From stay.free at verizon.net Fri Nov 5 09:21:59 2004 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Fri, 5 Nov 2004 09:21:59 -0500 Subject: Stay F---! | November 4 Message-ID: NEW ISSUE OF STAY FREE! Howdy, I'm pleased to report that Stay F---! issue #23 is now available for purchase. A few highlights in this issue: ::: Pricing the Priceless. How much would you pay for a case of chronic bronchitis? How much are hunchback whales worth? Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling discuss the sordid world of cost-benefit analysis. Plus: A cost-benefit analysis of setting yourself on fire. ::: The Trouble with Wal-mart. Whatever you've heard about the retail giant, it's a lot worse than you think. Interview with journalist Liza Featherstone. ::: Eugene Mirman. The Brooklyn comic talks about his native Russia, temping, and surviving the comedy biz. ::: Reel People. The founders of Home Movie Day talk about amateur films and what they can teach us. ...and more. Subscribe now for a measily $10.95 (only $6.95 for a digital subscription) and we'll send you it to you now: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/order Full Table of Contents here: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/23/index.html HARRY POTTER MOVIE SPOOF -- "WIZARD PEOPLE" If you haven't seen Brad Neely's awesome Harry Potter parody yet, you have another chance. By popular request, I've put together a double-CD package, which you can get for a $35 donation to Stay Free! Or, if you're somewhat tech savvy, you can download the audio files gratis from the Illegal Art Exhibit. (Though I had to remove the mp3s from our server to save bandwidth, they're now available via BitTorrent.) Order CDs here: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/order Or Paypal $35 to carrie at stayfreemagazine.org Download free Wizard People here: http://www.illegal-art.org/video/wizard.html If you're in Austin, TX, you can even witness a LIVE screening of the movie at the downtown Alamo Drafthouse on Sat., Nov. 13 and Sun., Nov. 14. http://www.drafthouse.com/ ELECTION DEPRESSION I was down in Florida for the election. When I got back, still numb, I put on a Tom T. Hall record and had a good cry. (If anyone has any more innovative strategies for coping, write back and let me know!) I'm not sure which is worse: the prospect of four more years under Bush or the knowledge that so many Americans could actually vote for him. There's a lot of speculation about the electronic voting machines so prevalent in Florida and Ohio, speculation fueled in part by the fact that exit polls in those states showed Kerry ahead. For example: http://www.bushflash.com/ http://www.gregpalast.com/ http://www.dailykos.com/ Then again, the same exit polls offered some other info that should give the Democrats pause: > * 40% of members of union households voted for Bush, as did 38% of union > members. > > * 41% of those "very concerned" about the availability and cost of >health care voted for Bush. > > * 25% of those who think abortion should be always legal, and 38% >of those who thought it should be mostly legal voted for Bush. > > * 23% of gays/lesbians/bisexuals voted for Bush. > > * 35% of those who'd recently lost a job voted for Bush. (via Doug Henwood) I must say I find the idea of a conspiracy comforting, since it's hard to fathom the election results otherwise. But I wish people would stop lightly tossing around claims about a "stolen" election and do some serious investigating before racing to conclusions. They're making it difficult for very genuine concerns about the new voting technologies to be taken seriously. Black Box Voting is guilty of this to some degree, but the group's effort to file Freedom of Information Act requests for voting machine computer logs deserves your full support. They need money and volunteer help to pull it off, so check out http://www.blackboxvoting.org and give 'em a hand if you can. thanks, carrie From stay.free at verizon.net Wed Nov 10 00:04:59 2004 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 00:04:59 -0500 Subject: Stay F---! | 10 November Message-ID: Posted at: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/public/index.html ---- If you are a paid subscriber and are getting this twice, email stay.free at verizon.net and I'll make things right. ---- I'm finally getting around to adding material from Issue #22 to the website. We begin with "World View," our random newsbytes section: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/22/worldview.html (Sorry, no photos on the site. I'm lazy.) WORLD VIEW: MARKETING NEWS AND OTHER SICK STUFF Patients undergoing cardiac surgery can now look forward to hearing new age music and calming voices while under the knife. Doctors at prominent hospitals are increasingly recommending the use of guided imagery tapes, which are played through earphones while patients are under