5 Things a Corporation Can't Do

5 Things a Corporation Can't Do That a Human Being Can:

• Produce a birth certificate
• Enter into a same-sex marriage
• Vote for elected officials
• Fight to keep a mortgage and a roof over its family's head
• Leave fingerprints or DNA at a crime scene

I'm referring, of course, to the Supreme Court's January 21st decision to allow companies the right to contribute to election campaigns, under the justification that doing otherwise would restrict their rights. In other words, conferring the rights of a human American individual upon a multi-million dollar corporation.

Points of Interest: Amsterdam, Belgium and Paris

During our recent trip to Europe, I collected a slew of business cards from different places (restaurants, cafes, galleries, shops) we dropped into. Faced with filing these things away somewhere where I'd likely never see them again, I thought I'd enter them all here for other folks benefit, who may travel to The Netherlands, Belgium or France, too. So, it's by no means comprehensive, but here are some places worth checking out in the following countries and cities:

Antwerp, Belgium

• Hotel Postiljon - small, clean, comfortable rooms - and bathrooms with no doors on them! But exceptionally close to the Cathedral of Our Lady (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) - right behind it, in fact

Brugge, Belgium

• Gran Kaffee de Passage, Dweersstraat 26-28 - excellent eating: tasty ribs and beer at this convivial restaurant in the ground floor of a hostel, believe it or not.
• Hotel Cavalier, Kuiperstraat 25 - better looking on the outside or in the quaint cafe, than inside one of the rooms. Ours had a bed, which slanted downward to the head. Nonetheless, terrifically handy to everything in old Brugge.

Paris, France

• La Flèche d'Or, 102 bis rue de Bagnolet - we had to walk a few blocks from the metro to find this music venue in a renovated train station, but we caught a good show with a faux-Irish punk Celtic band. Or something like that.
• La Frégate, 1, rue du Bac angle 35 quai Voltaire - a typical French bistro in a sense, but with a stunning view of the Seine and the Louvre. Also: it's on on the site of the home of Marshal D’Artagnan, who inspired Dumas to write The Three Musketeeers.
• Hotel Champ du Mars, 7 rue du Champ de Mars - tiny rooms, but it was well kept and close to the Eiffel Tower and other great walks
• Lili's Brownie, 35 Rue Du Dragon - American-style brownies in, um, Paris
• Mandalas, Artisanat du Tibet - across from our hotel on Champ du Mars, lovely jewelry from Tibet, about a block away from the Rue Cler market street

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

• De Aardige Pers, 2e Hugo de grootstraat 13 B - it's a bit of a haul to get to this Iranian restaurant, but really worth it
• Quinta - Nieuwe Leliestraat 4, across from Anne Frank House - tasteful wine and liquor shop where the proprietor provided an informative and impassioned homily on absinthe
• Reypenaer - nice, bright cheese shop with very helpful informative owners and employees
• Temploe Doeloe, Utrechtsestraat 75 - delicious Indonesian food

Survivors

I just got word that my roommate from my freshman year in college survived the earthquake in Haiti. A few details, which the school has apparently being circulating, really bring home the impact.

Maxime Pierre-Pierre (’92 grad, former employee, working in Petionville, southeast of Port-au-Prince, Haiti)

Thanks for your prayers. We thank God for keeping our whole family safe as well as our house. Telephone contact is difficult now. I was teaching at STEP seminary when the earthquake hit. The building was seriously affected, and several students were pulled out of the rubble. Our church building was not affected. We have been sleeping outside since Tuesday. We have little access to food, water or fuel and no electricity. Keep praying for us.

If you're reading this, Maxime, I was so relieved to hear you survived, and I'll be keeping you in my thoughts.

Top 5 Groups Pat Robertson Has It in For Next

Presenting, the top 5 groups Pat Robertson has it in for next:

1. Asexual ants - they dispensed with the male of species (Science News)
2. Alaskans - the least religious of Americans (Pew Research)
3. Teenagers - they bear all the signs of demon possession (New Scientist)
4. Pilots - if man were meant to fly ... (CNN)
5. Australians - topless sunbathers! (The Telegraph)

Order Out of Nothingness

My new article on Razorfish's Scatter/Gather blog, "Order Out of Nothingness: Tagging 101," discusses tagging mp3s in iTunes, as well as the principles for metadata we can derive from the sloppy tagging of them.

