interesting things
Scores of of songs in the Bhojpuri language, commonly used in north India, celebrate the mobile phone both as a fashion statement and a handy tool for romance.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/20/colloquial-music-spawns-a-culture-of-romance/
William C. Rhoden looks at the high number of no-hitters and near no-hitters this season and believes the reason rests more in the batter’s box than on the pitcher’s mound.
via NYT > Most Recent Headlines http://bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/more-to-rash-of-no-hitters-than-pitching/
Charlie Kaufman isn’t exactly an impersonal writer. His attempts to adapt The Orchid Thief turned into Adaptation., a movie about a painfully self-aware screenwriter named “Charlie Kaufman†falling apart while attempting to adapt The Orchid Thief. It’s a struggle to imagine Kaufman, either fictionalized or IRL, thriving in the anonymous and often abrasive environment of a sitcom writer’s room. So it’s surprising that, before breaking into screenwriting, Kaufman worked in television for almost a decade, staffing on sketch shows like The Dana Carvey Show and The Edge and sitcoms like Get A Life and Ned & Stacey.
There’s evidence to support the idea that Kaufman might not have thrived in collaborative settings. In this oral history of The Dana Carvey Show, the writers describe him in the same way surprised neighbors describe convicted serial killers, mentioning that he was “really quiet,†“extremely shy and awkward,†and “kept to himself.†Considering how poorly suited Kaufman seems for the job of sitcom writing, I wanted to take a look at his episodes of Get A Life and Ned & Stacey and see if there was any evidence of the man who would go on to write, among other things, the definitive film about a freelance puppeteer possessing a major film actor.
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via The Awl http://splitsider.com/2012/06/a-look-back-at-charlie-kaufmans-sitcom-work/
People who are depressed tend to check their mail compulsively, watch a lot of videos and switch between multiple internet applications more frequently than their peers.
via Vanity Fair | VF.com http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/06/Mitt-ann-romney-betty-ford-horses-addiction
LOS ANGELES — Troubled starlet Lindsay Lohan was banned from driving while filming “Liz and Dick” by the insurance company used to cover the movie…
via NY Post: Page Six http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/lohan_was_banned_from_driving_crash_ykdcuyhtcVqSH2Qanu9KZP?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Page%20Six
He may have played the young drug dealer Bodie on “The Wire,†but J.D. Williams is, in fact, simply another innocent black man sick of being profiled and stopped and frisked. Capital ran into Williams at Sunday’s Silent March to End Stop and Frisk, where he was marching with a poster of Trayvon Martin to highlight how dangerous racial profiling can be. As for how his celebrity contributes to his being stopped by police officers, Williams, pictured far right in top image, said, “I might get recognized, but they’re not sure where they know me from…So, a lot of times an officer might think he’s arrested me before.†(Photo: HBO)
By a two-to-one margin, Americans favor the Obama administration’s new immigration policy, according to a Bloomberg poll released on Tuesday.
The results, which show that 64 percent of Americans agreed with the policy announced on June 15, suggest that the president has reinforced his standing on immigration, an issue that Romney and Republicans have tried to make gains in recently. Just 30 percent said they disagreed with the policy.
“President Obama announced that the U.S. would halt the deportation of some illegal immigrants if they came here before age 16, have been in the country for five years, have no criminal record, are in school or have a high school diploma or have been honorably discharged from the military. Do you agree or disagree with this new policy?” the poll asked.
via Homepage http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/poll-americans-favor-obama-s-immigration-policy-2-to-1-20120619
Over this 64-year period, the justices issued one-vote majority opinions on 1,205 out of 7,259 cases. That comes to 16.6 percent.The low, or most united term, was 1954, under Chief Justice Earl Warren, when there was only one five-four split, out of 94 cases. A term starts in October of the year mentioned and finishes the following summer. The high, or most divided term, was 2006, under current Chief Justice John Roberts, when 24 of 71 cases, or 33.8 percent, were decided five-four.Chief Justice Roberts doesn’t just hold the single-term record—he beats other chief justices for the greatest share of five-four splits over his career to date: 22.2 percent, versus 20.3 for William Rehnquist, 16.9 for Warren Burger, 11.7 for Earl Warren and 15 for Fred Vinson.
via Is the Supreme Court More Divided Than in the Past? – NYTimes.com.