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RANDOM LINKS FOR 3/21/12

March 20th, 2012 by Clark Humphrey

early 'new yorker' writer janet flanner photographed by bernice abbott; tacoma art museum

Tacoma’s getting what was too hot for the Smithsonian, a photo exhibit of 150 years of gays in America.
There’s an art vending machine in Ballard now! But, despite what this story says, it’s not the first in town. There’s already one at the Hideout bar on Boren and Madison.
Local animator Drew Christie asks your sympathy for the poor, put-upon Nutria.
The Voice of America (yes, they’re still around) reports about beloved local artist Ginny Ruffner and her courageous comeback from a horrific car crash.
The UW men’s basketball team has won “the championship of the West” and is still in the running for U.S. sports’ most famous consolation prize.
Folks are still trying to bring Dennis Kucinich to run for Congress in Wash. State.
Auto racing in King County has apparently been saved.
Who’s profiting from America’s health care system and its runaway costs? Not Swedish Hospital. They’re losing a quarter million a day.
Microsoft’s giving police departments a software tool to create “digital fingerprints” for any online image. They say it can be useful in tracking down the sharers of child porn. But as we’ve learned, “cracking down on child porn” can be invoked as an excuse for every creepy Big Brother tactic.
Will the Florida teen shot for apparently no other reason than walking while black ever get real justice?
This Raw Story piece about an FCC decision, setting aside hundreds of new low-power radio frequencies for actual local stations instead of mere repeater transmitters, exaggerates when it says the move represents “a critical blow to right wing radio dominance.” After all, these new local stations could host their own homegrown right-wingers.
A Bloomberg Businessweek reporter who wrote about what he calls “the real Foxconn” insists the massive Chinese high-tech subcontractor is actually a pretty good employer, considering.
Dyske Suematsu asks rhetorically why more Americans don’t like jazz. Suematsu’s rhetorical answer is just standard square-bashing elitist yawn city. Look: Advanced, specialty versions of ANYTHING are going to mainly appeal to niche audiences. Light aircraft. Eighteenth-century history. Foreign film. French wrought-iron sconces from the 1930s. And so on.
UK author China Mieville wants you to frustrate and “unsatisfy” him. Preferably now.