Dear Undergrads: No, Racism Is Not Dead, It's Just You Now

Via Austinist, conclusive proof that the sixties really did not "fix everything."

New Jersey rules on net anonymity

New Jersey ruled that the anonymity you create in creating web aliases/screennames/handles/usernames is protected by law.

Computer users in New Jersey can expect that personal information they give their Internet service providers will be treated as private, a state appellate court decided yesterday in the first such case considered in the state.

As a result, New Jersey and several other states will give greater privacy rights to computer users than do most federal courts, and law-enforcement officers in New Jersey will need to obtain valid subpoenas or search warrants to obtain the information.

The court ruled that a computer user whose screen name hid her identity had a "legitimate and substantial" interest in anonymity.

Of course, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation is deeply pleased. Defining these types of rights is important -- and to me seems at least somewhat intuitive, given the (relatively) protected nature of things like phone records.

The Low-Down on Jeremiah

Want to know all about the original Jeremiads? Slate's "Blogging the Bible" has reached Jeremiah. It's all fire and Brimstone at the halfway stage.

One more thing...

There's now a mathematical formula to describe/predict procrastination.

Cash rules everything around me

FYI re: the filthy-lucre goals of the undergrads. I thought they were all about sex, but boy, was I wrong!

My "nostalgic alarmist" bells and tin cans started clanging as soon as this article tripped my mental perimeter. This article makes explicit ref to the idea that today's kids are more materialistic than in previous years. But I wonder whether people aren't just more comfortable with defining themselves as materialistic. Or whether these pollsters were asking different people. Or different questions. Or whatever. I think those gold-rushers were as materialistic as any ipodder of today.

Roe V. Wade Anniversary

It's the 30th anniversary of Roe V. Wade.

I'm anticipating a lot of unpleasantness for the employees of Planned Parenthood and other organizations today. NPR has a series of stories related to abortion and reproductive rights, all available here.

List of demands

This is X-posted from my blog, but I thought some of y'all interested in race/class identity might be interested:

This is Saul Williams's video for "List of Demands (Reparations)," the single off his last album, which was produced by Trent Reznor. I think the song is pretty genius. What I don't think is genius is the video below, which is a flaccid, cutesy cover of the song as done by Jenny Wilson and Robyn.



The cover completely deflates the aggression of the original. And, while I'm normally all for covers, this one treads on some dangerous political territory. I'm sure Jenny Wilson and Robyn are genuinely in awe of the original piece -- imitation remaining the highest form of flattery. However, style in sometimes does dictate substance, and I think this is one such instance. Breathy indie pop in its current incarnations really can't say anything that significant about U.S. race relations.

Boo google

So while I appreciate the handiness of Google for searching the web, I do NOT appreciate being strongarmed into using gmail in order to use blogger.