Jason Shepard, speaking on UW-Madison graduate Greta Van Susteren’s program mentioned that a “crisis of confidence exists in Dane County and Madison Leadership”. Jason discussed the growing controversy over murder victim Brittanny Zimmerman’s botched 911 call.
Fox News link (will disappear at some point)
40MB MPEG4 download for ipod/iphone/playstion and others. CTRL Click here.
Albuquerque’s Sunport has long offered free WiFi for the masses. Passing through recently I noticed that they have greatly expanded the quantity of power outlets available. It is a kind of sport to watch folks vie for any (often rare) open outlets in most air terminals.
Cultural Amnesia by Clive James. A large, interesting book. Slate posted a selection of the book’s essays here.
The Bin Ladens by Steve Coll. In many ways, this book repeats the mantra that “those who fail to understand history are condemned to repeat it”. Quite a work and a nice complement to his Ghost Wars.
Comrade J by Pete Earley (fascinating read):
In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, the Cold War officially ended, and a new world order began. We thought everything had changed. But one thing never did: the spies. From 1995 until 2000, a man known as “Comrade J” directed all Russian spy action in New York and oversaw all covert operations against the U.S. and its allies. He recruited spies, planted Russian agents, penetrated U.N. and U.S. security, and manipulated events that influenced American policy, under the direct leadership of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. He was a legend, the man who guarded Russia’s secrets – secrets that he never revealed…..until now. Based on exclusive interviews with Russian spymaster and double agent, Sergei Tretyakov, Comrade J exposes how the “new” Russia continues to spy and undermine the U.S.
Grad student and former NYC teacher Jason Shepard has set the standard for investigative reporting over the past few years. His Isthmus expose of the 911 problems in Zimmerman’s recent murder is just the latest in a string of substantive works on the local scene.
Shepard has done an exemplary job diving deep into a number of subjects, particularly our $367,806,712 school district.
A link to many of Jason’s articles.
CAMBODIANS and other Theravada Buddhists celebrate their New Year in mid-April. They were not always able to do so. Under Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese rule, those ancient traditions were forbidden, impossible. But now Cambodia is free again and the festivities are in the open. As I wander the country of my youth, I see people spending the long holiday praying at temples and visiting relatives.
And I remember. My family used to hold a reunion on April 13 to mark both the New Year and my mother’s birthday. In 1975, we had no idea that it would be our last. We were all apprehensive about the future, and my mother was distraught because I had missed the American evacuation.
The day before, an officer of the United States Agency for International Development had told me that I had to be at the embassy within an hour if I wanted to be airlifted out of Cambodia. (I was a manager for the American relief agency CARE and had been selected for the evacuation.) Instead, I went to a meeting to find a way to help 3,000 families stranded in an isolated province.
A few powerful spring storms passed through Madison today. I caught this photo later in the afternoon.
Two tulip photos taken after Madison’s early morning thunderstorm.
The Roman Catholic priest who took flight by tying himself to a chair with hundreds of helium balloons has gone missing off the coast of Brazil.
He was trying to to break a 19-hour balloon flying record to raise money for a spiritual rest stop for truckers in Paranagua according to a news report.
Can a typeface truly represent a presidential candidate? It depends on the typeface and the candidate. John McCain’s printed material relies on Optima, a modernistic sans serif designed by the German type designer Hermann Zapf in 1958 that was popular among book and magazine designers during the 1970s.
While it is not the most robust sans serif ever designed, it is not entirely neutral either. It embodies and signifies a certain spirit and attitude. And if a typeface is not just an empty vessel for meaning, but a signifier that underscores personality, then it is useful in understanding what the candidates’ respective typefaces are saying about them and their campaigns.
So, I asked various designers, design curators and critics, who get rather heated when it comes to analyzing type design, to weigh in on two questions regarding Senator McCain’s campaign logo set in a bold version of Optima: What does Optima say about John McCain? And should this, or any, candidate be judged by a typeface?