Andy Irons is the Xbox Pipeline Masters and overall Vans Triple Crown of Surfing champion. There’s no surf in Cleveland (unless there’s one hellacious storm), maybe you’ve heard that. I miss the ocean, salt in my eyes, sand in my teeth. I’m not much of a surfer because I was …

Our wKen just reviewed a show called “Smell-O-Vision” here the other day, now the government wants smell-o-vision of a different kind; The Pentagon wants to sniff out fugitives – literally. The federal agency that created the Internet now challenges scientists to create a detector that could identify people by their …

$28 billion award to former smoker deep discounted to $28 million, but a significant tobacco loss nonetheless - makes me think of the music industry.

Interesting coincidence that Norah Vincent’s editorial hoping the Australian libel ruling makes bloggers more cautious with their canard slinging would come out on the same day as a Washington Post article saying in effect that the same rules of publishing apply online as off: But since many bloggers have no …

It is the dissembling, half-truths and unalloyed lies that will kill the music industry: payola, accounting practices, mischaracterization of their sales slump, etc. Here’s a new one according to Fortune: If you think record companies want nothing to do with Napster clones such as Morpheus and Kazaa–or with the listeners …

I’ve mentioned before that while I am philosophically in favor of file sharing (although we have to figure out a way to pay the artists and songwriters), I don’t much like it for myself: I have more music than I can listen to on CD and vinyl, and the CDs …

It is very easy for me, you, everyone and their mother’s horse, to ponitificate about the benefits and detractions of file-sharing, digital downloading of music over the Internet. Studies seem to show the exact opposite conclusions as to the effect on CD sales of downloading depending upon who paid for …

My impression is that Paul McCartney, who has been very much in the public eye of late, is getting something of a bad deal with the mostly negative reaction to his crusade to flip-flop Lennon/McCartney to McCartney/Lennon on the songs he primarily or exclusively wrote while he and John were …

The TV was on MTV as I walked by yesterday and a severe close-up of Christina Aguilera caught my eye: it was the new video to her single “Beautiful.” What I saw over the next few minutes made me shudder with horror. First, Christina, who is not fundamentally unattractive, has …

I respect Norah Vincent quite a bit and almost always agree with her politically, but she is rather thin-skinned for a big-time writer and a blogger. When Rebecca Blood and I discusssed blogs on NPR’s Public Interest, Norah was good enough to call in, but her main concern was civility …