David Shankbone

Boston Legal’s Justin Mentell, 27, killed in car accident

David Shankbone — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:24:53 +0000

Actor Justin Mentell, known for his role in US television drama Boston Legal, died February 1st in a road accident in rural Wisconsin. He was aged 27.

Iowa County Sheriff’s Department, who confirmed the death, stated that Mentell was driving without wearing a seatbelt when he crashed his 4 X 4 vehicle into two trees placed on an embankment. He was killed in the collision at 0300 local time.

One of the roles that Justin Mentell played was Garrett Wells in Boston Legal in 2005 and in 2006. William Shatner, who also appeared in the programme, paid tribute to the actor on his Twitter page on Wednesday. He wrote: “I’m deeply saddened to hear about Justin Mentell. There’s no telling how far up the ladder he may have climbed. My sympathies to his family.”

Source: Wikinews

Photo of Justin taken by me for the Creative Commons at the premiere of Palo Alto in April 2007.

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An open letter to my right boob

Shrinkinglawchick — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 03:45:01 +0000

Samantha is a guest contributor who writes an often hilarious featured blog at MyMedifast.com about losing thirty pounds and counting.

Dear Right Boob:

You remember last year or so when you started growing? I mean, growing even more than your sister over there? Yeah. We both know that you do. Well, I figured after I took you to see that breast surgeon, you’d feel sufficiently cared for (if not at least scared straight) that you could stop your shenanigans. I even had you squeezed over and over in that big plate glass machine. You were flat as a pancake! I can’t believe that didn’t reduce your size! And after all that torture for the both of us, the verdict was in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. Well, medically, anyway.

Anyhow, that surgeon said you were out of control because I got fat. God you are so sensitive. Can’t a girl inhale a bag of Doritos or two hundred without her right breast acting like it was in some radioactive scientific accident? So selfish. It’s all “me me me me” with you. So, I’ve done what’s necessary, and started to slim down. All for you. I’m 30 pounds down now, and I KNOW that you have gotten smaller. You know it too. But WHY oh WHY do you insist on losing slower than your former twin sister over there on the left? Are you mocking me? Poor Leftie is beginning to get a complex, too. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

You do realize I can’t buy a single bra that fits both you and Leftie over there at the same time, right? And that your stubbornness is a source of great discomfort and consternation for me? Not to mention a source of deep embarrassment for your sister.

Could you at least point in the same direction as Leftie? Is that so much to ask? You look like some googley eyed freak, with Leftie pointing front and center in the cold weather, and you all misdirected and pointing down and to the left.

Down and to the left. Down and to the left. Enough of this! Maybe you have Attention Deficit Disorder, hmm?

I’ve been eating well. I’m getting thin. For god’s sakes, I just made chocolate bread out of peach oatmeal! For you! All for you. Shrink dammit.

I beg of you. And do it faster than Leftie, would ya? So help me god you will not see the inside of a bathing suit this summer if you don’t get your stuff together here, girl. You are headed for a major time out.

Sincerely,

Samantha
Shrinkinglawchick

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2010 the Year of Anger Management?

David Shankbone — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:10:39 +0000

In their “World in 2010″ annual almanac of predictions, the Economist looks at whether this will be a year of social unrest, and included is the map below as a helpful guide to countries at the greatest risk:

I highly recommend you purchase this almanac for a good overview of where the world is more-or-less heading. In the accompanying article on this particular topic, Laza Kekic of the Economist Intelligence Unit writes the following:

[A] congruence of calamities could prove politically tempestuous: a sharp rise in unemployment, increased poverty and inequality, weakened middle classes and high food prices in many countries. Austerity is also on the agenda in 2010 following the extreme fiscal relaxation of 2009.

Historically, political reactions to economic distress have tended to come with a lag. The same is true of labour-market developments: even once the recession ends, unemployment continues to rise. According to Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) estimates, in 2010 there will be 60m more unemployed worldwide than in 2008. The International Labour Organisation reckons some 200m workers are at risk of joining the ranks of people living on less than $2 a day.

