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Sunday, Jan 20, 2002

manga manga

"After a decade or two as an underground phenomenon in the United States � where legions of obsessive fans exchange fuzzy videotapes or, more commonly now, trade bootlegged movie files over the Internet � anime is slowly emerging into the light of day. Hayao Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke" was released by Miramax in 1999 in a dubbed version, featuring the voices of Claire Danes, Gillian Anderson and Minnie Driver; Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 "Akira" opened theatrically last year in a digitally restored edition (and is now available on DVD); last summer Columbia Pictures released "The Spirits Within," an elaborate computer- animated episode of the long-running "Final Fantasy" series; and opening on Friday is "Metropolis," a fascinating blend of computer and traditional hand-drawn animation directed by Rintaro and based on a 1949 comic book written by Osamu Tezuka."

Saturday, Jan 19, 2002

hoarse and buggy

"The story behind the immobile Boeing jet offers a tantalizing glimpse of modern spycraft. A Chinese source, with close ties to China's military intelligence services, said members of the Third Department of the General Staff Department of the People's Liberation Army discovered the devices. The Third Department deals in signals intelligence."

survey says...

"Rove's remarks are the first time an administration official has said the GOP will use the war as a partisan issue. Until now, Bush has stressed that the fight against terrorism is a bipartisan and unifying issue for the country."

courage of your convictions

"The word "rollback" tested badly in focus groups and polls, she said, with 64 percent in one recent national survey she conducted opposing a "rollback" of tax cuts. In the same poll, however, 74 percent approved of "temporarily postponing" tax cuts, while the words "pause," "postpone" and "take another look at" also polled well."

everybodys doing it

"The Washington wisdom that Enron has no legs � that it's not a political scandal, merely a financial one � is based on the premise that the Bush administration didn't ride to Ken Lay's rescue once disaster struck. But what about the favors performed for Enron before the meltdown? That's as political as you can get, particularly since, unlike Whitewater, this scandal implicates both parties and the corrupt campaign finance system that makes them look like interchangeable vending machines for their often overlapping patrons."

Friday, Jan 18, 2002

enron kitsch

how many dissertations will be written about the ebay effect? if its in the news look for someone to be cashing on the farside. who at enron would have thought that hocking their ethics guidebook would end up as their ad hoc pension plan?

groundswell

"In his strongest comments about the game returning to Washington after a 30-year absence, Selig would not speculate on which team would move here. He ruled out a team arriving this season but would not comment about 2003."

babylon and on

"This self-effacing approach, his advisers say, reflects Mr. Bloomberg�s natural reluctance to dominate the stage in the manner of predecessors like Rudolph Giuliani and Ed Koch, as well as the simple calculation that this style will earn him favorable comparisons to Mr. Giuliani, who ran City Hall as if it were an Egyptian temple, with himself in the role of King Tut."

now and then

tonight is the premiere of 'now'. its bill moyers new weekly broadcast of news and opinion on pbs.

unbearable fruits

"The idea that certain fixed laws should apply even amid the violence and anarchy of war isn't new. The saying may have it that all's fair in war, but restrictions on battlefield conduct have always been recognized. The Hebrew Bible forbade soldiers from, among other things, destroying fruit-bearing trees in hostile lands, and chivalric codes existed in the Middle Ages. It was the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), however, who came to be seen as the Solon of today's laws of war. His influential 1625 work On the Laws of War and Peace argued that there exist natural laws, independent of any individual state's legal system, that are apparent to human reason and should prevail even during hostilities."

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