Rachel Maddow on ACORN: pt. 1 of 2

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We at the OG are longtime critics of ACORN's critics (Dave3544 RIP), who never fail to betray their class agenda with weird, 2009-specific proportions of McCarthyite and Goldwaterist anti-anti-capitalist moralism (and jokes).

We at the OG know all this, but have neither the vocal cords, nor the GE sponsorship, nor the horse-sense of Rachel Maddow. I invite everybody -from the OGs to the aesthetes who read this blog- to consider Rachel's very unsung hero-ish, very sticking-neck-out-ish oppo research into the money-stakes and culture-frames underpinning the discourse known as ACORN. In this installment, we learn about the Rove/Justice Dept. -related tributaries from David Iglesias, a former US Attorney fired by DOJ in 2006 who has been outspoken early and often about the hatefuck/GOP tactic of marginalizing/indicting ACORN and stymieing their successes with voter registration/living wage campaigns.

Essential viewing, this anti-anti-Acorn stuff. Stick around for installment #2! It's coming as soon as GE gets it up on the interweb....

What's that, you ask? "Whither l'OG?!?!?!" Well, if my distinguished co-contributors don't get around to (distinctively) contributing, you can count on nothing more (/less) than ballot initiative emo, health care discussion pilfered from Ezra Klein, and sycophantic MSNBC plugs. ('Arts & [sic] culture' programming continues on pslllffpt.)

prisonship/_OG_ material self-inventory of things/events/places/etc.

1. courtney's dissertation defense: a blogger and a unionist and a social constructivist, courtney kicked a shitload of ass today. felicitations, hero!
2. grace is enough exhibit, Valerie Davis Haug and David Siebert, at Ditch Projects: Probably the best 'party' I've had in some many months, notwithstanding all of the earth-shifting-ly sonorous, sound and incisive drawings/paintings happening all around me. David Siebert's series of painterly canvasses came on like Leroy Nieman having his way with somebody's beach house portrait of a salty sailor or drunk harbormaster -- but blown up, as mentioned, into a way more theatrical size. Valerie Davis Haug is a charming hostess and supportive interlocutor of mine, as well as a kinda Exorcist-y, kinda Flannery O'Connor-y horror/satire terrorist who works, among other things, with markers and shit.
   
3. neil halstead, live at le Doug Fir: ahem, I was drunk at this shit, and once again reminded that I needn't ever again labor after attaining any sort of acoustic/dour thing: this guy's got it covered, and I'm a plate of goddamn yams.
   
4. springfield, OR: thank you, Springfield, for reminding me to look between the grocer and the grocery outlet; the diner and the luncheonnette; the strip club and the strip club and the strip club. thank you for anonymity and a none-too-highbrow, totally-fine-with-me township where i can spend my time of elevator-shaft-induced exile.
   
5. babylon's burning by clinton heylin (pic above.) i'd've preferred to've put the cover of the book above, but the cover suffers from its association with this book's dreadful subtitle: 'from punk to grunge' seriously? this couldn't've been the decision of Heylin, awesome author of the awesomely subtitled, awesome From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World. this book picks up in places where its absolutely crucial, aforementioned predecessor didn't go, like pre-1977 London, and pre-pre-1977 London. apparently I really need to hear some records by, say, Dr. Feelgood, Ian Dury, Radio Birdman, the Avengers, the Ruts, etc. Maybe some of you can help me with starting out on this stuff? On the US side, I've learned lots of LA punk and lesser-known NY action. 'Only halfway through and already I'd say that this, Velvets/Voidoids and Jon Savage's England's Dreaming are the "punk books" to be assigned before anybody should go near Greil Marcus or Azerrad. As Heylin acknowledges in the acknowledgements, this book was half-written out of a desire to usurp the place taken by several famous, rather opinionated and through-a-glass-darkly books about punk. He's a god for doing us this favor. Babylon's Burning - and the accompanying cd box set, I'm sure, which I'd love somebody to, y'know, buy for me - belongs in the "'bestuv genre" genre.
   
