Know Your Onions

I started crying today in Subway. Why? Onions. The teenage girl making my sandwich could do nothing but laugh as I carried my dinner away teary-eyed. What can I say, those were some strong onions.

The Shins - "Know Your Onion"


On the heels of the the President's veto on advancing stem cell research...

Part of what's hindering stem-cell research is several broad patents held by the University of Wisconsin, writes the Wall Street Journal...

How a University's Patents May Limit Stem-Cell Research
By ANTONIO REGALADO and DAVID P. HAMILTON

Tonight, the U.S. Senate is expected to approve a measure to broaden federally funded research on embryonic stem cells [ed.note: didn't happen]. But some government officials and scientists say the strict limits imposed by the Bush administration are only part of what's hindering stem-cell research. Another problem: several broad patents held by a University of Wisconsin foundation.

When executives at Carlsbad, Calif.-based Invitrogen Corp. chose to locate their stem-cell research in Asia recently, they blamed the patents. And today, a California watchdog group, the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights of Santa Monica, says it will ask the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to overturn three patents awarded to James A. Thomson, the Wisconsin researcher who first isolated stem cells from human embryos in 1998.

The broadly worded patents, which cover nearly any use of human embryonic stem cells, are held by the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, a nonprofit group that handles the school's intellectual-property estate, managing a $1.5 billion endowment amassed during 80 years of marketing inventions.

John Simpson, an official at the foundation bringing the challenge, says WARF's efforts to enforce its patents are "damaging, impeding the free flow of ideas and creating a problem." Mr. Simpson's group got involved in the dispute earlier this year after Wisconsin officials said they would demand a share of state revenue from California's voter-approved stem-cell initiative.

WARF doesn't charge academics to study stem cells, but it does ask commercial users to pay fees ranging from $75,000 to more than $250,000, plus annual payments and royalties. So far, 12 companies have licensed rights from WARF to use the cells, and more than 300 academic laboratories have agreements to use the technology without charge. WARF spokesman Andy Cohn declined to say how much the organization has earned from the patents so far but says it is less than what it has spent funding stem-cell research and paying legal costs.

WARF officials say they are simply enforcing their legal rights by charging companies to license the patents. "It's a red herring. People want free access," says Elizabeth Donley, executive director of the WiCell Research Institute, a center created by WARF in Madison to study and distribute the cells. Ms. Donley says the fees are invested back into research being performed at the university...

Full article at the Wall Street Journal

A Dick in a Mustache is Still a Dick
by Kevin Smith

So last night, at a press screening of “Clerks II” in New York City, “Good Morning America” movie critic Joel Siegel decided he’d had enough of my shenanigans, and walked out of the flick at the forty minute mark. You’d imagine this would bother me, and yet, I’m as delighted by this news as I was with the eight minute standing ovation “Clerks II” received in Cannes.

I mean, it’s Joel Siegel, for Christ’s sake. As Paul Thomas Anderson once said of the man, getting a bad review from Siegel is like a badge of honor. This is the guy who stole his mustachioed critic shtick from Gene Shalit years ago, and still refuses to give it back. This is a guy who seemingly prides himself on being “punny” - that is, he likes to add his own nyuk-nyuk wordplay into the reviews he writes/gives.

For “Pirates 2″, he made us all titter with “Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Fun”.

For Pixar’s lastest, he made us squeal with delight when he wrote “Wheelie Good Time for ‘Cars’”.

Can you believe he somehow not only made us laugh, but also think, when he challenged our perception with “X-Men’ Fails to X-cite”?

I mean, Fozzy fucking Bear laughs at this guy (AT, mind you, not WITH)...

Full article at Silent Bob Speaks

Last but not least...

Did you know that 55 million chinese women are illiterate?

BEIJING (AFP) - A total of 55 million Chinese women are illiterate, forcing them to live more disadvantaged lives than their male counterparts.

The figure was given by Zhao Shaohua, vice chairwoman of the All-China Women's Federation, while attending a conference on Asian women in Beijing, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"Women in rural areas who lead poor lives account for more than 60 percent of the total rural laborers," she said. "Besides, women's incomes are lower than men's and the gap is widening."

China has done considerable work in recent decades to spread primary education and eradicate illiteracy, but in a plan announced in March only promised free nine-year compulsory education for all rural students within two years.

Poor farmers faced with choosing whether to put their son or daughter through school often prefer educating sons, leading to a far higher illiteracy rate among women than men.

Music

50 albums that changed music, from the Observer

1. The Velvet Underground and Nico
The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967)

Though it sold poorly on its initial release, this has since become arguably the most influential rock album of all time. The first art-rock album, it merges dreamy, druggy balladry ('Sunday Morning') with raw and uncompromising sonic experimentation ('Venus in Furs'), and is famously clothed in that Andy Warhol-designed 'banana' sleeve. Lou Reed's lyrics depicted a Warholian New York demi-monde where hard drugs and sexual experimentation held sway. Shocking then, and still utterly transfixing.

Without this, there'd be no ... Bowie, Roxy Music, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Jesus and Mary Chain, among many others...

See the list of 50 here

Blogs

Some great Swedish music from Dodgy today, def check that out.

Score a Lollapalooza primer at Can You See the Sunset from the Southside? today.

Featured Artist: Pedro the Lion

Pedro the Lion definitely isn't a new band, but it is one of my underrated favorites.

Though songwriter Dave Bazan fronts the enigmatic rock band Pedro the Lion, his emotionally charged narratives, eye for telling detail, and mournful voice have more in common with J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories" or Flannery O'Connor's "Wise Blood" than with the usual lyrical slant of popular music. Bazan is a gifted storyteller, weaving parables of spiritual conflict, suburban ennui, and personal surrender into magnetic, well-crafted songs.

In 1998 Pedro the Lion released their first full-length record, the intimate, charming "It's Hard to Find a Friend.” For this, their homemade debut, Bazan arranged songs about draft dodgers, leg hair phobics, trans ams, and cheating lovers into a deeply moving album, which one critic praised as "expressing the tension between the sacred and secular unlike any record since Al Green's 'Call Me'."

After months of touring, Pedro The Lion went back into the studio to produce the considerably darker "The Only Reason I Feel Secure (is that I am validated by my peers)." The EP revealed a brooding, self-conscious depth akin to future writers Dave Eggers and Charlie Kaufman. Bazan further honed his craft on the politically prophetic concept album "Winners Never Quit" (2000) and "Control" (2002), a morbid study of the relationship between infidelity and corporate culture, fueled by bombastic drum hooks and claustrophobic electric guitars...

Known mostly for his tenure performing as Pedro the Lion, songwriter David Bazan recently retired the band moniker to continue making music under his own name and his electronc side project, HEADPHONES. His solo debut EP "FEWER MOVING PARTS" finds the beloved Seattle songwriter [who was recently named #85 in Paste Magazine's Top 100 Living Songwriters] roaring back to his creative roots, performing and recording everything himself in his home studio, while still expanding his sonic canvas. His signature songwriting, voice, and melodies are framed in layered harmonies, multi-tracked guitars, analog keyboards, and intricate production he was never able to fully realize with Pedro The Lion [bio from band's website].

Pedro the Lion - "A Mind of Her Own"
Pedro the Lion - "I'm Always the One Who Calls"
Pedro the Lion - "Never Leave A Job Half Done"
Pedro the Lion - "Penetration"
Pedro the Lion - "Rapture"
Pedro the Lion - "The Longest Winter"

Downloads

Joanna Newsom - "Sprout & The Bean"
Feist - "When I Was a Young Girl"
Badly Drawn Boy - "Silent Sigh"