Headlines: July 2004 - The Morning News

Headlines for Friday, July 30, 2004

The Pilgrims were basically like more into killing people and stuff like that. Community encyclopedia entries from Danville, Ill.

Classical music critics weigh in on the state of the serious genre.

Quiz: Which are you, red or blue?

Politicians wear blue ties, possibly because, as John Edwards knows, women find the color “friendly and attractive.”

Video: Boy sings tribute to his robot who’s off to war.

Headlines for Thursday, July 29, 2004

New York’s currently: waking up with the lights on

“Five years ago, we used to have about 120 funerals a weekend, but this number has now jumped to 600.” AIDS crisis in South Africa so devastating that graves must be recycled.

With tires squealing, in un-panicked formation, police across New York performing random drills.

New Saudi proposal for all-Muslim military force in Iraq deemed “interesting” by U.S.

Exiled Chalabi now building grassroots coalition of disenfranchised Shiite Muslims in Iraq.

Citing lack of justice for killed staff, increasing safety concerns, Doctors Without Borders to withdraw from Afghanistan.

A photo-video journey of 3,304 images transports you from one coast to the other.

“This is not a work which many adults will read through more than once.” And other reviews of The Lord of the Rings when it was first published 50 years ago.

Flash: Parallel parking has never been so addictive.

Florida voting touchscreens—new technology, new problems, no data.

Fascinating galleries of what people used to dream transportation would be like today, flying cars and everything, not many SUVs.

Video: Will Ferrell channels GWB, fears horses at White House West.

Tampered baby food in Southern California contained ricin, threatening notes.

The Molasses Disaster of January 15, 1919.

The bee invites you to explore. And: Make a thing on a box.

The story of when Santa Anna moved to Staten Island and brought chewing gum to America.

Headlines for Wednesday, July 28, 2004

New York’s currently: preparing secret Obama ballot to usurp spermsuit Kerry

Suicide bomber kills 68 outside Iraqi police station.

Ah yes: Conventions’ real work has lobbyists selling corporations to elected officials.

Five Islamic charity leaders arrested for funneling millions to Palestinian terrorists.

Darfur sum-up: Rebels possibly being deliberately intransigent, Russia possibly selling jets to Sudan, plus the LRA (rebelious Ugandan cult child-kidnappers) have possibly forced 1.8 million Ugandans to flee their homes.

Mexican clown Brozo finds politicians in the underworld, wields great influence over national politics.

Reading Choire Sicha is probably a lot more amusing than reading the book he read.

Fact of the day (Albert Einstein was nominated for an Oscar in acting) from the great and subscribable Mental_floss.

Aleksandar Hemon destroys first novel by snowboarder.

Profile of mathematician who believes he’s solved the Riemann Hypothesis, though it’s unclear if anyone’s read his work.

Former British colonies are phobes about buggery because they’re former British colonies?

25 tall buildings studied.

Loophole in NCAA regulations encourages recruits to bag graduating in favor of playing sooner in college.

Terrorism on the web: Sites offer instructions for kidnapping and killing, Lawrence Wright on al Qaeda in Madrid.

Photos from the Wagner festival in Bayreuth: Day 1, Day 2.

Bushes Against Bush, Librarians Against Bush, Bikes Against Bush (see video). See also Catholics and Vets against Kerry.

Headlines for Tuesday, July 27, 2004

New York’s currently: highly conventional

Democratic convention opens in Boston to high energy, speeches from Carter, Gore, Clintons, while Republicans huddle two blocks away, and the two fire embarrassing photos to each other.

With support fluctuating, voters demand more from Kerry on the issues.

Corporate sponsorship of New York mass transit could save the system but paint the 6 train IBM blue.

Stirring up concern over violent payback, Afghan president drops warlord as running-mate in reelection bid.

Video: You have bad taste in music.

Iranian rebels in Iraq given protected status, caught between countries’ ire.

Seeking to curb identity theft, South Africa urges women to check if they’re married.

New U.S. citizenship test to measure understanding of democracy, not just historical facts.

Eye-popping animation of stick-figures zipping and zooming.

She speaks as though she has cultivated a robust head cold. Deconstructing the ML.A. conference.

The World Handwriting Contest judges the penmanship that makes prescription-writers swoon.

“He’s not Alan Alda, who’s a little too sappy.” On dating today’s emo boy.

A collection of pirate flags that you might not recognize, including this particularly direct one.

