Mark's Notebook

All Articles - January 2005

Today's anti-war clergy should ponder their predecessors

Boston Globe

By Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press

Joseph Loconte of the conservative Heritage Foundation sees a parallel between clergy who denounce military action against today's Islamic terrorists or tyrants, and their predecessors who opposed America's entry into World War II.

Loconte collects writings by clergy doves and hawks from 1938-1941 in "The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler's Gathering Storm" (Rowman & Littlefield).

Loconte's heroes include the "neo-orthodox" Karl Barth (1886-1968), a refugee from Nazi Germany who was generally considered Europe's leading Protestant theologian, and "Christian realist" Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), widely seen as America's top Protestant theologian.

Barth opposed pacifism because the New Testament depicts the state as God's instrument to control evil and promote social peace (Romans 13:1-5, 1 Timothy 2:1-3). Since appeasement had failed, he wrote, Christians shouldn't just fight Hitler as a "necessary evil" but "approve it as a righteous war, which God does not simply allow but which he commands us to wage."

Niebuhr was especially interesting because he was a one-time pacifist and had to quit his longtime political home, the Socialist Party, after it decided American "imperialism" was so bad that no important principle was involved in challenging Hitler.

To Niebuhr, naive liberals saw no right or duty to defend their own civilization which he acknowledged was morally flawed to prevent "worse alternatives." In the Bible, he wrote, "human evil is recognized as a much more stubborn fact than is realized in some modern versions of the Christian faith" that obscure what Scripture says about fostering justice.

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/024/living/Today_s_anti_war_clergy_should:.shtml

Serving notice: View from the religious left

Daytona Beach News-Journal

By Sam Harrison

The religious right, validated by their perception of Biblical support and buoyed by a message that plays to a deep-seated sense of pious entitlement, have assumed a self-imagined moral higher ground, from which all manner of social, environmental and ethical damage can be justified.

Even a casual reading of the New Testament Gospels, which narratively describe the ministry and message of Jesus, paint a clear picture of a radical teacher who intentionally turned the religious and social thinking of his day upside down, a teacher whose primary advocacy was for the poor, the marginalized and the cast aside, and, as a result, was executed by religious conservatives. His disciples and followers were told to give away their possessions; their community was, by definition, socialistic.

Acts describes the early Christians, after the death of Jesus, as deeply concerned with social welfare, pooling their belongings, supporting widows and orphans with their gifts. The revolutionary nature of the movement permeates the Pauline letters, as a vibrant but often persecuted church fought to spread a message of love, hope and forgiveness. The remaining epistles echo this same insistence as, throughout, what the great liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez has called "the preferential treatment of the poor," is espoused.

Many of us of the religious left believe Jesus would find little in common with today's religious conservative movement. We see a great disconnect between scripture and policies that advocate decimation of the natural world in the name of profit; between opposition to abortion and literally applauding death sentences; between sitting in church and supporting a pre-emptive, trumped-up war in which thousands of civilians have been killed. Love your enemy indeed.

http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/Opinion/Editorials/03OpOPN24
012205.htm

Driver sues state for rejecting religious license plate

Rutland Herland

By Alan J. Keays

WHAT IT SAYS: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

A challenge to the state policy on restricting vanity license plates has reached biblical proportions.

Shawn Byrne of West Rutland filed a lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Rutland after the state Department of Motor Vehicles rejected his request for a vanity license plate, "JOHN316," because of its religious reference.

The lawsuit against the DMV comes on the heels of another legal battle over a license plate waged by a Wallingford woman two years ago when she wanted her vanity plate to read "Irish."

The woman's request was initially rejected because the department considered the word ethnically offensive. She eventually took her case all the way to the Vermont Supreme Court, where she prevailed.

Now, Byrne, 43, is taking his case to court. The Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization that states it defends religious liberty, has taken up his case.

"This is a violation of his free expression rights," Joshua Carden, an ADF attorney, said Wednesday. "We'll be happy when Vermont's license plates are open to all citizens regardless of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof. That's what we're aiming for."

A month after applying for the plate Byrne received notice from the state DMV stating that all three requests had been turned down. "It has been deemed to be a combination that refers to deity and has been denied based on that reason," the letter read.

The law allows DMV to reject a word or phrase considered offensive or confusing to the general public.

The regulations state that license plates are not be allowed to have a combination of letters or numbers that refer to any language to race, religion, color, deity, ethnic heritage, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or political affiliation.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050120/NEWS/501200367/
1002

Sen. Clinton urges use of faith-based initiatives

Boston Globe

By Michael Jonas

In a speech at a fund-raising dinner for a Boston-based organization that promotes faith-based solutions to social problems, Clinton said there has been a "false division" between faith-based approaches to social problems and respect for the separation of church of state.

"There is no contradiction between support for faith-based initiatives and upholding our constitutional principles," said Clinton, a New York Democrat who often is mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008.

Addressing a crowd of more than 500, including many religious leaders, at Boston's Fairmont Copley Plaza, Clinton invoked God more than half a dozen times, at one point declaring, "I've always been a praying person."

She said there must be room for religious people to "live out their faith in the public square."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/20/sen_clinton_urges_use_of_fa
ith_based_initiatives/

Creme de la creme brulee

San Jose Mercury News

SIMPLE CUSTARD WITH CARAMEL CRUST, LONG A FAVORITE IN FINE RESTAURANTS, IS SURPRISINGLY EASY TO MAKE AT HOME

By Beth Hensperger

Enduringly popular in restaurants, creme brulee is intimidating to many home bakers. It really shouldn't be; plain or flavored creme brulee is incredibly easy to produce at home. The dish consists of a baked custard with a browned-on sugar topping. In testing recipes for this article, I found I preferred the simplest method of mixing the custard. You don't need any special equipment, though a butane or propane torch is the easiest way to caramelize the top.

Creme brulee was introduced into the American restaurant world by Sirio Maccioni, owner of Manhattan's famous Le Cirque restaurant, and his wife, Egidiana -- called Egi -- a renowned cook in her own right. Sirio dubbed it creme brulee, or burnt cream, after the English version of the custard.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/living/food/10736883.htm

Also:

• Slideshow: How to use a torch to create the caramelized glaze for creme brulee
• Getting the glaze
• My favorite creme brulee
• Lou's creme brulee à l'orange
• Parcel 104 vanilla bean creme brulee

Wireless Deal for California Parks

New York Times

By Matt Richtel

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 23 - One problem with camping is that it is tough to file your taxes while sitting in a tent in the great outdoors. That is no longer a problem in California.

The state last week announced a deal with SBC Communications to provide wireless Internet access points in 85 state parks. Now park visitors can take laptop computers and other portable devices to connect to the Internet from areas formerly known as "wilderness."

The Internet access - provided through Wi-Fi technology - will be available mostly in central spots in the parks. The first access point became operational in a state park in San Diego last week; the other access points will be in place by May, in time for the summer camping, hiking and e-mailing season.

Under the deal, SBC will give park visitors free Internet access to California state government Web pages like those giving road closure information. Mr. Kelso said he hoped that park visitors would use the free connections to learn about campgrounds and safety information.

