Cool — it appears that my bitching about the disappearance of All-Star Newspaper became the representative link that Suck chose when discussing the death of the Web. It’s funny, but I never think that people read this site, and then someone links here, and I’m amazed.
Since the Pulitzers were announced last week, I’ve tried to spend some time finding and reading articles written by the winners. So far, my hands-down favorite is the writing of Dorothy Rabinowitz, opinion columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Her article on the false prosecution of Patrick Griffin is stunning; likewise, her recount of Brandeis’ “internal judicial proceedings” against a male student accused of rape is a rare glimpse into how today’s colleges try to hush sexual accusations (and brutalize basic civil liberties in the process).
Interestingly, my alma mater has been at the forefront of the move to eliminate due process from sexual assault accusations. A year ago, Columbia adopted a new sexual misconduct policy that eliminates the ability to cross-examine the accuser, prohibits the accused from having an attorney present during the hearing (or the appeal), and even explicitly states that the accused doesn’t have the right to be present to hear all witnesses. (Seriously, you have to read the policy to believe it.) The Columbia Daily Spectator has published quite a few good articles and opinion pieces on the new policy; likewise, the national press has picked up the story, and there’s even a national petition against the horrific policy.
Kozmo decided to put its website back up yesterday, but with a disturbing note: if you were holding onto a rental, unsure of what to do with it once they closed their doors last week, you had until the end of the day to return it or you’d pay for it. Janelle Brown thinks that maybe, instead of an inconvenient necessity for the failed company, this stunt was a way to try to get more money to pay off creditors.
In one of the more disturbing things I’ve read in a while, a West Virginia man defended himself against the accusation of raping his 13 year-old daughter by saying that he was only trying to teach her about sex and birth control. (The judge didn’t buy it; he was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.)
Today, I received a junk fax from some travel agency, and decided that they deserved to be punished for breaking the Federal law against unsolicited faxes. Along the way, I discovered the FCC’s online consumer complaint form — it provides the ability to complain specifically about unsolicited faxes, and (ostensibly) starts an investigation by the Commission. We’ll see what happens.
The upcoming week of April 23 through 29 is TV Turnoff Week — one week to discover that there is life beyond the boob tube. I can’t tell you how many kids I see in clinic who have the TV as a babysitter; many of them have learned far more from their TV than they have from their entire family. So, if you have a child that spends a little too much time in front of your television, consider planning some alternative activities next week.
From Phil comes a link to Cisco’s security advisory for the bug that I mentioned yesterday (the one which crashes Catalyst 5000 switches when you plug Windows XP machines into them). Update thy flash ROMs, people…
Tonight, I was putzing around with Quicken, finally getting around to setting up all my investment accounts and whatnot. After entering everything, I got back to the global summary page, noticed the various entries (Roth IRA, SEP IRA, 401(k), mutual fund investments, blah blah blah), and it hit me square in the face — I’ve become an adult. When the hell did that happen? Why didn’t someone warn me about it? Damn you all.