6. current persona-conflagration of lex dexter/pattyjoe/crazy jimmy/Rick: = cosmo from chinese bookie, ric flair, todd barry, elliot gould qua marlowe. (as quoted on twtr: "my heroes aren't actually 1970s movie-sleuths...but they're the best exemplars I've got to turn to for this kind of 'living.'")
7. gabba-on-the-go: gabba takes hardcorefornerds into the TUMBLR pile!
8. recent media appearances: a) Permanant Campaign, live on voicemail... hey, write in the comments if you happen to've gotten one of last Saturday's special song-messages! this last Sat., brown beard and i spent an r-rated, still-drunk afternoon phoning out cover classics all over the USA. it's a good thing i don't have gabba's phone number, or somebody'd've gotten a completely incoherent cover of "Washer" and overlaid with Southern-accented belching. Setlist, as I remember, included: "Remedy," "Tumbling Dice," "Head Over Heels," "Theme for an Italian Restaurant,".... what else?!?b) [pictured above, from l-r: 'PC' John Hodgman, funnyman Paul F. Tompkins, songstress Aimee Mann and Pharmacist Ted Leo, workin' it at the Best Show telethon...] two Tuesdays ago I pledged to TBSOWFMU, and had my name ("Patrick from Eugene, Oregon") read over 'dem WFMU airwaves. tom Scharpling thanked me personally, and even responded to my silly request to have the godlike Jon Glaser bring the character of 'Google' back to the airwaves. if somehow at this point you still don't get where I'm going with the worship of the TBSOWFMU, maybe you should just check out this perfect Stereogum tribute to the show, replete with a story about the self-same episode during which i made my all-important media appearance. seeing how i literally trembled while listening to the podcast of the show some two days after my call, i do not imagining ever having the courage to call in to the show, and thus will have to consider supporting it through monetary means.
   
9. twtr: seriousy, you should follow me on twitter. i don't care if you don't wanna "tweet" yrself - fuck, why would'ja? but, seriously? do you like what Lex writes, maybe? but, shucks, maybe you think I get a little 'flabby,' here and there? well guess what, tigerlilies? that's because my true chosen form may in fact be that of twitter's 140chamax milieu. seriously, just sign up and read my twtr. pick some weird pseudonym, email me, and then you'll be able to watch lex fall down a really short flight of stairs. don't worry, i really won't tell anybody that you're doing it; instead i'll just compel you to read kyle, wobs, dave3544, ted leo, hodgman and, of course, scharpling's threads. (seriously: i'm not going to hassle you to read my - wait for it - impending, actually-existing, hardbound zine when it drops. i'm just asking you to do this one thing with me.)
   

BHO from Pres-Elect to Pres

John Nichols has a darling piece for the Progressive that joins works by Adolph Reed and Doug Henwood in the canon of the left-Obama-critics. Nichols falls out with the latter two - if only as a matter of tone - with his insistence that Obama is at heart - if not in deed - "a progressive.*" Due to the ideological vagaries of American political culture, and the slings and arrows of electoral politics, Nichols believes Obama will gravitate towards centrism (maybe re-frame it as "post-political" or plain "pragmatism") and carry out what some have called "compensatory neoliberalism," or a plodding, market-based liberal reformism. But, but...Nichols contends that Obama, thinking as he does (progressively) and being who he is (a progressive), could be leveraged into behaving "progressively" by the Left - were the Left to mobilize, enunciate, get its shit together, etc.

Does this sound like an obvious point, one that you've made in your own heads 1,000 times? Absolutely. But sometimes it's nice to see your thoughts grafted onto someone else's voice. Well, it is for me at least. Great artcl, but given its 'self-evident' nature there's no blurb I can find that doesn't seem almost redundant, given the OG demographic. Anyway, it's bigger than the sum of its pieces and joints.

*In light of this blurbless link and my blurb about it, a question?

1) Does the term "progressive" denote a discrete set of ideologies/practices/texts in Barack Obama's USA 2009? If so, can we isolate some of those keystones?

2) Bonus question: how does the socialist wing of the Democratic Party feel about the Progressive Democrats of America? Do we get into Trot-style# ideologiko-rumbles? Or are we chums just like Lucy and Ethel? Obviously we know where the Trots for Romney come down on this one.