Declines in incomes are not always followed by political instability. Vulnerability to unrest depends on a host of factors. These include the degree of income inequality, the state of governance, levels of social provision, ethnic tensions, public trust in institutions, the history of unrest and the type of political system (“intermediate” regimes that are neither consolidated democracies nor autocracies seem the most vulnerable).

Something to watch.

Brazil’s position in the low combustibility category mirrors the magazine’s recent profile of the continuing boom of the country:

Latin America’s largest economy is enjoying its best moment for a long time. One of the last countries to enter the global downturn started by the financial sector in 2007, Brazil was also one of the first to come out of it. For the first time in its history it has found a combination of economic growth, low inflation and full democracy—and the good fortune looks set to continue.

The story reminded me of a 2007 article I read in the New York Times about Brazilian immigrants to the U.S. who were emigrating back to Brazil:

That decision — to give up on life in the United States — is being made by more and more Brazilians across the country, according to consular officials, travel agencies swamped by one-way ticket bookings, and community leaders in the neighborhoods that Brazilian immigrants have transformed, from Boston to Pompano Beach, Fla.

No one can say how many are leaving. But in the last half year, the reverse migration has become unmistakable among Brazilians in the United States, a population estimated at 1.1 million by Brazil’s government — four to five times the official census figures.

To explain an often wrenching decision to pull up stakes, homeward-bound Brazilians point to a rising fear of deportation and a slumping American economy. Many cite the expiration of driver’s licenses that can no longer be renewed under tougher rules, coupled with the steep drop in the value of the dollar against the currency of Brazil, where the economy has improved.

Brazil’s ascendency is nothing but good news for the Western Hemisphere.

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David H. Koch Theater photo on Wikipedia

David Shankbone — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:35:36 +0000

I took this early in my photography, on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2007, two months before I bought my Olympus. It’s the stage that is shared by both the New York City Ballet and the New York City Opera. I had a cheap Panasonic, but a guy who I had fallen in love with once offered to show me around because he had access to what was then the New York State Theater. I didn’t want to waste the opportunity, so I used what I had, but it still came out decent enough. I believe this is my one and only panoramic shot.

Man, I had to go to the ballet a lot when we dated, because he had been a ballet dancer and I thought I should give it a try but after two I was burned out. Nobody can tell me I don’t have a right not to like Balanchine, as it was his anniversary season so every show was Balanchine. I’m sure he’s great, but I learned ballet is not my thing. Particularly as I associated it with this guy.

Two years before on Valentine’s Day, 2005, was one of the most miserable moments of my life, and he had a good bit to do with it; that and MacroCat prematurely dying on that day as law school exams loomed.

I hadn’t spoken to him for over a year after he left to work in Europe, and in that time I had finally forgiven him for the lies and betrayals, forgiven him enough that I pined for that in-love feeling I had felt. We tried to make a go of it again for about a month, but whatever we had was lost. Worse, discovering new indiscretions and trying to remember what I had even seen in him cheapened what had been a proud bittersweet memory.

The photo I took that day of a ballerina working with her coach in the empty theater is used on 143 pages on 31 Wikimedia projects around the world.

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Sarah Palin and Retarded

David Shankbone — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:20:59 +0000

Sarah Palin June 2009:

She opens the introduction praising Reagan’s son, a talk radio guy, for his willingness “to screw the political correctness that some would expect him to try to adhere to.”

She blasts “self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington, and the liberal media.”

Sarah Palin February 2010:

Sarah Palin took out after White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel today for referring to a group of liberal activists as “retarded.”

“Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the ‘N-word’ or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities — and the people who love them — is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking,” Palin wrote on her Facebook page.

I find this kind of shameless, in the way values-crusaders like David Vitter and Mark Sanford are shameless.