But campers who want to send and receive e-mail messages or reach more than state government Web sites must pay access charges to SBC; the rate is $7.95 for a 24-hour pass, the company said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/24/technology/24park.html

Tabloid fires 'Yahoo baby' reporter

The Register UK

By Lester Haines

Romanian tabloid Libertatea has fired the reporter who fabricated a story claiming that a couple had named their baby Yahoo, Reuters reports.

Ion Garnod walked the plank after admitting he made the whole thing up "to look good". A birth certificate accompanying the story turned out to be that of Garnod's own son. The paper's deputy ed, Simona Ionescu, said: "If it were real, it would have been a good story indeed."

Yes it would, and El Reg duly ran the heartwarmer after Reuters picked up on the human-interest piece. We consider ourselves entirely blameless in the matter. After all, if you can't trust a Romanian tabloid, then who can you trust?

Related stories
Couple names baby Yahoo

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/24/yahoo_baby_reporter_fired/

The Punk-Christian Son of a Preacher Man

New York Times Magazine

By John Leland

At 29, Jay Bakker still faintly recalls the cherubic kid who appeared almost from birth with his parents, Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, on their syndicated television show, "The PTL Club," then disappeared during the family's sexual and legal scandals in the 1980's. "We're just trying to love people with no agenda," he told the group. "That's hard, to be a Christian and have no agenda, and it's hard for people to think of a Christian with no agenda."

This was an important night for the ministry, he announced. The Masquerade, a multistory rock club, had invited them to hold their weekly services there, with cocktail waitresses and a full bar. Though the club is secular, its three levels are called Heaven, Purgatory and Hell. "Maybe this is what the postmodern church is supposed to look like," he said. "For the first time I feel we're having some peace in this, we're starting a church where there is no church. We're not the first to do this, but for Revolution, it's a big step."

Bethra Szumski, 33, a tattoo artist, said she came to Revolution in 2002 with a low opinion of Christians, whom she found judgmental. She told me she believed in God, not in church or religion. But she was drawn to Bakker because he was wrestling with his own problems and because he did not judge her. "Under my own resources, I'm incredibly ineffective to do anything except self-destruct," she said. "He said salvation wasn't anything I could find on my own. Jesus had atoned for me." At Revolution, she said, the teaching never strayed far from this core idea of grace. "We hear that a lot, it's really repetitive, but I need to hear that every single week."

Revolution is one of several thousand alternative ministries that have emerged in the last decade, meeting in warehouses, bars, skate parks, punk clubs, private homes or other spaces, in a generational rumble to rebrand the faith outside of what we think of as church. To travel among them is to feel returned to the alternative-rock scene of 15 years ago, just before Nirvana and Lollapalooza put it on the map. Instead of criticizing major record labels, these ministries criticize megachurches; instead of flattening the status of the rock star, they flatten the status of the pastor. They cluster in cells rather than in denominations or arenas, and connect through D.I.Y. zines online. They are a counterculture on two fronts: at odds with both their secular peers and conventional churches.

"We've all been damaged by fundamentalism or the traditional church," said Bakker's assistant pastor, Matt DeBenedictis, who came to Revolution after being a roadie for various rock bands, Christian and secular. "I know so many people who won't call themselves Christians but are following God and Jesus -- who walked away from seminary or Christian rock bands, and who feel completely outcast."

"We're not about issues," Bakker said. "We don't get on bandwagons. In the church today, the only two things that matter are abortion and homosexuality." He shied away from taking a position on either of these issues. "I'm not saying something's right, something's wrong," he said. "I don't have a right to judge. God's called us to love people no matter who they are or what they've done. ... You can't change people. You can for a little while, but eventually they'll rebel or be hurt or realize what's going on. I'm not in that rat race. I'm just in the game to say, 'This is who Jesus is, he loves you for who you are and hopefully you see that in my life and you see the positive things that are coming from it.'"

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/23/magazine/23BAKKER.html

Seven Myths of Disaster Relief

Christianity Today

What's really needed after a catastrophe.

by Rich Moseanko

News of the December 26 tsunami was almost immediately followed by news of donation scams, inefficient relief efforts, and good intentions gone awry. Longtime World Vision relief director Rich Moseanko sent out a list, condensed here, to help donors understand what's really needed after a major catastrophe.

1. Americans can help by collecting blankets, shoes, and clothing. The cost of shipping these items—let alone the time it takes to sort, pack, and ship them—is prohibitive. Since they are often manufactured for export to the U.S. in the very countries that need relief, it is far more efficient to purchase them locally. Cash is better.

2. Food and medicines must be airlifted to the disaster site. Food and medicine is virtually always available within a day's drive of the disaster site. Purchasing it locally is more cost-efficient.

3. If I send cash, my help won't get there. Reputable agencies send the vast majority of cash donations to the disaster site.

4. Developing countries depend on foreign expertise. Most relief and recovery efforts are carried out by local aid groups, police, firefighters, and neighbors before international teams ever arrive.

5. Relief needs are so intense that almost anyone can fly to the scene to help. Volunteers without skills necessary in disaster relief can do more harm than good.

6. Insurance and governments can cover losses. The vast majority of the world's population has never heard of an insurance policy.

7. People are helpless in the face of natural disasters. The United States and Canada are proof that tougher building codes, early warning systems, and disaster preparedness can save lives.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/002/8.37.html

Prominent Internet lawyer to defend Think Secret in Apple suit

January 19, 2005 - Terry Gross of Gross & Belsky LLP, a lawyer at the forefront of Internet law since the net's early days, will defend Mac news Web site Think Secret from a lawsuit brought by Apple Computer Inc.

"Apple's attempt to silence a small publication's news reporting presents a troubling affront to the protections of the First Amendment," said Nick dePlume, the site's publisher and editor in chief. "I'm grateful that Mr. Gross has stepped forward to help defend these crucial freedoms."

Gross has been at the center of Internet law since the early days of the net, and served as the first counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a leading advocacy and legal organization that works to defend civil liberties in the technology and electronic communications realm. In one successful case prior to popular use of the Internet, Gross, as special counsel, defended the constitutional rights of publishers to disseminate information they legally obtain, electronically or in print.

His San Francisco-based general practice, public interest law firm engages in a range of distinctive work, including media, constitutional, and intellectual property law.

Apple filed suit against the dePlume Organization LLC -- owner of Think Secret -- and its editor on January 4. Apple's lawsuit is designed to shutter the reporting efforts of a Web site that since 1998 has been the Internet's top source for news scoops about Apple and the Mac.

"Think Secret's reporting is protected by the First Amendment," Gross said. "The Supreme Court has said that a journalist cannot be held liable for publishing information that the journalist obtained lawfully. Think Secret has not used any improper newsgathering techniques. We will be filing a motion asking the Court to dismiss this case immediately on First Amendment grounds under a California statute which weeds out meritless claims that threaten First Amendment rights."

The EFF, as well as several other civil liberties organizations, was instrumental in helping Think Secret find legal representation.

http://thinksecret.com/news/defense.html

Mark says:

I feared the worst for this web site. There were no new postings for over a week after the lawsuit was announced.

