A parent’s group opposing a school program used a picture from The Onion on a pamphlet they sent out, supposedly without realizing it was a joke. A school board trustee is now demanding an apology.

The picture was copied from the Onion, a satirical newspaper from the United States. The headline of the 1998 story says, ” ’98 homosexual drive nearing goal.”

The story, written out of San Francisco, goes on to say children are being successfully recruited into homosexuality because of the “gay lobby’s infiltration of America’s public schools.”

Marilyn Ashworth of STOP said it’s concerned the photo represents what will end up in this region’s schools if the board goes ahead with its plan.

“We knew it was a gay paper and we hold that even as a joke, the gay community is proud of their advancements into the safe schools program in the U.S.,” she said. “We don’t think homosexuality in schools is a joke.”

Asked whether she believed it was a real photo, Ashworth said the caption included the teacher’s name, city, state and grade.

“We researched in depth and that was one of the things we found,” she said, noting the group spent seven weeks accumulating research. [London Free Press]

From The Cult of Mac Blog, a viral ad for ford that features cat decapitation has leaked out onto the net (Ford had supposedly decided not to use it). Of course, there is already quite a fuss about the commercial.

Jules de Gaultier: “Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.” [Quotes of the Day]

This post on Boing Boing caught my eye because my mom is a docent at the Wadsworth Atheneum and has been telling me about this exhibit. The post links to a New York Times article discussing the exhibit.

This also reminds me that I still need to get my mom working on an art blog. I think she’d rock at it.

Last week Adam wrote about the idea of collaborating to create audio books.

collaborative audio books
About a week and a half ago I stumbled onto AKMA’s brilliant idea to create an audio-book version of Lawrence Lessig’s new book “Free Culture“. Bloggers quickly signed up to the collaborative by claiming chapters to read in the posting’s comments.

I arrived a bit late to the party, so I didn’t get to read a chapter, although there is plenty of room for alternative voices and reads, but that’s for later.

I’m a big believer in audio books and ‘read’ this way frequently. I just finished Dan Brown’s ‘The DaVinci Code‘ in about 2 week’s time of travelling to my morning radio show whilst listeing in the car. I use my iPod and the iTrip, a snap-on fm-transmitter, so I can enjoy the reading on my car’s stereo. It’s also much safer.

I listen to lots of stuff on my iPod besides music and audio books. There are interviews and archives of old radio shows. There’s even an audio bible.

[Adam Curry: Adam Curry’s Weblog]

I’ve been listening to audio books a bit more lately now that I’m driving up and back to Boston all the time. It can be a nice way to make the almost two hour drive go by quickly. I just finished the second Dark Tower book and have started in on Sarah Vowell’s The Partly Cloudy Patriot. But there are some books that aren’t in audio format that I wish were. Adam brings up the point that there are lots of books in Project Gutenberg that would provide a good starting point (specifically mentioning the Tom Swift books).

Adam has some ideas about distributing the books that are recorded, but I’ve been thinking about this from another direction. Having a site for managing and tracking what books are being worked on. A page where users can register and then sign up for chapters of books and upload them when done. I have some other related ideas of letting people rate readers and chapters of books, since more than one person might upload a chapter. I wish I was going to be in town for BloggerCon II so I’d have a chance to chat about this with him, but I’ll be stuck down in Hartford. I may just start coding up something for some php practice in the meantime.

From the Marimite DVD (I hope someone licenses this show soon).

(Also posted to the anime blog)

From a little feature on the Marimite DVD (from what I understand)

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In other iPod news. The Boston Globe has a cool article about how the iPod has changed people’s listening habits.

When thousands of titles are transferred onto the machine’s hard drive and in rotation, users say, what happens on the listening end can be aesthetically stimulating, even liberating. This is not necessarily because the tracks are unfamiliar, but because the software’s shuffle-play capability juxtaposes them in intriguing ways, not only across an entire 5,000-track collection but within, say, a compilation of blues tunes or Broadway melodies, or even shuffling through only the tracks played in the past 90 days.

In many cases, such specialized playlists can be automatically expanded by iTunes, the companion software that is another vital component of iPod chic. Want to create a continually updated playlist of every song on your iPod that was released during your college years? The machine can be programmed to do that, too. [boston.com]

This is the thing I love about my iPod. I have just about all my music on it. If I’m in the mood to listen to something specific I can easily find it and play it. Though I’m much more likely to be listening to a random set of music that I haven’t yet rated or of my favorite songs. Now I want to upgrade to a 40GB iPod, so that I have room to expand my collection and keep it all with me.

OKay, using an iPod really isn’t as hard as this article seems to indicate. They also seem to confuse using an iPod with using iTunes.

Even though the designer-creation from Apple has been flying off the shelves in a storm of favourable publicity, few realise how complicated it can be to operate.

Some music fans complain they have to upgrade their computer to get the iPod to work. Others report spending hours or even weeks transferring just a few tracks from their CD collection to the new player. [independent.co.uk]

Steven Wright: “Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.” [Quotes of the Day]