SY Opens With "She is Not Alone" from the s/t ep

Marxism and postmodernism: people often seem to find this combination peculiar or paradoxical, and somehow intensely unstable, so that some are led to conclude that, in my own case, having "become" a postmodernist I must have ceased to be a Marxist in any meaningful (or in other words, stereotypical) sense. For the two terms (in full postmodernism) carry with them a whole freight of pop nostalgia images, "Marxism" perhaps distilling itself into yellowing period photographs of Lenin and the Soviet revolution, and "postmodernism" quickly yielding a vista of the gaudiest new hotels. The overhasty unconscious then rapidly assembles the image of a small, painstakingly reproduced nostalgia restaurant - decorated with old photographs, with Soveit waiters sluggishly serving bad Russian food - hidden away within some gleaming new pink-and-blue architectural extravaganza....
As far as postmodernism is concerned, and despite the trouble I took in my principal essay on the subject to explain how it was not possible intellectually or politically simply to celebrate postmodernism or to "disavow" it (whatever that might mean), avant-garde art critics quickly identified me as a vulgar hatchet man, while some of the simple-hearted comrades concluded that, following the example of so many illstrious predecessors, I had finally gone off the deep end and become a "post-Marxist" (which is to say, in one language, a renegade and a turncoat, and in another, someone who would rather switch than fight.)

- fredric jameson, from the "secondary elaborations" chapter that concludes Postmodernism.

i don't know about you suckers

but i'm gonna tune in to WFMU and dig on Sonic Youth, live from Battery Park. new york bleeping city, USA.

And in Other News, Hell is Now Segregated

(h/t to S., whose quick wit provided this title)

I know it's supposed to be wrong to speak ill of the dead, but fuck it. If you don't want people to dance on your grave when you pass, then don't be such a raging evil hatemonger while you're alive.

I love America just a little bit more this Independence Day because I learned today that Jesse Helms has left the proverbial building. Good riddance, I say. That racist, homophobic, contra-supporting, Castro-hating, hawkish bastard was the Senator from my home state for thirty years, nearly my entire life. 

He planted the seeds of my lifelong embarrassment of being born a Southerner and my future liberalism. The first vote I ever cast was against him. The thought of that bigot being unseated by a black man (Harvey Gantt, who mounted strong, if ultimately unsuccessful challenges against Helms in 1990 and 1996) was something I knew I wanted to be a part of. By the way, that was the election in which Helms (in)famously ran a campaign ad depicting a white fist crumbling up a job application over the words, ''You needed that job ... but they had to give it to a minority.'' Classy.

So excuse me if I don't shed any tears for the man. So long, "Senator No." See you in hell.

Woodstock My Ass

My lovely wife and I went to see the Hancock last night. I have to take her to all the Will Smith summer blockbusters, as she's made it clear to me that she loves the Fresh Prince more than me. Taking her to see the movies is my way of showing that I'm cool with that.

Anyway, Hancock was a fine film. You should go see it. Seriously, I'll wait.

Back? Okay, there was one thing that bothered me about the film [insert clip from the movie Clue of Martin Mull saying, "One thing!?" Classic.] Jason Bateman's character, as you know, just having watched the film, is a bleeding heart liberal and so is his smoking hot wife, whom he managed to score despite having a young kid and no visible source of income, but that's not what bothers me, as I, too, have a smoking hot wife whom I landed while working at Taco Time. So what bothered me is the Woodstock poster they have on their bedroom wall. I know this is hard for people over the age of fifty to understand, but those of us in our mid-thirties who have hearts that bleed for the suffering in the world, do not look to the 1960s for inspiration. Well, maybe a little, but we do not hang framed Woodstock posters in our bedrooms. There would have been hundreds of other ways for set decorator Rosemary Brandenburg to emphasize the fundamental nature of these characters without resorting to Woodstock. Woodstock was the defining event of the previous generation.

Alright, let's get our Independence Day freak on!

America, Fuck Yeah!

Almost there!

Tobacco madness!

It's hard to know what's most delightful about this report from the UK on the travails of the Dutch coffee house:

But the new law bans tobacco inside cafés and restaurants, meaning cannabis users are now forced to light up potent and heady pipes and joints loaded with pure marijuana.

Sophie, a 20-year-old student from Manchester, did not enjoy the experience of smoking neat "skunk", a powerful cannabis hybrid blamed for higher rates of mental illness among some drug users.

Sorry about that. Just had to get that out of the way. Ahem. Where were we?

"This stuff is much stronger than we are used to back at home. We were off our heads too quickly and I have been very sick," she said.

Olli, a young Swedish tourist, described how the tobacco ban was driving smokers onto the streets and spoiling the coffee shop experience.

"It has always been about being with other people inside the café. It is not the same standing outside in the street," he said. "If it is pure it is more expensive and it gives you a cough."

Okay - I just don't get the European custom of ruining perfectly good weed with tobacco. It's too strong? Don't smoke the entire spliff! Save some for later! Pinch off a little and do a bong-hit. You have options, people!

Peter, a middle aged Dutchman, blamed Christian politicians, making up the coalition government, for a backdoor attempt to close down coffee shops.

"It is a Christian Taliban. They want to impose a Christian ideology on the Netherlands. These are people who still think women are second class citizens."

I'm not completely up on the political scene in the Netherlands, but I do feel compelled to point out that you can still fucking smoke pot in the coffee shops. Smoke your cig outside! Jeebus, I suppose it's a small sign of progress that they've moved past comparing it to the Nazi occupation.

The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority has trained 200 inspectors to detect the difference between a "mixed or a pure joint".

Oh?

Are there job openings? Because we have a highly trained cadre of experts who would sooner smoke banana peels before adulterating their reefer with tobacco. And I hear they're underemployed.

Since EZ Refuses to Be Baited

Maybe we all would do well to remember that it was the right that created the fiction that Obama the biggest leftist since Che. Obama is largely "backing away" from positions that the right invented for him. Obama never ran as a leftist. He was never the progressive dream.

I am not a fan of Obama's vote on FISA, but it was going to pass. I wish I lived in a United States where the government was not routinely allowed to break the law. I wish that I lived in an America where large corporations were not allowed to routinely break the law. I wish that Obama was the kind of candidate that would rise to the challenge, make a principled stand and be respected for it.

Instead I live in an America where the government and large corporations routinely break the law and where, if Obama had cast a meaningless "no" vote on FISA or had joined the doomed filibuster, he would have been accused of making it easier for terrorists to attack the United States. Repeatedly. For months. Come the predictable October "surprise" foiling of a "terrorist" "plot" through intercepted phone conversations, Obama's opposition to FISA would have been yet another example of why it would be too dangerous to let a man as inexperienced as Obama sit in the big boy chair.

That said, Obama is rapidly alienating the left. This is the natural outcome of the fact that he's no longer standing next to Hillary. Let's face it, the biggest point in his favor has always been that his last name is not Clinton.

