Rick Veitch is the comics writer and artist who got famous for the Swamp Thing issues he drew for Alan Moore, and is probably still best known for a later issue he planned (the infamous cancelled #88) in which Swamp Thing went back in time, met Jesus and served as the cross on which the messiah was crucified. Although Moore resurrected Swamp Thing, it was Veitch who wrote that story about a hippy actually eating one of the monster’s tubers and tripping Veitch continued the series’ psychedelic path and took it in some even more dangerous directions.
Veitch split from DC for many years, and became a sensation on his own, publishing extremely bizarre yet resonant psychedelic fables. Psychedelic being the operative word.
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My time is almost over and there’s still gobs of stuff I wanted to share with you. So here’s a brief list of things I would feel just terrible if I didn’t let you know about.
1. Robots and Monsters: A Charitable Menagerie, is back. They launched in 2007 to fundraise for SF AIDS Foundation, and now they’re relaunching to support the EFF. For fifty dollars, Joe Alterio or another fabulous artist will pen a custom robot or monster for you - defined by three words you supply - and send it to your door. You get a cool picture and the EFF gets fifty bucks to help keep the net a happy and good place.
2. Scott Draves Software Artworks, 1992-2008. This short film chronicles the work of software artist Scott Draves. And it’s pretty cool. Dreams in High Fidelity.
3. Consumatron. Do you know this guy? He writes down and reviews everything he buys. It’s kind of obsessive, but tells a story.
4. Trajal Harrell Dance Style is a totally different approach to dance - an effort to rewrite the language of dance by using real world movement (from fashion show walks to bar room swagger) instead of whatever that stuff is we usually think of as “dance.” His performances are infrequent, but there’s one coming up this month at DanceTheater Workshop and if you’re near NYC I’d suggest you be there.
5. The Atheon: A Temple of Science for Rational Belief. If I were going to join a church, this would probably be it. It’s like a church for brights, but it’s not as serious or anti-God as Richard Dawkins. Just an effort to make faith rational - but still fun and inspiring.
Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.
My pals Eric and Julia of Ramshackle Solid made acorn flour this year, and in their blog they showed how they did it.
Once the flour is dried out it may be a little coarse. You can put it in a cleaned out coffee grinder to get a finer texture. A good food processor also works and I am pretty sure they make attachable gadgets for mixers that really mill the flour if you get completely obsessed.
Our favorite use is acorn pancakes. Just mix the acorn flour 1/2 and 1/2 with wheat or other flour from your favorite recipe. I love the acorn flavor - slightly nutty, very hearty. If you make your own, let us know how it went.
I’m going over there uninvited for pancakes.
Link
Summer’s over and the output of my vegetable garden has ceased, save for a few late season tomatoes. It wasn’t a great season for me, mainly because I don’t know what I’m doing. My squash yield was only so-so, and the few watermelons and cantaloupes that appeared never made it past the ping pong ball stage. But I learned plenty of tips from new and old friends (and kind Boing Boing readers, too!), so maybe my fall/winter garden will be better.
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The Smithsonian has flickred 39 high resolution, public-domain images from the Scopes “Monkey” trial, the first major US trial over the teaching of evolution. Dig that natty straw boater!
During 1925, Watson Davis (1896-1967), Science Service managing editor, took numerous photographs while covering the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes trial as a reporter. In what was dubbed “The Trial of the Century,” Scopes was tried and convicted for violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution. William Jennings Bryan served on the prosecution team, and Clarence Darrow defended Scopes. Almost eighty years later, the nitrate negatives, including portraits of trial participants, and images from the trial itself and significant places in Dayton, were discovered in archival material donated to the Smithsonian by Science Service in 1971.
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A. Andrew Gonzalez’ strikingly beautiful paintings have an uncanny 3D effect.
A. Andrew Gonzalez
Eren Göksel provides a step-by-step for drawing this apple. How to Create a Delicious Green Apple Illustration
Fantastic EP cover from 1957 for The Goons.
There’s an MP3 of “I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas” (sung my Spike Milligan) at the link.