It’s very difficult to converse in a country when there is no consistency in the arguments that our leaders make. Which is it: are we going to be politically correct, or not? If you decide to take a stand against political correctness as Palin did–to Republican cheers–then to back-track for cheap political points is…shameless.

It’s also confusing to those of us who care to try to figure out what our leaders believe and how they think.

Regardless, the N-word has a long history of use for oppression of blacks; whereas the word “Retarded” has simply fallen into disfavor and is akin to calling someone “Insane” instead of “Pathological”.

Additionally, there are many uses of the word “Retarded” that could apply to, in the words of Rahm Emmanuel, “fucking retarded” liberal activists:

retard – cause to move more slowly or operate at a slower rate; “This drug will retard your heart rate”
retard – be delayed
retard – check: slow the growth or development of; “The brain damage will retard the child’s language development”
retard – decelerate: lose velocity; move more slowly; “The car decelerated”
retard – idiot: a person of subnormal intelligence

Source: Princeton Wordnet

Of course, he probably meant the last, but I’m just sayin’. Don’t forget all the hot water people have found themselves in over the word “niggardly“.

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Huffington Post the future of journalism? Not when they are so easily scammed by “Stefan de Rothschild”

David Shankbone — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:46:41 +0000

A guy that the Huffington Post claims is part of the famed Rothschild family is actually an impostor.

Apparently, all it takes to blog there is to claim a pedigree and build a bunch of fake websites with Moonfruit: check out HuffPo’s “Stefan de Rothschild“.

All of the websites used to bolster his credibility were created by the same guy, and all are hosted by the do-it-yourself Moonfruit:

rothschildarts.org=146.101.249.107
rothschild-estates.com=146.101.249.107
rothschildglobalfoundation.org=146.101.249.107
www.moonfruit.com=146.101.249.107

None of those organizations actually exist (try Googling them with quotes).

Who is the guy who created them? He used to go by Stefan Roberts, who has a website at stefanroberts.com. If you look at the photo and layout, it’s the same as stefanderothschild.com

The Huffington Post was contacted by members of the Wikipedia Review, who caught on when Wikipedia was continually deleting the fake biographies of both Stefan Roberts and Stefan de Rothschild, and also Stefan’s fake father “Andrew de Rothschild” (here’s that discussion – worth a read). However, HuffPo still has him up.

So much for the future of journalism – HuffPo is helping this scam artist, who appears to be soliciting donations through them:

Here is their (still live as of publication) biography of “Baron Stefan de Rothschild”:

Pretty comical; even by his own admission Stefan was born in 1992, which makes the claim he is a “leading voice” about anything pretty ridiculous. Anyone who has only read a magazine article about the Rothschilds knows 1) they wouldn’t put a teenager in charge of so many businesses; and 2) they are far more private than this kid, who practically begs people to e-mail him. Here’s the other HuffPo profile of Stefan Roberts, who has written a non-existent book:

I can’t wait to read his book on how to be liberal on some issues, and conservative on others. Even though that describes the majority of voters, we’d all like to learn how to do it properly.

Pretty much everything about this guy is fake – but hey, now you have Huffington Post helping it (even Wikipedia didn’t fall for this).

Check out Stefan Roberts fake biography when he wanted to be known as His Excellency Lord Stefan Roberts of Jersey.

If you go to StefandeRothschild.com, you come across this opening shot:

Now here’s Stefan Roberts, same outfit, just slightly different pose:

It’s my understanding that the Rothschilds (the real ones) have been alerted.

So to those victims in Haiti that “Rothschild Estates” claims it is giving $2.5M and that the Washington Post reported about? Don’t expect to see it. Here’s Stefan lecturing Huffington Post readers from his column “Since When Was There a Minimum Donation Amount?” (with 130 comments):

The Huffington Post’s coverage of the corporate world’s reaction to the terrible earthquake in Haiti last week has prompted a ludicrous and frankly reprehensible reaction from HuffPost readers – many of whom seem to think that businesses should have some kind of minimum donation amount.

