test blog 8

If you've ever seen Bob Dylan in concert, or if you are a fan of his live recordings, you know he seldom sings a song the same way twice. Subtle lyrical changes shift emphasis and perspective. New arrangements funnel songs you thought you knew through unlikely channels. Dylan is not only one of the great poets and songwriters of our time, he is a timeless troubadour, creating and re-creating his music in front of your eyes. (Just don't try to sing along.) It seems fitting then, that a hugely disparate collection of musicians have covered and interpreted Dylan's work. You can hear eighty of these artists' interpretations by downloading " Chimes of Freedom ," for a mere $19.99, with all profits going to Amnesty International. Or, you can buy a four-CD set for only $24.99. The CDs only ship to US addresses, but the downloads can accessed five times. You can also purchase individual songs . This extremely eclectic collection almost certainly includes artists you...

When we lived in NYC, I was hugely into Netflix. The selection and convenience were terrific, and for frequent movie watching, the flat monthly fee was a great value. After moving to Canada, we joined Zip ... and thus began the saga. Zip (now owned by media giant Rogers) has a good (not great) selection, their ship-times are good, and the price is decent if you watch a lot of movies. But. Two big buts. Their system doesn't work if you have less than 20 titles on your ZipList (the equivalent of the Netflix queue). This would not be a problem if they shipped titles in your order of preference. You could simply add junk titles that you didn't really want to see to the end of your list. That's where the second but comes in. Zip does not ship titles in any order even resembling your preference. You're as likely to get a movie from the bottom of your list as you are from the top. Now, as you all know and are undoubtedly sick of reading by now, I watch movies for half the y...

The one and only Katha Pollitt: The anti-choice movement can be so clumsy, and so weird, we forget that it is also smart and strategic and busy busy busy. Because while you were shaking your head over pink Bibles and stem-cell futurology, Komen was hiring Karen Handel as senior vice president for public policy. Handel is not your typical philanthropy administrator. She is a Republican pol, a former Georgia secretary of state, who ran in the 2010 gubernatorial primary, with endorsements from Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and anti-immigrant finger-pointing Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. At that time she described herself as “ staunchly and unequivocally pro-life ,” opposed to stem cell research and a fan of crisis pregnancy centers—places that have repeatedly been shown to use scare tactics and misinformation to dissuade women from seeking abortions. She vowed to eliminate from the state budget pass-through grants to Planned Parenthood for breast and cervical cancer screenings. Interestingly, ...

When a leading breast-cancer charity severs its relationship with the largest provider of reproductive health services in the US, we have to ask, who is behind this terrible decision? The Atlantic : The nation's leading breast-cancer charity, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which has spent nearly $2 billion over the past 30 years for breast cancer education, health services, research, and advocacy, has announced that it will end its longtime partnership with the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The announcement has sparked bitter debate among representatives from all concerned parties, highlighting the ongoing debate over abortion. Planned Parenthood, currently the largest provider of reproductive health services in the United States, is widely known for helping women to obtain abortions and contraceptives. But those services, despite their high profile, account for only 38 percent (PDF) of the organization's work. And though Republicans often portray Planned Parenthood...

Today, February 1, Canadian post-secondary students all over the country are mobilizing in a Day of Action to demand increased education funding and a reduction in tuition fees. In Ontario, post-secondary students from all over the province will converge in Toronto for a rally and march to Queen's Park, demanding that the McGuinty government keep its promise to slash college and university fees by one-third. During the 2011 Ontario election, the government was elected, in part, based on a promise to reduce tuition fees by 30 percent. Right now, however, the tuition rebates the Liberal government is offering are not available to about two-thirds of Ontario students. Students are excited to see the government taking concrete steps to address the mounting cost of post-secondary education and to ensure that low-and middle-income students are able to attend. Students have long called for a tuition fee reduction and are pleased that the government has committed $430 million dollars t...

Chris Hedges: What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment. But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a...

No go on the threaded comments. First of all, it only indents once. That's a good space-saver, but kind of defeats the purpose of using the threaded format. Second, as Allan points out, threading makes it more difficult to scan through a comment thread to read only the newest comments. And finally, the new comment style added justified text and a narrow line height, which look bad. Hopefully reverting back to the original style of commenting will change that, too. On we go.