The Goons: “I’m Walking Backwards for Christmas”
Artist Paul Fryer calls his piece of art Rehabilitation. Because it has a little room inside, I would have called it Bomb Shelter. (via Shedblog)
Today at, we interviewed Douglas Krone, the CEO of new import tech toy store Gizmine; found an astonishing $250,000 wristwatch; and beheld a giant mechanical spider.
John saw a spy cam-watch from Brando, an awesome Lego chess set, and—drool!—Moleskine iPod cases.
There was also a floating DVD player, a Roomba from 1959, and a crazy 1980s ad with Zack! Lego Maniac!
“Mike Connell set-up the alternate email and communications system for the White House. He was responsible for creating the system that hosted the infamous GWB43.com accounts that Karl Rove and others used. When asked by Congress to provide these emails, the White House said that they were destroyed. But in reality, what Connell is alleged to have done is move these files to other servers after having allegedly scrubbed the files from all “known” Karl Rove accounts.
In addition, I have reason to believe that the alternate accounts were used to communicate with US Attorneys involved in political prosecutions, like that of Don Siegelman. This is what I have been working on to prove for over a year. In fact, it was through following the Siegelman-Rove trail that I found evidence leading to Connell. That is how I became aware of him. Mike was getting ready to talk. He was frightened.”
Graham writes: “Unfortunately, he won’t get to talk. He died in a plane crash yesterday.”
UPDATE: A curious press release: “Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash: Non-Profit Demands Full Federal Investigation” (Thanks, Adam!)
(Via Why, That’s Delightful)
Our friends at Process Books have a stunning new photography book called Pure Country: The Leon Kagarise Archives, 1961-1971, and to celebrate, they’re throwing a hony tonk concert at the Echoplex in Los Angeles tonight!
Throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, many of country music’s biggest stars first won over their audiences on the small backwoods stages of rural America’s outdoor music parks. These intimate, $1-a-carload picnic concerts might have been forgotten if it hadn’t been for the documenting eye of music lover Leon Kagarise, whose candid photographs of the musicians and their fans provide the only surviving window into this long-vanished world.
Kagarise captured dozens of classic country and bluegrass artists in their prime, including Johnny Cash and June Carter, George Jones, Dolly Parton, Bill Monroe, Hank Snow, The Stanley Brothers, and many other greats.
Pure Country presents this collection of rare color images for the first time, revealing an archive considered by historian Charles Wolfe to be one of the richest discoveries in the history of American music.
On a gamer forum, a vigorous discussion about whether it’s fair for employers to discriminate against World of Warcraft players when hiring, on the grounds that WoW players are never fully out of the game. A surprising number of players agree with this proposition.
I met with a recruiter recently (online media industry) and in conversation I happened to mention I’d spent way too much time in the early 2000s playing online games, which I described as “the ones before World of Warcraft” (I went nuts for EQ1, SWG and the start of WoW, but since 2006 I have only put a handful of days into MMOG playing - as opposed to discussing them - I’ve obsessed over bicycles and cycling instead).
He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc. I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership experience as a career positive or a way to learn project management skills, and he shook his head. He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.
The Muppets/YouTube partnership is bearing sweet, musical fruit. Here are two fantastic musical clips to help familiarize your kids with the cultural significance of the great works of classical music: first, Beeker and his many clones perform Ode to Joy (viddy it, oh my brothers, just viddy it), then Gonzo the Great and his chicken orchestra cluck out The Blue Danube Waltz (by Strauss, the louse, he lives in a house, with Mick-ey Mouse).
(via Kottke)
I’ve been posting some funny internet ephemera related to the Bush Shoe-Tossing Incident over the last few days, but what’s since happened to the 28-year-old Iraqi journalist who hurled his loafers at outgoing American war criminal George W. Bush is not funny. There are concerns al-Zaidi may have been tortured or abused. He is in jail with little or no information available about his present condition or whereabouts. Boing Boing community manager Teresa Nielsen Hayden writes,
Muntadar Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush, needs to be rescued.
According to his brother Durgham Zaidi, Muntadar Zaidi is in the heavily fortified Green Zone compound in central Baghdad where the US embassy and most Government offices are housed. He’s being held there by Iraqi forces under the command of Muaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser.
“He has got a broken arm and ribs, and cuts to his eye and arm,” Durgham said.
Three things the entire world knows:
1. Bush dodged both shoes with impressive speed, and didn’t seem upset.
2. It was a symbolic act of contempt, not an attack.
3. If Muntadar Zaidi had intended harm, he wouldn’t have been throwing shoes.
One more extremely important thing the whole world knows: It may have been a serious expression of contempt, but it was also funny.
Free Muntadar Zaidi now! (Making Light)
Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our John’s gone ape for a retro airplane-cockpit-styled alarm clock that does nothing except wake you up and look fabulous. I’m with him — this stuff makes me want to stand up and salute.
Absolutely gorgeous. The St. Louis Aerial Clock Radio apes the cockpit control mechanisms of a 1920s airplane, with four separate digital windows displaying the time like an altometer. But that’s about it: it’s merely a radio and alarm clock, without even a line-in jack or iPod dock connector. £49.95
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Kevin Bankston discusses the news that Yahoo! will radically reduce the retention period for its logs, anonymizing them after just 90 days (compared with Google’s 9 months). It’s a pretty radical development: for years, I’ve been skeptical of claims that tech companies would compete on privacy, issuing press releases that said, in effect, “Use us, we’re less snoopy and creepy than those guys!” But here we are — the company whose data-retention and palsy relationship with the Chinese Politburo put a campaigning journalist in jail is now saying that it’s going to sanitize its logs on a quarterly basis. Kevin’s got a reality check:
Unfortunately, it’s hard to gauge the true privacy impact of this policy change until we know exactly what steps Yahoo will be taking to anonymize the data. The devil’s in the details, and if Yahoo’s anonymization process isn’t robust enough, this new logging policy may end up being more privacy PR than privacy protection. Fully anonymizing IP addresses and cookie data can be tricky, and even if that data is thrown away completely, there’s still the possibility of individuals being identified based on the content of their search queries, as AOL’s search data spill demonstrated.
So, as Yahoo finalizes its policy plans, it should take a look at EFF’s newly-revised Best Practices for Online Service Providers, which recommends a range of techniques to strongly anonymize online user data. Hopefully, we’ll see the details of Yahoo’s plan soon, as well as new announcements from other search engines trying to keep up in this accelerating privacy competition. Internet users have long trusted search engines and internet portals like Yahoo and Google with the privacy of their most intimate and sensitive data, and we’re glad to see those companies finally vying to earn that trust.
Yahoo To Anonymize Logs After 90 Days, Compared to Google’s 9 Months
Update: Christopher sez, “You note that Google currently ‘anonymizes” logs after 9 months. That
is not true, due to the fact that they do not attempt to mask cookies
until the 18 month mark. Removing some tiny portion of an IP address
from the logs is worthless, if cookies can be used to match up new log
entries and older log entries.”
Today, on my In Bed podcast, I interview Wendy Chapkis, author of Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine.
Wendy and her co-author Richard Webb conducted extensive interviews with members of WAMM (The Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana) - the patient collective that exemplifies the “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need” ethos when it comes to pot medicine.
In this excerpt, Wendy talks a bit about how boring ole’ cannabis became demon “mari-juana,” in D.E.A. history.
Listen to an excerpt
Read an introduction to Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine (PDF).
(by Susie Bright)
Embedded video from CNN Video
“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.” — George Bush, at 1:40 in this CNN video. (via Slate)
Click here if you’re a grown-up and can handle the original version of the illustration above, with stylized, un-mosaic’ed retroboobage. Flickr user Ben Pearce has a spectacular set of seventies images from magazines, advertising, entertainment packaging, and other forms of media. Some of them include nudity, so caveat Flicktor. The sexy cocaine starship fantasy art above is my favorite, but I’m also kind of nuts about the Wookiee posse.
Photo set: RETRO (NSFW, found via Q-Burns on twitter)
Update: Bonnie from Lucasfilm sez, “That family shot of the Wookiees is cool, but not retro. It’s from the movie “Revenge of the Sith” which came out in 2005.”
