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Feature

Bioscience Warfare

UC professor Tyrone Hayes found that a highly profitable weed killer causes sexual abnormalities in frogs. Then he found out how nasty a biotech multinational can be.

By Alison Pierce

Published: June 2, 2004

Professor Tyrone B. Hayes watches as one of his students leans over a table covered with small plastic cups, each containing a few ounces of water and a single African reed frog. The short, trim...

Matt Smith

Medea Benjamin for President*

The new reality TV show American Candidate is as rigged as a Florida election. A recount won't help. We need a boycott.

By Matt Smith

Published: June 2, 2004

During her career as a famous San Francisco-based global agitator, Medea Benjamin has seen enough political tragedy and travesty to challenge anyone's view of reality. She has been quoted as...

Night Crawler

Orphans of Beauty

Unmarketable inventions, often called orphan technology, are generally considered useless. Paul DeMarinis considers them precursors to art.

By Silke Tudor

Published: June 2, 2004

I am standing in front of an elegant bird cage, staring through the gilt bars. There is a gas flame trapped inside, a flame the color of molten amethyst with bright red filaments burning at its...

Letters

Letters to the Editor

Week of Wednesday, June 2, 2004

Published: June 2, 2004

Following Example of New York Times , Dog Bites Apologizes for Misleading Excerpt Will do anything to avert additional "big kisses": Hey guys, haven't spoken to my fellow columnists here...

Music

Grumpy Old Punks

In the age of Blink-182 and Yellowcard, being punk ain't what it used to be. Just ask the seniors in Pirx the Pilot.

By Nancy Einhart

Published: June 2, 2004

"It's like interviewing three Robin Williams at once," warns Ernst Schoen-Rene. "We have never in the history of our band answered an interview question," seconds Scott Healy. And they...

Music

Fiddle About

Detroit's Amp Fiddler brings funk, soul, and decades of experience to his acclaimed debut

By Darren Keast

Published: June 2, 2004

Amp Fiddler disagrees with the name of the genre he's been squeezed into, which in his case is neo-soul. His point is that after two decades of session work as a keyboardist with George Clinton,...

Reviewed

New Found Glory

Catalyst (Drive-Thru)

By Nate Cavalieri

Published: June 2, 2004

Near the Earth's core there exists a subterranean conference room, replete with comfy leather chairs, chilled carafes of water, and delicately perfumed air. Recent meetings there have resulted in...

Reviewed

Pedro the Lion

Achilles Heel (Jade Tree)

By Nate Cavalieri

Published: June 2, 2004

The cast of Pedro the Lion's latest seems lifted from a lost Arthur Miller tragedy. There are gambling-addict husbands, faithless lovers, and joyless amputees by the dozen. It's a dour crew, all...

Reviewed

Mclusky

The Difference Between Me and You Is That I'm Not on Fire (Beggars/Too Pure)

By Abigail Clouseau

Published: June 2, 2004

They mine the brooding, rhythmic urgency of bands like Gang of Four and the Fall. Their guitar playing wallows in Fugazi-esque robust minimalism. They shriek like the Sex Pistols. They give their...

Reviewed

Guns N' Roses

Greatest Hits (Geffen)

By Abigail Clouseau

Published: June 2, 2004

It's become cliché to make fun of Axl Rose and company, but they made it so darn easy with all that Use Your Illusion stuff, much of which is collected here, making for a Greatest Hits...

Reviewed

The Cuts

The Cuts (Birdman)

By Rachel Devitt

Published: June 2, 2004

The Cuts' influences can pretty accurately be listed as the Stooges, Television, the Stones, and even a little Jefferson Airplane, but let me boil all that down for you: The band's new self-titled...

Reviewed

The Magnetic Fields

i (Nonesuch)

By Dan Strachota

Published: June 2, 2004

Stephin Merritt isn't a genius; i proves it. Sure, the Magnetic Fields' seventh long-player sounds great -- a determinedly non-synthesized, proto-classical layering of cello, banjo, harpsichord,...

Reviewed

Zero 7

When It Falls (Palm Pictures)

By Philip Sherburne

Published: June 2, 2004

Air's sundown set at Coachella last month was reportedly a make-out fest of epic proportions. With spring decidedly in the air even here in San Francisco, one hopes that the sultry/sun-kissed/...

Reviewed

D12

D12 World (Shady/Interscope)

By Dan Strachota

Published: June 2, 2004

All the pimple-pocked teenage boys can grab their dicks and raise them in a toast, because the second album has arrived from D12, Eminem's so-called band. How else to salute a CD that only a...

OK Then

OK Then

By Garrett Kamps

Published: June 2, 2004

At around the turn of the millennium, if you were a DJ and you spun Journey out at a hip nightclub -- as increasing numbers of slick DJs were doing -- the crowd could safely assume that you were...

House of Tudor

House of Tudor

By Silke Tudor

Published: June 2, 2004

Fresh from taping a three-week residency on Last Call With Carson Daly , Richard Cheese & Lounge Against the Machine are at the top of their game. The game, explored by early post-punk,...

Hear This

Hear This

Published: June 2, 2004

"If a book is a door to some dive, dank but inviting, then the title must be a sign, a neon scar above the open maw ... a harbinger of dark happenings within." So wrote critic Brett Ralph of Franz...

BeatBox

BeatBox

Published: June 2, 2004

If superstar DJs were monster trucks, DJ Tiësto would be Bigfoot, the mother of all crushers. Instead of squashing Datsuns, though, Tiësto (Tijs Verwest) destroys dance floors with...

Eat

Small World

An exceptionally pleasant setting for fresh Indian fare in the ever-evolving Mission

By Meredith Brody

Published: June 2, 2004

"It's not easy to park around there," I said, somewhat automatically, to Peter, after he'd not only agreed to join me for dinner at a new Indian restaurant on Guerrero near 22nd Street, but also...

Dish Enchanted

The Call of the Coop

By Bonnie Wach

Published: June 2, 2004

There's something a bit unsettling about the fact that Internet spam has started to bear an eerie resemblance to Beat poetry. These days, when I see Allen Ginsberg's seminal line from "Howl" -- "I...