March 25, 1911: The tragic spark that launched a thousand fire codes.

An in-depth, geographical guide to bird-watching offline, keeping track online.

“To raise the alarm if it was true” vs. “Opens up one eager eye”: The lyrics of “99 Luftballons,” translated from German.

Vintage catalog and ad archive of CD players, VCRs, and more.

Headlines for Monday, July 26, 2004

New York’s currently: incredibly rested

Armstrong wins Tour de France for record sixth time in a row.

Network anchors snipe over convention coverage, networks’ lazy reporting.

Under presure, Bush may adopt 9/11 reforms soon after studying report in Crawford.

Dems all smiles around candidate Kerry, stealing a page right from the Republican playbook.

We commend for your blessing and guidance those coping with redundancy. Eleven liturgies for accountants and economists, who are rarely mentioned in church prayers.

Danny Gregory illustrates fishing in Manhattan.

EU foreign ministers push for U.N. sanctions against Sudan.

Video: Slowtron interview with rock show merch designer Jason Gnewikow.

Who provided the nearly half a million dollars it cost to carry out the attacks? Questions that remain unanswered after the 9/11 commission’s investigation.

Airline pilots, flying for troubled businesses during peak travel season, struggle with fatigue.

Answers to everything you were afraid to ask about Donnie Darko.

They are taking advantage of people’s anxiety about the war. Gas station owner wages guerilla war against Getty, slashes prices.

Photo: “The Lost Border,” photographs of the Iron Curtain.

Q&A on Sudan’s Darfur, up to 50,000 killed and a million in flight.

86,000 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonality.

MP3: William Shatner performs Pulp’s “Common People.”

Headlines for Friday, July 16, 2004

Federal health officials drop view that obesity is not an illness, open doors for Medicare to cover weight-loss treatments.

Residents of northwest L.A. evacuated, fire grabs homes and more than 11,000 acres.

I’m not an Iraqi citizen. Things President Bush is not, from the horse’s mouth.

North Korea has produced six nuclear weapons in the last 20 months, analysts believe, and is possibly making more despite talks of shutting down.

White New Yorkers more likely to live longer than blacks, have daughters who smoke, teenagers who booze.

Cape Town residents fight prostitutes with ogling.

New York Times apologizes for not protesting Bush’s WMD claims, though no sorries for Calvin Klein fluffjob.

At least 75 children die in Indian school fire.

Dreams crushed when Virginia judge rules teenagers must be accompanied by a parent or grandparent if attending teenage nudist camp.

Photo: Van Halen takes care in taping his guitars.

Their music was brutal, degenerate, loud—amplified by maximum distortion and feedback, and terribly, terribly bad. Model of obituary prose for New York Dolls’ Arthur Kane.

Gerald Ford and Hubert Humphrey on why we actually need a Vice President.

Friday game: Play with punctuation!

Nobody is going to live forever. We’re all going to die. Interview with 15-year-old Palestinian who almost blew himself up.

Part II of The New Republic’s excellent “The Case Against George W. Bush.”

Video: Classic music videos rendered in text.

Airport officials sneakily convinced to admit to gas problems over the intercom.

Headlines for Thursday, July 15, 2004

New York’s currently: post-monsoon sunshine

State Department analysts found dozens of misleading conclusions in Powell U.N. speech, drafts of which came from the Cheney office. [PDF of report]

With four countries gone and four about to leave, the international coalition in Iraq is steadily dismantling.

Police Department figures out where to stow demonstrators during the Republican National Convention.

He told investigators he had no idea how many laws he broke during a three-day excursion that took him 300 miles from home. Delaware student regrets eating hallucinogenic mushrooms.

While the Senate blocked the proposal for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, the Senators, gay and straight alike, threatened to out each other.

Sadr militia said to be rearming in Iraq with the help of Iranian agents.

Pentagon says the threat of attack means it needs to shut down its daycare; parents think they really want to install a helipad.

Man starts successful business cleaning up the leftovers from crime scenes.

Already under scrutiny, suspicion, Florida readies its brand-new touch-screen voting machines.

“‘Jumbo’ strictly refers to Boeing 747. No other planes are called ‘Jumbo Jets.’” The words we thought we knew and the ways we misuse them.

Flash: Paste together a G.W.B. speech, then watch him say it.

“To the Court’s knowledge, there is no Mattel line of ‘S&M Barbie ‘.”

Play Pac-Man on a Mondrian: Pac-Mondrian.