anesthesia. A calm female voice beckons patients to "feel new strength flowing through you, through arteries that are wider and more open . . . than before." To assure patients that their doctors are reliable, the voice coos that medical devices "will be removed by wise and sure hands at just the right time, when your body is ready, no sooner, no later." While there is no real evidence yet that the tapes have any effect, they are marketed as a way of improving patients' recovery. Audio samples of these tapes can be found on the Ohio-based Health Journeys website, including affirmations for other conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, depression, and menopause. (Wall Street Journal, 2/10/04) * * * * The photo developing departments at several national chain stores routinely censor customer orders. A Walgreen's in Ohio, for example, removed a photo of a shirtless man wearing a nipple ring from customer Calvin Johnson's roll--and threw away the negatives. An assistant manager told Johnson that film developers are under no obligation to print photos they deem offensive, "If someone doesn't approve of the subject matter," he said, "each employee has the right [to discard photos] as they see it." CVS, Eckerds, and Rite-Aid have similar policies. Wal-Mart's policy is even more sweeping: if employees come across any photographs containing nudity of any kind--kids in a bathtub, for instance--they are required to call the police. (Clevescene.com, 4/14/04) MORE WORLD VIEW STORIES AT: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/22/worldview.html :::::::: Meanwhile, outside the Stay F---! web universe, there's: HOW TO THINK ABOUT PRESCRIPTION DRUGS By Malcolm Gladwell http://newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/?041025crat_atlarge Let me preface this by saying that I think Malcolm Gladwell (http://gladwell.com) is a bit of a charlatan. His modus operandi is to put forth a counterintuitive argument, then cleverly select points that advance his thesis while ignoring and obscuring those that don't. Still, he raises a good point here: one reason prescription drugs costs are skyrocketing in America is because Americans are taking a lot more drugs. The rest of his argument is, however, pure hokum. "The emphasis of the prescription-drug debate is all wrong," Gladwell writes. "We've been focused on the drug manufacturers. But decisions about prevalence, therapeutic mix, and intensity aren't made by the producers of drugs. They're made by the consumers of drugs." See, friends, it's not the drug company's fault that your colitis medication is almost $600, it's YOURS. What's especially weird is that Gladwell himself acknowledges the power of deceptive marketing and patent-law abuses--practices that the average consumer is, for all practical purposes, helpless against. But in Gladwell's fantasy world, doctors, health insurers, and consumers should take responsibility for drug company shenanigans. In making his case, Gladwell conveniently ignores the fact that drug companies have done everything they can to prevent studies comparing competing drugs to one another, and to prevent the reporting of negative data from clinical trials. How come, when I'm prescribed a drug, there is no way for me to report the drug's effectiveness: did it help? did it hurt? If there were some reliable, independent resource that collected this data--a sort of "Consumer Reports" for pharmaceuticals--then maybe patients would have a tool to balance corporations' marketing muscle. (Such a resource would also help in filling out the shortcomings of clinical trials.) But with nothing of a kind, and with only flashy--and often misleading--advertisements to fill the gap, neither the little old lady in Omaha nor the hyperinformed New York journalist has much to go on. ----------------- ADVERTISEMENT ------------------- NEWSDESK.ORG Serious, noncommercial, online journalism. Get the real scoop on labor, environment, health, civics, & more. http://www.newsdesk.org --------------------------------------------------- DIEBOLD & ELECTRONIC VOTING Today I got bored with myself and posted a few links about electronic voting up at Deebold.com (a domain I registered a while back). One noteworthy item is a video excerpt of MSNBC's "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," which does a hard-hitting roundup of voting inaccuracies in last week's election. Several counties in Florida and Ohio, for example, had more votes than voters! See http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/diebold/ (aka deebold.com) ..... "MARRY AN AMERICAN" In the wake of the Presidential election, our friends in Canada have stepped in to lend a hand by offering "desperate" single Americans a pathway to freedom: http://www.marryanamerican.ca/ ..... TIRED JAPANESE BUSINESSMEN Neato photo archive of overworked Japnese business men sleeping (or passed