Flown Soyuz Descent Capsule to be Auctioned:” A flown Russian descent capsule from Soyuz
TM-26 will be only the second flown manned capsule to be publicly
auctioned, and is the only joint U.S./MIR spacecraft ever to be
offered for sale. This is a historic piece of equipment, which comes ‘fully loaded’ and
includes an invitation for two to attend a Russian space launch, a
guided VIP tour of Star City and a tour of RSC Energia. Perhaps
even more important, all shipping, packing and customs detail will
be handled free of charge to the winning bidder.” Somewhat scorched from reentry, naturally.

Large Art Creates a New Breed of Movers and Shakers: “Art has always moved the masses, but it
takes a cadre of specialists to move massive
art. … With all the variables, it is not
surprising that museums rely on experts,
usually outside contractors, to do the work.” New York Times

Seven Days of Spam: a writer responds to all 107 spam e-mails he receives in a typical week, and what has he got in the end for his efforts? LA Times

Where are the media as Bush redefines himself, and us? “After three months, what do
we know about the Bush administration? Less
than we should. A review of the press coverage
of President Bush reveals some unexpected and
troubling features of contemporary political
journalism.

What is most striking is that the image emerging
of Bush as president is so indistinct. Even the
most serious newspapers in the country have
pulled back dramatically on covering the
presidency.” Sacramento Bee

Excerpts from Slanting the Story: the forces that shape the news by Trudy Lieberman:

Part 1, Black Holes of Power: how, with the help of the
mainstream media, right-wing think tanks have moved their ideas
to the front of the national agenda and engineered big changes in
public policy.

Part 2, Ralph Nader and the Right: how the right wing has
co-opted the media strategies pioneered by consumer activist
Ralph Nader.

Part 3, Courting the Press: how the Manhattan Institute put tort
reform on the national agenda.

Part 4, Clubbing the Press: how conservatives, by criticizing the
“liberal” press, have moved the media further to the right.

Part 5, Advancing the Cause: how the Heritage
Foundation has framed the debate on Medicare reform.

TomPaine.com

Gore in 2004? That’s a toughie for Democrats. “(H)is popular-vote victory and near-tie in Florida have, at least with
some, left Gore with a plausible rationale for a comeback campaign in
2004.

That’s a prospect the Democrats need to mull long and hard.

For whether he campaigns as moderate New Democrat or a
tub-thumping neopopulist, if the party’s 2004 nominee concludes his
convention speech by turning to plant a lingering liplock on Tipper, the
Democrats may well have missed one of the most basic lessons from
Campaign 2000.” Boston Globe

Found on memepool: “Curiosity is building around Jeanine Salla‘s connections with the film A.I.
… and with the mysterious death of Evan Chan. Some amateur
investigators are trying to unravel the mystery.”

British woman killed by own bomb “… in Athens yesterday when a bomb she was
carrying in her car exploded.

Police investigators think that her rottweiller
probably set off the remote control detonator.” Telegraph UK

Outrage at Indonesia Court’s Timor Murder Sentences: “Indonesia jailed six
men for up to 20 months on Friday over
the brutal slaying of three U.N. aid
workers in West Timor, and immediately
earned international outrage for being
too lenient.” Reuters

Rational rant about Bob Kerrey’s confession of war atrocities from Jorn’s friend Jeff Dorchen (This Is Hell):

“I really want all you listeners to look at what stories get told about the Vietnam war. Because they really concern us. If we allow the
Vietnam war to become story about a series of tragic accidents, I think we’ll really lose something. We’ll lose the vivid image of a war that
really was one of the purest of all wars. It’s an example not of war’s insanity, but of its rationality. Of the calculatedly vicious, violent,
unconscionable decisions of those who were the managers of the war. There was no separation from the dark and the light. There was no
heart of darkness here in the heart of the jungle, with civilization so many miles away from the madness of primal evil. Evil civilization was
supervising the madness, moving the pieces on the map below into each other for the purpose of creating hell.