A young man in the Congolese jungle wears a T-shirt that pleads: “Beam me up, Scotty.” How discarded clothes from the West make their way to poor communities in Africa.

1974 interview decides Brian Eno not popular with Texas oilmen but with their sons.

Headlines for Wednesday, July 14, 2004

New York’s currently: wishing the Presidential campaign season was only two weeks long

Car bomb kills at least 10 in Baghdad, Bulgarian hostage beheaded, Iraqi police arrest more than 500 in sweep on kidnapping rings.

White House refuses to show Senate Intelligence Committee one-page Iraq summary prepared for the President.

Lobbyists and aides who pushed for war see no conflict in cashing in on their ties to Iraq.

Bitten woman leaps from 12th story of Upper East Side luxury condo, hits two scaffolds, lives.

NY restaurant critics examined, rated, flayed, and the all-powerful Times ranks miserably.

Photo: Geoff Oliver Bugbee, blindness around the world.

Pious Hindus’ hair becomes wigs for Orthodox Jews, at least until recent.

Despite Morgan Stanley’s payout, how much will Wall Street change if sex-discrimination is hard-wired in the culture?

Bloomberg calls Republicans around the country to raise millions for convention balloons.

To fink dat so many great people has been educated ere like Lyndon Banes Johnson, or as he is better known—JFK. Ali G’s Harvard commencement speech.

Top Democratic fundraiser charged with bait-and-hitching prostitutes to his brother-in-law.

Video: Prepare for nuclear attack by listening to a turtle.

Joseph Massino’s trial has all mobster juice you want, though few are listening; well, you know Jerry Capeci is.

So you want to start an audioblog: the how-to.

Antifreeze is not smart to drink, but why does it have to taste so darn good?

Archive of presidential campaign commercials.

Headlines for Tuesday, July 13, 2004

New York’s currently: inventing new calisthenics

Bush administration wants to cut Clinton-era regulations that protect 58.5 million acres of forest.

Iraq government to offer amnesty to insurgents, though within limited offenses.

New report shows that nobody understands the terror-threat color coding.

Philippines says it will withdraw troops from Iraq, avert the beheading of Filipino hostage.

Clear Channel reneges on contract for anti-war billboard in Times Square.

“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife.”

How to make a Nigerian spammer paint his breast red.

MP3s: More live music than you can shake an iPod at, from the Dead to GYBE.

Rubik’s Cube art.

When Dr. Seuss became the cartoonist for propaganda.

When you’re a liberal and you’re in an argument with a conservative, here’s how you win.

Fire department no-nos book burning, to pastor’s, congregation’s dismay.

Here’s something I’ve always wondered: Does the other side of your mouth work? Questions for the upcoming Vice-Presidential debate.

Lovely photos of ladies with their dogs.

What happens to your online self when you die? [via things]

Antarctican currency is majestic.

Headlines for Monday, July 12, 2004

New York’s currently: in one year, out the other

Little international aid promised to Iraq handed over, debts go unforgiven.

Floods force more than two million to flee their homes in South Asia.

Unusually bloody weekend in New York with 11 killed.

Karzai says armed militias are top threat to Afghanistan’s stability, after postponing parliamentary elections for six months.

If Earl Dodger has a sex change, does he become a countess, in which case there will then be two Countess Dodgers? Notes on anticipating gender swaps in the British House of Lords.

Sharon and Peres meet to make nice, withdraw from Gaza together.

Bush chains constitutional ban on gay marriage to the front of his campaign.

How soldiers use email to stay close to their families.

Unlike secular geologists, creationist geologists don’t need to speculate about history. Creationist account, approved by National Park Service, blames Eve for the Grand Canyon.

Nude portrait of Monty Python’s Terry Jones unveiled.

DeLay accused of raising funds from Enron and other groups to redistrict Texas, a big no-no.

Former hostess at formerly hot NY restaurant recalls humpy Star Jones, drunky Barbara Bush.

MP3s: John Kerry’s high school band The Electras.

Big profile of graphic novelists, particularly Ware, Seth, and Speigelman.

Howtoons teach kids about eye safety, ice boards, how to count like a computer.

Headlines for Friday, July 9, 2004

New York’s currently: crisp pools and cold movie theaters

Trying to squeeze out the votes necessary to defeat a Patriot Act-softening bill, House Republicans go into session overtime, are chanted at. Next: Banning gay marriage.

Missing Marine from hostage video shows up at U.S. Embassy in Lebanon.

What it says about us: The paycheck landscape of New York shows that massage therapists make more than preschool teachers and fitness trainers.

Scientists claim White House scrutinized their politics in interviews for advisory committees.

“Great steaks and a terrific atmosphere.” / Insects present in facility. Rudy Guiliani’s restaurant reviews and the Department of Health citations that go with them.

Iraqis, U.S. troops now favor throwing rocks over shooting each other.

The cost and dangers of poor handwriting.

It’s really starting to come together now: 639-year-long John Cage piece gets two notes played; next ones scheduled for March 2006.

Spooky photographic adventures into creepy places like New Jersey, Texas, and New Mexico at Lost Destinations.

Bush military records inadvertently destroyed.

The good people at They Rule show how ExxonMobil spends millions of dollars to change our beliefs: ExxonSecrets.org.

Video: Glenn Danzig and other very aggressive people get in a fight.

Finally, an appropriately lush new web site from one of the very best modern vineyards, Bonny Doon.

In an era of every-shrinking attention spans, here’s a downloadable mix of short, but excellent, songs.

Video: Lego Spider-Man fights Lego Dr. Octopus.

Headlines for Thursday, July 8, 2004

New York’s currently: hot, sunny, a chance of thunderstorms, maybe a BLT for lunch, or man, what about a cheeseburger…

Pentagon to hold hearings for all 595 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. (See list of names, sorted by nationality.)

Kenneth Lay indicted for role in conspiring to fiddle with Enron’s financial statements.

Writer convinces David Duchovny to swim Hudson River after toxic septic overflow hits waters.

A clash of civilizations is a war that the West cannot win. Must-read Remnick on democracy’s missing seat in Egypt, hatred for Bush second only to conspiracy-dripping loathing of Jews.

Peace restored in Sadr City after cleric calls truce, but militia still directs traffic.

Plane carrying Kentucky governor almost shot down on its way to Reagan’s funeral.

Less than half of Americans over 18 read novels, short stories, plays, or poetry (PDF of report).

Day in the life of army recruiter Justin Broadwater, trying to fill holes in the 372nd Military Police Company, known for members involved in Abu Ghraib abuses.

Poems from Mark Yakich’s Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross.

Well there’s a whole side of the audiophile world that cares more about the way it’s recorded than what’s being recorded. Sound geek interview with sound geek Rick Rubin.

Frere-Jones’s typeface Gotham used in Sept. 11 cornerstone—now on its way to being the next Interstate?

How to buy a spot in Billboard’s Top 10 songs. Related: Top 10 Summer Classical Party Hits. (Alex Ross has a blog; keep your pants on.)

Op-ed: Why is Cosby banging on poor black kids when it’s the elderly whites we should fear?

Gallery of Warner Bros. cartoon title cards.

More blogs: Director involved in Project Greenlight; Harpist who loves Pulp; Excellent omnivore Sounds & Fury.

Headlines for Wednesday, July 7, 2004

New York’s currently: one good-looking ticket

Defense Department official illegally enters Iraq—posing as a Halliburton employee—finds problems, recommends friends’ companies for the solutions.

Chilling new records: New report shows three million died of AIDS last year and almost five million became infected with HIV.

Family of captive Marine say they’ve received sign he’s been released, while a militant group threatens terrorist Zarqawi if he doesn’t leave Iraq.

The story behind Kerry’s VP-picking secrecy. And: Daily News razzes Post on its Gephardt headline foul-up.

Court charges six Yemenis in bombing of U.S.S. Cole.

Bowing under the financial weight of sex abuse lawsuits, Portland, Ore., archdiocese becomes first to declare bankruptcy.

Though we still believe 35 is just about right, Europe looks into a longer workweek to boost its economy.

Unlike its forebears, today’s food television stokes appetites not with culinary excellence, but with the lowest common denominator.

To fight uprising, Iraq prime minister given martial powers to impose curfews, ban sedition, and detain anyone.

Like a muddier Woodstock, but without the sex and drugs: the Cornerstone Christian rock festival.

Midland, in the fifties, was an affluent village populated by the oil-prospecting sons of Northeastern businessmen. Taking aim at the Everyman act of the Bush family.

There’s nothing crunk about it: Water may work just as well as cough syrup at relieving a cough.

Though Morrissey was never known for his dancing, the Manchester airport may be named after him.

Photos of drunk people have never been so well organized.

When movies flop, MGM profits: Just look at Roadhouse.