OTHER NEWS

HOW INTERNET RADIO CAN CHANGE THE WORLD: AN ACTIVIST'S HANDBOOK
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=059534965X/progressiverevieA/

Author Eric Lee has pioneered the use of the Internet by unions around the globe, and the website he established in 1998, Labour Start, now appears in 19 languages and is used by thousands of activists every day. In early 2004, the author launched the first online labor radio station and this book tells what was involved in setting it up. It also delves into the history of Internet radio, revealing how what began as a radical project to reinvigorate the liberal wing of the Democratic Party was turned into a commercial success -- and yet remains a vital tool for activists. The book clearly explains both how to listen to Internet radio -- and how to set up your own station.
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HEADLINES OF THE WEEK
[Culled by James Taranto of Opinion Journal]

Japan Down for 4th Straight Day - CNN

Man Found Dead in Cemetery - News-Dispatch (Michigan City, IN)

Ruppersberger Forgoes Senate To Finish Up House Work - Washington Post

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best
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CHOCOLATE FIGHTS CANCER
http://gumc.georgetown.edu/communications/releases/release.cfm?ObjectID=4477
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BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO BAD TIPPERS
http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=1444898&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.startribune.com%2Fstories%2F389%2F5350344.html
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WONDERFUL SLIDE SHOW OF PHOTOS HIDDEN IN THE SMITHSONIAN ARCHIVES
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/flash/photo/visitorsguide/2005-04-15_nmoah/index_frames.htm?startat=1&indexFile=visitorsguide_2005-04-15_nmoah

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BUSH REGIME HYPES 10,000 ARRESTS;
TV STATIONS USE GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA VIDEOS
40% OF ARRESTS ARE DRUG CASES
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/apr2005/arr-a16.shtml

BILL VAN AUKEN, WORLD SOCIALIST - In a massive dragnet, US Marshals led more than 90 state, local and other federal police agencies last week in arresting over 10,000 people across the country on outstanding warrants, the Justice Department revealed Thursday. Code-named Operation Falcon, for Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally, the unprecedented federally-coordinated mass arrests were staged for maximum political and media impact. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales used the operation as the subject of his first news conference since the confirmation of his controversial nomination.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, supplied the television networks government-shot action videotape of Marshals and local cops raiding homes and breaking down doors. The footage was aired on news programs, accompanied by commentary that uncritically parroted the claims made by the department. . .
The political purpose of the dragnet was underscored by the fact that law enforcement officials privately acknowledged that most of those arrested in the nationwide raids would have been picked up in any case in the course of normal police work.. . .

While US authorities highlighted the apprehension of 160 murder suspects and 550 sexual assault suspects, it appeared that by far the largest share of those arrested were minor drug offenders. Narcotics violations accounted for fully 4,300 out of the 10,340 arrests.
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RISK TAKING MEN DON'T DO WELL WITH WOMEN
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624955.400

NEW SCIENTIST - Whether it's driving too fast, bungee-jumping or reckless skateboarding, young men will try almost anything to be noticed by the opposite sex. But a study of attitudes to risk suggests that the only people impressed by their stunts are other men. Futile risk-taking might seem to have little going for it in Darwinian terms. So why were our rash ancestors not replaced by more cautious contemporaries?
One idea is that risk-takers are advertising their fitness to potential mates by showing off their strength and bravery. This fits with the fact that men in their prime reproductive years take more risks. To test this idea, William Farthing of the University of Maine in Orono surveyed 48 young men and 52 young women on their attitudes to risky scenarios. Men thought women would be impressed by pointless gambles, but women in fact preferred cautious men.

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Since 1950, the average new house has increased by 1,247 sq. ft. Meanwhile, the average household has shrunk by 1 person.

1 in 4 Americans want at least a 3-car garage.

88% of American commuters drive to work.

76% of those drivers commute alone.

Since 1982, 35 million acres - an area the equivalent of New York state—have been developed.
Americans spend more to power home audio and video equipment that is "off" but still plugged in than they do to power such devices while actually in use.

[Mother Jones]
http://www.motherjones.com/news/exhibit/2005/03/exhibit.html
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DINOSAUR EGGS FOUND WHOLE IN MOTHER'S BELLY
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7267
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IF SEX IS A COMMODITY, PUT IT IN A MALL
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_14-4-2005_pg9_3

DAILY TIMES, PAKISTAN - The Hungarian Interior Ministry looks set to allow prostitutes to tout for business in shopping malls, local media reported Tuesday. The ministry is thinking of allowing dedicated shopping centers where prostitutes could strike deals for sex as long as they move to a place of their own to carry out the transaction, the daily Nepszabadsag said.

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MEDIA INDICATORS
http://longtail.typepad.com/the_long_tail/2005/04/media_meltdown.html
[From Cris Anderson on Long Tail]

FLAT TO DOWN TO WAY DOWN:
Music: sales last year were down 21% from their peak in 1999

Television: network TV's audience share has fallen by a third since 1985

Radio: listenership is at a 27-year low

Newspapers: circulation peaked in 1987, and the decline is accelerating

Magazines: total circulation peaked in 2000 and is now back to 1994 levels (but a few premier titles are bucking the trend!)

