The WHO launched a program calling for improved road safety throughout the world. I’d say that’s a noncontroversial aim – of course, note the usual guilt tripping of the developed world at the end: Road crashes are the second leading cause of death globally among young people aged five to …

New update to RealPlayer 10 supports every major content format and online music download service. Hey, all the trains can run on this track: The latest version of the RealPlayer 10 music-playing software offers consumers the ability to use all the content delivery systems the company’s competitors developed, including Microsoft’s …

If I were even more sarcastic than I am, I would say something about this being suicide awareness month, between the Kurt Cobain ruminations and now this tribute to Spalding Gray, another damaged soul who couldn’t wait for the end to come of its own accord: KCRW TO BROADCAST A …

We’ve had some positive reviews of the Starsky and Hutch homage film here on Blogcritics and Casper made particular mention of the soundtrack, so I thought I would check it out. Period soundtracks – and this one is the ’70s – function both as a repository of songs from the …

How does a spunky, slightly melancholy, New York-based alt-pop-rock singer-songwriter who looks like a cross between Marshall Crenshaw and John Cazale differentiate himself from the dozens of others who fit the same description? If you are Sam Bisbee you make a very fine album called High, with songs like “High …

Lawrence Lessig’s new book is out, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. The site for the book describes it thusly: Lawrence Lessig could be called a cultural environmentalist. One of America’s most original and influential public intellectuals, his focus …

Jesse has been on a roll since he left office, speaking out in favor of gay marriage a couple of weeks ago, and now advocating reform of marijuana laws: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE APRIL 6, 2004 Bill Maher, Jesse Ventura, Joycelyn Elders Join Call for Rational Marijuana Policies Marijuana Policy Project …

At the Juno Awards Alanis Morisette got faux-naked, the big winner was a guy I’ve never heard of, and my bud Bob Ezrin was inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame: Canadian rocker Alanis Morissette didn’t bare her breast like Janet Jackson, but she did bare her soul Sunday night …

Marines – valuing civilian safety over their own, even though many of those same civilians want them dead – fight for Fallujah. Washington Post reporter Pamela Constable is there with the First Marine Expeditionary Force: U.S. Marines have established control over a significant portion of the flashpoint city of Fallujah …

It is very easy for us to forget how remote many parts of the world still are, and few places are more remote than island chains like the Solomons in the South Pacific. With email carried by radio waves, the Solomons are a little less remote than they used to …