# Let me apologize. That link is horrid. 'Looks like a Maoist critique of les Trots, but it feels like an anthropological curiosity if you're me, which you aren't, so that link is unfair. Avoid it.

we now resume politico-theoretico-wonk programming!/around the horn, 2009!

I know, you missed the horn, didn't you? 'Always thought the old el Horn-0 was too disorganized, too acentric, huh? Until it was taken away from you, that is. Well, lemme tell you something. You cannot escape 'Around the Horn.'

[ And nobody should think I'm abandoning this here OG just because there's some signs of life over at the Prisonship. 'Seeing how writing is pretty much the only activity that doesn't make me want to fire myself out of a fucking cannon, lately, I think I can handle two blogs. Let alone twitter, which really and truly is the bonsai of the blog-realm.]

Anywho....

In Which Bowl Games Deliver Me Into the Hands of the Far Left - The Plank
"Sadly, all the Marxists are in academia rather than broadcast sports. That's the problem with Marxists. They're everywhere you don't want them to be and nowhere you really need them." I don't agree with this sentiment, necessarily, but I do think this here article is hilarious. And it's always satisfying to hear somebody voice an anthropological interest in the "Far Left." Somebody that isn't me, that is. [PS - Postmodernist grad unionists will be happy to hear that I kicked off 2009 decrying dialectical materialism - in front of a buncha sociologists, no less - in the name of my appropriation of the "slobs vs. snobs" rubric put forth in Caddyshack and by Tom Scharpling. That's right. It was over a champagne/bourbon toast. Slobs vs. snobs! ]

NW Republican: Oregon Public Employee Unions and "Pay to Play"
That's right. Blago from Chicago and our little ramshackle "influence" in Salem? Same fuckin' thing, dude. 'Just wanted to remind everybody that NW Republican is out there.

Caroline Kennedy Wins Friends with Salad: The New Yorker Blog: Online Only: The New Yorker
And now we arrive at the "you've gotta be bleeping kidding me?" entry. Oh wait, it's the New Yorker. Sy Hersch aside, it seems like this sort of thing is all these kids are capable of. Oh, and unfunny cartoons for snobs. Did I mention I'm wearing a denim workshirt right now (if I didn't, it's because I'm not.)? Anyway, what are we thinking about this Caroline Kennedy 'candidacy?'

1. I'm sure she'd vote my way most of the time, but
2. It is incorrigble and distasteful for the Dems to participate in the dynastic bullshit and the hero-worship bullshit and the all-powerful popular fascination with rich whites that this appointment would have to be based on.
   
3. More careerist: if I were a career pol in NY who'd worked my way up the system only to lose this appointment to an amateur...well, if I were a career pol from NY I'd probably expect no less (I'm not, and I still don't).

There's yr politico-wonk-horn for the Sabbath night, titans. Have at it.

EZ Polling Results!

The results are in and they look tasty....


72% of OGnians (that participated) think that Biden is NOT CRAP. Any future references to him, the choice, VPs, and MNBA as crap will be laughingly out of touch with popular opinion, and will be subject to mockery and snark.

Note: would the 2 voters that indicated that they do not participate in opinion polls please contact me, I have a questionnaire I would like you to complete. It only takes a couple hours. I am working on a survey of nonrespondents, but have had trouble with my sample size.

The anticipation for next week's poll is building...see you tomorrow.

OGnian opinion polling?

I would like to announce the roll out of a new "recurring" feature to the OG. This site weighs in on some of the most pressing ideas and issues of the day (and night), and I think it would be helpful to be able to "boil down" or "distill" the opinion of OGnians as a group. We could then know for sure whether we can refer to France as crap...etc.

Towards this end, You may notice (momentarily) a poll on the right side of the page. Please add your opinion to the "pile."

Wait you say, polling sucks. You are probably right, but so do mean people and yet they still exist.

What are the rules? There are no rules. vote early, vote often, encourage your friends and family to do likewise.

I will post a new poll every (sure I will) Sunday (as it is my day off) and close the poll by Saturday, leaving sat. afternoon to "digest" the results before the craziness begins all over again on Sunday.

As you may have noticed the first poll will determine if this is truly recurring or not.