Israeli tunnel hit by cyber attack, experts say

In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, an electric power station is seen near the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, an electric power station is seen near the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, Israel's Electric Corp vice president, Yasha Hain, second left, and Ofir Hason, watch a cyber team work at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, Israelis work on computers at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyber attack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, Israel's electric corp vice president, Yasha Hain, works on a computer at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyber attack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

In this Tuesday Oct. 20, 2013 photo, an Israeli works on a computer at the 'CyberGym' school in the coastal city of Hadera. When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country will face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyber attack could one day bring the nation to a standstill. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)

HADERA, Israel (AP) — When Israel's military chief delivered a high-profile speech this month outlining the greatest threats his country might face in the future, he listed computer sabotage as a top concern, warning a sophisticated cyberattack could one day bring the nation to a standstill.

Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz was not speaking empty words. Exactly one month before his address, a major artery in Israel's national road network in the northern city of Haifa was shut down because of a cyberattack, cybersecurity experts tell The Associated Press, knocking key operations out of commission two days in a row and causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

One expert, speaking on condition of anonymity because the breach of security was a classified matter, said a Trojan horse attack targeted the security camera system in the Carmel Tunnels toll road on Sept. 8. A Trojan horse is a malicious computer program that users unknowingly install that can give hackers complete control over their systems.

The attack caused an immediate 20-minute lockdown of the roadway. The next day, the expert said, it shut down the roadway again during morning rush hour. It remained shut for eight hours, causing massive congestion.

The expert said investigators believe the attack was the work of unknown, sophisticated hackers, similar to the Anonymous hacking group that led attacks on Israeli websites in April. He said investigators determined it was not sophisticated enough to be the work of an enemy government like Iran.

The expert said Israel's National Cyber Bureau, a two-year-old classified body that reports to the prime minister, was aware of the incident. The bureau declined comment, while Carmelton, the company that oversees the toll road, blamed a "communication glitch" for the mishap.

While Israel is a frequent target of hackers, the tunnel is the most high-profile landmark known to have been attacked. It is a major thoroughfare for Israel's third-largest city, and the city is looking to turn the tunnel into a public shelter in case of emergency, highlighting its importance.

The incident is exactly the type of scenario that Gantz described in his recent address. He said Israel's future battles might begin with "a cyberattack on websites which provide daily services to the citizens of Israel. Traffic lights could stop working, the banks could be shut down," he said.

There have been cases of traffic tampering before. In 2005, the United States outlawed the unauthorized use of traffic override devices installed in many police cars and ambulances after unscrupulous drivers started using them to turn lights from red to green. In 2008, two Los Angeles traffic engineers pleaded guilty to breaking into the city's signal system and deliberately snarling traffic as part of a labor dispute.

Oren David, a manager at international security firm RSA's anti-fraud unit, said that although he didn't have information about the tunnel incident, this kind of attack "is the hallmark of a new era."

"Most of these systems are automated, especially as far as security is concerned. . They're automated and they're remotely controlled, either over the Internet or otherwise, so they're vulnerable to cyberattack," he said. Israel, he added, is "among the top-targeted countries."

In June, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas have targeted Israel's "essential systems," including its water system, electric grid, trains and banks.

"Every sphere of civilian economic life, let's not even talk about our security, is a potential or actual cyberattack target," Netanyahu said at the time.

Israeli government websites receive hundreds and sometimes thousands of cyberattacks each day, said Ofir Ben Avi, head of the government's website division.

During Israel's military offensive on the Gaza Strip last year, tens of millions of website attacks took place, from denial of service attacks, which cripple websites by overloading them with traffic, to more sophisticated attempts to steal passwords, Ben Avi said.

Under constant threat, Israel has emerged as a world leader in cybersecurity, with murky military units developing much of the technology. Last year, the military formed its first cyberdefense unit.

Israeli cybersecurity experts say Iran and other hostile entities have successfully hacked into Israeli servers this year, and that Israel has quietly permitted those attacks to occur in order to track the hackers and feed them false intelligence.

Israel is also widely believed to have launched its own sophisticated computer attacks on its enemies, including the Stuxnet worm that caused significant damage to Iran's nuclear program.

Bracing for serious attacks on Israeli civilian infrastructure, Israel's national electric company launched a training program this month to teach engineers and power plant supervisors how to detect system infiltrations.

The Israel Electric Corp. says its servers register about 6,000 unique computer attacks every second.

"Big organizations and even countries are preparing for D-Day," said Yasha Hain, a senior executive vice president at the company. "We decided to prepare ourselves to be first in line."

The training program is run jointly with CyberGym, a cyberdefense company founded by ex-Israeli intelligence operatives that consults for Israeli oil, gas, transportation and financial companies.

On a manicured campus of eucalyptus trees across from a power plant in Israel's north, groups are divided into teams in a role-playing game of hackers and power plant engineers.

The "hackers," code-named the Red Team, sit in a dimly lit room decorated with cartoon villains on the walls. Darth Vader hovers over binary code. Kermit the Frog flashes his middle finger.

In another room, a miniature model of a power station overflows with water and the boiler's thermometer shoots up as the role-playing hackers run a "Kill All" code. The exercise teaches employees how to detect a possible cyberattack even if their computer systems don't register it.

About 25 middle-aged employees attended the first day of training last week. The course will eventually train thousands of workers, the electric company said.

CyberGym co-founder Ofir Hason declined to comment on the toll road shutdown, but said the company has seen a number of cyberattacks on infrastructures in recent years.

The country is especially susceptible because Israel has no electricity-sharing agreements with neighboring states, and all of the country's essential infrastructure depends on the company for power.

"We're an isolated island," he said.

__

Associated Press writer Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.

___

Follow Daniel Estrin on Twitter at www.twitter.com/danielestrin .

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-10-27-Israel-Cyberdefense/id-7db4bc4438c24c0992aada146933466d
Tags: Jofi Joseph   ABC Family   clemson football   Columbus Day 2013   new iphone  

Roma Children Removals Make Us Wonder What Family Looks Like

The little girl known as "Maria" is at the center of a messy case in Greece. Police removed her from her Roma home on suspicions that the blond, blue-eyed girl had been kidnapped.

AP

The little girl known as "Maria" is at the center of a messy case in Greece. Police removed her from her Roma home on suspicions that the blond, blue-eyed girl had been kidnapped.

AP

Several recent cases of suspected kidnapping involving the Roma in Europe have had some some odd but peculiar resonances for 21st-century American life.