Mark also says: Boo, Apple! I will continue to buy your products, but only through third party retailers and auction sites, and only used or reconditioned. I refuse to pay your prices, and I refuse to fill the coffers of your lawyers.

Player Number Two

Associated Press

Associated Press

Game delayed by dog's doings

A stink was raised during halftime of the Detroit Pistons-Orlando Magic NBA game on Tuesday night when the start of the second half was delayed by three minutes after a seeing-eye dog relieved itself on the court.

The dog was with a charity organization, Canine Companions for Independence, that was receiving a $10,000 donation from the Orlando Magic Youth Foundation.

When the Pistons came out for warmups, Rasheed Wallace walked up to the lane where the excrement had fallen, stopped and stared in disbelief. His teammates were just as confused before wide smiles broke out.

A custodian was enlisted to scoop up the mess and wipe up the remains with cleaner, a mop and towels.

Bay Area picks up jobs in 2004

San Francisco Chronicle

By Todd Wallack

But Silicon Valley sees fewer positions

When it comes to job growth, Silicon Valley and the rest of the Bay Area seem to be headed in opposite directions.

Overall, the nine-county Bay Area picked up 16,800 jobs in 2004, a modest increase, according to a survey of employers. About 4.2 percent of area workers were unemployed in December, down from 5.4 percent a year ago.

But Santa Clara County lost 9,800 jobs during the same period, down more than 1 percent, according to data released late last week by the state Employment Development Department, as many of the region's tech companies continued to tighten spending.

California as a whole created about 1.1 percent more jobs last year, about the same pace as the Bay Area -- excluding hard-hit Santa Clara County.

But the state's employment picture took a surprising turn for the worse in December, losing 25,000 jobs, after adjustments for seasonal variations, according to a survey of employers.

Locally, jobs rose in the San Francisco metro area and the East Bay last month, but slipped in Sonoma County, Santa Clara County and the Vallejo- Fairfield-Napa areas, according to the payroll survey.

In one bright spot for Silicon Valley, the loss of 600 jobs lost last month was the smallest decline in any December since 2000, according to the state employment agency.

The San Jose area lost 20,800 workers as people fled the area, went back to school or gave up looking for jobs for other reasons.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/01/18/BUGQCARR871.DTL

We're all just a little mixed up here

I renewed the mixed-up.com domain name today for another nine years. We'll be happily dancing, computing and blowing smoke until at least February 2014.

We've had this domain name since 1998. It has always been hosted at Raw Bandwidth Communications, although in 1998 they were known as Tsoft. Thanks to Chris Songer for telling me about them (among many other things I owe him thanks for).

Why mixed-up.com? Well, the name goes back to way before the internet. Around 1989, I had the late Milt Strong make me square dance badges that said "Mixed-Up Squares." The name comes from the old C2 square dance call "Mixed-Up Square Thru," which you can look up on the square dance dictionary page.

The name is also a commentary on the skills of the square dancers I have workshopped with over the years. :-) I've enjoyed "inducting" dancers into the Mixed-Up Squares when I see them flailing in a C2 workshop, unable to remember how to do "Fan the Top" (a mainstream call).

The mixed-up phenomenon is a little less noticable among round dancers. It may be that in round dancing one has to work with only one other dancer (the partner) in order to complete a routine. Thus the chances of working with a mixed-up person is 86% lower when round dancing (there is only one other person) than when square dancing (there are seven other people).

This of course doesn't take into account that the person doing the calculating is the one who is mixed up ... in that case, the chances of having a mixed-up person in your couple or or square go up to near 100%.

Fast DSL

Since 2001, we have had 384K DSL into our house. However, the performance has not been fantastic because we are about 14000 feet from the central office. This is near the limit for DSL feasability.

Our ISP has bugged us several times about changing our line to a remote terminal. This means that the DSL line, instead of originating at the central office, originates at a much closer neighborhood terminal.

We haven't completed the switch, but in preparation for the "big switch" we have started with the "little switch" where we now get DSL on a second line temporarily. The second line is already wired for remote terminal usage. We are already getting 1.5M service on this line. Wow! The line is capable of 3M downstream. It costs more, but it certainly is addictive!

Later we'll have to switch the DSL back to our main phone number. We're just waiting for that line to be wired for remote terminal usage.

Our ISP has the best customer support in the business. They have helped us do everything to get the best performance and the lowest cost out of our service. They have also helped me quickly and given great advice about a number of issues including SSL, PHP, and web server performance.

If you need a great ISP and you are willing to pay a little more to get the best service, check them out: Raw Bandwidth Communications

Geeks aside, Apple is gospel of simplicity

Orlando Sentinel

By Mike Thomas

I bought an Apple. "Wimp," said a computer geek at work. I sensed the fear. You see, he makes his living from the Microsoft Industrial Complex.

Every time the evil geeks in Singapore find another hole in Windows, through which they can invade our homes, it creates more jobs for the good geeks.

The entire national economy, in fact, depends on the incompetence of Microsoft. If everyone switched to Apple, the unemployment rate would skyrocket and we would fall into a depression. The government would be forced to give away Microsoft-based computers to stimulate the economy.

Be that as it may, I wanted a computer that would obey me at least as well as my Labrador puppy.

I spent most of my time with the old computer trying to figure out how to do stuff rather than actually doing it.

Last night, in a very few minutes, I downloaded some pictures of my kids. Then I downloaded Janis Joplin's greatest hits. Then I then set up a slide show, watching my beautiful munchkins fading on and off the screen to "A Little Piece of my Heart."

I cried -- not out of sentimentality but because at long last, a computer finally had listened to me.

I'm not spending any more of my life yelling in frustration at inanimate objects.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/orl-locmiket16011605jan16,1,5879719.column?c
track=1&cset=true

No More Internet for Them

Los Angeles Times

By Joseph Menn

A small but growing number of frustrated computer owners are giving up or cutting back their use of the Internet, especially at home, where no corporate tech support team will ride to their rescue.

Instead of making life easier — the essential promise of technologies since the steam engine — the home PC of late has made some users feel stupid, endangered or just hassled beyond reason.

Overall Internet use continues to grow. But 2004 "was a real turning point in a bad direction," said technology analyst Ted Schadler of Forrester Research. "People are getting really angry. They're angry at Dell and Microsoft and their cable providers, and that's appropriate. They should be."

For many, spyware was the last straw. During the last 18 months, the sneaky programs have soared to the top of the list of tech woes, triggering the most tech support calls to Dell Inc., the nation's top PC maker. Spyware lurks on as many as 80% of computers nationwide, according to the National Cyber Security Alliance, a trade group.

No one is immune. Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates discovered spyware on his personal machine not long ago.

The aggravation level has reached the point that some in the computer industry believe it threatens to undermine advances of the last decade, during which the Internet has grown from a virtually empty domain to a global community of 800 million souls. They say they need to act before the same early adopters who led mainstream Americans online lead them off.

It may well be up to private enterprise. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission are exploring a crackdown on spyware, but government efforts to stop another online scourge, spam, have had limited results, as many with an e-mail account will attest.

The root cause of the problems is the open architecture of the Internet, initially inhabited and managed by a collaborative community from government and universities.

Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system also makes it possible for malicious code to spread, in part because it was designed to allow so many functions. Once a weakness in Windows is discovered by hackers, a virus can wreak havoc on millions of computers before Microsoft can offer a patch — which typical users may not take the initiative to download.

And consumer advocates claim that state and federal laws against spam don't help. Courts have protected software vendors from most consumer lawsuits, and some have held that the companies are all but immunized by warnings buried in lengthy user agreements, those boxes with massive amounts of text with the "I agree" button at the bottom.

The biggest factor behind the rapid increase in spyware is the amount of money at stake. Ads for such blue-chip companies as Motorola Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and JP Morgan Chase & Co. appear in spyware programs.

"The part that worries me most is the tremendous amount of money that can be made by tricking people into installing junk on their computers," said Ben Edelman, a Harvard graduate student who has testified against spyware companies. "It's a great business."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fedup14jan14.story

Lutherans Recommend Tolerance on Gay Policy

New York Times

By Neela Banerjee

A task force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recommended yesterday that it retain its policy against blessing same-sex unions and ordaining gays, but suggested that sanctions could be avoided for pastors and congregations that chose to do so.

Those who defy church policies now face a range of disciplinary actions. The approach would allow those who agree and disagree with the policy to stay within the church, the group said.

Some clergy members said that by giving local churches and synods wiggle room, the task force had found a way to preserve the unity of the church.

But Word Alone, a biblically orthodox Lutheran group, sharply criticized the recommendations as an attempt to hoodwink parishioners into believing that policies remained unchanging despite the fact that sanctions may not be enforced.

Lutherans Concerned, a group that seeks greater acceptance of gays in the church, contended that the recommendations did not go far enough to dispel the punitive atmosphere around issues of homosexuality.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/14/national/14lutheran.html

A Nation of Faith and Religious Illiterates

Los Angeles Times Commentary

By Stephen Prothero

The Dutch are four times less likely than Americans to believe in miracles, hell and biblical inerrancy. The euro does not trust in God. But here is the paradox: Although Americans are far more religious than Europeans, they know far less about religion.

In Europe, religious education is the rule from the elementary grades on. So Austrians, Norwegians and the Irish can tell you about the Seven Deadly Sins or the Five Pillars of Islam. But, according to a 1997 poll, only one out of three U.S. citizens is able to name the most basic of Christian texts, the four Gospels.

U.S. Catholics, evangelicals and Jews have been lamenting for some time a crisis of religious literacy in their ranks.

When Americans debated slavery, almost exclusively on the basis of the Bible, people of all races and classes could follow the debate. They could make sense of its references to the runaway slave in the New Testament book of Philemon and to the year of jubilee, when slaves could be freed, in the Old Testament book of Leviticus. Today it is a rare American who can engage with any sophistication in biblically inflected arguments about gay marriage, abortion or stem cell research.

Since 9/11, President Bush has been telling us that "Islam is a religion of peace," while evangelist Franklin Graham (Billy's son) has insisted otherwise. Who is right? Americans have no way to tell because they know virtually nothing about Islam. Such ignorance imperils our public life, putting citizens in the thrall of talking heads.

How did this happen? How did one of the most religious countries in the world become a nation of religious illiterates? Religious congregations are surely at fault. Churches and synagogues that once inculcated the "fourth R" are now telling the faithful stories "ripped from the headlines" rather than teaching them the Ten Commandments or parsing the Sermon on the Mount (which was delivered, as only one in three Americans can tell you, by Jesus).

Americans — of both the religious and the secular variety — need to understand religion. Resolving in 2005 to read for yourself either the Bible or the Koran (or both) might not be a bad place to start.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-prothero12jan12,1,3110459
.story?ctrack=2&cset=true

Seeing God's mystery in the tsunami's wake

Newsday

By Raymond J. Keating

Rabbi Perry Raphael Rank, from the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, saw God's hand in the response to the tragedy. He told me last week: "I always shudder when I hear the tsunami referred to as an act of God. I don't see it as such. But I see the outpouring of relief aid and the rescue efforts and the kindness of people from all different walks of life as an act of God."

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpkea104109992jan10,0,2531790.column?c
oll=ny-news-columnists

Don't Waste Your Life

Christianity Today Book Review

Reviewed by Cindy Crosby

"Only one life, 'Twill soon be past; Only what's done for Christ will last." This verse on a plaque above the kitchen sink where Piper grew up made a lasting impression on him. "You get one pass at life," he exhorts. "That's all. Only one."

But what does it mean to live well? "The opposite of wasting your life is living life by a single God-exalting, soul-satisfying passion," he writes. For Piper, that means living totally for the glory of Christ crucified.

He urges readers to shun illusions of security, turn off the television, make the most of secular work, and practice forgiveness. And he challenges them to embrace God as their highest priority. The book will have most appeal for those in search of significance and direction.

Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper, Crossway Books, 192 pp.; $12.99

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/001/33.71.html

MacWorld Expo Report #1

Mark says: I want one!

Macworld's ever-smaller tent, ever-bigger iPod circus

iPodlounge

By Jeremy Horwitz

Three years after Apple Computer's October 2001 introduction of the iPod, the company famous in technology circles for its Apple ][ and Macintosh personal computers is arguably even more famous in the mainstream for its portable music players. And while the bi-annual Macworld Expo - the American exposition of new Apple and third-party hardware and software - seems to shrink with each passing year, the presence and importance of iPod developers within that expo continues to grow.

And yet Macworld's tent is getting smaller. Expo host IDG has now shifted the San Francisco show's primary exhibition floor entirely into a single tent at Muscone Center South from its previous two-tent Muscone North and South spread. Though corporate inbreeding hasn't recently been foreign to the world of Apple third-party development, the gene pool looks - but perhaps only looks - smaller inside Macworld's convention hall.

http://www.ipodlounge.com/ipodnews.php?id=P6074

Mark says: I didn't realize they had moved the exhibition into just one building. My hip has been sore, but a single-room exhibition floor makes it more likely that I could navigate the floor successfully.

MWSF: Apple CEO delivers new products for 2005

MacWorld UK

By Jonny Evans

• iLife 05 - with HD support
• iWork - suite including Pages, a word processor, and Keynote 2
• MacMini - Mac without monitor, keyboard, or mouse - $499
• iPod Shuffle - flash-memory-based - $99

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=10587

Best Bay Area Workplaces

San Jose Mercury News

From Fortune Magazine

Nine Bay Area companies cracked Fortune magazine's list of top 100 workplaces in the nation for 2005. Here are some of the reasons, according to employees and Fortune's evaluation:

4. Genentech

After launching three new drugs from June 2003 to February 2004, it threw a lavish party for employees and guests featuring Elton John.

5. Xilinx

Inventors rule: One of every five employees holds a patent and all employees receive stock options upon hire. Last year's profit-sharing bonus was 9.2 percent of salary.

13. Adobe Systems

New twin 12-story buildings include a fitness center with trainer, a farmers market, basketball and bocce courts, and an office for nearly everyone.

24. Network Appliance

Gives employees $5,000 to $15,000 for each patent they file and stock grants for multiple patents.

