How Not to Rebuild
The Wall Street Journal (registration required) paints the world's most powerful mall magnate as a pig who wants to build a sprawling retail complex on the WTC site.

NEW YORK -- Frank Lowy wants to put a huge shopping complex on the site of the destroyed World Trade Center. That alarms some prominent New Yorkers, because Mr. Lowy, an Australian mall magnate, controls a 99-year lease on all of the site's retail space. …

Mr. Lowy, who heads the world's largest mall company, responds that his goal is a high-end retail center tailored to the wants of downtown workers and residents. "We paid a lot of money to be there" before Sept. 11, he says. "We are acting responsibly. We have a position which we are not about to give up."

While I was reading the story, I was thinking it's kind of like building a McDonald's at Auschwitz and not understanding why that's bad. Then the story explains that Lowry's own father was killed at Auschwitz.

Also, if this guy is so concerned about profits, he should consider the massive and permanent boycott he would surely face from New Yorkers and even tourists who would refuse to ever spend a dime at his new WTC mall. That is, assuming any retailer would open up shop there, knowing their whole chain could be targeted for a boycott for doing so.
- posted by Amy @ 6/05/2002 09:47:00 AM

 

Arrests in Nigerian E-mail Scheme
Could this mean Mrs. Sese Seko and her husband won't be writing to me anymore?

Six people were arrested in South Africa over the weekend on suspicion of being involved in the infamous "Nigerian" e-mail and letter fraud.

Four of those detained were Nigerian, one was Cameroonian and the sixth was South African. Police in South Africa believe that the six are part of an international fraud and drug-dealing cartel, sending out thousands of e-mail and letters in an attempt to defraud.

Police seized a large amount of drugs, as well as computer equipment and false identification papers. According to published reports from South Africa, officers from the UK's Scotland Yard were also involved in the operation. A Metropolitan police spokesman was unable to confirm this, however. - ZDNet News

- posted by Amy @ 6/04/2002 08:35:00 AM

 

Mmmmmm, Cheese
On Sunday we took the subway out to the Brooklyn Museum of Art to see the Star Wars exhibit. My favorite fun fact: the sound of Jabba the Hutt moving his head was created by movie magicians using an oozing cheese casserole.
- posted by Amy @ 6/03/2002 09:52:00 PM

 

The How'd You Get Here File
According to my May site stats, most readers came to AmyLangfield.com as repeat offenders but my top referrers were Matt Welch, mighty Google, the very defunct Tabloid.net, the brand-spankin' new NYC Blog Map, sexy female blogger nominees Jane Galt and Eve Tushnet as well as warblogger phenom (but not a sexy female blogger as far as I know) little green footballs. The top search strings were Moshhod Seko Mobutu, Amy, Oildale winery and Chelsea explosion. Among the more obscure one-hit-wonder searches were: "bakersfield bisexual slave pictures" "can the holland tunnel be bombed" and "honey get me rewrite."
- posted by Amy @ 6/03/2002 11:07:00 AM

 

NY Blog Party Update
Seems the next NY blog gathering will actually be June 14, (not the 21st) on the Upper West Side. The party details are courtesy of Ravenwolf.

I predict a huge turnout for this one (though I'll be in San Diego) due in part to the New York City Blogger Map, which already has 565 blogs charted in its fist week of life.

And despite those numbers, the American Journalism Review this month has a story by LA-based Catherine Seipp who declares LA is the Capital of Blogging. (There's a place to comment on the topic at the LAExaminer site if you're inclined to stir things up. And just think, you'll always have a three-hour head start.)
- posted by Amy @ 6/03/2002 09:55:00 AM

 

Not Your Typical Oilfield Poets Society
The Los Angeles Times has a nice story about poetry readings in my hometown of Bakersfield, Calif. The story, by Fresno native son Mark Arax, is one of the first Bakersfield stories I've seen in years that doesn't rely on all the easy clichés about the place. New Yorker Ed Mazza flagged the story for me. Here's a few excerpts:

But Bakersfield does have a soul, and it's not what you think. It reaches past the oil and farm fields. It rises above the dusty twang of Buck Owens and his Buckaroos. This town, of all things, has become one hot ticket on the American poetry circuit. It's not quite what Ashland, Ore., is to Shakespeare, but some of the country's most respected poets have been making the trek down Highway 99 to read their stuff to fans in Bakersfield. ...

Bakersfield would hardly seem to lend itself to such distinction. This is, after all, a place where authors have come to find fodder, not fans. From John Steinbeck to Carrie McWilliams to native son Gerald Haslam, writers have discovered their prose and poem songs in the dirt of Kern County and then high-tailed it out of town. When "The Grapes of Wrath" came out in 1939 depicting the mythical Joads and their cruel life here, Steinbeck was celebrating a safe distance away while copies of his book were burned on the front steps of the local library. ...

Bakersfield's sudden embrace of verse has little to do with civic redemption, though. It is mostly the hard fight of one stubborn lady, a retired schoolteacher and local poet named Lee McCarthy, who calls herself "the meanest, most persistent woman in Kern County."

"This isn't a podunk town any more than any other town," McCarthy said. "And if you want humor and humanity to thrive in your place, you feed it. I believe in the power of words. I think beautiful words can feed people."

- posted by Amy @ 6/03/2002 09:42:00 AM

 

Still Haven't Flown
The last time I was scheduled to fly was Sept. 12 from Los Angeles to Newark. That obviously didn't happen and I used Greyhound instead. I haven't been on a plane since then - in part because I was scared, but I also felt like I was voting with my feet. I thought it was inappropriate to do business with any airline that wasn't doing enough, fast enough to fix the gaping holes in their security infrastructure.

Just this week my husband reserved us tickets to fly to California. Since it's business for him, we had to use the company-approved airline, which happens to be American. And then I read this (via Jeff Jarvis and The Illuminated Donkey):

TOKYO (AP) -- American Airlines chief executive Donald Carty said Friday another terrorist attack against commercial airlines was unlikely and urged some security measures added at airports be dropped.

- posted by Amy @ 6/02/2002 09:54:00 AM

 

Vote Early, Vote Often
The Blog of the Century of the Week has nominated me one of the Sexiest Female Bloggers! I was going to refrain from talking trash, but what's the point?

So Asparagirl, if that's your real name, what's with the non-blogging? Nothing on your site since May 22 -- and counting.

Emmanuelle? She's French! That must be cheating!

And then there's Jane Galt. OK, never mind. I know when to quit. I might as well pick a fight with the pistol-packin' Miss Universe. "Jane" by the way, has just picked June 21 as the date for the third NYC blog hoedown, this time billed as Blogapalooza!

(Actually I'd do more trash talking, but I've only been drinking with those three mentioned above.)

I figure I have one advantage though -- my mom was wise enough to name me Amy, thus sticking me in the front of most alphabetical lists. Luckily Anna Kournikova doesn't have her own blog yet.
- posted by Amy @ 6/02/2002 01:31:00 AM

 

From the Learn Something New Every Day File
What I learned: Astronauts on Apollo 8 took Silly Putty with them.
Where I learned it: The Crayola Factory in Easton, Pa.
- posted by Amy @ 6/02/2002 12:50:00 AM