some recent links

August 12th, 2008 · No Comments

I haven’t followed through on my plan to begin or end each day with a collection of links that caught my interest, but here are a few from the past couple of days:

A new book details the long-hidden secret of Franz Kafka’s hard-core porn collection. Note that, in this story, the biography’s author refers to lesbian sex as “dark” and “unpleasant” and lumps it in with images of “animals committing fellatio.”
Some white supremacist groups see a silver-lining in a possible Obama presidency: it will awaken the racists and swell the ranks of the Klan and other groups.
Cokie Roberts has been repeatedly challenged in recent days about her characterization of Hawaii as a “foreign” and “exotic” place for Obama to take a vacation, and how she feels that’s an unwise move at this point in the campaign. Another example of media makers producing the images and controversies they claim to be reporting. As I’ve said before, a part of the appeal of an Obama presidency is that it would reify Hawaii as a state, not just a territory/vacation spot.
Walmart says you can’t scan your old family photos if they might have been taken at a professional studio. Some employees have apparently been (mis)trained to claim that “ copyright lasts forever. It’s the law.“
Part of Governor Patterson’s plan to cut 1 billion dollars from the New York State budget in the next fiscal year is to cut 51 million dollars from the already beleagured CUNY system, a roughly 7 percent cut.