If we don’t remember this key aspect of the war against Indochina we run the risk of slipping into the complacent stance that ‘all people
really just want to do what’s right– like in the Vietnam War, our good intentions just got totally out of hand, and it just kept snowballing into
this monster no one could stop.’ No, there are people who have no such desire to do what’s right, they’re perfectly happy to do what they
know to be so horrible that they’d rather kill innocent people than let it be discovered.”

Jorn Barger, in Robot Wisdom, pointed today to “Cat Yronwode’s Internet romance”. I don’t know why; perhaps she’s a friend; I surfed out of curiosity. Among other things I found, these are some links to the writings of the man she just married, who refers to himself in various ways including “nagasiva yronwode: tyaginator, nigris (333), nocTifer, lorax666, boboroshi”. Not for the faint of heart; not quite sure why I’m linking to them…

Monk Mind and Eternity: “Entertainment is a form of enlightenment which takes
place in eternity. Eternity is so far away, so unreal, and so
subtle that few of us can reach it. We find it so appealing
to spend our time in eternity. We find eternity so appealing
that we go to lengths to engage it. We engage eternity by
focussing on our navel or watching our breath or counting socks.
Some lazes and Buddha-heds have named this delightful activity
‘monk mind’, because the mind, in its efforts to engage eternity,
sits quietly and obediently as a monk in a zendo. Probably a
healthier way to engage it, if you must engage eternity, is by
jumping about wildly like a monkey in a cage, dancing, walking,
etc. But advice from Far Western sages would tell us that
doing whatever we want to do is the healthiest way to handle
entertainment or encounter ‘eternity’.”

Hermetic Self-Destruction Ritual: “Beyond the possible necessities of having contacted and communed
with the Holy Guardian Angel, developing one’s Body of Light to
absolute perfection, and resolving all material world affairs,
the following items will be necessary:

Poison (suffient to effect a slow but sure death)

Bottle of ticks (ravenous and lively)

Scalpel (seriously sharp)

Ice Pick (rusty)

Bolt Cutters (light but effective)

Acid (pref. Aqua Regia or some more potent concoction)

Chain Saw (the lighter the better)

(optional) Firecrackers (illegal in some states)”

Encouraging Suicide — Frequently Asked Questions:
“Attempts at suicide, and suicidal thoughts or feelings are usually
a symptom indicating that a person is ready and needful of a change,
often as a result of some event or series of events that one
personally finds overwhelmingly traumatic or distressing… Since this decision can be extremely difficult to make, this
article is an attempt to provide encouragement for suicide, so
that we may be prepared to recognize and help ourselves to end
the pain and the parasitic drain on ecological and social resources.”

The Satanism of JDeboo:
“Having received volume #5 of Jeffrey Deboo’s (hereafter
‘JDeboo’) Satanist essays in 1998, I’d like to to provide a
review of his expressions on the subject of Satanism as I feel
his text is the most eloquent and convincing of Satanists that
I have seen besides that which flows from my own cursor.”

[Poor Cat??!]

“In a move that reflected a growing frustration with America’s attitude toward international organizations and treaties, the United States was voted off the United Nations Human Rights Commission today for the first time since the panel’s founding under American leadership in 1947. The ouster of the United States from the commission while nations like Sudan and Pakistan were chosen for membership was certain to generate further hostility to the United Nations among conservatives in Washington. The unexpected move, which came in a secret vote, was apparently supported even by some friends of the United States. The vote also served notice that a bloc of developing nations opposed to American policies is becoming much stronger and more effective, and that Washington can no longer expect to be elected automatically to important panels.” New York Times Best seen as the world community’s verdict on America-under-the-Clown-Prince, it seems. Reuters

Murder Victims’ Families Try to Spare McVeigh: “Right up until convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh takes his last breath on May 16, Bud Welch says he will fight to stop the execution of the man who
took his only daughter in the Oklahoma City blast.

Death penalty opponent Welch lost his daughter Julie Marie in the Alfred P. Murrah federal
building bombing on April 19, 1995, and says that killing McVeigh will only
deepen his pain.”

Lionel Tiger: ‘Brain-and-Mouth Disease’: Nonsense About Low-Fat Diets New York Press