Page 6 of 6

Curiosity Killed the Inbox

Have you noticed a creeping rise in Image Spam flooding your Inbox?
Image Spam is the newest wave of Spam where the Spammers send you a text image selling sex pills and penis extenders and such that looks like text but the Spam is really an image file pretending to be typed text. Sometimes some innocuous real text is included with the image to trick Spam filters that may be looking for small image-only emails. 

Continue reading → Curiosity Killed the Inbox

One Year Under God

Over the past year, I’ve written about the ridiculous effort to “save” Terri Schiavo‘s body from her dead brain, the ruse of Intelligent Design, and the tragedy of Homeschooling and then recently in The New York Times genius Frank Rich nails every 2005 coffin closed on the open and un-brawly intents of the religious right and other pretenders in two paragraph gems from a jewel of an essay:

An ersatz war on Christmas fits all too snugly into a year that began with the religious right’s (unsuccessful) efforts to destroy the box office and Oscar prospects of Clint Eastwood’s “Million Dollar Baby” and “save” Terri Schiavo and that ended with a federal judge banishing intelligent design from high school biology classes.

In his sweeping 139-page opinion, that judge, John Jones III, put his finger on the hypocrisy of many of those most ostentatiously defending faith from its alleged assailants in America. Referring to the fundamentalists on the Dover, Pa., school board, he wrote that it was “ironic” that those who “so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the intelligent design policy.” That passage fits much of the dishonesty and cynicism perpetrated in the name of religion in America over the past 12 months.

Continue reading → One Year Under God

Killings by County

With less than three months before the end of the year, here is an update on killings in Hudson County in New Jersey compared with numbers from Essex County in New Jersey and New York County in New York. All homicide rates are per 100,000: 

Continue reading → Killings by County

This Blog is Back, Baby!

David W. Boles’ Urban Semiotic is back!
I changed DNS and servers for this blog a mere six hours ago and I am now back live saying, “Hi!”

I will have a full report for you soon on the server move and the reasons for it and to celebrate the kind help I received in transit!
Oh, and comments are turned back on so have a heyday with me!

David W. Boles' Urban Semiotic blog logo

Where Babies Go to Die

The bottom of an air shaft in a West New York, New Jersey apartment building became a 31-foot deep tomb for one baby and nearly a death sentence for a second. Last week the sounds of a newborn crying echoed throughout the West New York apartment building until residents called 911 to get help in discovering the source of the muffled cries.

Continue reading → Where Babies Go to Die

What a Hillbilly Drinks

I was called a Hillbilly yesterday when I asked for something to drink. No, I wasn’t ordering moonshine. I was ordering something to drink from a New York City street vendor to slake my thirst. The offending word I used was “pop.”

Continue reading → What a Hillbilly Drinks

Mr. Grumpy Goes Blogging Again

In my post Mr. Grumpy Goes Blogging I set out a few suggestions to help people build better blogs.  Today, Mr. Grumpy Returns to share some additional suggestions. A few of these ideas come from readers of the original article who wanted to add their own nuggets of advice for creating great blogs by avoiding common pitfalls. 

Continue reading → Mr. Grumpy Goes Blogging Again

Does Porn Rule or Ruin?

In the August 1, 2005 issue of Newsweek, the rise of Porn Podcasting is investigated:

Aug. 1 issue – Podcasting, that baby medium, is suddenly home to a lot of adult content. Introduced to a mainstream audience just last month, the technology — radiolike programming for your iPod — that was once the chaste province of “Geek News Central” and “Knitcast” is now reddening faces that sport those trademark white earbuds. “No matter what the technology is,” says Andrew Leyden, founder of podcastdirectory.com, “sex finds a way to get involved.”

Continue reading → Does Porn Rule or Ruin?

Wire Coat Hanger Generation

In February, my graduate students in Public Health at a major research university and teaching medical school on the East Coast were discussing a new political cartoon by Pulitzer Prize winner Ann Telnaes I brought to class showing President Bush, as a tailor, holding an empty Supreme Court Justice robe in one hand and an “unraveled” wire coat hanger in the other.

The point of that Public Health class was to research crises in Public Health that are embedded in mainstream culture via history, art, literature and mass media entertainment portals. Telnaes has a similar cartoon this morning where President Bush is handing a judge’s robe to his Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts, and Bush is handing over an “unraveled” wire coat hanger to a woman on the street.

Bush says to her, “Here — hold this.” My students, who were all female, incredibly bright and intelligent, and fell into an age range between 20 and 23, did not understand that February cartoon. “I see the robe. I don’t understand the wire coat hanger,” one student said.

Continue reading → Wire Coat Hanger Generation

Diagnosing Down Syndrome

In the March 2005 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics the results of a survey were revealed that concerned the counseling of women pregnant with Down Syndrome babies. Too often, the report reveals, women are presented with only the negative side of Down Syndrome:

Mothers who have children with Down syndrome, diagnosed prenatally, reported that doctors did not tell them about the positive potential of people with Down syndrome nor did they feel like they received enough up-to-date information or contact information for parent support groups. Further yet, the mothers report that all of these shortcomings are happening at an emotional time when women have to decide whether or not to continue their pregnancies.

Continue reading → Diagnosing Down Syndrome