lifeasdaddy

eyewitness account of the Bhutto assassination

The New York Times has put up a photomontage by Getty Images' photographer John Moore which includes Moore's eyewitness account of the Bhutto assassination.  He did not see much of the gunshots and the bomb, but photographed the immediate precedent and aftermath. 

His comments are very illuminating.  He mentions that he feared a bombing that day, and the steps he took to avoid being a victim. He also thought that Bhutto was exposing herself to grave danger by putting her upper body out through the sunroof of the vehicle in which she was travelling.

Moore has lived in Pakistan for most of the past three years, and has mainly been photographing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, what did Bill Murray whisper into Scarlett Johanson's ear during the final scene from Lost In Translation?

Lost In Translation is one of my favourite movies of all time, and certainly my no. 1 of the last decade.

Some dude has done some work to clean out the background noise to detect the previously unknown snippet which the Bill Murray character whispered in Scarlett Johansson's ear during the final scene of the flic. Do not click if it's going to spoil the ending for you. Here it is on Youtube.  Look and listen.

A mystery solved.

[ pointer from Kottke ]

You may also like to know that the result from the audio analysis is NOT the line in Sofia Coppola's shooting draft script for the movie.

And here's a verbatim transcript of the movie dialogue.  Of course the inaudible line is not included.

lifeasdaddy - A charitable gift.

There is much to admire about the great society that is the USA, and one of the most admirable traits is the commitment of some citizens to charitable works.

Marc Andreessen and his wife Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen are donating USD 27.5mil to enhance and upgrade Stanford Hospital's current emergency room and to create a state-of-the-art emergency room in the new hospital to built over the next several years.

I know several people who live in Silicon Valley - adults and kids - who may benefit from this gift.  It's the gift of life.  Thanks Marc and Laura.

Marc wrote about it here.

Stanford Hospital's Emergency Department is the core emergency room for Silicon Valley. For example, the Stanford ER is the only Level 1 trauma center between San Francisco and San Jose. Most people who live in Silicon Valley have either been to the Stanford emergency room or have a close friend or family member who has -- it's the great equalizer; you go in at 2AM and you need it to be there, and you need the care to be outstanding. In short, the Stanford Emergency Department is an absolutely essential community resource -- and while it has historically been underfunded, we hope that this gift will fix that.

Bravo!