the ruling (PDF)

I am not a lawyer, but will paraphrase and quote:

So, cheers on this ruling, boos to Ashcroft for even forcing such a case, and concern over the other doctors and hospitals who have been served with similar subpoenas.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:50 PM

A move by U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to subpoena the medical records of 40 patients who received so-called partial-birth abortions at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago was halted -- at least temporarily -- when a Chicago federal judge quashed the information request.

The ruling is the first in a series of subpoenas by the U.S. Justice Department seeking the medical records of patients from seven physicians and at least five hospitals...

-- Crain's Chicago Business

It's all over the blogosphere about FBI sweeping subpoenas for "all records" regarding an antiwar conference held at Drake University. George Paine has more information, and get a load of this firsthand account from DailyKos.

It's only 266 more days until November 2nd, 2004. Are you registered to vote? If not, register here and now!

I don't think we can afford four more years of this administration -- at least not while remaining a country I'd want to live in.

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:15 AM

So, I just noticed that PBS is airing a program about the Medici family titled "Godfathers of the Renaissance."

I'm currently reading Eating right in the Renaissance, a look at dietary advice books in the period and trying to put recipes into context with contemporary theories of physiology and nutrition. Trying to understand their logic, rather than impose our own modern notions of proper diet upon them... Fascinating stuff, which I intend to blog about, but that's actually tangential to my present point.

The book mentions De vita, written in the 1480s by Marsilio Ficino and addressed to the Medici in Florence.

What makes De vita uncharacteristic is the heavy inclusion of magic and astrology. Ficino's medical advice is subsumed by his Neoplatonic and esoteric concerns. Some of his opinions were also clearly out in left field, and later physicians who had read him found numerous causes for amazement and outrage. Drinking human blood was one of the more obvious oddities.

A footnoote leads to the following quotation:

"Why shouldn't our old people, namely those who have no [other] recourse, likewise suck the blood of a youth?"

The Medici family as vampires? It seems almost obvious -- but has it been written? Googling around, I see references to one of Anne Rice's books, set during the period. Mirror mirror uses a Borgia as Snow White's evil stepmother... But neither goes quite to the heart of the matter...

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:36 PM

I may have a few more things to write about Reinventing Shakespeare before I return the book to the library, but I'm just thinking on the notion that Shakespeare is the greatest writer and how he must've been a genius for his dialog and understanding of characters...

And what keeps coming to mind is the 1942 movie Casablanca.

Have you seen it? It's among the most popular movies of all times, immensely quotable, constantly on top of all-time best lists.

And it was a fluke: written by committee, churned out through the studio system so quickly that they couldn't retake certain scenes because the lead actress had already restyled her hair for her next role.

As Roger Ebert describes it (and he later did one of the DVD commentary tracks, and has run film classes that view the movie frame-by-frame):

No one making "Casablanca" thought they were making a great movie. It was simply another Warner Bros. release. It was an "A list" picture, to be sure (Bogart, Bergman and Paul Henreid were stars, and no better cast of supporting actors could have been assembled on the Warners lot than Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Claude Rains and Dooley Wilson). But it was made on a tight budget and released with small expectations. Everyone involved in the film had been, and would be, in dozens of other films made under similar circumstances, and the greatness of "Casablanca" was largely the result of happy chance.

The screenplay was adapted from a play of no great consequence; memoirs tell of scraps of dialogue jotted down and rushed over to the set.

And yet, everything jelled. It all came together brilliantly. We can acknowledge there are gaping flaws and logical errors, but the story just sweeps you up that you don't care.

And that's Shakespeare's secret, too. Shakespeare's plots are hardly perfect; from the beginning, critics complained about ludicrous geography or warped time sense -- but if you can get caught up in the story, none of that matters.

Like the creators of Casablanca, Shakespeare and his theater troupe were just trying to churn them out -- just another play to pay the bills. And through the collaborative process of authors and editors and directors and actors... brilliance

That's my theory, at any rate.

Gary Taylor followed up Reinventing Shakespeare with book titled Cultural Selection, which takes a Darwinian look at why particular works of art, music and literature have endured and are prized.

I haven't read it, but I do somewhat have to wonder at the notion that the greatest works are those that last. We judge based upon whether something has universal appeal beyond its time and place of origin. But is that necessarily the best or only scale? What about things that are so perfectly suited to their own locale that they don't translate. Might not they be even better in certain ways, despite (or because) they are so ephemeral, than the more generic stories? Just because it's more difficult for somebody not in that milieu to understand, that shouldn't mitigate the work's impact or importance or quality.

Comments?

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:09 PM

I'm a Shakespeare afficionado and have gotten tired of finding out about productions of the plays, readings, films, etcetera after it's too late for me to attend.

Thus, I've created a new community on LiveJournal to host such announcements: http://www.livejournal.com/~Bard_in_Boston (with underscores between the words). It's a place to post about Shakespeare news and events (including Marlowe and other period drama) in the Greater Boston area (including neighboring states, though I think NYC is both too far and broad enough to deserve its own listing).

I'm still starting this up, still setting up links and gathering information and formatting the journal. But I've gotten a few posts there, and there's sure to be more.

So if it's something you're interested in, please subscribe or add it to your blogroll. If you think others (or other communities) would be interested in, please share the link. People can post without being members, or even without having a LiveJournal account (click the pencil icon on the community userinfo or go directly here), so if you just find out about something you think readers of the list would be interested in, please share!

Update: The URL is either http://www.livejournal.com/community/bard_in_boston or http://www.livejournal.com/~bard_in_boston (with a tilde). I typed it incorrectly in the initial posting.

Further update: The journal does have an RSS feed for those who use aggregators.

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:48 PM

What does it say about me that while checking the latest movie trailers, I noticed one titled The Reckoning and immediately thought it would be a dramatization of Marlowe's murder...

By the way, even though I plugged it only a few days ago, I really strongly recommend watching Kenya -- it's such a catchy tune and so cuute! Almost addictive, even...