27. Cisco Systems

Holds everything from "nerd lunches" in which experts lead a discussion of tech topics to movie-themed food on Oscar day.

43. Symantec

Stock up 150 percent in two years. All employees are eligible for stock options and generous profit sharing.

64. Intuit

Noticing that new call-center hires often gain weight, executives built an indoor walking path and offered to donate $1 to charities for every pound lost.

79. Granite Construction

Sets aside 3.7% of pretax earnings each year for bonuses and incentives for lower-ranking employees.

91. Morrison & Foerster

A model of diversity: 166 of its 871 U.S. attorneys are minorities, including 21 partners. Pro bono work is a draw.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/10616398.htm

Cool places to work

San Jose Mercury News

By Nicole C. Wong

Despite the economic downturn, Silicon Valley is apparently still not such a bad place to work -- if you know where to go.

Nine Bay Area companies secured spots on Fortune's 2005 list of 100 Best Companies to Work For for everything from weekly on-site farmers markets to stock options for all new hires. Two companies cracked the top 10 -- Genentech came in No. 4, and Xilinx ranked No. 5.

Fortune magazine evaluated 356 companies across the country based on their culture and policies, relying heavily on the opinions of 350 randomly surveyed employees at each company.

Silicon Valley companies have fairly consistently made the list, even in recent years of heavy layoffs and general malaise. But it's not always the same companies.

Intuit of Mountain View encourages physical fitness by donating $1 to charities for each pound an employee sheds. The software company also makes it easier for employees to take care of their teeth by sending roving dental mobiles to its larger campuses.

Adobe Systems allows employees to use its 24-hour campus fitness center, which was expanded last January to include an aerobics studio and treadmills with TVs.

Cisco Systems distinguished itself with its affectionately named "nerd lunches," which attract up to 200 engineers who want to dish about tech topics as they eat.

Xilinx, which is practically a fixture on the list after making it for several years running, gives all employees stock options when they're hired.

"Being filthy rich would be nice, but being professionally fulfilled is what drew me here."

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/10616392.htm

C1 and C2 Definitions Posted

When we danced at Ben Rubright's C3A week at McCloud Dance Country last September, I asked Ben for permission to post his C1 and C2 definitions on this web site. At that time, my database consisted only of C3 and C4 calls.

Ben gave permission to do so, and I've just finished posting his definitions. So now the database includes most calls from C1 through C4. (Many of the newer C4 concepts are not in the database.)

My database actually contains a lot more than just definitions. It also includes starting and ending formations for most calls, and some bibliographic information such as author, call number in Burleson's Encyclopedia, and so on. There are also pictures for many C3-C4 calls.

The calls Ben contributed each contain the attribution "Definition courtesy of Ben Rubright." The bibliographic information is from Clark Baker's infamous Lisp database. I quickly scratched out the starting and ending formations myself, and if there are any errors you can blame those on me, not on Ben or Clark.

Unfortunately, there were few pictures for C1 and C2 calls in Clark's database, and I don't have time to put them together from scratch right now. So you'll find only a few pictures for C1 and C2 calls.

The database is here: www.mixed-up.com/dict/

Faith goes wobbling on

Daily Telegraph

By Tom Utley

Priests of every denomination have been telling us since Boxing Day that great natural disasters tend to shake believers' faith in the existence of God.

I hesitate to argue with so many priests, but I feel that somebody ought to point out that what they are saying is simply not true. Certainly, a great many people who did not believe in God in the first place have seized on the tsunami as further evidence that He does not exist. But I have yet to come across anybody who has said: "I used to believe in God until the tsunami struck, but I don't any more." From the earliest days of the Church, believers have had to get used to the fact that terrible things happen in this world, for which theological explanations are very hard to find.

Only a very fragile and dimwitted faith would be shaken by an event that was just the latest in a series of natural disasters - earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes and tsunamis - stretching back to the dawn of time.

I reckon that all those priests are just plain wrong when they say that the tsunami has shaken people's belief in God. If anything, it has had the opposite effect. Like so many natural disasters before it, it has made people more, rather than less receptive to the idea that a supreme being may exist.

When something as terrible as this happens, people look for an explanation of human life that transcends the basic biological facts of birth, reproduction and death. Most of us give barely a thought to God when the car is running nicely, the children are doing well at school and there is food on the table.

Churches tend to be fuller, rather than emptier, when natural disasters are in the news.

The tsunami has not affected my belief in God at all, one way or the other. That goes wobbling on - sometimes strong, sometimes weak.

http://www.opinion.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/01/07/do
0702.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/01/07/ixopinion.html

At Risk In the Universe ... Always

Tech Central Station

By Ralph Kinney Bennett

Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the shadow of death? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me if you know all this.
-- Job 38:16-18

In Holland, on April 27, 1421, the sea submerged 72 Dutch counties, killing 100,000 people. On November 1, 1530, sea dikes burst in Holland, submerging much of the country and killing 400,000 people. In 1642 floods in China killed 300,000.

On December 30, 1703 a massive earthquake hit Tokyo, killing an estimated 200,000 people. On December 30, 1730, a quake hit Hokkaido, Japan, killing 137,000.

Between 1851 and 1866, the low area between Beijing, Shanghai and Hankow flooded repeatedly during a disastrous 15 years of storms. It is estimated that 40 to 50 million Chinese perished in these floods.

In 1887, spring rains in China caused the Yellow River to overflow, covering 50,000 square miles and killing an estimated 1.5 million people.

A drought in India in the years 1876-78 is estimated to have killed 5 million people. A drought in China over the same time period is believed to have killed between 9 and 13 million. In 1896-97 a combination of drought and plague killed 5 million in India.

In 1970, a cyclone-driven tidal wave overwhelmed the Ganges Delta in what is now Bangladesh, killing somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000 people.

"How could a merciful and loving God…?" Once again the old question springs to the lips of people trying to come to grips with some cataclysmic act of nature.

Pundits and preachers, the wise and the unwise, try to "explain" what has happened. They see the hand of God or the absence of God; the justice of God or the indifference of God.

I am saddened by the ignorance of those who say such calamities "prove there is no God." I am astonished at those who would confidently "see" God's hand in a natural disaster.

I only know that what is, is. Droughts and earthquakes and floods are physical realities of this earth, this imperfect way station for our souls on their journey into eternity. And when we react to these events with love and sacrifice and selflessness, we become gauges of God's glory, instruments of His love.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/010705A.html

Tax Break Extended to Jan. 31 for Givers

New York Times

Congress passed legislation yesterday to allow taxpayers additional time to make cash donations to relief organizations addressing the disaster in Southeast Asia and claim a tax deduction for 2004.

Donors may claim a deduction for the 2004 tax year for contributions to aid victims of the tsunami that are made before Jan. 31, 2005. Without the legislation, which the House and Senate passed unanimously, donors would have had to claim deductions on their 2005 tax returns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/07/international/worldspecial4/07donate.html

Reality TV finds God

ABC Australia

In the world of bug-eating, bungee-jumping reality television, here's a twist: Christian missionaries living a travelogue life while viewers watch their aches, pains and trials trying to spread the Gospel.