In one case, the police received a tip that a blond, blue-eyed girl was living with a Roma family in a Dublin suburb. The tipster believed that the 7-year-old didn't look like the Roma family with whom she lived. The police came and removed the child from the home, despite protests from the Roma family that the child was part of their family.

But after DNA test proved that she was, in fact, the biological child of the people who were raising her, she was returned to the family.

"We were all traumatized," the girl's older sister told the Daily Telegraph. "I used to be blonde when I was little, and my mum was blonde when she was little."

Even as that story was unfolding, there was another case in which Irish police had taken another child — again blond and blue-eyed — from his Roma family. That boy, too, was suspected of not belonging with the family, and taken away from his parents, who again insisted that he was, in fact, their son.

You can guess where this one is going. DNA tests again proved that the child was the biological child of the Roma family. He, too, was given back to his relatives.

These two stories followed another incident in which a Roma family, this time in Greece, was charged with abducting a blonde girl they claimed to have informally adopted from another Roma woman. (That story is a bit more complicated.)

These stories were initially covered in the press as possible instances of child trafficking, owing in part to stereotypes about Romas being unscrupulous and untrustworthy. For many folks, it was hard not to see the suspicion cast on the families of these children as instances of racial profiling.

"Not all Roma communities have dark skin: There are Roma who have light skin and green eyes," Dezideriu Gergely of the European Roma Rights Centre told the BBC.

Back here in the States, ideas about what families are supposed to look like, both visually and in terms of their structure, are being blown up all the time. As more people here grow up in blended or adoptive or inter-ethnic families — to say nothing of regular old recessive genes — we're more likely to see more people who don't look like "family."

We asked readers on Twitter about times when people treated them and their relatives as if they weren't related. Some stories were funny. But sometimes the cops were called.

One Asian-American woman told us that her white adoptive parents and her white husband are assumed to be related, while she was assumed to be the person who married in. But several women of color with light-skinned children said people just assume them to be their nannies and not their parents. Several people remembered that as children, people inquired with concern about their safety — in echoes of the Roma cases, strangers thought their darker skin parents might have been abductors. (Interestingly, white or lighter-skinned parents with darker children were instead assumed to be adoptive parents.)

Do you have a similar story? We'd love to hear them in the comments.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/10/25/240865629/roma-children-removals-make-us-wonder-what-family-looks-like?ft=1&f=1001
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Hillary Clinton's Soft Launch

In 2008, Barack Obama promised to be a president who brought people together, inaugurating a new era for Washington, D.C. He pointed to his biography—his mixed-race ancestry, his limited experience in the partisan battles of the past—as a chance for a break from the rancor and gridlock of the Bush years.

If Hillary Clinton runs for president in 2016, she’ll have her own story to tell—about brushing off the battles of the Obama years. She’d be able to tap some key details of her biography, too, not just her time as first lady, or even as a U.S. senator.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/27/hillary_clinton039s_soft_launch_318669.html
Category: nascar   Dumb and Dumber 2   harvest moon   Kaepernick   Amanda Dufner  

iPad art gains recognition in new Hockney exhibit

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Happily hunched over his iPad, Britain's most celebrated living artist David Hockney is pioneering in the art world again, turning his index finger into a paintbrush that he uses to swipe across a touch screen to create vibrant landscapes, colorful forests and richly layered scenes.

"It's a very new medium," said Hockney. So new, in fact, he wasn't sure what he was creating until he began printing his digital images a few years ago. "I was pretty amazed by them actually," he said, laughing. "I'm still amazed."

A new exhibit of Hockney's work, including about 150 iPad images, opened Saturday in the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, just a short trip for Silicon Valley techies who created both the hardware and software for this 21st-century reinvention of finger-painting.

The show is billed as the museum's largest ever, filling two floors of the de Young with a survey of works from 1999 to present, mostly landscapes and portraits in an array of mediums: watercolor, charcoal and even video. But on a recent preview day, it was the iPad pieces, especially the 12-foot high majestic views of Yosemite National Park that drew gasps.

Already captured by famed photographer Ansel Adams, and prominent painters such as Thomas Hill and Albert Bierstadt, Hockney's iPad images of Yosemite's rocks, rivers and trees are both comfortingly familiar and entirely new.

In one wide open vista, scrubby, bright green pines sparkle in sunlight, backed by Bridalveil Fall tumbling lightly down a cliff side; the distinct granite crest of Half Dome looms in the background. In another, a heavy mist obscures stands of giant sequoias.

"He has such command of space, atmosphere and light," said Fine Arts Museums director Colin Bailey.

Other iPad images are overlaid, so viewers can see them as they were drawn, an animated beginning-to-end chronological loop. He tackles faces and flowers, and everyday objects: a human foot, scissors, an electric plug.

Some of the iPad drawings are displayed on digital screens, others, like the Yosemite works, were printed on six large panels. Hockey's technical assistants used large inkjet prints reproduce the images he created on his IPad.

Exhibiting iPad images by a prominent artist in a significant museum gives the medium a boost, said art historians, helping digital artwork gain legitimacy in the notoriously snobby art world where computer tablet art shows are rare and prices typically lower than comparable watercolors or oils.

"I'm grateful he's doing this because it opens people's mind to the technology in a new way," said Long Island University Art Historian Maureen Nappi, although she described Hockney's iPad work as "gimmicky."

Writing about the historic shift of drawing from prehistoric cave painting to digital tablets in this month's MIT journal "Leonardo," Nappi said that while iPad work is still novel, the physicality of painting and drawing have gone on for millennia.

"These gestures are as old as humans are," she said in an interview. "Go back to cave paintings, they're using finger movements to articulate creative expressions."

Hockney, 76, started drawing on his iPhone with his thumb about five years ago, shooting his works via email to dozens of friends at a time.

"People from the village come up and tease me: 'We hear you've started drawing on your telephone.' And I tell them, 'Well, no, actually, it's just that occasionally I speak on my sketch pad,'" he said.

When the iPad was announced, Hockney said he had one shipped immediately to his home in London, where he splits his time with Los Angeles.

He creates his work with an app built by former Apple software engineer Steve Sprang of Mountain View, Calif., called Brushes, which along with dozens of other programs like Touch Sketch, SketchBook Mobile and Bamboo Paper are being snapped up by artists, illustrators and graphic designers.

Together, the artists are developing new finger and stylus techniques, with Hockney's vanguard work offering innovative approaches.

"David Hockney is one of the living masters of oil painting, a nearly-600-year-old technology, and thus is well positioned to have thought long and hard about the advantages of painting with a digital device like the iPad," said Binghamton University Art Historian Kevin Hatch in New York.

Hatch said a "digital turn" in the art world began about 25 years ago, as the Internet gained popularity, and he said today most artists have adapted to using a device in some way as they create art.

A similar shift happened almost 100 years ago with the dawn of photography, he said, when innovations such as the small photograph cards and the stereoscope captured the art world's imagination.

And Hatch said there are some drawbacks to the shift to tablet art.

"A certain almost magical quality of oil paint, a tactile, tangible substance, is lost when a painting becomes, at heart, a piece of code, a set of invisible 1's and 0's," he said.

Hockney, who created 78 of the almost 400 pieces in the de Young show this year, isn't giving up painting, or drawing, or video, or tablets, any time soon. When asked where he sees the world of art going, he shrugged his broad shoulders and paused.

"I don't know where it's going, really, who does?" he said. "But art will be there."

• Visual Arts
• Technology & Electronics
• David Hockney

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ipad-art-gains-recognition-hockney-exhibit-142603289.html
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Kristen Stewart Ain't Happy With Robert Pattinson's Many Gal Pals So She Sent An Angry Email To Tell Him!!!

Maybe THIS was why Kristen Stewart was so smiley the other day!

She finally got to tell Robert Pattinson how she felt about his "womanizing" ways!

Though, it can't have been recently since APPARENTLY the two Twilight stars just spent the night together!

Unless, of course, the email is what caused the reunion!?!

Sources said:

“[Kristen] wasn’t happy…that Rob’s been dating other girls so soon after they split. She told him he was cheapening everything they’d had between them.”

WHOA! So she decides to send him an angry email?? Why not just call him up and tell him? Or… you know… move on… since you guys are broken up?

Just sayin'!!

Other sources, however, are reporting that all of these reunion rumors are "not true" which makes us wonder what is ACTUALLY happening!

These two are so up and down we can barely keep up!

Make up your minds kids!

SHESH!

[Image via WENN.]

Tags: angry, broken, broken up, dating, email, gifs, girls, kristen stewart, kstew, love line, reunion, robert pattinson, sources, split, twilight

Source: http://perezhilton.com/2013-10-24-kristen-stewart-sends-robert-pattinson-angry-email-twilight
Similar Articles: Bad Grandpa   arian foster   scarlett johansson   Andre Drummond   irina shayk  

Accordions, Beer and God: Zydeco In Gran Texas

After years of attending church dances, Step Rideau says he was moved to connect with his heritage on a deeper level.

Courtesy of the artist

After years of attending church dances, Step Rideau says he was moved to connect with his heritage on a deeper level.

Courtesy of the artist

The modest cream colored '50s era chapel that's home to St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Houston looks like many other places of worship you might find in urban America. The first clue to a unique tradition here pulls up Sunday afternoon.

It's a truck and a trailer with Louisiana plates. Out come the amps, the drums, an accordion and a washboard. Within the hour, under the giant wooden crucifix in the church family center, Jeremy and the Zydeco Hot Boyz kick into gear and the dance floor gets busy. It's a party fueled by beer, boudin and red beans and rice from the church kitchen. If it's Sunday in Houston, parishioner Bennie Allen Brooks says, it's Zydeco.

"If you go to any of the Catholic churches, you have zydeco bands," Brooks says. "And most of our parishioners are from Louisiana."

Louisiana Migration

There's a reason for that. Houstonian Roger Wood, author of the book Texas Zydeco, traces the origins of the zydeco church dances to two distinct migratory waves from the poor towns and villages of Louisiana to southeastern Texas in the first half of the 20th century.

"After the Louisiana flood of 1927 and after World War II, black Creole servicemen came home and were no longer willing to be sharecroppers," Wood says. "They tended to migrate to where the work was. And in southeast Texas, it was 'Gran Texas' — 'Big Houston.'"

The migrants brought their washboards and their accordion driven la-la music, as they called it — which, once amplified, became known in Texas as zydeco. The term itself is a local corruption of a poor Creole lament: "les haricots sont pas sale" or "the beans are not salted." Over the years, Wood says "les haricots" became "zydeco."

Faith, Food And Music

"What Chicago was to the blues, Houston is to zydeco," Brown says.

And in large part, that's because of these church dances, says Bennie Allen Brooks, who's a lector at St. Peter's.

"It's natural, it's just natural," Brooks says. "It's kind of like shoes and feet. We dance and we praise God and it does talk about dancing in the Bible! It's just great."

For predominantly Catholic Creoles who'd left tightly-knit small towns in Louisiana, Houston's churches fostered a new sense of community — not just as places of worship, but as spaces where Creole families could find each other in the big city and share their traditions from back home: faith, food and music.

Carrying On The Tradition

Step Rideau came to Houston in the 1980s: a Creole teenager looking for a construction job. After years of attending the church dances, he says he was moved connect with his heritage on a deeper level.

"At some point," Rideau says, "I just went and purchased an accordion. In fact, that's it back there. That lil ol' Hohner accordion came from a pawn shop for 45 bucks. I said if I can learn to play that instrument, if I can teach myself to play it, I would purchase the professional — the real one. And it's a C accordion."

Were it not for the church dances, Rideau doubts he'd have ever picked up an accordion and become part of a new generation of musicians carrying on a tradition started by those first immigrants. Today he records his own albums.

Zydeco dances are such an important part of church life and fund raising, many parishes long ago added the post of "dance chairman." Percy Creuzot is in his 20s. He grew up in Houston attending the weekly zydeco dances at the city's historically black Catholic churches. In the back window of his Texas-sized pickup is a decal that reads "Creole."

A fall zydeco church bazaar can draw more than a thousand fans of all generations and span three consecutive nights, like giant la-la parties back home. Today the churches in Houston maintain a coalition — the Inter-Catholic Association — which sets a formal rotation for the weekend zydeco dances. Creuzot is the ICA representative for St. Peter the Apostle.

"You'll see the same folks," Creuzot says. "They'll travel from bazaar to bazaar on different weekends, bring their family and just taste the different boudins, the gumbos, the different zydeco bands and every church has a little something different that they offer."

But it's what these historically black Catholic churches have in common that's remarkable: perpetuating a zydeco tradition that flowered here, and providing a living sanctuary for Creole culture deep in Gran Texas.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/27/240744661/accordions-beer-and-god-zydeco-in-gran-texas?ft=1&f=1039
Tags: Tom Foley   Jane Addams   futurama   Claude Debussy   Derek Medina  

Accordions, Beer and God: Zydeco In Gran Texas

After years of attending church dances, Step Rideau says he was moved to connect with his heritage on a deeper level.

Courtesy of the artist

After years of attending church dances, Step Rideau says he was moved to connect with his heritage on a deeper level.

Courtesy of the artist

The modest cream colored '50s era chapel that's home to St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Houston looks like many other places of worship you might find in urban America. The first clue to a unique tradition here pulls up Sunday afternoon.

It's a truck and a trailer with Louisiana plates. Out come the amps, the drums, an accordion and a washboard. Within the hour, under the giant wooden crucifix in the church family center, Jeremy and the Zydeco Hot Boyz kick into gear and the dance floor gets busy. It's a party fueled by beer, boudin and red beans and rice from the church kitchen. If it's Sunday in Houston, parishioner Bennie Allen Brooks says, it's Zydeco.

"If you go to any of the Catholic churches, you have zydeco bands," Brooks says. "And most of our parishioners are from Louisiana."

Louisiana Migration

There's a reason for that. Houstonian Roger Wood, author of the book Texas Zydeco, traces the origins of the zydeco church dances to two distinct migratory waves from the poor towns and villages of Louisiana to southeastern Texas in the first half of the 20th century.

"After the Louisiana flood of 1927 and after World War II, black Creole servicemen came home and were no longer willing to be sharecroppers," Wood says. "They tended to migrate to where the work was. And in southeast Texas, it was 'Gran Texas' — 'Big Houston.'"

The migrants brought their washboards and their accordion driven la-la music, as they called it — which, once amplified, became known in Texas as zydeco. The term itself is a local corruption of a poor Creole lament: "les haricots sont pas sale" or "the beans are not salted." Over the years, Wood says "les haricots" became "zydeco."

Faith, Food And Music

"What Chicago was to the blues, Houston is to zydeco," Brown says.

And in large part, that's because of these church dances, says Bennie Allen Brooks, who's a lector at St. Peter's.

"It's natural, it's just natural," Brooks says. "It's kind of like shoes and feet. We dance and we praise God and it does talk about dancing in the Bible! It's just great."

For predominantly Catholic Creoles who'd left tightly-knit small towns in Louisiana, Houston's churches fostered a new sense of community — not just as places of worship, but as spaces where Creole families could find each other in the big city and share their traditions from back home: faith, food and music.

Carrying On The Tradition

Step Rideau came to Houston in the 1980s: a Creole teenager looking for a construction job. After years of attending the church dances, he says he was moved connect with his heritage on a deeper level.

"At some point," Rideau says, "I just went and purchased an accordion. In fact, that's it back there. That lil ol' Hohner accordion came from a pawn shop for 45 bucks. I said if I can learn to play that instrument, if I can teach myself to play it, I would purchase the professional — the real one. And it's a C accordion."

Were it not for the church dances, Rideau doubts he'd have ever picked up an accordion and become part of a new generation of musicians carrying on a tradition started by those first immigrants. Today he records his own albums.

Zydeco dances are such an important part of church life and fund raising, many parishes long ago added the post of "dance chairman." Percy Creuzot is in his 20s. He grew up in Houston attending the weekly zydeco dances at the city's historically black Catholic churches. In the back window of his Texas-sized pickup is a decal that reads "Creole."

A fall zydeco church bazaar can draw more than a thousand fans of all generations and span three consecutive nights, like giant la-la parties back home. Today the churches in Houston maintain a coalition — the Inter-Catholic Association — which sets a formal rotation for the weekend zydeco dances. Creuzot is the ICA representative for St. Peter the Apostle.

"You'll see the same folks," Creuzot says. "They'll travel from bazaar to bazaar on different weekends, bring their family and just taste the different boudins, the gumbos, the different zydeco bands and every church has a little something different that they offer."

But it's what these historically black Catholic churches have in common that's remarkable: perpetuating a zydeco tradition that flowered here, and providing a living sanctuary for Creole culture deep in Gran Texas.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/10/27/240744661/accordions-beer-and-god-zydeco-in-gran-texas?ft=1&f=1039
Tags: Tom Foley   Jane Addams   futurama   Claude Debussy   Derek Medina  

Tablet shipments will jump 53% in 2013, Gartner says

Tablets shipments will blast ahead by 53 percent in 2013 as desktop and laptop shipments decline by 11 percent, research firm Gartner forecast last week.

The emergence of ultramobile devices, which marries a PC with the form factor of a tablet, will help ease the declines in other PCs, but not by much. When ultramobiles are included, the overall PC market will still decline 8.4 percent in 2013, Gartner said.

The news of the fantastic popularity of tablets comes as Apple is set to release revamped iPads and iPad Minis on Tuesday, while Microsoft on the same day begins shipments of its Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tabletsrunning Windows 8.1, starting at $449 and $899, respectively.

Gartner forecast that Android tablets of all brands will exceed iPads for all of 2013 for the first time, with 91.5 million (49.6 percent) Android tablets shipped compared with 89.6 million (48.6 percent) Apple iPads. Gartner said just over 3 million (1.7 percent) Windows tablets will ship.

Apple's iPads still had the largest share of the worldwide tablet market by manufacturer at 32 percent in the second quarter, according to IDC, followed by Samsung at 18 percent. Samsung builds its tablets primarily on the Android mobile operating system.

Small tablets or big smartphones?

Gartner and other analysts have found a strong trend toward smaller tablets, some as small as those with a 7-inch display. In a survey of 21,500 consumers in the U.S. and seven other countries, Gartner found 47 percent owned a tablet with a display of 8 inches or less.

"Continuing on the trend we saw last year, we expect this holiday season to be all about smaller tablets as even the long-term holiday favorite—the smartphone—loses its appeal," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi in a statement.

Mobile phones will reach 1.8 billion shipments in 2013, Gartner said, growing by 3.7 percent over 2012.

For all devices, including desktops, laptops, ultramobiles, tablets, and mobile phones, Android has 38 percent of the market, while the Windows OS is second at 4.3 percent due to a decline in traditional PC sales, Gartner said. The total shipments for all devices should reach 2.3 billion in 2013.

By device type, Gartner said shipments of desktops and laptops in 2013 will total 303 million units; ultramobiles, 18.5 million; tablets, 184 million; and mobile phones,1.8 billion. The total of all categories is 2.3 billion.

All products running iOS are third, at 1.2 percent. Gartner noted that Windows will return to growth in 2014, with OS shipments increasing nearly 10 percent to about 364 million that year.

Watch for wearables

Milanesi predicted that wearable computers such as smart watches and smart glasses will primarily remain a companion to mobile phones for years to come, even though vendors see the category as an important market opportunity. Fewer than 1 percent of consumers will replace their mobile phones with a combination of a wearable device and a tablet by 2017, Gartner said.

"In the short term, we expect consumers to look at wearables as nice to have rather than a 'must have,' leaving smartphones to play the role of our faithful companion throughout the day," Milanesi said.

Matt Hamblen , Computerworld

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld.
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Republicans' Embarassing ObamaCare Overreach

Now, with GOP hostage threats tucked away in abeyance, and Healthcare.gov’s prognosis unclear, Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the Obama administration are entertaining a couple of ways to ameliorate the problems the site is creating for consumers in states with broken marketplaces, without harming the basic integrity of the law.

The coalition is hanging together against GOP sabotage efforts under the worst possible circumstances. And, as such, Republicans are resorting to what you could either call derp, or outright deceit — your mileage may vary.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/24/republicans039_embarassing_obamacare_overreach_318558.html
Category: Witches of East End   broncos   Chobani Recall   oj simpson   Frank Castillo  

Kanye West All Smiles at Hollywood Film Awards Before Kim Kardashian Proposal: Picture

It was the beginning of a very very good night for Kanye West! Shortly before he proposed to Kim Kardashian in San Francisco, the rapper, 36, was hundreds of miles south in Hollywood to present the first trophy of the night at the Hollywood Film Awards. With guests like Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Jake Gyllenhaal, Matthew McConaughey and many others looking on, West was unusually cool, calm and serene presenting the Breakout Director Award to 12 Years a Slave helmer Steve McQueen.

PHOTOS: His most obnoxious moments

After quickly noting to the crowd that he planned to head back to San Francisco immediately after the show, the "Black Skinhead" emcee (in a black blazer and white shirt) tamely gushed about his love and respect for McQueen, whose film is one of the most acclaimed buzzed -bout of the season.

PHOTOS: Kimye's cutest moments

Afterwards, West boarded a private jet and quickly headed to AT&T Park in San Francisco, where Kim was with family and friends (including sisters Kourtney and Khloe); he projected "PLEEESE MARRY MEEE!!!" on the stadium screen. A surprised and overjoyed Kardashian, celebrating her 33rd birthday that day, quickly said yes.

PHOTOS: Who said it -- Miley or Kanye?

The pair share daughter North West, 4 months.

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/kanye-west-all-smiles-at-hollywood-film-awards-before-kim-kardashian-proposal-picture-20132210
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The Fix: 2013 has been a very good year for Chris Christie. And it’s going to get better. (Washington Post)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/335973155?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Samsung Printer Xpress C410W review: NFC makes low-end color laser a little special

Most low-priced color lasers are big disappointments: slow, with mediocre color images and costly toner prices. The Samsung Printer XPress C410W rises above some of the stereotypes, offering impressively good print quality and decently priced black toner. However, its color toners are costly, and print performance is agonizingly slow. Its ability to print via near-field communication (NFC) is interesting, though still somewhat niche. Call it an adequate low-volume printer for the home or small office, with a couple of bonus features.

Typical low-end color laser in most respects

Physically, there's not a lot to talk about with the XPress C410W. It's your standard, boxy laser printer that's been with us since the first HP Laserjet. There's a 150-sheet paper cassette at the bottom of the unit and a 50-sheet output tray integrated into the top. The front panel folds down to reveal the four svelte toner cartridges and other replaceable parts. There's no automatic duplexer. Dialog boxes coach you through manual two-sided printing. The controls on top of the XPress C410W are simple and easy to use. The printer may be connected via Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or USB so you can place it wherever you see fit.

It took me a while to get the NFC printing to work—basically because I didn't read the manual, which instructs you to match the tag on the back of your mobile device with the tag on the top of the printer. The lab guys got quite the kick out of my tapping manically everywhere except where I should have been.

Obviously, you must have a mobile device capable of NFC (Samsung provided a Galaxy SIII). Match tags, select what you want to print, match the tags again, and you're golden. How often you'll be standing next to a printer to match tags is questionable. Most of the time, printing via Wi-Fi will be more useful.

Color toner is costly

Whether the XPress C410W's pricey toner costs will ever catch up with you depends on how much you print. The cartridges don't last long—just 2,000 pages for black and 1,000 pages for each color. Samsung was selling them for $63.99 (black) and $54.99 (each color) at this writing, which comes out to a good 3.2 cents per page for black and a pricey 5.5 cents per color, per page. A four-color page would cost 19.7 cents. We saw lower prices for the same cartridges at other sources, so shopping around might save you a bit. This printer is designed for people who don't print much, so it could take you a while to get through even these modest-sized cartridges. Still, you're going to feel it when you re-supply—and that will be soon, as the Xpress C410W ships with 700-page black, and 500-page color starter cartridges.

Additional costs include a $98 imaging unit, which is good for 16,000 black pages and 4,000 color pages, as well as a $13 toner waste container that's good for 7,500 black pages and 1750 color pages. Eventually those replacements will add another 0.8 cents per page. Not the stuff of a bargain hunter's dreams.

Very slow performance

The XPress C410W's speed is strictly ho-hum for a laser printer, but acceptable for the printer's intended small- or home-office role.Text and monochrome graphics pages printed at an aggregate 8.2 per minute on the PC and 7.9 on the Mac. Small (4-by-6-inch) photos printed at about 2 pages per minute in graphics mode and 1.5 pages in photo mode. A full-page photo printed on the Mac took about 54 seconds.

What makes this all arguably worthwhile is the print quality, which is surprisingly good for a low-end model. Although we sometimes had to fiddle with settings to get the best possible quality, even the default colors printed smoothly and looked fairly realistic, whether they were fleshtones, landscapes, or objects. An inkjet in this price range, such as the HP OfficeJet Pro 8100 ePrinter, will deliver even better color quality—and likely, better ink prices and speed—but if you must stick with color laser, you could do worse than the XPress C410W.

Though the Samsung Printer XPress C410W's NFC printing is a neat trick, it's compelling only in a world where NFC is everywhere. It's not. Of its other qualities, the look of the XPress C410W's output is its best suit and may compensate for the unit's mundane speed. We'd like this printer a lot better with more reasonable supply costs, though—at least a half-star better.

Jon L. Jacobi Jon Jacobi, PCWorld

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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Apple wins in patent infringement trial against Wi-LAN

A federal jury in Texas found that Apple had not infringed on a patent related to CDMA and HSPA communications technologies owned by patent-licensing firm Wi-LAN.

The jury also found Wednesday that two of the claims of U.S. patent no. RE37,802 patent were invalid.

Wi-LAN began litigation against several technology companies for alleged infringement of two of its patents in 2011. The other patent in the litigation was patent no. 5,282,222, related to the use of Wi-Fi and LTE, but Apple was not accused of infringing the patent.

Since filing, six of the seven defendants have signed license and settlement agreements to resolve the litigation, according to Wi-LAN.

Wi-LAN in Canada said it was disappointed with the jury's decision but does not believe previous license agreements signed related to the patents are negatively impacted by the decision on Wednesday by the jury in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall division.

The lawsuit is just one of several filed by Wi-LAN against Apple and other companies, including one filed in December in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

John Ribeiro, IDG News Service , IDG News Service

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service.
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Complaints claim Egypt satirist defamed military

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's top prosecutor received complaints Saturday against a popular television satirist less than 24 hours after he returned to the air, as the private TV station that airs his program sought to distance itself from its contents.

The legal complaints and the reaction of the private station CBC highlight the low tolerance this deeply divided country has for criticism of the military and its leaders.

Bassem Youssef, often compared to U.S. comedian Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's satirical "The Daily Show, mocked the new pro-military fervor gripping Egypt in his program that aired Friday night.

Youssef also took jabs at the country's powerful military chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, lionized in the Egyptian media as a hero after leading a July 3 coup that ousted the country's elected Islamist president following massive protests.

By Saturday, at least four complaints had been filed with the country's top prosecutor, accusing Youssef of defaming the military in his show, a judicial official said. One of the complaints accused Youssef of using phrases that "undermine the honor and dignity of Egypt and its people" in a manner sowing sedition and spreading lies.

The official said no investigation into the complaints had started yet. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to journalists. Such complaints, common under Egyptian law, are often shelved until prosecutors decide to start an investigation.

In a statement read during prime time Saturday night, a broadcaster read a statement issued by CBC's board of directors in which the station sought to distance itself from the views expressed by Youssef on his show called "El-Bernameg," or "The Program." The statement appeared to be a reaction to negative feedback from viewers and possibly officials.

The statement noted that the public's reaction to Youssef's Friday night show was "largely disapproving."

"CBC will continue to be supportive of the basics of national sentiment and popular will, and is keen on not using phrases and innuendos that may lead to mocking national sentiment or symbols of the Egyptian state," the station said.

The station added that it is also committed to freedom of the media.

During Friday's show, Youssef imitated el-Sissi's soft-spoken, affectionate way of addressing the public, turning it into a lover's romantic groove. In one skit, a woman named "the Public" calls into a love advice show raving about the love of her life who saved her from an abusive husband.

"He's an officer as big as the world," she coos adoringly, making a pun on a slogan el-Sissi uses in nearly every speech: "Egypt will be big enough to face down the world." Then she adds, "He does have a sovereign streak."

One complainant, well-known politician Ahmed el-Fadaly, referred to the skit of the adoring woman, accusing Youssef of portraying Egypt as a "dallying woman who betrays her husband with military men."

El-Fadaly, who heads an association of young Muslims, also accused the satirist of belittling the armed forces' efforts to deal with terrorism, and of misrepresenting the popular protests against President Mohammed Morsi as a coup, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by The Associated Press.

Another complainant, a group called The Campaign for el-Sissi for President, alleged that Youssef had defamed the military and its leadership through sexual innuendos, according to the Youm7 news website.

Youssef used satire to criticize Morsi during his one year in office. Morsi supporters also sued Youssef for insulting the presidency and Islam, leading to his brief detention.

Before returning to the air after four months of absence, Youssef predicted in an article he wrote that he will continue to be pursued legally by his new critics "who allegedly love freedom dearly — when it works in their favor."

His late-night Friday show caused a stir in a sharply divided country. Since Morsi's ouster, hundreds have been killed in crackdowns on protesters demanding Morsi's reinstatement. Attacks by Islamic extremists against security forces and Christians have increased. A nationalist fervor gripping the country has elevated the military to an untouchable status, leaving little tolerance among the public or officials for criticism.

For now, Youssef appears undeterred. After Friday's show aired, Youssef took to Twitter to remind the public that the show just began: "It is only an episode in a program, people."

• Politics & Government
• Egypt

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/complaints-claim-egypt-satirist-defamed-military-165824788.html
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Grand jury indicted JonBenet Ramsey parents

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — A grand jury found enough evidence to indict the parents of JonBenet Ramsey for child abuse and accessory to first-degree murder in the 6-year-old's death, newly unsealed documents revealed Friday, nearly a decade after DNA evidence cleared the couple.

But the 1999 documents shed no light on who was responsible for the child beauty queen's death, and 14 years later, authorities are no closer to finding her killer.

The documents confirmed reports earlier this year that grand jurors had indeed recommended an indictment in the case, contrary to the long-held perception that the secret panel ended their work without deciding to charge anyone.

At the time, then-District Attorney Alex Hunter didn't mention an indictment, saying only that there wasn't enough evidence to warrant charges against the Ramseys, who had long maintained their innocence.

The grand jury met three years after JonBenet's body was found bludgeoned and strangled in the basement of her family's home in Boulder, the day after Christmas in 1996. Lurid details of the crime and striking video footage of the child in adult makeup and suggestive pageant costumes propelled the case into one of the highest-profile mysteries in the U.S., unleashing a series of true-crime books and TV specials.

Many tabloid headlines later, tests in 2008 on newly discovered DNA left behind by someone who touched JonBenet's long underwear pointed to the involvement of an "unexplained third party" in her slaying, and not the Ramseys or their son, Burke.

The tests led Hunter's successor, Mary Lacy, to clear the Ramseys, two years after Patsy Ramsey died of cancer. In a letter to John Ramsey, she called the couple "victims of this crime."

Finding a match in the nation's growing DNA database could hold the best hope for someday solving the killing of JonBenet, who would now be 23. Her slaying is considered a cold case, open but not under active investigation.

One of John Ramsey's attorneys, L. Lin Wood, said the documents released Friday are "nonsensical" and the grand jurors didn't have the benefit of having the DNA results.

"They reveal nothing about the evidence reviewed by the grand jury and are clearly the result of a confused and compromised process," he said.

While the killer's identity is still unknown, Wood said there's no mystery about the Ramseys' role.

"The Ramsey family is innocent," he said. "That part of the case, based on the DNA evidence, is a done deal."

Boulder police, who were criticized for their handling of the investigation, issued a statement saying the documents show the grand jury agreed with investigators that probable cause existed to file charges. However, the statement acknowledged that the evidence would have to meet a higher standard than probable cause for prosecutors to take the case to trial.

The current district attorney, Stan Garnett, declined to comment but will publish an op-ed piece on Sunday, given the complexity of the case, a spokeswoman said.

David Lane, a defense attorney not involved in the case, said prosecutors may have handed it over to grand jurors because problems in the investigation could have made it difficult to prosecute. But he said that could have backfired with a "runaway grand jury" that reached its own conclusions.

He said the indictments could have been an attempt to force the parents to turn against each other, which he said was unlikely because both were protected by laws that limit testimony of one spouse against another.

"Somebody killed JonBenet Ramsey," Lane said. "It sounds like they were accused of aiding and abetting each other, with the hope someone would crack and break. That didn't happen, and prosecutors may have decided not to go forward."

Although the grand jury foreman signed the 1999 indictments, prosecutors decided not to bring charges.

Christina Habas, a retired judge who oversaw grand juries in Denver, said it's at the discretion of the district attorney whether to file charges because prosecutors have to consider whether they can convince a trial jury of someone's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The indictments might have been a compromise among jurors who were divided on what counts should be approved, said Nancy Leong, an assistant law professor at the University of Denver. The release of only four of 18 charging pages, and the numbering of the charges, suggest other possible charges were passed over. The charge of accessory to a crime might have been an attempt to "meet in the middle," Leong said.

"And that would also explain why the prosecutor didn't want to continue with the prosecution of the crime, because there might not have been enough evidence to prove the parents helped someone else cover up the crime," she said.

Whatever the motivation behind them, the documents add little or nothing to the public understanding of what happened to JonBenet, Leong said.

"We don't know much more factually, if anything, than we did in 1996," she said.

The Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder reported earlier this year that the grand jury had issued indictments, and the documents were released in response to a lawsuit filed by its reporter, Charlie Brennan, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

_____

Associated Press writers Steven K. Paulson and Dan Elliott contributed to this report.

• Society & Culture
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• JonBenet Ramsey
• grand jury

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/grand-jury-indicted-jonbenet-ramsey-parents-222725272.html
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Engadget Podcast 366 - 10.24.13

It's been a big week in news and our host Marc Perton is joined by Dana Wollman and Peter Rojas to sort through the details. Apple focused on the tablet-size sweetspot with their iPad mini Retina, but will the steep pricing prove to be too precious? Peter muses about the meaning behind Apple's "space" gray nomenclature, Dana hashes out the details on Microsoft's Surface 2 line and Nokia's new tablet, and the crew discuss the implications of John Sculley's rumored bid for BlackBerry. Could it prove to be a rally cry or a death knell for the dark fruit? There's no certainty on that, but we do know that Peter will definitely not be in costume for next week's show. So big up your brain with a heaping helping of tech after the break in this week's episode of the Engadget Podcast.

Hosts: Marc Perton, Dana Wollman, Peter Rojas

Producer: Jon Turi

Hear the podcast:

00:58 - The iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display: what's new?
17:05 - Apple's OS X Mavericks 10.9 will arrive as a free download today
17:51 - Apple redesigns iWork, brings collaboration features via iCloud
19:42 - Apple announces new version of iLife for OS X Mavericks and iOS, available today
22:25 - Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 tablets now available in 21 countries
23:11 - Microsoft Surface 2 review: a second chance for Windows RT?
25:23 - Microsoft Surface Pro 2 review: a tablet that works best as a laptop
32:11 - Nokia Lumia 2520 tablet hands-on: Windows RT wrapped in polycarbonate
32:47 - Nokia Lumia 1520: Windows Phone with 6-inch 1080p display and 20MP camera for $750
36:26 - Nokia adds 500, 502 and 503 to its Asha lineup, starts at $69

Subscribe to the podcast:

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[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
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[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace.

Download the podcast:

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Contact the podcast:

Connect with the hosts on Twitter: @peterrojas
E-mail us: podcast [at] engadget [dot] com

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/25/engadget-podcast-366/?ncid=rss_truncated
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9 best Chrome apps for managing data, clients, money, and more

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"Cover Oregon" Doesn't Have Me Covered

Despite official statements in recent days, the problems at the federal and state health insurance exchanges are far from merely "technical." Based on my experience trying to navigate the utter confusion at the "Cover Oregon" health exchange over something as simple as determining one's income and eligibility for tax credits, I wonder if they'll ever get ObamaCare working. And I'm someone who would love to sign up for one of the plans. Consider, for example, that under the Affordable Care Act, income for self-employed people like myself is supposed to be determined by one's estimated 2014 modified adjusted gross income, or MAGI. Under the law, this means your net business income (gross income minus ordinary business expenses, or Line 12 on IRS form 1040) minus any IRA contributions, the deductible portion of self-employment taxes, and the premiums you paid for health insurance.

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2013/10/26/quotcover_oregonquot_doesn039t_have_me_covered_318630.html
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The White Stripes On World Cafe

Patrick Pantano/Courtesy of the artist

The White Stripes.

Patrick Pantano/Courtesy of the artist

• "Lord, Send Me An Angel"


• "I Want To Be The Boy To Warm Your Mother's Heart"


• "The Big Three Killed My Baby"

This segment from 2003 is part of our Vintage Cafe series, in which we revisit some of our best studio performances.

World Cafe's week-long Sense of Place spotlight on Detroit kicks off with a 2003 Vintage Cafe with The White Stripes. Jack White may have left Detroit for Nashville, but the Motor City is where The White Stripes and White's label, Third Man Records, were born.

This session took place when the garage-rocker's career had blown up with the success of the album Elephant. In conversation with host David Dye, White discusses that success, as well as music he loves, from the blues to Loretta Lynn. Drummer Meg White plays alongside Jack White in a live set at the WXPN studio.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/WorldCafe/2013/10/21/239130476/the-white-stripes-on-world-cafe?ft=1&f=1039
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I Do Not Like Miley’s Outfit

Miley Cyrus performs during the iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas on Sept. 21, 2013.