Marriage, The Constitution & Religion

Some folks argue that California's provision against gay marriage is a matter of state's rights. That California has a right to uphold its Constitution, as declared by its citizens. Those folks are wrong. When we have gay marriage in all 50 states - and we will - it'll be precisely because it is unConstitutional for states to “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That and the Declaration of Independence proclaimed each person's right to the "pursuit of happiness." Individual states have no say in what amounts to a human rights matter - nor should they. See slavery, segregation, suffrage, etc. The U.S. Constitution supercedes California's. That may not be recognized now, but I believe it will be in the future.

Further, contrary to what many folks say, allowing for gay marriage is not encroaching on religious territory; it is not trampling on line between church and state (which oddly some of the same folks aren't usually particularly concerned with). In fact, if you read about the origins of marriage, they were not religious. Marriage simply acquired religious accoutrements over the ages. Marriages began as a civil and legal affair, not as a religious affair and it essentially involved the the acquisition of women as property. Hardly admirable. Marriage has continued to evolve, however, into a more enlightened arrangement and the addition of gay marriage to the tradition is only another step in the right direction.

Read about the history of marriage in Wikipedia, where it's currently described as "a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship." No mention of religion in defining marriage there.

Or try Merriam Webster if you prefer: "the state of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law." Again, no mention of religion. Whatsoever.

See also, About.com on the history of marriage.

Hero for the Day

My hero for the day is the conservative Republican lawyer, Ted Olsen, who is taking his "Conservative Case for Gay Marriage" to the California Supreme Court in an effort to reverse that state's unConstitutional Proposition 8. From his opening statement this morning:

The Supreme Court of the United States has repeatedly described the right to marriage as “one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men;” a “basic civil right;” a component of the constitutional rights to liberty, privacy, association, and intimate choice; an expression of emotional support and public commitment; the exercise of spiritual unity; and a fulfillment of one’s self.

In short, in the words of the highest court in the land, marriage is “the most important relation in life,” and “of fundamental importance for all individuals.”

As the witnesses in this case will elaborate, marriage is central to life in America. It promotes mental, physical and emotional health and the economic strength and stability of those who enter into a marital union. It is the building block of family, neighborhood and community. The California Supreme Court has declared that the right to marry is of “central importance to an individual’s opportunity to live a happy, meaningful, and satisfying life as a full member of society.”

Proposition 8 ended the dream of marriage, the most important relation in life, for the plaintiffs and hundreds of thousands of Californians.

Favorite Albums of the 00s

A work in progress:

• Boards of Canada - Geogaddi
• Burial - Burial
• Burial - Untrue
• Eels - Blinking Lights & Other Revelations
• Nick Cave - Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus
• The Cinematic Orchestra - Ma Fleur
• Massive Attack - 100th Window
• The National - Alligator
• The National - Boxer
• Radiohead - Kid A
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Wilco - Yankee Wilco Foxtrot

Bands of the Decade

I could probably think of more, but here's a list of the bands I discovered over the past decade - the Oughts - which I came back to again and again. In simple, alphabetical order ...

• Burial
• Elbow
• LCD Soundsystem
• The National
• M.I.A.
• The Knife/Fever Ray

Song of the Decade
"Someone Great" - LCD Soundsystem or "Hey Yah" by Outlast (technically, André 3000). The latter must hands-down be the best pop song of the decade. An astonishing little atom bomb of a tune, that one.

What do you think? I'd love to hear about the bands - or the music, which left the greatest impression on you over the past decade.

My Favorite Flicks from 2009

Top 10
Gomorrah
Moon
Fantastic Mr. Fox
In the Loop
Inglourious Basterds
Hurt Locker
Disgrace
Goodbye Solo
Silent Light
Sin Nombre

In no particular order really, tho Gomorrah was probably my favorite - at 2008 release in Europe, I think. Also, The Road probably figures into my top 10, tho I don't know which I'd drop. Update: having seen Herzog's Bad Lieutenant and Police, Adjective now, I'd probably squeeze them into the top 10, too, if I were allowed.