I am on the board of a company which donated $2.5 million to the relief effort, and I am very pleased that we have made such a commitment. We donate over $50 million to charitable causes around the world every year. But these are planned and executed after months of extensive research and assessment to ensure that the money will get into the right hands.

Arianna is not going to like this one bit (now will somebody please tell her).

Update 2/1-A: The editors of Wikipedia contacted the Rothschild Foundation, which responded:

The Rothschild Foundation replied “Thanks for your message – it has been passed it [sic] on to the relevant authorities.” It will be interesting now to see if Stefan’s fake sites suddenly disappear. JohnCD (talk) 10:58, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

But he’s still up at Huffington Post!

Update 2/1-B: Baron de Scamchild is being revealed, and everyone wonders how HuffPo *still* has his blogs up:

Felix Salmon @Reuters
Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish
Gawker/Valleywag: How a Layabout Used the Huffington Post to Become a Rothschild

Update 2/1-C: Around 5:30 pm EST Huffington Post *finally* removes the “Stefan de Rothschild” and Stefan Roberts blogs; it only took all the blogging above to get them to do it. Let’s face it: their brand is hurt. Here’s the message on the now deleted blogs:

Editor’s Note: On February 1st, it came to our attention that this blogger had misrepresented himself and was blogging under a false identity, part of an elaborate online hoax. As a result, his work will no longer be published on HuffPost, and his previous pieces have been removed.

Update 2/1-D: Stefan took down his fake websites sometime around 7:30 p.m EST, but since he has been doing this since 2005 and his StefanRoberts.com website is still up, I imagine this ethically-challenged young man will scam again. Seek help, Stefan. Maybe it runs in the family: apparently dad Andrew Roberts (“Andrew de Rotshchild”) had a fake investment group called Roberts Investments Group (see that whole mess here).

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The new global era is here, it ain’t pretty, and cable news hurts us all

David Shankbone — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:46:51 +0000

I’m an avid reader of The Economist, and in this week’s edition the article that jumped out at me was “A needier era“, which details how some–including me–think the new global economic realities are going to re-shape our politics:

THE 1990s was “the age of abundance”, argued Brink Lindsey in a book of that title. Round the world, incomes were rising; capital markets were processing endless flows of money and investment; technological gains meant that ever more information was available ever more cheaply. And politics in the age of abundance, Mr Lindsey claimed, was all about values. In America this was the period of the “culture wars” over abortion and gun ownership; internationally, there was a huge expansion in concern over human rights.

One of the biggest problems America faces is that many of its citizens, both liberal and conservative, are stuck on culture wars that feed their anger, instead of focusing on the reality that our current economic system is unsustainable. Our focus on voting for people for their views about abortion, gun rights and gay marriage has given us a crop of leaders who are ill-prepared to take on the real challenges that we face.

The 2010s, it is sometimes said, will be an age of scarcity. The warning signs of change are said to be the food-price spike of 2007-08, the bid by China and others to grab access to oil, iron ore and farmland and the global recession. The main problems of scarcity are water and food shortages, demographic change and state failure.

One of the challenges America faces as a country is how we choose to inform ourselves, which is mostly by the cable news channels. Fox News and MSNBC (as well as the rest of them) are corrosive influences on all of us. For those like myself, who don’t watch them, we still have to deal with the foolish liberals and conservatives who do and form their opinions based upon cable news demagoguery.

[Authors of a report at the Center on International Cooperation] claim that the current global system is ill-designed for such a world. It is not just that the foreign policies of big countries are in flux. Rather, the way states deal with new threats is, in the jargon, “stove-piped”. As a UN panel said in 2004, “finance ministers tend to work only with the international financial institutions, development ministers only with development programmes.”

