“Visual artists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg analyzed over 10,000 songs to find out which parts of the human body were mentioned the most and broke down the resulting data by genre. The result: An interactive graphic work called ‘Listen’ that correlates musical genres with the body parts they mention the most, as part of their ongoing Fleshmap project. Clicking on each genre brings up a more detailed representation of its chief bodily concerns.” (Wired)

“Visual artists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg analyzed over 10,000 songs to find out which parts of the human body were mentioned the most and broke down the resulting data by genre. The result: An interactive graphic work called ‘Listen’ that correlates musical genres with the body parts they mention the most, as part of their ongoing Fleshmap project. Clicking on each genre brings up a more detailed representation of its chief bodily concerns.” (Wired)

When I talk to my friends I pretend I am standing on the wings

of a flying plane. I cannot be trusted to tell them how I am.
Or if I am falling to earth weighing less

than a dozen roses. Sometimes I dream they have broken up

with their lovers and are carrying food to my house.
When I open the mailbox I hear their voices

like the long upward-winding curve of a train whistle

passing through the tall grasses and ferns
after the train has passed. I never get ahead of their shadows.

I embrace them in front of moving cars. I keep them away

from my miseries because to say I am miserable is to say I am like them.

How strange that we can begin at any time.
With two feet we get down the street.
With a hand we undo the rose.
With an eye we lift up the peach tree
And hold it up to the wind — white blossoms
At our feet. Like today. I started
In the yard with my daughter,
With my wife poking at a potted geranium,
And now I am walking down the street,
Amazed that the sun is only so high,
Just over the roof, and a child
Is singing through a rolled newspaper
And a terrier is leaping like a flea
And at the bakery I pass, a palm,
Like a suctioning starfish, is pressed
To the window. We’re keeping busy —
This way, that way, we’re making shadows
Where sunlight was, making words
Where there was only noise in the trees.

Joe COnason: “Suddenly all anyone needs to qualify as a potential commander in chief is to be a religious ideologue with female gender characteristics?” (Salon)

The human face can reveal much about a person — whether they like it or not: “In his new book, The Kingdom of Infinite Space: A Fantastical Journey Around Your Head (Yale University Press), [Raymond] Tallis sets out to make his readers into ‘astonished tourists of the piece of the world that is closest to them, so they never again take for granted the head that looks at them from the mirror.’ He begins his examination with the face.” (National Post)

Getting over it: “The difference between having a college degree and not having one is far greater than where you go to college. But where you go can determine, to a large extent, who you become. Some of us become jerks. And others spend our lives trying to figure out what it meant to have been there — and how to get over it.” (Chronicle of Higher Education)

“…[T]he childhood that many British parents give to their offspring is so awful that it is hard to conceive of worse, at least on a mass scale. The two poles of contemporary British child rearing are neglect and overindulgence.” (City Journal)

A performance-enhancing drug that is fair to use? “From a competitive standpoint, this is what makes beta blockers so interesting : they seem to level the playing field for anxious and non-anxious performers, helping nervous performers much more than they help performers who are naturally relaxed. In the British study, for example, the musician who experienced the greatest benefit was the one with the worst nervous tremor. This player’s score increased by a whopping 73%, whereas the musicians who were not nervous saw hardly any effect at all.

One of the most compelling arguments against performance enhancing drugs is that they produce an arms race among competitors, who feel compelled to use the drugs even when they would prefer not to, simply to stay competitive. But this argument falls away if the effects of the drug are distributed so unequally. If it’s only the nervous performers who are helped by beta blockers, there’s no reason for anyone other than nervous performers to use them.” — Carl Elliott, University of Minnesota bioethicist (Atlantic)

“English-language Western by Japanese director Takashi Miike. The all-Japanese cast, augmented by Quentin Tarantino in two cameo roles, learned their English dialogue phonetically and attack their lines as if the words were small furry animals that need to be beaten into submission. The dialogue is crammed with weird, Christopher Walken-esque line readings and bizarre placement of emphases—phrases like “You old biddy,” “Dang!” and “You reckon?” become hilariously divorced from meaning. But, like an alcoholic reduced to drinking sterno, the more you drink, the more brain cells you fry, and the better it tastes. Before long you not only start to understand Miike’s “through the looking glass” English but also to appreciate the cadences. It’s something like the dialogue in Deadwood or Cormac McCarthy’s writing: stiff, alien, occasionally silly but not without a hypnotic elegance all its own.