The show, Travel the Road, is now in its third season, reaching 250,000 to 300,000 US households per show on cable's Trinity Broadcasting Network, which bills itself as the world's largest Christian network.

Tim Scott, 27, and 30-year-old William Decker are the two missionaries, doing their own filming to record an odyssey that has put them in dozens of countries from Tibet to Rwanda.

The pair has been cursed at and threatened with death in Ethiopia, betrayed in India by a thieving convert, attacked by leeches in Laos and bone-rattled for hours on end in the cargo holds of third-world transports.

The pair has just finished filming their missionary work in Rwanda and Congo and at last report was headed for a return trip to Darfur in Sudan where a 22-month rebellion has killed 70,000 people and driven 1.6 million from their homes.

They were also recently in Afghanistan and plan to visit Somalia which along with the previously mentioned African stops will comprise a package of new shows airing next autumn, Scott said in an interview.

At times the pair seems to stumble into situations, looking for converts or even an interpreter to help carry their message. At one point they and some colleagues got flat-out lost.

But the resulting travelogue overlay and the human focus on the two travellers, along with highly professional editing and musical backgrounds, moves the show beyond religion alone.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1277942.htm

Where Was God?

New York Times Opinion

By William Safire

In the aftermath of a cataclysm, with pictures of parents sobbing over dead infants driven into human consciousness around the globe, faith-shaking questions arise: Where was God? Why does a good and all-powerful deity permit such evil and grief to fall on so many thousands of innocents? What did these people do to deserve such suffering?

Turn to the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible. It was written some 2,500 years ago during what must have been a crisis of faith. The covenant with Abraham - worship the one God, and his people would be protected - didn't seem to be working. The good died young, the wicked prospered; where was the promised justice?

The first point the Book of Job made was that suffering is not evidence of sin. Victims of this cataclysm in no way "deserved" a fate inflicted by the Leviathanic force of nature.

Job's gutsy defiance of God's injustice shows that it is not blasphemous to challenge the highest authority when it inflicts a moral wrong. Questioning God's inscrutable ways has its exemplar in the Bible and need not undermine faith.

Job's moral outrage caused God to appear, thereby demonstrating that the sufferer who believes is never alone.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/10/opinion/10safire.html?th

Compassionate Conservatives? The right turns tight

The Boston Phoenix

By Adam Reilly

As of Sunday — one week after massive flooding killed more than 100,000 people, and left countless more injured and homeless — Christian Broadcasting Network founder Pat Robertson had said nothing about tsunami relief on his site ( PatRobertson.com ). Ditto for religious-right pillars such as Jerry Falwell ( JerryFalwell.com ); the National Association of Evangelicals ( www.nae.net ); the Family Research Council ( www.frc.org ); and Concerned Women for America ( www.cwfa.org ).

In contrast, the progressive ecumenical group Interfaith Alliance ( www.interfaithalliance.org ) topped its home page with an appeal for tsunami-related donations. So, for that matter, did the liberal United Church of Christ ( www.ucc.org ) and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism ( rac.org ).

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/0438330
8.asp

Angry with God

Boston Globe

By Jeff Jacoby

AN ONLINE poll at Beliefnet.com, the popular website on religion and spirituality, is asking what role God plays in natural disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami that has devastated much of Asia. The poll offers five options:

(1) God is punishing us.

(2) God is testing us.

(3) The earthquake and tsunami were sent by God, but we don't know what the purpose was.

(4) I believe in God, but the supernatural had nothing to do with this tragedy.

(5) God doesn't exist; disasters like this are just forces of nature.

As one who believes in a God of both creation and history -- a God involved in the lives of individuals and nations and without whose existence our own existence would ultimately have no purpose -- I voted for number 3. So did 29 percent of all who have voted so far.

But the runaway winner, at 51 percent, is number 4 -- God exists, but he had no connection to the tsunami. Insurers may call such catastrophes "acts of God," but to a majority of Beliefnet's respondents, that is only a figure of speech.

How an all-powerful and benevolent God can permit innocents to be massacred or suffer undeserved agonies is a question as old as monotheism itself. Rabbi Harold Kushner's answer is that God isn't all-powerful. Tsunamis happen, and for no reason at all. There is no divine calculus at work; there is simply bad luck. And so there is no reason to think hard thoughts about God when tragedy strikes. In Kushner's words, "We can be angry at what has happened to us without feeling that we are angry at God." 

But what is so bad about being angry with God? Why shouldn't we challenge him to make sense of the injustice and cruelty that he himself has taught us to hate? Isn't it better to angrily question a God in whose universe we are sure nothing happens without a reason than to resign ourselves to a God who can do nothing about a world that kills and lays waste at random?

Calling God to account, arguing with him when He seems to be acting unjustly, has deep roots in Judeo-Christian faith. When Abraham learns of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, he heatedly confronts God: "Will You sweep away the innocent along with the guilty? What if there should be 50 innocents within the city; will you then wipe out the place and not forgive it for the sake of the innocent 50 who are in it? ... Far be it from you! Shall not the judge of all the earth deal justly?"

Elie Wiesel tells the haunting story of three rabbis in Auschwitz who convened a court of law and put God on trial for allowing his children to be slaughtered. At the end of the trial, which stretched over several days, they pronounced him guilty of crimes against humanity. Then one of the rabbis glanced at the darkening sky. Now, he said, it is time for our evening prayers.

To wrestle with God is not to abandon him. To protest against unearned suffering is not to reject his message -- quite the opposite. But having protested a seeming lack of compassion and justice from heaven, we are obliged to reach out to the victims and work even harder to establish justice and compassion on earth.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/06/angr
y_with_god/

iPod Helps Radiologists Manage Medical Images

RSNA News

Radiological Society of North America

The iPod is not just for music any more. Radiologists from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and their colleagues at other institutions from as far away as Europe and Australia are now using iPod devices to store medical images.

"This is what we call using off the shelf, consumer market technology," says Osman Ratib, M.D., Ph.D., professor and vice-chairman of radiologic services at UCLA. "Technology coming from the consumer market is changing the way we do things in the radiology department."

Dr. Ratib and Antoine Rosset, M.D., a radiologist in Geneva, Switzerland, recently developed OsiriX, Macintosh-based software for display and manipulation of complex medical image data.

How did the developers go from a music player to a medical storage device? "We basically wanted something that everybody could use," explains Dr. Ratib. "That's why OsiriX can be used with the iPod, iChat and other tools."

"Radiologists deal with a very large amount of medical imaging data," Dr. Ratib explains. "I never have enough space on my disk, no matter how big my disk is—I always need more space. One day I realized, I have an iPod that has 40 gigabytes of storage on it. It's twice as big as my disk on my laptop and I'm using only 10 percent of it for my music. So, why don't I use it as a hard disk for storing medical images?"

Dr. Rosset set up the OsiriX software to automatically recognize and search for medical images on the iPod. When it detects the images, they automatically appear on the list of image data available—similar to the way music files are accessible by the iTune music application.

