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Links A Fifty Pound Bag of Whistling Lips Book and Music Page, johnrpierce.com Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope Quel Blog, the blog of John Pierce
NEWSPAPERS
E-mail:
johnrpierce @ yahoo.com
Old North Church, Boston, October 29, 2003 |
May 28, 2004
According to Page Six in the
New York Post,
Gabriella Windsor, student at Brown University in Providence and
daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, "said
she avoided her American classmates
and hung out mostly with Euros at 'one bar,
Viva, in the
Greek part of town. It was great to be able to dance again. Dancing in
America only seems to happen in derelict neon-lit cowsheds on the edge of
small towns.'"
I'm not sure that a few years in Providence would make one an expert on dancing in America. According to the Burly Adventurer quiz, I'm straight.
May 27, 2004 George Clooney, Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks and Hugh Jackman are all in the running to star in a film adaptation of Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, says the Boston Herald. Hugh Jackman posters and photos May 26, 2004 Here are the current Rules of Conduct for New York City Transit.
Asked by
Dirt
Rider Magazine, "What's
the weirdest thing you've seen at an event?," racer Nicole Bradford
responded, " At the 2001 ISDE, on the sixth day we had a final moto, and
while racing, all of a sudden I looked over and there was a guy in
nothing but a bright-red thong and cape setting off fireworks 2 feet
from the track. Now that was weird. "
May 25, 2004 Pratt Institute in Brooklyn awarded Joan Rivers her first honorary doctorate last weekend. Rivers said, "Finally I am what my mother always wanted for me--a single Jewish doctor."--Boston Herald, citing the New York Post.
H Bomb,
a Harvard-student-produced literary magazine about sex, makes it debut
today.
"Re-electing President Bush will mean a loss of
freedoms and 'create an America we won't recognize,' Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
is telling potential Democratic donors.
May 24, 2004 "It was only a matter of time before New York society struck back with a tell-all book by one of its own, instead of by one of the help," wrote Jill Radsken in the Boston Herald about Bergdorf Blondes, a novel by British-born New York socialite Plum Sykes, a contributing editor of Vogue, "where she covers the few hundred women who make up New York's high-society set. The 34-year-old set her roman a clef among that world's subset of young, spoiled Park Avenue socialites--women who judge a girl's status on whether she flies private or commercial, and who recover from breakups with Xanax and 473-thread-count sheets."
Jurys
Boston Hotel is scheduled to open on June 25, 2004, at 350 Stuart
Street in the Back Bay, former site of Boston police headquarters.
"With headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, Jurys Doyle Hotel Group is one of
the fastest-growing hotel chains in the world," writes Caitlin Austin in
the Boston Herald. The Boston hotel will employ a work
force of 140.
David Byrne, formerly of the Talking Heads, had a salad at Sonsie on Newbury Street in Boston before his May 20 show at the Berklee Performance Center, reports the Boston Globe.
Tim Russert, host of television's Meet
the Press, is scheduled to be at the Harvard Coop at 1400
Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts, this afternoon at two
o'clock to promote his book, a father/son memoir called
Big Russ and Me: Father and Son--Lessons of Life.
May 22, 2004 Ernest of Hanover, husband of Caroline of Monaco, did not attend the wedding of Felipe of Asturias and Letizia Ortiz this morning, although he did accompany his wife to a gala dinner hosted by the King and Queen of Spain at the Palacio de El Pardo last night. The reason for the absence is unknown at this time, reports abc.es. "Entre los representantes de las Casas Reales [que asistieron a la cena], estaban a las Reinas Margarita de Dinamarca, Noor y Rania de Jordania, los Reyes de Noruega, acompañados por el Príncipe Heredero Haakon, con su esposa, Mette-Marit,y la Princesa Marta Luisa y su marido, Ari Behn. También asistieron los Reyes de Suecia, con sus hijos Victoria, Magdalena y Carlos; los Reyes de los Belgas, los Príncipes Guillermo y Máxima de los Países Bajos; el Príncipe de Gales; Naruhito, el Príncipe Heredero del Japón; el Príncipe Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, de Arabia Saudí; el Príncipe Heredero de Abu Dhabi, Sheik Mohamed Bin Zayed; los Grandes Duques de Luxemburgo, el Príncipe Alberto de Mónaco, los Reyes Constantino y Ana María de los Helenos, con sus hijos; los Reyes Miguel y Ana de Rumanía, los Príncipes Víctor Manuel y Marina de Saboya, los Duques de Aosta, Carolina de Mónaco y su marido Ernesto de Hannover; el Sha y la Shabanu de Irán, Farah Diba y el Príncipe Aga Khan, entre otros."--abc.es.