But why? The answer is simple: It’s a Takashi Miike film. The hardest-working man in showbiz, he’s made close to 80 movies, ranging from the good to the bad to the ugly, and if he’s going to make a Western, then it’s going to pay tribute to the truth that Westerns have never been solely an American undertaking—they’re an international language. With a title that’s one part Japanese (sukiyaki: the everything-in-a-bowl beef dish) and one part Italian (Django: the title character of Sergio Corbucci’s 1966 spaghetti-Western classic), Miike offers up an explosion of influences that mocks the idea of a monoculture that’s immune to foreign influence. Sukiyaki Western Django is a blend of Buddhist philosophy, film noir fatalism, Shakespeare’s Henry VI, and Japan’s very own 12th-century Genpei War. It’s a Wild West pageant of American history seen through Japanese eyes, reducing our entire frontier mythology to an ultraviolent grab for gold.” (Slate)

Jon Henley on the fate of the semicolon: “An unlikely row has erupted in France over suggestions that the semicolon’s days are numbered; worse, the growing influence of English is apparently to blame. Jon Henley reports on the uncertain fate of this most subtle and misused of punctuation marks. Aida Edemariam discovers which writers love it – and which would be glad to see it disappear…” (Guardian.UK)

“Despite previous reassurances about the security of the system, Nate Lawson of Root Labs claims that the unique identity numbers used to identify the FasTrak wireless transponders carried in cars can be copied or overwritten with relative ease.

This means that fraudsters could clone transponders, says Lawson, by copying the ID of another driver onto their device. As a result, they could travel for free while others unwittingly foot the bill. ‘It’s trivial to clone a device,’ Lawson says. ‘In fact, I have several clones with my own ID already.’

Lawson says that this also raises the possibility of using the FasTrak system to create false alibis, by overwriting one’s own ID onto another driver’s device before committing a crime. The toll system’s logs would appear to show the perpetrator driving at another location when the crime was being committed, he says.” (Technology Review)

Finland, home of weird world championships: “Normally reserved Finns say there is no better way to celebrate the short summer months than with contests that add a jolt of adrenaline and silliness to bright summer nights.” (Reuters Oddly Enough)

Get Your War On, the movie: “You’ve read the Get Your War On comic strips by David Rees. They’ve probably caused you to puke on yourself once or twice due to involuntary laughter. Now Get Your War On is an animated video…” (23/6)

“Welcome to the world of reverse graffiti, where the artist’s weapons are cleaning materials and where the enemy is the elements: wind, rain, pollution and decay. It’s an art form that removes dust or dirt rather than adding paint. Some find it intriguing, beguiling, beautiful and imaginative, whereas others look upon it in much the same way as traditional graffiti – a complete lack of respect for the law. Reverse graffiti challenges ideals and perceptions while at the same time shapes and changes the environment in which we live, whether people think for the better, or not.” (Environmental Graffiti)

Get Your War On, the movie: “You’ve read the Get Your War On comic strips by David Rees. They’ve probably caused you to puke on yourself once or twice due to involuntary laughter. Now Get Your War On is an animated video…” (23/6)

‘In its most common form, placebo is a white, crystalline substance of a sandy consistency, obtained from the evaporated juice of the Saccharum officinarum plant. The FDA has approved placebo in doses ranging from 1 to 40,000 milligrams.

The long-awaited approval will allow pharmaceutical companies to market placebo in pill and liquid form. Eleven major drug companies have developed placebo tablets, the first of which, AstraZeneca’s Sucrosa, hits shelves Sept. 24.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to finally get this wonder drug out of the labs and into consumers’ medicine cabinets,” said Tami Erickson, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca. “Studies show placebo to be effective in the treatment of many ailments and disorders, ranging from lower-back pain to erectile dysfunction to nausea.”

Pain-sufferers like Margerite Kohler, who participated in a Sucrosa study in March, welcomed the FDA’s approval.’

Abstract:: “Self-reported past year use of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, and two controlled prescription substances (opiates, benzodiazepines); and self-reported lifetime substance abuse or dependence was estimated and compared for 12 specialties among 5,426 physicians participating in an anonymous mailed survey. Logistic regression models controlled for demographic and other characteristics that might explain observed specialty differences. Emergency medicine physicians used more illicit drugs. Psychiatrists used more benzodiazepines. Comparatively, pediatricians had overall low rates of use, as did surgeons, except for tobacco smoking. Anesthesiologists had higher use only for major opiates. Self-reported substance abuse and dependence were at highest levels among psychiatrists and emergency physicians, and lowest among surgeons. With evidence from studies such as this one, a specialty can organize prevention programs to address patterns of substance use specific to that specialty, the specialty characteristics of its members, and their unique practice environments that may contribute risk of substance abuse and dependence.” ([J Addict Dis. 1999] – PubMed Result)

‘In its most common form, placebo is a white, crystalline substance of a sandy consistency, obtained from the evaporated juice of the Saccharum officinarum plant. The FDA has approved placebo in doses ranging from 1 to 40,000 milligrams.