"It's easy to use and you don't have to worry about how to load and unload it from the iPod," Dr. Ratib says. "But the real beauty of it is that I can use the images directly on the iPod. I don't have to take the time to copy them to my computer. The iPod allows me to copy data from work to my laptop, but I don't have to do it if I don't want to."

Large data sets can be transferred directly to the iPod through the firewire connection. "I use my software to download images from the PACS or from any imaging source," Dr. Ratib says. "OsiriX follows the most universal way of accessing any image and it covers virtually every DICOM format possible. It's very, very flexible."

Once the images are on the iPod, they can be carried from one machine to another, as long as the computer is a Macintosh. "You can see the images and display them as you would do with any other file that's on your hard disk," Dr. Ratib says.

The free OsiriX software can be downloaded at homepage.mac.com/rossetantoine/osirix/ homepage.mac.com/rossetantoine/osirix/.

http://www.rsna.org/publications/rsnanews/dec04/ipod-1.html

Copyright ©2004 Radiological Society of North America, Inc (RSNA)

EBay, Intel Launch Recycling Initiative

Washington Post

The Associated Press

LAS VEGAS - EBay Inc. and Intel Corp. launched a recycling program Thursday to motivate Americans to safely dispose of mounting piles of used computers and other electronic gadgets.

U.S. consumers retire or replace roughly 133,000 personal computers per day, according to research firm Gartner Inc. EBay lists roughly $2.5 billion worth of new and used computers every year, as well as $2.5 billion worth of consumer electronics such as cellular phones, gaming equipment and hand-held computers.

But because relatively few people are willing to pay for professional recycling, and many don't want to dispose of hard drives that contain personal data, machines often end up in basements, garages and spare bedrooms. If improperly disposed, PCs can leak a plethora of toxins into the environment, including lead, cadmium, chromium and mercury.

"You don't want to throw them out, and you don't know what to do with them," said eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, who launched the "Rethink" initiative at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

The effort is centered around a Web site, at http://ebay.com/rethink, where Americans with unused gadgets can get information on how to get rid of them safely. The site includes a downloadable program that will erase all data from hard drives, ensuring that the owners' financial and other data can't be shared.

Other corporate sponsors include Apple Computer Inc., Gateway Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp. and Ingram Micro Inc., as well as the U.S. Postal Service, which in some cases will help deliver PCs to eBay drop-off locations or recycling centers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54624-2005Jan6.html

http://ebay.com/rethink

Evangelism: Go Tell It on the Subway

Newsweek

By Lisa Helem

Jan. 10 issue - You're riding on the New York City D train when Frank Meyer, 41, boards. He's quiet until Darnell Harris, 48, a self-described former burglar turned born-again Christian, starts preaching: "Jesus was a special person for a special mission..." Meyer yells for Harris to "shush!" Onlookers are poised for an argument, only the two soon reveal that it's all an attention-getting skit: they just want to spread the Word.

Meyer is part of a growing city Christian movement that uses unique ways to reach straphangers. Recently he launched a ministry that teaches people from New York and, currently, 15 other states to share the Gospel on city trains. (Those who don't want to quote scripture can be "shushers.") So far, Meyer, who works with Mission NYC, a nonprofit Christian group, has led more than 1,000 churchgoers in subway-evangelism training.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6777517/site/newsweek/

Better to Zap One TV Than To Curse the Din

San Francisco Chronicle

By Marc Fisher

My new toy, called TV-B-Gone, is essentially a universal remote control that does one thing only: It turns off TVs. I love the heck out of it.

I sauntered into Hollywood Video, stepped up to the wall of 12 giant TV screens simultaneously pumping out a Bruce Willis action flick, aimed my trusty new weapon and -- presto -- the screens went dark. We customers could proceed with our browsing without all that hopped-up banging, shooting and thundering assaulting our brains.

My kids and I have a new mission in life. We have a ready response to companies and institutions that try to stun the unwashed public into submission by drugging us with video Valium.

At the food court during the auto show at the Washington Convention Center, four guys were watching CNN Headline News when my kids and I sat down with our sandwiches. We zapped the TVs, and the guys immediately turned their heads from the screen to each other and commenced a conversation. A victory for social discourse!

Last stop: The waiting room at Children's Hospital. Nobody was watching the blaring TV; its incessant yammering had forced waiting parents to the far corners of the room. I tried to point my vigilante device without being noticed. Suddenly, the cacophony ceased. The children grew quieter, the parents relaxed. Mission accomplished.

But I had been caught. A mom slowly turned toward me. She made the connection between the blissful silence and the odd gadget in my hand. Uh-oh, I thought, I have stolen her distraction, her video solace. I'm in for it.

But no: She pointed at my cherished weapon for the enforcement of civilized life and smiled in grateful, silent relief.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51743-2005Jan5.html

Mark says: I sure wish I had this when I had to sit through two episodes of Roseanne while waiting for my x-rays at Regional Medical Center.

'Forever Tango' still stokes that fire down below

San Francisco Chronicle Dance Review

By Michael Wade Simpson

Forever Tango: Through Jan. 9 at the Post Street Theatre. For tickets, call (415) 771-6900 or visit www.ticketmaster.com. Post Street Theatre, 450 Post St., SF; Thu-Fri 8 pm, Sat 2 pm, 5 pm and 8 pm, Sun 2 pm and 7 pm, Tue-Wed 8 pm; $40-$80; (415) 771-6900.

"Forever Tango" is one big seduction, a perfect theater date for couples on the verge of coupling.

Before MTV, dancers didn't make love to cameras. Instead, there were pairs of bodies, locked together. "Forever Tango" is a live, human chemistry demonstration. It's hard to watch and not get pulled in.

The accompanying music, featuring the unmistakable moan of the bandoneon, an accordionlike instrument, is dark, as dismal as the dance is hungry.

Once thought to be exceedingly vulgar, the stiff torsos and formal- looking movements today read as repressed, the opposite of bump and grind. That's why the performances are important, as well as the dancers' facial expressions. It's not about the steps. The closer to the front you sit, the more you'll understand.

San Francisco, land of sex and seriousness, seems the perfect second city for Argentine tango, and the cast of "Forever Tango" looks right at home on the intimate stage at the Post Street Theatre.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/12/30/DDG3GAI4CK1.DTL&type
=performance

Thieves Find Exactly What They're Looking for on EBay

Washington Post

Auction Site Used to Cash In on Stolen Goods

By Ariana Eunjung Cha

SAN JOSE -- The ring of young men and women had become pros at snatching cashmere sweaters, perfumes and other expensive items from the likes of Abercrombie & Fitch, Victoria's Secret and Pottery Barn.

The shoplifters discovered some stores would allow them to return the goods without receipts for store credit or gift cards. They then sold those vouchers on the giant online marketplace EBay. It was easy, instant and anonymous. The money flowed in -- they got 76 cents per dollar of stolen merchandise, a huge takeaway considering that shoplifters traditionally net 10 percent or less of the retail value of the items. The group made more than $200,000 in 10 months.

Breaking up the store-credit-for-cash scheme involved a massive, year-long sting that took authorities across five Northeast states and required them to mine hundreds of computer files, conduct secret surveillance at stores and place an agent undercover to infiltrate the ring.