May 21, 2004 New York City "[t]ransit officials, at the request of police, yesterday proposed prohibiting photography and videotaping in the subway system and on buses - hoping to thwart terrorists from gathering information for an attack," reports Pete Donohue in the New York Daily News. The suggestion sounds very stupid to me, I am sorry to say. Is the inside of a bus really worth photographing for harmful purposes? Wouldn't it make more sense to round up the terrorists and expel them from the country? Do we have to tolerate increasing stupidity in daily life for the sake of all sorts of absurd policies?
May 20, 2004 Christie's International Plc. misled Taylor Thomson, daughter of Canadian billionaire Lord Thomson of Fleet, about the origins of two vases she bought for £1.9 million at auction in December 1994 as part of a sale from Houghton Hall, the Marquess of Cholmondeley's Norfolk seat, a London judge ruled yesterday. "They
had an estimate of £400,000 to £600,000 and were described in the
catalogue as 18th century Louis XV vases designed around 1760 for Philip
Duke of Parma or a courtier by Ennemond-Alexandre Petitot. May 19, 2004 Ted Danson will portray Boston lawyer Mitchell Garabedian in Our Fathers, a Showtime TV movie about the sex-abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. Christopher Plummer will play Cardinal Law, reports the Boston Herald.
Andrew Sullivan has updated his book
Same-Sex Marriage: Pro & Con, a Reader. He will be
speaking tonight at 7 p.m. at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, under the auspices of the Wordsworth reading series,
reports the Boston Globe.
Among the Boston restaurants where Senator John Kerry has dined in recent weeks are Hamersley's Bistro in the South End and the Federalist at XV Beacon on Beacon Hill. May 18, 2004 A study concluded that "nearly a third (29 percent) of consumers now feel overwhelmed by the volume of media options available to them," reports Joe Mandese in an article at Television Week. May 17, 2004
Outside Boston City Hall, at about 8:30 a.m.
Outside Boston City Hall, about 8:30 a.m., May 17, 2004 May 16, 2004
I passed by Boston City Hall Plaza around 3:15 this afternoon and saw workers setting up metal fences outside the City Hall. I assume that the fences are being set up in anticipation of numbers of same-sex couples showing up tomorrow to obtain marriage licenses.
May 15, 2004 David Kelly of the Los Angeles Times writes in an article published in the Boston Globe that "the Roman Catholic bishop of Colorado Springs has declared that anyone voting for a politician who supports same-sex marriage, abortion rights, stem cell research, or euthanasia will be denied Communion in the church. * * * "His letter likely will have little practical effect, since most people receiving Communion aren't quizzed about their political beliefs beforehand. * * * "'It's very offensive to find a bishop pushing that kind of perspective and threatening members of his own diocese,' said Mary Lou Makepeace, the former Colorado Springs mayor who now heads the Gay & Lesbian Fund for Colorado. 'I'd like an equally strong stance against priests who abuse children who, so far as I know, still take Communion.'" May 12, 2004 "Having failed to prevail in the judicial arena on a profound question of equal rights, Governor Mitt Romney has been reduced to scoring a petty procedural victory over many same-sex couples planning to marry this month. "He won't let them choose who will officiate at their weddings. "For a small fee, governors routinely grant one-day waivers to those unlicensed to perform marriages in Massachusetts to preside at weddings of friends and family. But the Romney administration is refusing to rule on requests from same-sex couples -- some filed months ago -- until gay marriage actually becomes state law on May 17. For couples planning to wed in the next few weeks, the governor's 11th-hour decisions mean they must either bank on being approved or scramble for a back-up justice of the peace."--from Eileen McNamara's column in the Boston Globe.