The authors say that what is needed is not merely institutional tinkering but a different frame of mind. Governments, they say, should think more in terms of reducing risk and increasing resilience to shocks than about boosting sovereign power. This is because they think power may not be the best way for states to defend themselves against a new kind of threat: the sort that comes not from other states but networks of states and non-state actors, or from the unintended consequences of global flows of finance, technology and so on.

What’s the first thing that you, as an individual, can do to start preparing for this new world? Stop watching the cable news channels. Stop listening to the Olbermanns and Hannitys, who do little else but incite your rage (and I have it too, but it has to be tempered). Right now, we don’t need an angry populace. We need a calm citizenry that takes time to learn about the economic issues that we face, rolls up its sleeves and gets to work fixing them. You might not like abortion, and you may think gay marriage is all about equal rights, but if there is widespread economic collapse, these issues are going to be irrelevant to the world we face.

Do yourself and the rest of us a favor: Stop watching cable news.

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Kids who kill – are children murdering more?

David Shankbone — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 15:45:56 +0000

Are children murdering more these days? I don’t know, but yesterday when I was wandering around Google News I happened across several headlines that jumped out at me:

11-year old Set Mom on Fire in Dispute Over Cigarettes, Police say – Samantha Watts and her 15-year-old boyfriend allegedly set her mother on fire after an argument over whether Samantha stole her mom’s cigarettes (ugh).

14-year old Admits Killing Parents in Dispute Over Chores – John Caudle, 14, didn’t want to do his chores, so he took his parent’s .22 caliber pistol, shot his mother, hid in the laundry room, and then shot his stepdad. Then he spent the night playing video games.

Police: Son Asked Friend to Kill Parents – According to police, Timothy Chester had gotten into an argument with his parents. He left the home, but later returned with his friend, Victor Veliz, and they allegedly shot and stabbed them. According to police, Timothy Chester said the plan was to not only kill his parents, but his sister and brother-in-law as well as Veliz’s family.

Teen who killed adopted mom with hammer sentenced to 16 years – “People always ask me why I did it,” said Heather D’Aoust, who at 14 hit her mother in the head almost 15 times with a claw hammer, “Honestly, I don’t even know myself.”

Edlington child torturers: we attacked because we were bored – Two young brothers, ages 10 and 11, inflicted numerous injuries on two children during a sadistic 90-minute orgy of violence, torture and sexual abuse that began because they were bored and there was “nothing to do”, a court heard today.

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Miami Herald violates copyright

David Shankbone — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:54:51 +0000

Above you see my photograph of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya that is found on Wikimedia Commons used by the Miami Herald in a December 22, 2009 story by Lori Kozlowski that was recycled from the Los Angeles Times. Nowhere on the article is the work attributed to me.

Now, I’ve written before about my own views regarding attribution and there are really only three categories where it does not bother me if someone does not give me the credit for my own hard work:

I am asked;
An artist is using the work, and attribution would interfere with their creative vision; and
For a non-commercial entity’s use.

All others should give credit where credit is due, and particularly a member of the mainstream media that has advertisements plastered all around it.

For those of us who work in the Creative Commons–I retired from it in 2009–one of the few benefits is credit for our hard work. The Herald robbed me of that small satisfaction in this case, and I imagine I’m not the only one.

Boo, hiss, Miami Herald, for taking the hard work of others without giving them the credit. It violates the copyright terms that are clearly spelled out where you found the image.

If you would like to see my other photos of Petrushevskaya, one of Russia’s foremost literary authors, click here.

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Satan writes Pat Robertson re Haiti

David Shankbone — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 13:11:21 +0000

In his perennial effort to trash God’s reputation on Earth, Pat Robertson blamed him for the heartrending devastation in Haiti by saying the Caribbean country was suffering from the pact they made with Ol’ Scratch.

Turns out, the Devil wasn’t so pleased himself with this (ostensibly, God will sort out Robertson at a later date). Thank you Lily Coyle of Minneapolis for your pitch-perfect piece in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher.

The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.

Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll.

You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan