Helen Sventitsky
Singer/Songwriter/Other

This weekend, Liane Hansen, host of Weekend Edition Sunday, will interview the authors of a new book: Blended Nation: Portraits and Interviews of Mixed-Race America. It’s part of a new series called “Beyond Black and White,” which will highlight the nation’s changing demographics and changing attitudes about racial identity.

I don’t really commiserate with a lot of other Muse fans (save for my fellow Muse-heads on FriendFeed, - Hi Carmen and RAP!! *waves*). For obvious reasons, I can’t “friend” them on Myspace, or “fan” them on Facebook (well, I can “fan” them, but not much else). However, I can (quietly) subscribe to their blog and (silently) follow them on Twitter. And, it was in both of these places where I saw that the video was announced and I took the bait.

My jury is still out on this song, although I’m starting to warm up to it: It’s stuttering Timbaland-meets-Depeche mode arrangement, the sympathetic lover as seducer lyrical content, the slap bass that jolts you in the bridge. It’s very much this new album’s “Supermassive Black Hole”, and I’ll admit, I did not like that song when it first came out, either. Although I did come around to it in a big way, eventually.

This video is weird too, just like Superrmassive Black Hole. Well, not quite as weird. But weirdness is what we expect from Muse. Which is why we love ‘em.

Go Team!

There are as many as 150 donkeys here and Delhi’s builders still find them useful for ferrying bricks and concrete from demolished building sites. But if New Delhi’s plans come to fruition this month, another piece of the city’s medieval heritage will disappear, and another group of poor people will be booted out of their homes and jobs.

“The government said they are going to come and take away the donkeys and force us out,” said Mohammad Shakir, a fierce-eyed man in a white kurta whose ancestors have been carters for more than 100 years. “It’s not right. We live here. All our families are here. Our forefathers stayed, lived and died here. Our livelihood is here, and our kids go to school around here.”

Per ★ Esther Rudolph @ FriendFeed…

Now this is pretty damn cool.

Isn’t it cute…NOT!!!!!

A newly-discovered spider has been named after rock star David Bowie, in an effort to raise awareness about the number of arachnid species threatened with extinction.

Published: 12:35PM BST 07 Sep 2009 
The Heteropoda davidbowie has been discovered in Malaysia
The Heteropoda davidbowie has been discovered in Malaysia Photo: Senckenberg Museum of Natural History

The Heteropoda davidbowie is distinguished by its large size and yellow hair, and is only found in parts of Malaysia.

Bowie was apparently selected for the honour because of his musical contribution to arachnid world – the 1972 concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit can move forward against the Patent and Trademark Office and the research company that was awarded exclusive rights to human genes known to detect early signs of breast and ovarian cancer.

The first-of-its-kind lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law claims that the patents violate free speech by restricting research.

So, potentially, someone could own part of my body. Yikes!