The Serpent and the Moon: Two Rivals for the Love of a Renaissance King,
by Princess Michael of Kent, is scheduled for publication in
September 2004. The book is about King Henri II of France and his
wife Catherine de Médicis and his mistress Diane de Poitiers. It
can be ordered from
amazon.co.uk.
May 11, 2004
Media Matters for
America is a Web-based, not-for-profit
progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively
monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the
U.S. media.
In Louisville, Kentucky, today, John Kerry talked about his plan to help owners of small businesses provide affordable health care to their employees.
The International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers Local 103, a "Boston labor union representing
some 6,000 members has amended its benefit plans to exclude gay married
couples from receiving health and pension benefits," reports the
Boston Globe.
Massachusetts Governor W. Mitt Romney has received his first invitation to a gay wedding, but says he will be out of town, reports the Boston Herald.
I bought a pint of milk in a convenience
store this morning. When I handed the cashier a five-dollar bill
she inspected it suspiciously as if it might be counterfeit.
When she handed me four ones as change, I inspected them suspiciously.
She seemed displeased. Apparently she thinks that there are
different rules for her. I can buy my pint of milk in another
store across the street in future.
May 10, 2004
Last night vandals toppled a 1,000-pound bronzed statue of a Civil War veteran from the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in the Boston Common. The head and musket snapped off, reports the Boston Globe. They have been taken into storage by park rangers. The body remains on the ground this morning, too heavy to move until equipment is brought in.
"After three years of sweeping actions in
both foreign and domestic affairs, the Bush administration is facing
complaints from the conservative intelligentsia that it has lost its
ability to produce fresh policies," write Washington Post staff
writers Dana Milbank and Jonathan Weisman in an article reproduced at
yahoo.com.
"My commitment to our law enforcement officers is steadfast," said John Kerry in a statement released today commemorating National Police Week.
May 4, 2004
Quest magazine has issued its annual Quest 400 list of people on the New York social scene.
I have been seeing more muscle shirts at the gym. Are they being worn instead of T shirts or instead of tanktops?
Massachusetts "Gay-vernator Mitt Romney
[has] turned basic 'Intention of Marriage' forms into something
resembling hostile poll tests. 'We call him Willard down here,'
says Provincetown Selectman Mary-Jo Avellar, 'as in Willard the
Rat.'"--from Margery Eagan's column in the Boston Herald.
April 27, 2004
The award-winning musical Jerry Springer - The Opera
is set to open on Broadway next year, reports
BBC
News.
"Princeton University's faculty approved a plan yesterday to combat rising grades by limiting the number of A's it awards to undergraduates. * * * "Under the guidelines, which go into effect in the fall for Princeton's 4,600 undergraduates, faculty are expected to restrict the number of A's to 35 percent in undergraduate courses; for junior and senior independent work, the percentage receiving A's will be capped at 55 percent." --from an Associated Press article in the Boston Globe.
"A Harvard College education should include more
science, more personal contact with professors, and some time spent
outside the United States, according to the committees charged with
overhauling Harvard’s undergraduate curriculum for the first time in a
quarter century.
"The report, a year in the making and released to Harvard’s faculty yesterday, also recommends that Harvard scrap its required ‘‘core curriculum,’’ the set of lecture classes devised in 1978 to ensure students were acquainted with the intellectual approaches of many academic disciplines. The core curriculum would be replaced with a more flexible system of requirements that more closely resembles those at other colleges." --from an article by Marcella Bombardieri in the Boston Globe. See also a related article in the Harvard Crimson.
