Discourse Chronicle

William Cowsill, lead singer of the ’60s bubblegum family band The Cowsills, which inspired the TV series The Partridge Family, died Friday after a series of illnesses. He was 58. Cowsill, who was suffering from emphysema, osteoporosis and other ailments, passed away in Calgary, Alberta, according to his family and Canadian record producer Neil MacGonigill. […]

category: Popular Culture    

A documentary – ‘Forest Dialogues’ – produced jointly by Cambridge University and Moving Images and directed by Sanjay Barnela, showcased the successes and failures of the Joint Forest Management experience in Harda. It voiced the views of academicians, tribals and forest officials of Madhya Pradesh. The film also incorporated excerpts of a street play ‘Jungle […]

category: Comics, Rhetoric and Poetics    

Debra Moffatt of Lombard, Ill., seeks unspecified damages in a suit filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court that accuses the company of misleading the public. Her attorney, Thomas Pakenas, said his client has celiac disease that causes gastrointestinal symptoms when set off by eating gluten, a protein found in wheat. […] On Friday, Mark […]

category: Health, Popular Culture, Rhetoric and Poetics    

[From Girl Meets World. Another ridiculously fun web toy. BK]

category: Humor, Literacy, Poetry, Popular Culture, Rhetoric and Poetics, Technology    

The Associated Press has an amusing story, saying that actress Halle Berry had to write “I will not make ‘Catwoman II’” on a chalkboard four times Thursday in order to earn her pudding pot as Harvard’s Hasty Pudding woman of the year. “Berry also shook her hips in a comic faux dance competition to prove […]

category: Comics, Popular Culture    

This is so much George Clooney’s year that a seller of Hollywood memorabilia thinks he can earn up to $100,000 by auctioning off the costume the Oscar-nominated actor wore in one of his biggest flops — the much maligned “Batman and Robin.” Joe Maddalena of the auction house Profiles in History says he plans to […]

category: Comics, Popular Culture    

Apple confirmed Thursday it has included such a warning in its Intel-based computers since it started selling them in January. The embedded poem reads: “Your karma check for today: There once was a user that whined / his existing OS was so blind / he’d do better to pirate / an OS that ran great […]

category: Humor, Poetry, Popular Culture, Rhetoric and Poetics, Technology    

AMAZON is set to challenge Apple’s iTunes music store with the launch of its own digital music download service. The online retailer is in advanced talks with record companies about the initiative. Plans under discussion include Amazon-branded portable music players, specially designed for the retailer. Customers would sign up to a monthly subscription service offering […]

category: Popular Culture, Technology    

Pholph’s Scrabble GeneratorMy Scrabble© Score is: 28.What is your score? Get it here. [From Jerz’s Literacy Weblog. Ridiculously fun. BK]

category: Humor, Popular Culture    

In court RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] lawyer Don Verrilli said: ‘The record companies have said, for some time now, and it’s been on their website for some time now, that it’s perfectly lawful to take a CD that you’ve purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod.’ However in the […]

category: Popular Culture, Technology