Photo silhouette by Slate. Photo by Steve Marcus/Reuters

Scotchguard your skorts. Disinfect your nylons. Purell your disco purse. It’s getting skanky out there … AGAIN!

Simon Doonan is an author, fashion commentator, and creative ambassador for Barneys New York. (Photo by Roxanne Lowit.)

I’m referring, of course, to the new wave of porn-inspired pop divas who are attempting to sell records by flaunting their private areas and jiggling their fleshy assets with unprecedented abandon.

How did we all get so yeasty and slutty? Why have we chosen to live in a world where hoochie hotness is the only currency? How much is that dildo in the window, the one with the waggly bit on the end?

In order to answer these important questions, we need to go back, way back, to a time when hookers were hookers and pop singers were pop singers and never the twain did meet:

Los Angeles. It’s the late 1970s, and I am watching the girls working the end of my block on Sunset. Wearing bikinis and heels, even in the pouring rain, these drug-addled sex workers are a sorry sight. Donna Summer’s big hit wafts from a passing car:

Bad girls, sad girls
You're such a dirty bad girl
Beep-beep, uh-uh
You’re bad girl, you’re sad girl
You’re such a dirty bad girl
Beep-beep, uh-uh.

Over the subsequent decades, something weird happens. The sad part evaporates, but the bad part lingers. The spotlight focuses upon skank style and begins, slowly but surely, to fetishize, glamorize, and exalt anything remotely connected with pimping, hooking, and stripping. Porno chic is born. Suddenly, shockingly, ball gags are the new fanny packs.

Christina Aguilera performs in 2002 in New York.

Photo by Mark Mainz/Getty Images

Two decades after Donna Summer’s Bad Girls, in 2002, Christina Aguilera releases her album Stripped, which includes the track titled “Dirrty.” A David LaChapelle–directed video suggests that Ms. Aguilera might well be in need of a medical intervention. Or maybe there is a Taser lodged in her vagina? Either way, she appears to be suffering from some kind of erotic epilepsy. It is a “me-so-horny” act that makes the chick in Full Metal Jacket look like Maria von Trapp. Aguilera’s record company responds to criticism by claiming that their artist was “reaching out for something more real.” The way the video made it look, that “something” was a dose of the clap. No offense.

At the time I sent up many warning flares. I cautioned the world about the effect on Aguilera’s tween audience. Little girls are not supposed to be thrashing around like cracked-out pole dancers. Instead they should be skipping around the lawn in a Ralph Lauren-ish backyard, wearing little bonnets and starched Bonpoint sundresses and singing songs like “Mabel, Mabel, Set the Table.”

Suddenly, shockingly, ball gags are the new fanny packs.

Ever eager to see things from both sides, I also cried foul on behalf of the strippers of the world. Their choreographic repertoire was, courtesy of La Aguilera, being hijacked by little girls. Ditto their clothing. When the entire female population starts dressing and acting like a bunch of strippers, how, pray, are the strippers supposed to dress to attract attention? Loss of earnings! Hello!

After Aguilera there was, give or take a wardrobe malfunction or two, a comparative lull in the porno-pop action. In the intervening years singers like Adele (very Maggie Smith playing Miss Jean Brodie) and Lily Allen (sneakers with maxi skirts) and Florence Welch (pre-Raphaelite patio gowns) strenuously avoided dressing like sex workers. Porno style migrated temporarily away from pop music and found a new petri dish: reality television. Shows like Bad Girls Club and I Love New York—the participants said charming things like, “I’m so ghetto my pussy smells like menthol”—provided a welcoming skank-friendly environment.

Rihanna, left, and Miley Cyrus

Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker/Slate. Photos by Getty.

The reality show milieu could only contain the stripperfest for so long, and now it’s BACK! And nastier than ever. A second wave of porno pop is currently raging across our screens, and Doris Day it ain’t. We are descending into a hoochie hellhole. And most young people—particularly those young gals who cut their teeth on Aguilera’s G-strings—are totally unfazed. Everything seems “totes norms” to them. In fact, so inured are they to our oversexed culture that, when they discover the artists of yore on YouTube, they are totally dumbfounded by the lack of throbbing, overt sexual hotness. Yes, that gal Dusty Springfield has a great voice, but why isn’t she showing more cleavage and buttcrack ? Siouxsie Sioux, Nina Hagen, and Debbie Harry were all so creative, but why all the clothes? Why the lack of pasties? And Joni Mitchell? What’s with the caftans and long skirts? Is she covering up a skin complaint? And that belter Janis Joplin? If she was so wild and groovy, how come she kept her velour, tie-die pantsuits on? The least she could have done was pull out one of her boobies.

If you think I am exaggerating about the current pornsplosion, then you probably have not seen the new erotically sinister, description-defying Rihanna video, the one for her current hit “Pour It Up,” which has been viewed more than 56 million times:

(At the time of this writing, Rihanna is generating more ink. After having viewed a sex show in Phuket, Thailand,  during which a lady pulled live animals from her hoo-hah, RiRi tweeted about what she saw, and the promoters were all arrested. Happy entrails!)

And then there’s Britney’s latest offering, entitled “Work Bitch”:

Here our gal BritBrit has taken on the dual role of whore and sadistic oppressor. She dispenses profound and caring nuggets of advice while thrashing other women with whips—You want a Maserati? You better work, bitch!—after which she dynamites large groups of fellow hookers, blowing their bodies to smithereens. Simone De Beauvoir, Kate Millett, and Germaine Greer, eat your hearts out.

Call me crazy, but I always thought of clothing, however minimal, as a simple system of nonverbal communication. It allows us to telegraph whatever we want to the outside world.

A twinset and pearls indicates a certain conservatism. A leather catsuit screams, “I’m a hired assassin!” An Issey Miyake cocoon suggests that you might be an architect or a pretentious poet. And dressing like a porn-slut indicates, loudly and clearly, that you are more than willing to give head in the stationery closet. What does that have to do with being a songstress?

A cursory glance at these porn ’n’ pop mélanges will leave you wondering where it will all end. How far are we from the day when singers will record their songs midshag? Not very. The next time Miley Cyrus appears on an award show, she will doubtless unzip a dude’s pants and go the whole hog. And then what? Bestiality? Not with my Norwich terrier. No way. Put him down, Miley! He’s too old for you, and he’s not in the mood.

Come back, Lawrence Welk! We miss you.

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/doonan/2013/10/miley_cyrus_scanty_outfits_porn_inspired_pop_divas_should_wear_more_clothes.html
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