"Weight training can help women lose weight and keep it off, and can also help older men and women strengthen their immune systems, according to two research papers presented last week at the Experimental Biology 2004 meeting in Washington," says a Reuters report in the Boston Globe.
"It's never been important
whether Diana Krall deserved to be classified as a jazz singer. The
greater question has always been how to listen to her music without
slipping into a boredom-induced coma," wrote Renee Graham in the Boston
Globe.
April 25, 2004 The Commonwealth of Massachusetts will prohibit gay couples who live outside of Massachusetts from marrying there when gay marriage becomes legal next month, a senior aide to Governor W. Mitt Romney said yesterday, according to the front page of today's Boston Globe. Won't the effect of that policy be to encourage more gay people to take up residence in Massachusetts? Is that Romney's intent? When Dukakis was governor, his favorite word seemed to be "coalition." Romney's seems to be "confusion."
April 13, 2004 According to an article by Scott Allen in the Boston Globe, the studies of Dr. Michael F. Holick, a professor at the medical school of Boston University, "indicate that a few minutes of sun exposure to bare skin several times a week can help reduce a widespread vitamin D deficiency in northern cities, where people are indoors or bundles up for large portions of the year. During the summer in Boston, he calculates, a fair-skinned person would generate enough vitamin D from spending 5 to 10 minutes in the midday sun three times a week. "But Holick said dermatologists consistently reject his advice. 'It's easier for them to say just don't be exposed to sunlight instead of providing the thoughtful, intelligent recommendation that maybe a little sun is good for you,' he said."
Dr. Holick's book The UV Advantage, about the health benefits of sun exposure and tanning, is scheduled for release in the United States on May 1, 2004, and can be ordered from amazon.com.
April 9, 2004 According to Fortune magazine of April 19, 2004, "The Apprentice is the season's No. 1 new [television] series among adults ages 18 to 49, with 12.2 million viewers." "Median viewer income is $66,495, the highest for a prime-time series on broadcast television."
April 2, 2004 In an article in the Boston Globe about Massachusetts Governor W. Mitt Romney's continuing opposition to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Scott S. Greenberger and Raphael Lewis wrote: "Lawmakers and activists on both sides of the issue suggest that Romney may be weighing several options, including an executive order to block the issuance of licenses to gay couples; proposing a law to prevent issuance of those licenses; or backing another bill, being pushed this week, that would abolish marriage entirely and create civil unions for heterosexual couples, as well as gay couples." If he isn't willing to uphold the Constitution of Massachusetts, then I believe that he should resign rather than engage in absurd machinations that could harm the lives of thousands of people for his own selfish reasons, whatever they may be.
March 15, 2004
"If society has abandoned
regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have
to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal
and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of
hetero, married couples? "I believe that this state of affairs is contrary to the will of God.
But traditionalists, especially Christian traditionalists (in whose ranks
I include myself) need to get a clue about what has really been going on
and face the fact that same-sex marriage, if it comes about, will not
cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the
result of it." --from an article by the Rev. Donald Sensing, pastor of the Trinity
United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tennessee, at
opinionjournal.com.
February 16, 2004 The Boston Museum of Fine Arts stands to make money from renting paintings of Monet to a casino hotel in Las Vegas, reports guardian.co.uk. February 5, 2004 With my limited knowledge of the program that I am using for this page, I don't know how to enable comments. But I have put some of this material on a page that does allow comments, http://www.johnrpierce.info/weblog/
February 2, 2004 I took the multiple-choice quiz at presidentmatch.com to see which presidential candidates agree with my positions on the issues. The results were: Kerry: 100% Kucinich: 99% Clark: 93% Lieberman: 90% Dean: 89% Edwards: 89% Sharpton: 81% Bush: 41%
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