The Federal Trade Commission last year received a record number of complaints related to Internet fraud. Half of the cases involved online auctions.

A group of amateur motorcycle thieves from Austin filched nine bikes and sold them to a man who took them apart and auctioned off the spare parts online. A wife-and-husband team from Atlanta removed the bar codes from low-cost items and put them on expensive rugs that they purchased from Home Depot and Lowe's stores. They then returned the items, accepting gift cards for the real price of the merchandise, often hundreds of dollars more than they paid. They then would sell the gift cards on eBay.

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said that most auctions proceed without problems but that the company estimates a minuscule number -- 0.01 percent -- are fraudulent. But with 30 million auctions happening on any given day, even 0.01 percent means at least 3,000 could involve some sort of crime.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51741-2005Jan5.html

Radiology at Regional Medical Center

On Thursday Dec. 30, I had new x-rays taken at Regional Medical Center (the former Alexian Brothers Hospital). Since Regional is owned by the same company as now-closed San Jose Medical Center, I figured the experience there would be similar.

At San Jose, I could walk into Radiology with an order form, sign in, and wait only a short time before having the work done.

At Regional, I walked into the entrance nearest the parking lot. First mistake. Apparently this is not the front entrance at all. I asked for Radiology, and they directed me. I asked whether I needed to sign in. No. Well, OK. Here we go.

At Radiology, they told me I needed to sign in at Admitting first. Where is that? Back down another hallway. Apparently I'd come in the wrong front entrance. Admitting is not the one with the fountains and all in front. It is the other more nondescript entrance. Sigh.

At Admitting, I waited for my number to be called, not long. Then they had to double-check my insurance. Everything was in order, but the DOS (?!?) computer screen was so long it took quite a while for them to check it all.

(What is this deal with DOS in the medical, insurance, banking, and tax industries? DOS is so, well, 1981. No Macs? Well, I can understand that. But not even Windows 95? Doh! Let's get with the program here!)

Anyway, they finally sent me back to Radiology. It wasn't long before I was on the table. They made be change because there was a button on my boxer shorts. There had never been a problem with buttons at San Jose Medical Center. I had always gone there in sweats. I hadn't worn these hospital pants since Oct. 15, when I was discharged after surgery and came home.

After they take the x-rays they check everything before they let you off the table. That way, if they have to take more pictures you don't have to hop onto the table again. For about 20 minutes, I lay down under this huge x-ray machine. It didn't make me feel any safer to realize that the world had just experienced a magnitude 9.0 earthquake a few days before.

After I got dressed again, they asked me to wait while my x-rays were packaged up. My doctor wanted me to hand-carry them to him, so they gave me the originals. After waiting through almost two full episodes of "Roseanne", I was feeling queasy and asked where my x-rays were. (In my opinion, "Roseanne" is even more disgusting than "Married with Children.") Finally, after two hours altogether, I was on the road again. Two hours! Ridiculous.

This made me late for my physical therapy appointment. The physical therapist, having no other appointments that day, and having tired of waiting for me, closed up. To their credit, they had tried to reach me at home. If only the hospital had allowed me to use my cell phone.

(What is this deal with not being allowed to use cell phones in a doctor's office or hospital? Hello?! This is 2005. Let's get with the program. Aren't medical personnel supposed to be, well, intelligent people? So why can't they learn a little bit about technology? I think I now know more about medicine than they know about technology.)

I'll deliver the x-rays to the surgeon later this week. Hopefully all is in order and my PT program will continue until my gait is a little less penguin-like.

Iraqi Officials Cite Rise Of Interest in Elections

Washington Post

In Final Week, Many Act to Ensure Registration

By Karl Vick

BAGHDAD, Jan. 1 -- The number of Iraqis making sure they are properly registered to vote has surged dramatically, officials said Saturday, calling the rise evidence of enthusiasm for the Jan. 30 elections despite continuing security concerns that have blocked the process in two provinces.

After a slow start to the six-week registration process that began Nov. 1, the number of voters making corrections to official voter lists more than doubled in the final week, according to a final tally quoted by election officials Saturday.

Because Iraqis do not have to take any steps to register to vote -- food rationing accounts serve as voter rolls -- requests for corrections are essentially the only gauge of voter involvement in the registration process for the Jan. 30 election.

The nationwide tally of corrections leaves out two predominantly Sunni Muslim provinces where insurgents have prevented the interim government and U.S. military forces from establishing control. In Nineveh province, which includes Mosul, and Anbar province, where Fallujah and Ramadi are located, voters will be allowed to establish their credentials on election day, officials said.

Both provinces remain relative strongholds for insurgents, who mount daily attacks on U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

In such Sunni provinces where insurgents remain active, the level of voter preparation will remain unknown until officials break down the nationwide tally by province, which could take several more days. But in a poll for the International Republican Institute, more than 40 percent of residents surveyed in Sunni areas said they did not intend to vote.

Among Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority and ethnic Kurds, more than 90 percent strongly intended to vote, according to the survey. Most Kurds follow Islam's Sunni branch but identify themselves by their ethnicity.

Concerns persist that the new constitution will be framed by a parliament dominated by Shiites and Kurds, at the expense of Sunnis. The prospect of such an outcome brought a flurry of reports that U.S. policymakers might coax Iraqi officials to set aside additional seats in the new parliament for Sunni representatives. The idea, however, brought a torrent of criticism from Shiite leaders.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41044-2005Jan1.html

Finding a Home for Old Computers

Washington Post

By Mike Musgrove

If getting rid of clutter happens to be one of your New Year's resolutions, nothing will clear up a few cubic feet of space like getting an old computer, monitor or printer out the door.

In most cases, selling that antique hardware won't be an option -- computers lose their value faster than almost any other manufactured product in history. Just tossing them in the trash isn't a good idea either: Most computing gear contains such toxic components as lead, mercury and cadmium.

The simplest choice is one of the computer-recycling programs that many PC vendors run. Gateway ( www.gateway.tradeups.com ), Hewlett-Packard ( www.hp.com/recycle ) and Dell ( www.dell.com/recycle ) all accept defunct computers regardless of brand. Just pay a processing fee (usually $15 to $35) and pack up the old equipment. A shipper will show up at your door a few days later to whisk it away.

Equipment taken in through such recycling programs will be shipped to facilities built for breaking computers back down to their basic elements. Plastic, glass, steel, aluminum, copper, gold and silver can be recovered and reused; the toxic leftovers will be safely disposed of.

Yet another disposal option for obsolete or deceased hardware is the electronics-recycling events that many local jurisdictions stage once or twice a year. Consult your city or county's Web site for details on any such programs.

Two local computer-user groups, the Capital PC User Group and Washington Apple Pi, have run their own recycling operations for many years, sending aged equipment to needy schools, charities and students.

Some charities don't accept computer donations at all, since they have found that they've gotten stuck with the bill for disposing of computer equipment that can't be put to any use. The local Salvation Army ( www.salvationarmydcmetro.org ), however, will accept old equipment of any vintage, which it will either sell in its thrift stores or use in after-school computer labs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40339-2005Jan1.html

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Last updated Monday 3 August 2009