Disorganized Grievances

Us. Represented visually. In a "word cloud."

There you have it.

War criminal

(h/t PZ)

Flight .45 to Dodge City

By and large, I really don't have a problem with guns or the people who enjoy shooting them. I understand their utility as well as their more sporting aspects. Most of the people I know who own a gun are responsible and sane human beings.

That said, I think it's also reasonable to have sensible measures in place to reduce the numbers of guns in certain areas. From the hands of criminals, from people who are not psychologically well enough for gun ownership, from playgrounds and schools, etc. And I really don't understand the mentality which requires one to be armed whenever out in public.

Do we really want firearms in our airports? Aren't they still kind of anxious places, haunted by certain events? What good is it going to do for Uncle Joe to be packing when he picks us up? How long before Citizen Yahoo blasts away at some dark man who, after 15 years of flying the same flight, week after week, 6 of those years being "specially screened" because of his last name (despite being born in Dearborn), finally has the temerity to tell TSA to fuck off?

I Kid You Not

I came home a 3 pm today to find my daughter sitting in her bathrobe eating a bowl of tortellini that is clearly her lunch. Her chores for the day are largely undone.

She is very sorry that she doesn't have them done yet, but she has a good excuse. She didn't get up until 10 o'clock today and she's been playing a lot of Wii.

Median Voter Theory (MVT)

I agree with Arianna , and others that Obama's recent move to the middle is very disturbing. As Glenn Greenwald points out,

The choices Obama makes about how he campaigns and the positions he takes are extremely consequential in how political issues in this country are perceived. In the last two weeks alone, Obama has done the following:

*intervened in a Democratic Congressional primary to support one of the worst Bush-enabling Blue Dogs over a credible, progressive challenger;

* announced his support for Bush's FISA bill, reversing himself completely on this issue;

* sided with the Scalia/Thomas faction in two highly charged Supreme Court decisions;

* repudiated Wesley Clark and embraced the patently false media narrative that Clark had "dishonored McCain's service" (and for the best commentary I've seen, by far, on the Clark matter, see this appropriately indignant piece by Iraq veteran Brandon Friedman);

* condemned MoveOn.org for its newspaper advertisement criticizing Gen. Petraeus;

* defended his own patriotism by impugning the patriotism of others, specifically those in what he described as the "the so-called counter-culture of the Sixties" for "attacking the symbols, and in extreme cases, the very idea, of America itself" and -- echoing Jeanne Kirkpatrick's 1984 RNC speech -- "blaming America for all that was wrong with the world";

* unveiled plans "to expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and -- in a move sure to cause controversy . . . letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions," a move that could "invite a storm of protest from those who view such faith requirements as discrimination" -- something not even the Bush faith programs allowed.

That's quite a two weeks. One of the primary reasons that blogs emerged over the last seven years was as a reaction to, an attempt to battle against, exactly this narrative which the media propagated and Democratic institutions embraced -- that it is the duty of every Democrat to repudiate and attack their own base; that the truly pernicious elements are on the "Far Left", whose values must be rejected, while the Far Right is entitled to profound respect and accommodation; that "Strength" in National Security is determined by agreement with GOP policies, which is where "the Center" is found; that Seriousness is demonstrated by contempt for the liberal masses; that every Democrat must apologize for any statement over which Republicans feign offense.

Plenty of Beltway institutions already existed for the purpose of cheering on any and all Democrats no matter what they do. If that's all that blogs are supposed to do, then there is no need for them. From the beginning, blogs have been devoted to opposing Democratic complicity and capitulation -- to protesting the lack of Democratic responsiveness to their supporters -- every bit as much as opposing GOP corruption and media malfeasance. That role is at least as important as the others.

A presidential election is a unique time when Americans are engaged in a discussion over our collective political values (at least more engaged than any other time). Why would anyone watch the Obama campaign use this opportunity to perpetuate and reinforce this narrative, and watch Obama embrace polices that are the precise antithesis of the values he espoused in the past, and not criticize or object to that? Criticisms of that sort aren't unhealthy or counter-productive. They're the opposite. Of course one ought to object if a political candidate -- even Barack Obama -- is advocating policies that trample on one's core political values or promulgating toxic narratives. That's particularly true since his doing so isn't necessary to win; it's actually more likely to have the opposite effect.

There is no question, at least to me, that having Obama beat McCain is vitally important. But so, too, is the way that victory is achieved and what Obama advocates and espouses along the way. Feeding distortions against someone like Wesley Clark in order to please Joe Klein and his fact-free media friends, or legalizing warrantless eavesdropping and protecting joint Bush/telecom lawbreaking, or basing his campaign on demonizing MoveOn.org and 1960s anti-war hippies, is quite harmful in many long-lasting ways. Electing Barack Obama is a very important political priority but it isn't the only one there is, and his election is less likely, not more likely, the more homage he pays to these these tired, status-quo-perpetuating Beltway pieties.

I completely agree with Glenn. Furthermore, I think it would be a serious mistake for Obama to nominate a Hagel or Powell or any non-Democrat to be his VP.

****UPDATE****
Kos has a diary up that also is critical of Obama's recent moves. Also, mydd has a diary reporting that Hagel is on the short list....

The Obama-Powell Ticket. Yeah, That's the Ticket!

NPR was floating the idea of an Obama-Powell ticket today in the context of a discussion about the possibility of Powell endorsing Obama. For some reason, I like it. I don't think Obama is going to do any great shakes in his selection of VP. I mean who could it be that would get me whooping? Johnny E.? Maybe. The governor of Kansas? I don't even know her name, although I'm half convinced I had a rather elaborate dream about her the other night. Phil Knight? Bill Gates? Lee Iacoca? (He's still alive. I looked it up.) You name me a VP pick you think will get my juices flowing and I'll give it some serious thought. (Anyone suggesting Andy Stern will be put on probation. That's right probation.)

I'm not saying I'm in love with Obama-Powell, but it would be popular. It would prevent Hillaryites from saying he skipped over her to select someone weaker. It firms up (in popular perception) his foreign policy cred. It would also more than trump any kind of bipartisan credibility the McCain camp might derive from Lieberman crossing over. Lastly, Powell has demonstated a complete willingness to betray all his principles if the president tells him to, which is a pretty nice quality for a VP to have. (I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to Colin Powell and his entire family for that last shot, which was a cheap one, below the belt. I have long believed that shots like that have no place in American political discourse.)

When Powell takes the steps to distance himself from any possibility he would serve as Obama's VP (3-2-1), then I wil give you my super secret VP pick that will blow your freakin' minds! (Not really). (I mean, not really will it blow your minds. I really will post my super secret pick.) (Which is pretty neat. But not mind blowing). (As long as we're here in parenthetical land, sorry about the 15 year-old reference in the title. And the bad pun.)

Oh, How I love Them All

Message Two. Monday. 6:30 pm: Hi, my name is Dickhead McFuckinstein and I came by the office earlier to make my health insurance payment, but apparently the staff had some other place to be or had better things to do and couldn't take my payment. Well, I understand that today is the deadline, but I can't come back by today, so I'll need to be able to drop that payment off tomorrow. If you can call me and let me know when you'll be in the office so I can make this payment, I'd appreciate it. You can call me at 346-JERK.

Moosic Must

1. So, Bowie has culled his own personal "Greatest Hits "comp and wants to spew on all writer-ly-ish about every song in some anglo quotidien.
   
2. There's great new Jay Farrar material available in the 'video' section of his website; "Cocaine and Ashes" is a song about the Keef Richards/dad's ashes legend, and the harmony on the chorus is awesome. I argue harder and harder on the "don't hold Jay to his country roots" tip, but then he writes more songs in this kind of "Dead Flowers"-y vain and makes the White Hat crowd even needier.
   
3. As noted with GabbaGabba Hey's high-profile appearance in our comments section, please be aware that a lovely vinyl rip of the crownhateruin's face-burningly great "until the eagle grins" has been made available unto you. It's got one of my favorite opening tracks on anything ever. So tough, in the way that caffeine-saturated, post-Positive Force vegans can be. Bass tone?
4. Greg Ginn (and the Texas Corrugators) in Eugene tonight?
5. A new Sea and Cake alb is coming, way ahead of schedule. And a new Neal Halstead in July? The freaking varsity team is coming off the bench, Lulu.
   
6. Record Reviews of Pylon, Fire Engines, Big Dipper reissues very soon, and more.

Happy Canada Day, eh!

Guess what, everyone - it’s Canada Day!

It’s the day on which Canadians celebrate… well, we’re not exactly sure what. It’s probably the day we told them they didn’t have to be the fifty-first state (which we can revoke at any time!) or something like that. In fact, most of my fellow countryfolk are only aware of Canadians' distinct language, their cheap medications, and the horribly long lines to see a doctor, even if their lungs are falling out. It’s true. Look it up.

But we should endeavor to learn more about our neighbors up north, the Dennises and Brians of the world. For example, did you know that many Famous Americans were actually born in Canadia? The Guy from Jeopardy, for example, who not only has the brains, he’s got the ggggrrrrrrrr…

Or what about that lovable Alex P. Keaton, who was able to break away from the Canadian hippie liberalism of his parents and show the world the sunny face of Reaganism?

And of course, Pamela Anderson’s dedication to her acting craft and to her family inspires my patriot…

And lastly, who can argue that the heights of Canadian culture don’t rival our own?


Had The X-Files been filmed in Canada, or if the New Pornographers were Canadian, maybe they could have produced something as fantastic as those clips.

So there you have it, fellow Americans. Now pop open a Molson’s and salute our hockey-playin’ friends in the Great White North, confident in your better cultural understanding. And on Friday, we’ll show ‘em what a real kickass national holiday looks like!

PRM 2.0

Way back in the very early days of Punk Rock Monday I once featured the Flaming Lips. In the last few weeks, l'il wobs has to come fall in love with Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, so I just felt like revisiting some old friends here as well.

The Flaming Lips are by far the trippiest band I've ever gotten into. Not the most psychedelic, mind you - the trippiest. And there trippiness has been super fun to watch evolve.

Take, for example, "Talkin' Bout the Smiling Deathporn Immortality Blues (Everyone Wants to Live Forever)." While the seeds of the epic guitar freakout that was to be In a Priest Driven Ambulance are clearly there, this song only hints at the musical weirdness that lay just down the road. [updated: OG PSA - the temporal matters, kids!] But the weirdness is just so goddamn earnest, you kinda got to love it:


Moving ahead to the Transmission era, you can see they've gotten more confident in their showmanship and have married their feedback-driven trippiness to really good, bubblegummy pop songs, like "Turn It On":


In the late 90s, the Lips dedicated themselves to putting on the trippiest spectacle in all of rock 'n roll (they succeeded), and their albums since this time have tended to have been informed by this spectacle, rather than vice versa. Pre-Soft Bulletin cuts don't often find their way into the current show, but when they do... check out the Ambulance era "Mountainside" performed last year:

Patriot Games

Clearly I must be a bad patriot and a disloyal American (okay, so I guess we pretty much knew that already, but...). Because the current campaign "discourse" around patriotism makes absolutely no fucking sense to me.

How is it that this (isolated snippet of a more nuanced) statement

I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

is somehow regarded as a low, vicious and uncalled for attack, but this:

is somehow necessary and relevant in determining who should be the next President of the United States? I understand why the Obama campaign felt the need to stage this event in all its star-spangled glory...although there is part of me that wonders if it is ever worth it to enter this fray. This story in today's WaPo actually sums things up quite nicely: In certain sectors of the electorate, voters cling to the idea that "Barack Obama, born in Africa, is a possibly gay Muslim racist who refuses to recite the Pledge of Allegiance." So maybe the answer to that is to travel to Independence, sport a "clearly visible American flag pin on his lapel" (thanks for keeping us up to date on that important question, NYT!) and deliver a Major Speech on Why I Love America. The campaign has to know, however, that the wingnuts who believe the bizarre rumors aren't really interested in a well-crafted, reasonable treatise on these "issues."

I am less clear as to why Wes Clark's question about how being a POW counts as a qualification for President is out of bounds -- even to the Obama campaign, which has been on the receiving end of so many actually vicious, actually untrue and unfair attacks on his patriotism. More importantly, I am now left wondering: What exactly are the relevant skill sets one obtains from this experience?

I'm having a hard time finding anything in Clark's remarks that were anything less than respectful of McCain's military service and that could reasonably be characterized as "swiftboating." Seems like a perfectly valid question to me. Not that facts or logical reasoning ever have anything to do with anything in these debates.

Guess it's safe to say that the General is off the short list for Obama's VP. But speaking of veeps, this gives me an idea: If there's anything to this prisoner of war = presidential logic, maybe McCain should take his search for a running mate to Guantanamo. I hear those guys have been through some shit. And, in light of the recent Supreme Court decision, they might soon be looking for new opportunities. Just a thought...

I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means

In an effort to counter-balance the liberal media, some far-right websites run auto-correct on AP articles to change the words "Democratic Party" to "Democrat Party," which is hilarious. Zing!

The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow has taken it a step further by replacing the word "gay" with "homosexual." Speculation could abound as to why they make this change, but I like to believe they are trying to "recapture" the word so that we bloggers will once again have a way to describe weekend outings in the park with our family.

Unfortunately, this is simple transfer of words does not always work out as intended. The readers of AFA's news feed were informed this weekend that American track athlete Tyson Homosexual has breezed to an easy finish in the 100 meters semi-final at the Olympic Trials. Also noted in the headlines were the facts that "Homosexual runs wind-aided 9.68 seconds to make Olympics" and "Close call: Homosexual barely averts major flop in 100."

From now on, the OG will automatically replace all references to "homosexual" with "homersexual."

h/t: Balloon Juice and RWW

Monday Quickies

• You know how when you're sick for a couple of days and you wake up in the morning and you feel better than you did when you went to bed, but you don't know if you're really on the down slope of the cold? Usually my morning shower will either refresh me and confirm my uptick in health or let me know that I've a ways to go. Today's shower told me that I shouldn't go into work today. I'm here for reasons beyond my comprehension.
  

• As long as you're calling in on the deadline to submit your health care payment with some sob story about how you're on vacation (although you got your bill over a month ago) and you left your checkbook at home, you should try to be as big a raging dick as possible to the guy who answers the phone, that way you're sure to get another two weeks to pay your bill. It really helps if you're a fair share member.

• Traffic rules are designed to ensure the smooth flow of traffic, not to guarantee some level of fairness. If we all play by the rules, everything goes smoother. For instance, if I am at a stop sign and am attempting to execute a left-hand turn into traffic and you pull up at a stop sign directly across from me and you don't put on a turn signal, indicating that you're going straight, you have the right-of-way should there be a break in traffic. Your attempt to honor the fact that I got there first is noble, but will result in both of us missing that gap in traffic, because I am waiting for your ass to go.
  

• Anyone riding a bike down a sidewalk right next to perfectly clearly marked bike lane should be eligible for being pushed over by whatever noble citizen wants to carry out this deed. Better that than I hit you when turning right because I didn't think to check for you bombing down the sidewalk. While we're here, why is it people riding cruisers tend to be the ones riding on the sidewalk? Just because your bike doesn't go very fast doesn't mean you are actually walking.

• I am aware that very few people who read this blog pray on any regular basis, but I have some friends who have a very sick newborn on their hands, so any prayers/thoughts/harmony candles you have should be sent this way for Amelia.

Sunday Tape - June 2007

(Download the June 2007 mixtape, which is missing the Humblebums' "Saturday Round About Sunday," so seek that shite out for yrself.)


Crystal - Husker Du. The first huskers song i ever did hear, from their major label debut Candy Apple Grey. Utterly horrifying opening stanza, btw:

Avalanche looms overhead Airplane flies overhead
Important man sits by the window
Sucked out of the first class window
Images run by, thousand miles an hour
But the time seems far away
Folding clothes in a folding closet
Folding money in a resume

More than Pere Ubu, or even the Stooges, Husker Du make the ultimate post-industrial, RustBelt punk rock, you know?


Some Beginner's Mind - Ted Leo. OOh what a damn fine last Ted Leo rec that most recent one was. With the Thin Lizzy and Dexy's nobs turned a-downward on the alb, this record veers
back into the early 80s punk-pop sound Leo surveyed back in the Chisel days. Intelligent, guitar-y mod-punk? Absolutely. But then, TRL is for New Jersey what Sonic Youth in for NYC... so mebbe my opinion means not so much, eh?

Code Blue - Int'l Shades. Yeah yeah I love this one! This band is a supergroup: former Sonic Youth drum warrior Bob Bert, former Live Skull gtr expressionist Mark C, and indie journeyman/Townes collaborator/Two-Dollar Guitar guy Tim Foljhan. Dig the drone-y gtr break from Mark C! I'm so glad this outfit exists, tho I'm unsure how active they are.

Goodnight Rose - Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. I am on a weird, one-dude journey with Ryan Adams that embarasses most of my friends and family. My friend Chad at the record store gets it, but that's about it. Anywhoo... This great song transcends the Terrapin-worship and arrives at a settled-down, Cats (Down) Under the Stars vibe. I sing it to myself again and again.

The Hero Returns - Michael Chapman. Probably my most favorite-est discovery during the long, long period I spent obsessed with arty, folky songwriter albs from the UK and US in them 1970s. Imagine mixing the more interesting, fingerpicked Nick Drake stuff with a kinda John Fahey sensibility: you need these records. Chapman's voice is husky and perfect, too. So far I prefer this stuff to all the John Martyn I've heard, but I'm still learning. I downloaded and bought 100s of the aforementioned genre, and am still getting to know whole wings of stuff. But I'm also trying to take a break from all that, which has already birthed a super-morose, pretentious solo alb outta me.

Lie There - Natural Snow Buildings. Are those folk songs underneath the humming, windy drone-clouds? Or is it something more immediate than that? A wife holding her face in her hands, crying resolutely, seated at the kitchen table or the breakfast nook. I need to find a vinyl copy of this creepy, gorgeous record.

For Crying Out Loud - The Yayhoos. Very little music says "Sewanee" to me as much as does that of the Yayhoos, although I really got into it in Knoxville. Wonderful, 70s, FM guitar intro to start this deep cut, which could be off of Zuma or Heaven Tonight. I'm writing this from Oregon but in my mind I am buying a half-rack of pack of Pabst and some Camel Lights at the Sewanee market. Would you believe this is the guy from Georgia Satellites? I would, cuz I've never heard Georgia Satellites.

I Will Dare - The Replacements . I am not sure whether or not I will ever love the entire Replacements canon as much as some people I know, but there's about 7 songs of theirs - like this one - that're absolutely smashing and singular. This vocal performance is almost up there with the best of Paul W's hero, Alex Chilton. And that ain't no faint praise.

Dear Sara - Anders Parker I got to see Anders Parker three times in the last year, and one particularly thrilling life-moment came as we watched Patterson Hood and talked about 1970s arty, folky songwriter records (see above). This is a gorgeous, tremendously well-sung song that culminates in a perfectly righteous guitar crest.

High, Low and In Between - Townes Van Zant. To be played at pattyjoe's funeral and/or bris.

When Your Lover Has Gone - Frank Sinatra I'm from Jersey, so you can color me fed up with the experience of having some asshole playing "New York, New York" on his asshole boat. But there's actually outrageously terrifying Sinatra out there: I recommend Where Are You?, In the Wee Small Hours and No One Cares, the trio of albs arranged by Nelson Riddle. This is some absolutely abject, sorrowful shit.

Resurrection - Touchforce. Are these guys still at it? Definitely on the short list of dangerous and awesome (post-ish-)punk bands in Eugene. Boom.

Saddest Colour - Heaviness. My favorite post-contemporary shoegaze band from Europe. Huge chorus, so much energy in the electric guitar washes, drum sequencing and glum vocs. Mebbe it's not your thing, but it's my thing. Kyle's thing, I think.

Leonard Street Revival - Computer Cougar. Most underappreciated Jersey band of their time. I had the pleasure of playing my first show on a bill with these guys and Ted Leo, RX. They were veterans of serious hardcore bands like Born Against and Rorschach, but played a Big Boys and Wire-inspired, 'charge and jangle' punk way before it was cool. This record and the great first two New Bomb Turks record are among the few punk albums I really LOVE from the 1990s (that would be a good thread, I think).

Heart On the Ground II - Jay Farrar. From the understated and underrated Terroir Blues . It's a beautiful thing, the whole song, but the plaintive way he delivers the chorus of "You Don't Have to Twist the Knife" takes us right back to the horrible, sad place we were at with the Sinatra song. What was going on with me in June 2007, exactly?

What'cha See is What You Get - The Dramatics. Speaking of vocal performances... Have you all seen WattStax?

The Bombardier - Abilene. How I love thee... Oh the ebbing, falling, rising dynamics of this music. Is this what sex is like?

DJ Talks Straight

As if he's not given the world enough through the music of dem Squids, Dan Jones analogizes the shit out of both produce and the Greens:

Last night I went out on somewhat of a culinary limb and grilled small heads of cauliflower for a pasta dish. That was damn good. Cauliflower is sort of the Ralph Nader of vegetables--needs a little something to actually make it to the table.

Syndicated PrisonShip Rerun, #1 of...?

(because I am convinced you people will have something to say on this matter. - Lex)

Welcome to our new film roundtable, entitled amazing/never again. Recently, my good friend and courtroom videographer kyle dropped an amazing film on me:
This movie meets all of my criteria (crime, 1970s, method acting, verite pretensions, implicit class critique) but almost jumped the shark of seventies thriller-style grit and gestalt all the way into overtruthfulness and, ergo, un-watchability. Which brings me to the topic of our conversation, one I hope will carry on for all of our sakes’ for as long as possible:

Which films have you seen that made you think, simultaneously, this was wonderful and i never wish to see it ever again?

In literature the works of Conrad best exemplify this weird kind of anti-transcendence for me, in which once-heroic victims of their own successful quests for truth wreck their own lives and the lives of others trying to outrun the horrors they were brave enough to confront and idiotic enough to mistake for being somehow nourishing. Some, if not all, of life’s big lessons seem to me to be dark. And some films are so good at pointing those out that I don’t need to see them more than once, artistry notwithstanding. Here’s my first submission:

Bad Timing is a film by Nicholas Roeg, the director of Performance, The Man Who Fell to Earth, Eureka, Don’t Look Now, Insignificance and a bunch of other art-damaged features that nonetheless somehow won studio funding and influenced the whole wide subsequent world of indie rockers and auteurs.

Art Garfunkel plays a petulant, Freudian psychoanalyst prancing around Vienna, who falls in lust, love, lust, hate, lust, love with, and loses himself in pursuit of Theresa Russel. Russel herself gives a very three-dimensional performance that gestures way beyond Madonna-Whore-Femme Fatale - Film Noire Gal, and somehow positions herself in my memory, at least, as less a victim or object of Garfunkel’s narcissism than the subject, the animating presence, the magnet of desire, that moves the film. Harvey Keitel is woefully miscast as - you guessed it - an Austrian homicide detective who prevails upon the stop-start, flashback/flash-forward structure of the film’s narration, and tries in a Hitchcockian way to apply deductive reasoning in the corridors of unreason.

Is this film a critique of Freudian narcissism or a Freudian parable of the collusion of sex and violence? Is this film anti-intellectual or the masochistic face-scrubbing of an irrevocable braniac? Is it about the poison enlivening the maddening, luxurious desiring that certain sexual subjects favor, or is it about the death drive that universally haunts all of our procreative functioning? I don’t know, and I won’t soon figure it out, because this deeply flawed film is also the most probing, brilliant and unwatchable slab of film I’ve ever had to deal with. I shan’t be dealing with it again, nossir.

Now what about you? How about a title, brief synopsis, and reflection upon whatever films’ you loved enough to know better than to mess with ‘em again.

(Honorable Mentions: The Deer Hunter, A Woman Under the Influence, Compulsion....)

McCain Endorsed by Haiphong

Looks like McCain has been endorsed by the communists.

HAIPHONG, Vietnam (AP) — John McCain has an unusual endorsement — from the Vietnamese jailer who says he held him captive for about five years as a POW and now considers him a friend.

"If I were an American voter, I would vote for Mr. John McCain," Tran Trong Duyet said Friday, sitting in his living room in the northern city of Haiphong, surrounded by black-and-white photos of a much younger version of himself and former Vietnam War prisoners.

At the same time, he denies prisoners of war were tortured. Despite detailed POW accounts and physical wounds, Duyet claims the presumed Republican presidential nominee made up beatings and solitary confinement in an attempt to win votes.

I guess we already knew he had the torture-denier vote locked up.

Don't mess with Texas

What PZ sez:

You are free to believe whatever wacky nonsense you want — you can believe moody teenagers are possessed by demons, and you can believe that cutting out the hearts of virgins will guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow, and you can even believe that barbecued babies are especially delicious — but you are not free to act on those beliefs in a way that infringes the rights of other people. The Texas court, in its zeal to protect religious beliefs, has gone too far and has endorsed the right of a church to do harm in the name of their god.

Medium and Message

You know I love the internets as much as the next person. Why else would I be here now? But there is such a thing as appropriate use. (And no, I'm not talking about Dave's Harold and Kumar video.) You know what's not appropriate use? Telling someone that their father has prostate cancer via fucking e-mail. Kudos for being oh-so-web 2.0 by including a link to a video of a prostatectomy on YouTube, but still. 

Damn, yo. That shit ain't right.

TGIF!

My Morals Should Be Your Morals

Rev. Jim Wallis who is an friend/adviser/defender of Obama's has apparently been recommending that the Dems reach out to the young evangelicals by dialing back the support for abortion and making "reducing abortion" a central plank in the party platform. He's been taken to task at TAPPED for missing the fact that this is already pretty much the mainstream Dem position on abortion, and Scott at LGM wonders what might happen to the support from women who have had abortions if the Dems were to start publicly questioning their morals.

I take issue with Wallis from a slightly different angle. Here's his quote:

“Taking abortion seriously as a moral issue would help Democrats a great deal with a constituency that is already leaning in their direction on poverty and the environment,” said Wallis. “There are literally millions of votes at stake.”

He seems to presuppose that Dems, because they support abortion rights, aren't taking it "seriously" (alarm! alarm!) as a moral issue. Yes, because the only "moral" position to take is in line with a conservative Christian definition of morality. There is no morality in the argument that the state has no business telling a woman what she can do with her body. There's no morality in keeping the state out of medical decisions. There's no morality in trying to keep a legal medical procedure viable for poor women. There's no morality in protecting young pregnant women who don't feel safe discussing the issue with their parents. Nope, this is all just wacky liberal anti-morality for the sake of being shocking and anti-Christian.

Thanks Rev. Wallis, but I think we'd do best to keep our slopes as non-slippery as possible on this one.

Great Moments In Product Reviewing

From amazon.com's page for Samba shoes:

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So good I might get another pair., May 20, 2007

By Jerry Napier "Constant Evolution" (Chicago, IL) -

You know how sometimes you worry that the picture may look better then the real thing?

Well, this is the exception.

I saw these Samba's online and was a bit skeptical... but I know my shoe size in adidas because I have other pairs so I thought 'what the heck' and bought em'.

When they arrived I was more then pleased, they fit perfectly and look great.

John Cornyn Ad

Someone thought this was a good idea. That's all I can say. I'm blown away.

Difficult iPod transitions

"Mrs. Hayes" - Alice Donut
"The Girl is Mine" - Michael Jackson (w/Paul McCartney)

It was difficult to move from an angry and raw tale of drunken murder fantasies driven by domestic alienation to a saccharine MJ and cheesy Sir Mac woo-off. But the lyrical shift from "Christ, you're an idiot!" to "I'm a lover, not a fighter!" was nauseatingly awkward.

Did I Mention What I Dissertate About?

See below quotation from Kim Moody, US Labor in Trouble and Transition (Verso, 2007: 166). Discuss.

• [Labor's] alliance with the Democratic Party is the logical extension of business unionism to the political realm. The lack of ultimate or even long-range goals, the embrace of the system with some modifications, the business-like relation to limited goals (lobbying for legislation), the top-down nature of political decisions and tactical choices, the self-importance that comes from associating with those in power, the notion of measured advances through a semi-institutional partnership with those who administer the system; all of these features f business unionism fit well the alliance with the capitalist party most open to compromise.
• The problem is that these very same attributes fit poorly with the notion of labor as a social movement based on class and class conflict. How to inspire African Americans or Latinos to vote in larger numbers for candidates that shrink from addressing their issues? How to turn immigrants into citizens and working class voters? How to attract working-class white, particularly low-income ones, to vote for their real interests? Clearly, the Democratic Party cannot do these things. But can a business union leadership that shares many of the same ideas, cautions, and fears of class conflict and mass mobilization?

The Passion of Gummi Jesus

I thought this was too awesome not to post.

Go ahead and disagree with me in the comments.

h/t: Tbogg

AFL-CIO Endorses.......BHO?!?!?!?!?!?

I'll admit it, I had to gulp-back some throw-up when I heard the AFL-CIO was going to be endorsing for President today. But, thank goodness, it would appear that the Federation has decided to endorse Barry Obama.

Everybody but Uncle should check out the strong, interactive Net presence the House of Labor (1.0) has already rolled out. Boom!

That said, a simple image search on "obama unions" will take you to this Double-Boom! delite.

Books I "read" on the I-5

The Vatican's Exorcists: Driving Out the Devil in the 21st Century, by Tracy Wilkinson.
Kudos and jabs to Wilkinson for neither succumbing to a Faces of Death-style exploitation piece, nor extrapolating her way into philosophical or anthropological explanations for the persistence of exorcisms and exorcists in the life of the Church.

An LA Times bureau chief, Wilkinson gains access to several 'live' exorcisms, and does the worthy work framing the Enlightenment and Counter-Reformation contexts in which "modern" exorcism and its supporting theology emerged. Most interesting are Wilkinson's profiles of four exorcists, career priests who've found themselves on the wrong end of the Church for varyingly flagrant attempts to foreground demonic possession, Satan, and 'evil' as such in the lives of their parishoners. The various exorcists are smart, sallow, sardonic, steadfast, opportunistic, etc., just like other real people you know.

While not as even-handed as Blatty's telling of The Exorcist, Wilkinson respectfully sits psychologists and exorcists at the table and allows them to say their pieces. It's only in off-handed moments that Wilkinson betrays what seems like a kind of moral functionalism, if not a politicized "moral economy" approach. In bits of narration we are jostled into juxtaposing modernity, industry, etc., with a deficit of spirit and ecstasy. It's kind of rote, kind of trite, and completely ubiquitous in any and every exposition on religious culture of this day and age, be it from PhDs or shock-jocks.

Mourners: A Nameless Detective Novel, by Bill Pronzini

Pronzini is a seasoned elder statesman of the pulp-worshipping, locked-room-murder-puzzle, lone-existentialist-gumshoe-in-hippie-California genre. If you're me, this last is another way of saying "Pronzini is essentially workmanlike at churning out that which helps pattyjoe breathe."

I've read six or seven installments from this series that began in the 70s, and features the aforementioned "Nameless" protagonist adrift like some Ulysses, solving mods' murders in alternately white ethnic, hippified and multicultural San Francisco. This time I jumped out of sequence, ahead into the 2000s, to find Our Man having undergone important but non-radical personal life changes. Meanwhile, Nameless stays entertainingly busy as people keep dying in weird, intellectually-sexualized ways in CA (thank god for that!)

You are familiar with those two iconic American filmic achievements, Polanski's Chinatown and Altman's Long Goodbye?

Well, if you know these films you will recognize Nameless' alienation before 2005 SF, CA. However, knowing these films, you will also wonder if Nameless' alienation stems from something inward, and if his external sociopolitical surroundings aren't just a useful scapegoat.

There's a weird "I guess I just wasn't made for these times" thread that runs through Chandler, Ross MacDonald et. al., that typifies a sort of "California PI" vibe that's now truly a global, multimedia phenomenon... Is it a sort of pop existentialism, like the kind Fredric Jameson locates in the work of Philip Roth and Dog Day Afternoon? I dunno. I just know that Pronzini is a worthy vessel for another instantiation, another reiteration of this timeless-yet-oddly-timely format. Praise to him!

Wherein a drunken wobs posts a lolcats image in lieu of something substantive

Oh, I've got things to say. I'd just regret saying them in the morning.

Dear Ralph, It's Over

Frack me. I have defended Ralph Nader and supported his quixotic and increasingly narcissistic campaigns for more years than I care to admit. I gave the man my vote for President three times -- which is, depending on where you fall on the "a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush" unpleasantness from 2000, at least one time too many. (To put matters in perspective, I'm only old enough to have voted in four presidential elections, ya'll.)

I hear he's running again this year, which is...unfortunate. I've tried to just look the other way and pretend not to notice, like when a good friend gets shitfaced and pisses themselves in a corner at a party. Then he has to go and do this. (Zombie) Jeebus, Ralph. WTF am I supposed to think about this shit?

There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson?

The true believer in me want to insist that he must have been misquoted or his remarks taken out of context -- something, anything. There must be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, right? Sadly, no.

I guess what other folks have been saying for years is true. The man apparently has no shame. It's over between us, Ralph. Before I just wanted to see other candidates. But now I just want to be done with you for good.

obama's ipod

oh jesus. and here i was thinking it was all milton friedman and father pfleger lectures.

Thanks, Walnuts!

With the controversy over FISA, questionable decisions about his economic team, and backing away from his campaign finance pledge, Obama has given the left-wing of the Democratic party much to lament.

Fortunately, John McCain has stepped up to remind us why we are supporting the guy in the first place.

Teal Encore, DNC edition

Thanks to the libertarians over at Reason for making plain that the DNC's "responsible consumer" committee blows the GTFF's to bits. Apparently we'll be able to choose between "union" or "organic" caps, par example.

I hope this means that conventon-goers (conventioneers?) can rock some dank falafel while watching Sen. Menendez or whomever's Keynote on that sure to be "Hot" August Night in Denver.

(btw friends, if we know anybody that's attending the DNC and who is not my father, you must please clue me in. i'm going to need a cohort. it's gonna take a village to live through that zesty Infomercial. i'm still scarred from 2000, even notwithstanding the Pat Morita appearance.)

The Current $$$ Conundrum re: Rates

It's a big day for the money people today. So imagine yr a capitalist.

Yr sitting in an antique chair in Elvis' Jungle Room, and some rook hands you the latest financial data with a pair of silver tongs.

You've got a housing slump, with aging Baby Boomers everywhere facing negative savings. They are about to have their only earthly assets, their homes, foreclosed upon - poor Boomers. You've got half-assed Senate Bills compelling Banks not to foreclose upon the bankrupt Boomers, because, shit, it's not like there's anybody out there to buy these foreclosed-upon mortgages anywho.

You're convinced that if people don't own homes, they won't have the personal ATM necessary for them to continue purchasing at the hospitals, restaurants and bars that make our economy grow. You need for their to be "easy money" available to do business, but you are patently opposed to higher wages, progressive income and capital gains taxes, decreased military spending or various Keynesian-y public investments.

So what do you do, lower interest rates? Sure you do. Make it easier for banks to lend each other money to lend to other people? That seems like the most logical solution in the world. Why reproduce labor power through wages or social services when you can financialize the process? That way, wages, benefits and standards of living once thought of as "rights" can now be reckoned as "debts:" somebody else's cross to bear.

Two problems, though. First, nobody's positive that the credit crunch has finally, fully unfolded, and for all you know all that is solid (insert financial institution here) may very soon melt into air, unleashing a concomitant burst of market terror; bankrupting the occasional municipality; and threatening to bring about a more concerted, more ubiquitous "run on the bank" vibe at home and abroad. Lowering interest rates increases lending and may defer our getting to the bottom of the credit fuck-up and allowing you to cut out the cancer - remember yr a capitalist, so this is about "a few bad apples," and not a structural problem."

Second, everybody everywhere else is making moves against impending inflation, and that means raising interest rates, not lowering 'em.

So what is to be done? I have no idea whether the Fed will raise or cut rates today, but I think it will be a while longer before you see an active "war on inflation" a la Volcker that's filled with rate hikes.

Too many people are hurting too much, still, and it's an election year. And this is that unlikely bout of inflation that many attribute to commodity price increases rather than blaming on overpaid workers.

Weird times. A new chapter of neoliberalism. This is the political economy we're navigating or not navigating, labor movement. Don't expect President Obama to be able to tell us how to find a good restaurant here.

Max Fraad Wolff takes us as close as we're going to get to a punchline with his newest expose on an almost pomo indecisiveness around inflation:

A newly enhanced interest in blaming foreign actors smoothes political and media discussion. The confluence of today's high prices with declining home prices, stagnant wages and dimming job market prospects helps explain radically different perception of the new inflations. In the end, none of this explains it all. We seem to have decided some hyper-inflations are good and some are bad. Ultimately, we like hyper inflation in what we already own and hate it in what we have to buy.

What frightens them most

Their Zombie Jeezus is no match...

I have to admit, I'm getting an education in the veritable rainbow of American racism this election season. Here's three of those wonderful colors that I've identified:

• Your old school "they're less than human" crowd
• The "it's actually a privilege to be black in the USA!" gang
• And the "Amerikkka: The Blackening" bedwetters

What colors of the racist rainbow have you grasped?

I Guess This Makes John Jay Rambo Super-Qualified!

The following batshit is from Richard Cohen who writes for the Washington Post. Not reading the Post on a regular basis, I assumed that this guy was a regular at Townhall or pj's. Holy F Batman. I'll take the R-G any day of the week.

[...H]ere is the difference between McCain and Obama -- and Obama had better pay attention. McCain is a known commodity. It's not just that he's been around a long time and staked out positions antithetical to those of his Republican base. It's also -- and more important -- that we know his bottom line. As his North Vietnamese captors found out, there is only so far he will go, and then his pride or his sense of honor takes over. This -- not just his candor and nonstop verbosity on the Straight Talk Express -- is what commends him to so many journalists.

Obama might have a similar bottom line, core principles for which, in some sense, he is willing to die. If so, we don't know what they are. Nothing so far in his life approaches McCain's decision to refuse repatriation as a POW so as to deny his jailors a propaganda coup. In fact, there is scant evidence the Illinois senator takes positions that challenge his base or otherwise threaten him politically. That's why his reversal on campaign financing and his transparently false justification of it matter more than similar acts by McCain.

A presidential race is only incidentally about issues. It's really about likability and character. Obama is, to paraphrase what he said about Hillary Clinton, more than "likable enough" -- in fact, so much so that he is the most charismatic presidential candidate I've seen since Robert F. Kennedy. But the character question hangs -- not because of any evidence to the contrary and not in any moral sense, either, but because he is still young and lacks the job references McCain picked up in a North Vietnamese prison. McCain has a bottom line. Obama just moved his.

The wingnut in question wrote this after admitting that McCain has flip-flopped on many, many important issues, but apparently we know that he'll really, really stand up for his core principles, which, so far, are confined to not being a propaganda tool for Communist regimes.

Fuck the election, McCain earned the presidency thirty some-odd years ago in Hanoi! Obama can be president when he serves time as a POW and proves he won't crack.

Seriously though, this is all they have? McCain may be a Bush clone that will kowtow to the far-right, but he won't kowtow to the North Vietnamese? [Insert Zombie Jesus reference here.]

h/t: S,N!

Postive Union News!

Some might assume that with all my Negative Nellieism that I couldn't recognize when the unions did something good (as defined by me). You would be wrong. And, quite frankly, shame on you for thinking such a thing.

I like this. I think it's good. Hopefully it will do some good. Although I do believe a prominent labor scholar has questioned the value of job training.

Placebo Drilling

thank you, First Read, for this fascinating glimpse into the McCain team's environmental policy wonks. i'm glad to see they're finding good weed on the road:

"In the short term I'd like to give you a little relief for the summer on the gas tax," McCain began, referring to his controversial proposal to temporarily suspend the federal tax on gasoline. But then he made a surprisingly candid admission: "I don't see an immediate relief, but I do see that exploitation of existing reserves that may exist -- and in view of many experts that do exist off our coasts -- is also a way that we need to provide relief. Even though it may take some years, the fact that we are exploiting those reserves would have psychological impact that I think is beneficial."

(chop, chop....onwards to the Car Battery Challenge.)

"In a visit to Fresno on Monday, McCain did not bring up offshore drilling, instead emphasizing alternative energy sources such as alcohol fuels and announcing a $300-million challenge to develop a more efficient electric car battery."

Wow. What was that Ivan Drago said to Rocky? Oh yeah, it was, you will lose.

Ummm...

Okay, so I am getting to this a little late (h/t Feministing), as I have been doing things other than blogging, reading blogs, and blogging about reading about blogs for a few days.

But really, seriously? What in the name of zombie jeebus were the producers at Hardball thinking when they slapped this graphic up on the screen as a teaser (ha!) to talk about Michelle Obama's so-called "image makeover"???

So instead of (in addition to?) being the stereotypical Angry Black Woman, now, thanks to her "new outlook," she's -- what? help me out here, people... A stereotypical Jezebel? A sexy stripper? Here I thought she appeared on "The View" to show a "softer" side of herself. But apparently MSNBC has (or had, until they decided to drop it) an exclusive story that will reveal that Michelle actually plans to re-tool her image by appearing as a video dancer.

Christ, what's next? Calling her Obama's baby mama? Oh, right...

Where to go next? I mean, what's left here? Welfare queen? Mammie? It's only June and we're running dangerously low on novel stereotypes!

Holy Freakin' Zombie Jeebus!

Some have called him the "fucking stupidest guy on the face of the Earth," I say he's brilliant. I give you Douglas Feith:

Of Rice, Mushrooms, and Lies [Douglas J. Feith]

One viewer of my interviews with Peter Robinson wrote in that among the "lies" of the Bush administration was "Rice's line about the 'smoking gun/mushroom cloud.'" CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on September 8, 2002 how close was Saddam Hussein's government to developing a nuclear capability. Rice said: "You will get different estimates about precisely how close he is." She presented a summary of what the CIA was saying at the time about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, and then added: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

Rice was highlighting the limits of U.S. intelligence. While emphasizing the disparate estimates about how close Saddam was to a nuclear bomb, Rice was saying that the CIA would not necessarily know when Saddam acquired one.

She was warning that we might not learn this until after a detonation. This was an important and accurate statement.

Everyone now knows that the CIA's intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was deeply flawed. (It was a diplomatic and political disaster that Rice and all the other top Bush administration officials relied on erroneous intelligence - though they did so in good faith.) Rice deserves credit for stressing here the gaps and uncertainties in U.S. intelligence.

The comment about the mushroom cloud was a way of telling the American people not to expect their officials to know the state of Saddam's nuclear program at any given moment. It was a clear and proper warning that our country was subject to surprise. And it made the unarguable point that we would not want that surprise to take the form of a mushroom cloud from an Iraqi weapon.

Rice's reference to the mushroom cloud has been widely denounced as a gaffe or a lie. But it was neither.

UPDATE:I'm riding the "Vicodin Dragon," as the kids say, could someone with some skills take the ad out?

h/t: S,N!

Sunday Tape

Download the May 2008 comp, (minus one Box Tops' track that's you'll need to go after in the marketplace. In fact, I recommend you pursue a market transaction with of each of these artists, which is why I've included links to merchants wherever possible.)

miniature parade bob mould
golly i'm hot on bob mould's district line, which is the 2000s equivalent of yr jackson browne or yr joni mitchell-style "confessional" alb, but featuring fugazi's brendan canty on drums and on the boards, as well as some of mould's toughest power-punk hooks since Sugar. mould's "dance-y" production tactics are even cool with me, cuz sonically it comes off equivalent to throwing a disco ball into an auto-wrecker.

everybody loves the sunshine roy ayers
easily the theme song of pattyjoe's adventures in the 2007 ford focus he knows so well. when my special lady enthusiastically approved of my submersion into a funk/soul/disco-geek-out phase, i don't imagine she figured i'd end up here. top of the world!


obstacle interpol
hey, dour nyc guys! nice peacoats! but seriously, ladies and chaps... this first interpol record belongs aside what's the story and southern harmony in the pantheon of great ersatz-rock.

return hoover
this is the band that bridges the gap between steady diet fugazi, spiderland slint and goat-era jesus lizard. what else to say? i actively pursue every record played upon by all the ex-hoovers and all their forebears and all their descendents. priceless.
note the downbeat vibes in the verses. pretty expert for the kids at the basement show to be dropping.

flowing teenage fanclub
up until a year ago i had not gotten any further than bandwagonesque, and now i've taken to saying they've eclipsed even pavement as standard-bearers for my goes-without-saying debt to slackerish-ness and big star. and they continue to be great, too. Man-made is to me way better than anything Tweedy and O'Rourke have perpetrated together.

d.c. blues gary louris
now we veer into adult-contempo terrain with this here ex-Jayhawk. pretty song, but i hold it in contempt cuz i wrote an acoustic record myself this year and his is like, 7,100 times better. that said, the production palette might've been cooler if it was a little more like that of if i could only remember my name and a little less like tapestry. but whose fault is that? it's producer chris "twice as awful" robinson's fault, actually.

salvation blues marc olson
and here is the other ex-Jayhawk, with a song that's almost ruined from day one with an icky lead guitar intro that suggests lyle lovett ain't far off. nah.... beautiful chorus and ramshackle acoustic-ish-ness.

atrophic revolutions hal al shedad
this band is another all-time fave combo of arty, indie dynamics and face-melting-ly aggressive emocore from the day. atlanta's finest, bar none.

what was kerosene 454
a more "midwestern" contribution from this recent discovery of mine... almost braid-like in its' sing-song-iness and buzzing SGvibes.

breezin' george benson
the first time i heard this song, i was receiving a lecture from a former Assistant Coach with the Utah Jazz.

pink frosty fugazi
creepy, slint-y tactics from the mature fugazi that gave us the mindblowing End Hits.

traded green trees corm
it's at this point in my May 2008 comp that i drive the Ford Focus off into the rest area and think, god i'm hitting it hard with the mid-90s emo 7"s this month. yeah, well...

in a free land husker du
that's more like it. i know this song because of the overlooked Everything Falls Apart comp. featuring the huskers way before and just after Land Speed Record. in contrast to that record - as staunchly "hardcore" an LP as the band ever produced - Everything Falls Apart houses a whole spectrum of sounds, including this tear-wrenching anthem, praise be. note the second bob mould appearance on this comp.




evening gown alejandro escovedo
a mick jagger cover... what can i say? i love the line about "sports clothes."

the leanover life without buildings
hello???!?? these vocals caught me by my pleasantries.