The long-awaited approval will allow pharmaceutical companies to market placebo in pill and liquid form. Eleven major drug companies have developed placebo tablets, the first of which, AstraZeneca’s Sucrosa, hits shelves Sept. 24.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to finally get this wonder drug out of the labs and into consumers’ medicine cabinets,” said Tami Erickson, a spokeswoman for AstraZeneca. “Studies show placebo to be effective in the treatment of many ailments and disorders, ranging from lower-back pain to erectile dysfunction to nausea.”

Pain-sufferers like Margerite Kohler, who participated in a Sucrosa study in March, welcomed the FDA’s approval.’

“Is Obama wrong to point out the obvious, that when future generations’ knowledge of other languages is restricted, so is the prospective well-being of our nation? The Quality of Life Index, published by The Economist in 2005, showed that the five countries with the highest standard of living were Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, and Sweden. Aside from having a European address, all of these countries have one key thing in common – they promote multilingualism.” (Boston Globe op-ed)

“Every newscast I watched today opened with a story about either the Olympics, the ongoing (really?) John Edwards affair bit, or the death of Isaac Hayes. All interesting pieces, in and of themselves, and not bad news fare for a Sunday afternoon — except for one thing. There’s this war that’s just started.” (Open Salon)

Adam Kirsh: “Almost seven years after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, readers still display a surprising hunger for the definitive ‘9/11 novel.’ The acclaim that greeted Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland earlier this year was a sign of this appetite: Critics outbid one another to welcome a book that might make sense of the always receding, ever-present horror. Clearly, the more deeply committed one is to the moral possibilities of literature — the more one believes that, even in a mediatized age, the novel can still be D.H. Lawrence’s ‘bright book of life’ — the more is at stake in the emergence of ‘the’ novel about the attacks. If fiction cannot cope with the biggest event of our lifetimes, then its long-prophesied death is surely at hand.” (New York Sun)

“Wilco Van Rooijen, a Dutch mountain climber, managed to survive the debacle this week that took the lives of 11 others in Pakistan on K2, the world’s second-highest peak. Describing the chaotic events that ensued when a pinnacle of ice collapsed and swept away fixed ropes that climbers from several expeditions high on the mountain had counted on to aid their descent from the summit, Mr. van Rooijen lamented: “Everybody was fighting for himself, and I still do not understand why everybody were leaving each other.”

Himalayan mountaineering is an inherently dangerous pastime, and climbers are always at risk from the unexpected. But mountaineering has become more dangerous in recent decades as the traditional expeditionary culture of the early- and mid-20th century, which had emphasized mutual responsibility and common endeavor, gave way to an ethos stressing individualism and self-preservation.” (New York Times op-ed)

“The mingling of lightning and ash seen above may be a ‘dirty thunderstorm.’ The little-understood storms may be sparked when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges — just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms.” (National Geographic via julia)

“Every newscast I watched today opened with a story about either the Olympics, the ongoing (really?) John Edwards affair bit, or the death of Isaac Hayes. All interesting pieces, in and of themselves, and not bad news fare for a Sunday afternoon — except for one thing. There’s this war that’s just started.” (Open Salon)

“The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is preparing for its first small tests in early August, leading to a planned full-track test in September – and the first planned particle collisions before the end of the year. The final step before starting is the chilling of the entire collider to -271.25 C (-456.25 F). Here is a collection of photographs from CERN, showing various stages of completion of the LHC and several of its larger experiments (some over seven stories tall), over the past several years. (27 photos total)” (Boston Globe)

Glenn Greenwald in Salon: “It’s extremely possible — one could say highly likely — that the same people responsible for perpetrating the attacks were the ones who fed the false reports to the public, through ABC News, that Saddam was behind them. What we know for certain — as a result of the letters accompanying the anthrax — is that whoever perpetrated the attacks wanted the public to believe they were sent by foreign Muslims. Feeding claims to ABC News designed to link Saddam to those attacks would, for obvious reasons, promote the goal of the anthrax attacker(s).

Seven years later, it’s difficult for many people to recall, but, as I’ve amply documented, those ABC News reports linking Saddam and anthrax penetrated very deeply — by design — into our public discourse and into the public consciousness. Those reports were absolutely vital in creating the impression during that very volatile time that Islamic terrorists generally, and Iraq and Saddam Hussein specifically, were grave, existential threats to this country.”

“The President will no longer be able to change published executive orders in secret if a bill introduced to the Senate Thursday becomes law.

Sen. Russ Feingold… and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse sponsored the bill as a response to an unreleased statement from the Justice Department Office of Legal Council that the President can alter or deviate from a previous executive order without public or Congressional knowledge.” (The Raw Story)