Favorite Documentaries
Food, Inc
We Live in Public
Objectified
Art & Copy

- I didn't see Crude or The Cove yet, unfortunately

5 Which Would Probably Make the List If I'd Seen Them
A Serious Man
Up in The Air
Bad Lieutenant
My Son, My Son, What Have You Done
White Ribbon

Disappointing But Worth a Watch
District 9

As usual, I reserve the right to update or modify this list in any way, as the mood strikes or if I'm able to cram some more flicks in before the end of the year - or the few weeks that follow, for that matter.

Emoticons

The reason the emoticon became popular is that with the advent of the Web, people began writing far more than previously, but not better.

So the emoticon replaced any gift for nuance lacking in their writing, which was always missing, but did not get nearly as much exposure.

Everyone is a writer now. For better or worse.

Those of us who think of writing as an art and therefore disdain "smileys" should remind ourselves that more people are writing more often than ever in the history of our species. It's no surprise they adopted the emoticon pretty quickly to fill in the gaps in their skillset, where writing and the art of letters is concerned.

Also, for what it's worth, most of us write differently in different arenas. I wouldn't the same way in an email, on Twitter, on IM, in a short story, in a music review, in presentation for work.

- In response to "Death to Smiley" by Mary Elizabeth Williams

The News That's Fit to Tweet?

Three ways The Huffington Post flubbed their Fort Hood Twitter List implementation. My new article is live on Razorfish's Scatter/Gather.

Guidelines for Capitalizing Headings & Titles

Folks often have difficulty knowing what to capitalize when writing headings for articles or, more often in my field, slides for PowerPoint presentations, so I've put together a list of rules to help you learn how to do it. Now, if you don't know the parts of speech, admittedly, I can't help you. Here's my small contribution to reducing the agony of presentation production. Note that it applies only to the English language.

What to Capitalize in a Heading or Title When Using Initial Caps

1. ALL nouns
2. ALL pronouns
3. ALL verbs, no matter how short. That means "is" and "are" always get capitalized
4. ALL adverbs and adjectives
5. ONLY prepositions over 3 letters in length - e.g. NOT "at" or "in" but "With," "Before" and "Along"
6. ONLY articles over 3 letters in length - e.g. NOT "a," "an," "the" but "There," "This," and "That"
7. NO conjunctions under 4 letters in length - e.g. NOT "for," "and," "or," "nor," "yet", "so," or "but"
8. ALWAYS the first word, no matter what part of speech
9. ALWAYS the last word, no matter what part of speech

Confusing? Yep. English often is. But I didn't make this stuff up. I did teach it to college freshmen for a couple of years, however, so that helped drill it in. Don't take my word for it, though. Here are some further sources. I'd link to more authoritative ones like the AP or Chicago Manual of Style, but they all have their content behind pay walls.

• Government Printing Office - Style Manual
• Search Engine Journal - Title Capitalization in the English Language
• Your Dictionary - Rules for Capitalization in Titles

One final note: some sources vary as to whether prepositions should ever be capitalized. Since experts differ (this ain't uncommon in English either), I've chosen the over 4 letters route as it "just looks right" and it's what I learned and taught in college.

I'm sure this can use some refining, and I'll update it in the future accordingly. And I welcome your suggestions.

Subway Poem 10

There's a man a foot of the subway stairs,
Angular, thin, white with graying hair
All pale against the pool of blood about him
And splashed upon the wall
He has fallen

After the sirens
A woman descends the stairs slowly to help him
It seems she will never arrive

11/02/09

Subway Poem 9

Two older men on the train,
Reflecting each other across the aisle
Graying, grizzled with beards
Clothing distressed, huddling
Their belongings in bundles at their feet
Invisible to others, brothers to themselves
When one spoke, the other attended, responded
Used to being unlistened to himself

11/03/09