out) on trains, sidewalks, and even staircases: http://masamania.com/archives/2004/09/japanese_busine.html (via BoingBoing.net) that's all for now, carrie From stay.free at verizon.net Tue Nov 16 14:27:51 2004 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Tue, 16 Nov 2004 14:27:51 -0500 Subject: Stay F---! Holiday Gift Offer Message-ID: Stay F---! is pleased to announce our annual holiday fund-raiser. No need to hit the malls this year -- just give all your people Stay F---! For $29.95, we'll send a subscription to Stay F---!, a back issue, a personalized holiday card, and this year's homemade CD mix of weird and wonderful holiday (novelty) music: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/order.html Now you can irritate your relatives with STAY F---! XMESS II, featuring music spanning the 1940s to the 1960s and beyond, including: Sammy Davis Jr.- Christmas Time all over the World Loren Swelk - We'll Be Bombing Iraq in Time for Christmas James Brown - Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto Booker T & the MG's - Jingle Bells Spike Jones - I Want the South to Win the War for Christmas Hasil Adkins - Santa Claus Boogie Culturecide - Depressed Christmas Patton Oswalt - My Christmas Memory Ol Pay Irwin - Santa Claus is Coming to Town Jerry Nutter - 12 Days of Christmas Ben Light - Christmas Balls Dubya Cut and Paste Project - Christmas Bush ...and more! Thanks to KBC Radio and Gaylord Fields for helping put this together. happy happy, carrie From stay.free at verizon.net Tue Nov 30 00:23:58 2004 From: stay.free at verizon.net (Carrie McLaren) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:23:58 -0500 Subject: Stay F---! | November 30 Message-ID: If you are a paid subscriber and are getting this, you're on the wrong list! Email stay.free at verizon.net and I'll update you -------------------------------------------------- NEW ON THE STAY F---! WEBSITE From back issue #22: Subliminal Seduction: Did the controversy surrounding subliminals help the ad industry more than it harmed it? Carrie McLaren discusses the paradox of advertising criticism: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/22/subliminal-advertising.html OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST If you read the New York Times this weekend, you know about the next big thing in cosmetic surgery: vaginal "rejuvenation." That is, excising fleshy labia and tightening vaginal muscles to make one's genitals more "youthful" and "normal-looking." The Times doesn't give much space to examining *why* vaginal surgery is taking off, but the increasing reach of pornography--facilitated by the internet--is no doubt a big part of it. When women with asymmetrical labia say they want to look "normal," what they're really talking about is looking more porn models. Women's eNews is much less shy about pinpointing a cause, quoting one gynecologist who says, "I can't tell you how many pages and pages of pornographic material woman have brought in to me saying 'I want to look like this.'" http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/fashion/28PLAS.html http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2067/context/archive This reminds me of a documentary that Chyng Sun, a friend of mine who teaches at New York University, is working on. Chyng has been interviewing consumers of pornography and told me at lunch a couple of weeks ago that many of the women she has talked to report that their partners are always asking them to imitate sex acts that they've seen in porn. (Chyng is looking for more people willing to talk about their use of porn for her video documentary. Any takers? Email ChyngS at aol.com.) Hmmm. Maybe we should add this phenomenon to our stories of people imitating things they see in the media: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/media_influence2.html http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/archives/20/media_influence1.html Since I have no clue what constitutes a fabulous vagina (it's been years since I've seen my own), I turned to the web and found these photos: http://www.cosmeticsurgery2.com/cs-female1.htm ...and now I can report that the ideal vagina is--surprise, surprise--tall and skinny. :::: HOLIDAY CHEER No major injuries or deaths were reported among the crowds shopping at Wal-Mart this weekend, but on Buy Nothing Day in Lafayette, Louisiana, pranksters glued the locks on about 30 stores in and near the Mall of Acadiana, forcing store managers to summon locksmiths. "Several retailers reported hundreds of customers waiting in long lines and thousands of dollars in lost sales as workers drilled through the locks and removed them": http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/national/27brfs.html P.S. Don't forget about Stay F---!'s holiday gift: The Best and Worst of Christmas, our terribly good mix CD: http://www.stayfreemagazine.org/holiday_offer.html