Books: sales growth is lagging the economy as whole

UP:
Movies: 2004 was another record year, both for theaters and DVDs Videogames: even in the last year of this generation of consoles, sales hit a new record

Web: online ads will grow 30% this year, breaking $10 billion (5.4% of all advertising)

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15% OF CELL PHONE USERS REPORT INTERRUPTING SEX FOR CALL http://go.fark.com/cgi/fark/go.pl?IDLink=1437237&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.consumeraffairs.com%2Fnews04%2F2005%2Fcell_sex.html

CONSUMER AFFAIRS - Fourteen percent of the world's cell phone users report that they have stopped in the middle of a sex act to answer a ringing wireless device, Ad Age reported. The highest incidence of cellular interruptus was found in Germany and Spain, where 22 percent of users interrupted sex to answer their cell phones; the lowest was in Italy, where only 7 percent reported doing so. In the U.S., the figure was 15 percent, the magazine said, citing a study conducted by BBDO Worldwide and Proximity Worldwide.

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FLORENCE REESE
http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/writersM/protestsongs.html#reece

DEANA MARTIN - Born April 12, 1900, in Sharps Chapel, Tennessee, Florence Reece, a social activist, poet and songwriter, grew up in a coal camp at Fork Ridge, Tenn. Florence met her husband-to-be, Sam Reece, at the young age of fifteen. . . Reece is perhaps best known for her song "Which Side are You On?," which soon became the anthem for the labor movement. The song was written in 1931 during a strike by the United Mine Workers of America. . . During this strike, the sheriff, J.H. Blair, led his gang of thugs on a violent rampage, beating and murdering union leaders. They found themselves at the Reece's home, where Reece was alone with the children. She held her ground, asking the sheriff, "What are you here for? You know there's nothing but a lot of little hungry children here." Then she somehow got word to her husband not to come home, while the sheriff and his thugs kept watch at he door. The men ransacked the house in search of Sam, to no avail. While Florence waited inside for her husband, she wrote the song on an old wall calendar, to the tune of "Lay the Lily Low".
About 1940, Pete Seeger, an "eager young college dropout wanting to learn union songs," learned the song from Tillman Cadle, a coal miner. In 1941 it was recorded by the Almanac Singers. This version made the song famous. The song continues to be sung at gatherings for labor workers and many other social causes throughout the world.

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MAINERS FIGHT TO SAVE THE PAY PHONE
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0411/p01s02-uspo.html?s=hns

SARA B MILLER, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - State Rep. Herbert Adams (D) of Portland has sponsored legislation to preserve or create "public interest payphones" in designated areas where a lack of phone access poses a risk to residents' safety, health, or welfare. His bill follows similar actions from Alaska to Indiana to save the venerated pay phone when it is deemed in the public's best interest to do so.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, the number of pay phones in the US dropped to 1.5 million in 2003, down from 2.1 million five years earlier - as the number of cell phone users surged. In Maine during that same period, the number of pay phones declined by almost half, says Mr. Adams.
Yet not all Americans, especially older Americans, have cell phones or live in places where coverage is available or adequate. Not to mention the human factor: inadvertently leaving a phone at home or forgetting to recharge the battery.
For many, though, the fight boils down to a battle for equal access.
Even in this age of Black Berries and camera phones, of blinking and beeping pocket accessories of every stripe and sound, 6.5 percent of American households have no telephone. Many use pay phones as their primary means of communication. And supporters say that resisting the demise of the pay phone - even as cell phone coverage continues to expand and costs go down - is an attempt to close the gap between the technological "haves" and "have nots."
"Demand might be low, but the people that need pay phones really need them, and that's the point. That's why the state has to step in," says Wayne Jortner, senior counsel at the Maine Public Advocate's Office.
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FRENCH FILMMAKER FINED FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT: ONE OF HIS CHARACTERS WHISTLED INTERNATIONALE
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/04/09/communist_hymn_is_in.html

BOING BOING - The Internationale is the hymn of the Fourth International Communist Party. . . It is quite a stirring anthem, and has been translated into dozens of languages, and is sung the world 'round. eirdly, this 19th century song is still in copyright in France, and a French filmmaker has just been fined about $1300 for letting a character in one of his films whistle the tune.The irony factor here is much deeper than, say, the irony surrounded JibJab's appropriation of Woody Guthrie's This Land. Guthrie was a socialist, sure, but the Internationale is a call to arms to abolish private property, eliminate international borders, and throw off your chains and rise up to smash the state. Hard to imagine that the long-dead creator of that song is having his wishes honored by French collecting societies shaking down people who make use of it for cash.

AP - The 19th-century revolutionary hymn was written by Eugene Pottier in 1871 and set to music by another Frenchman, Pierre Degeyter, in 1888. . . Under French law, "The Internationale" won't fall into the public domain until 2014 — 70 years of post-mortem protection plus extra time to cover the world war. Degeyter died in 1932. . . "[The film] hardly paid its own way, opening briefly in a single Paris theater and selling just 203 tickets, Le Monde reported.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050409/ap_on_re_eu/france_pricey_tune&e=3&ncid=
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BILL MAHER - It took almost a week, but they finally buried the pope. It would have been faster, but as of last month, no one dies now without permission of Congress.