Just Looking At The Pictures Is Making Me Want To Lie Down Safely On The Floor Of My First Floor Apartment.
Posted on July 2, 2009 by andrew
This is either the worst idea ever or the coolest idea ever, depending on how you feel about being suspended over 1,300 feet above the ground in a small glass container. Personally, I’m not a big fan, but I can see how you might differ.
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The Biggest Wagon Is The Empty Wagon Is The Noisiest -or- Steve Is Wrong About Subjective Song Preferences
Posted on June 30, 2009 by andrew
Steve has posted a list of his favorite R.E.M. songs. Or, more accurately, the following:
I thought I’d share my personal R.E.M. “Best of” list. It consists of nothing more than a list of the songs that I thought I would enjoy listening to if they came up as I played through this list on random play or if they were thrown in a “Genius” playlist on my iPhone.
While Steve and I have often found agreement in our shared love for R.E.M., our specific preferences regarded the band’s discography have seldom matched perfectly. As such, I must, without using any hyperbole whatsoever, pronounce his list completely misguided. (I mean, he labels the song “Superman” as “I Am Superman”. You should know right off the bat that this guy has no idea what he’s talking about.) A lengthy exercise in futility follows below the jump.
Read more
» Filed Under R.E.M., music | 4 Comments
The Trainwreck Continues
Posted on June 30, 2009 by andrew
The Todd Purdum piece on Sarah Palin that is being linked across the blogosphere today is phenomenal. Go read it.
I think this is my favorite short anecdote:
When Trig was born, Palin wrote an e-mail letter to friends and relatives, describing the belated news of her pregnancy and detailing Trig’s condition; she wrote the e-mail not in her own name but in God’s, and signed it “Trig’s Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”
Sarah Palin writes emails and, apparently without irony, signs them in God’s name! The article is filled with revelations like that one, as well as the regrets of McCain staffers who can no longer believe they were working to put this woman the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency. I can’t wait for the 2012 Republican primaries.
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Thoroughly Inappropriate Commentary On The Current News Cycle
Posted on June 25, 2009 by andrew
People who are really, really, really happy (even though they would never admit it) right now:
1) Mark Sanford
People who would theoretically be justified in being a bit annoyed to have been totally and inescapably overshadowed:
1) Farrah Fawcett
News cycles are weird.
» Filed Under Farrah Fawcett, Mark Sanford, Michael Jackson, obituaries | Leave a Comment
Short Memories
Posted on June 24, 2009 by andrew
Remember President Obama’s first prime-time press conference after taking office? Remember how The Washington Post wasted its question on Alex Rodriguez and steroids, of all things?
Yeah, Dana Milbank should probably STFU now…
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And This Applies To Whom, Exactly?
Posted on June 23, 2009 by andrew
Apparently, it’s a big deal that President Obama is walking back from his pledge that the health care reforms he signs into law will not force anyone to lose their existing coverage if they prefer that coverage to whatever might be created by the reforms. Now, I’m not going to say that the president should violate his promise or anything like that (although his response to the charge is sufficient to convince me that he’s not planning to violate his promise in the first place), but I do have to wonder how many Americans are satisfied with their current coverage. Who thinks that their current health insurance is both priced fairly and provides enough coverage? I’d say that I’m happy with the coverage provided by my insurance, but I doubt that the price is particularly fair considering the unbalanced insurance market and the absurd sums of money devoted to profits for the medical-industrial complex (and I also wonder, in the back of my mind, if my coverage would be genuinely sufficient were I to face an unexpected severe illness or injury, considering the horror stories I’ve heard regarding other seemingly sufficient insurance plans). I suppose there must be some Americans who do like their current insurance plans, but I have a suspicion that the number of those people is being vastly overstated in much the same way that the media conversation assumes large numbers of middle class Americans will be affected by a tax hike that in actually affects only those households earning over $200,000 per year.
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Heh, “Cartoonist-American”
Posted on June 22, 2009 by andrew
I’m having trouble imagining a feature in the Sunday Post that would appeal to me more directly than this one: Art Spiegelman, pioneering comic artist and author of Maus
» Filed Under Art Spiegelman, Holocaust, comics, the media | Leave a Comment
Bird Injury Blogging
Posted on June 22, 2009 by andrew
Last week, young Kirby fractured his leg. If you’re wondering how it’s possible for a parakeet to fracture his leg, well, you aren’t alone. Anyway, I thought some of you might be curious to see what his cast looks like:
He’s doing fairly well; he’s figured out how to get around his cage relatively smoothly on one leg (he uses his beak to pull himself up a bit more than normal and uses his wings for balance), and the cast should be able to come off this weekend. And, yes, the whole thing is a bit amusing to watch when I can forget how painful the initial injury must have been.
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Weekly Routine
Posted on June 16, 2009 by andrew
Not a Tuesday goes by without Richard Cohen embarrassing The Washington Post.
» Filed Under Richard Cohen, The Washington Post | Leave a Comment
USHMM Officer Johns Family Fund
Posted on June 15, 2009 by andrew
The Holocaust Museum has now set up a fund which is accepting donations from anyone who might like to help support the family of the security guard who was killed in the terrible attack last week.
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A Concession
Posted on June 15, 2009 by andrew
In light of events in Iran, I guess I might be willing to concede that Twitter does, potentially, have its uses.
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They Hypnotized The Summer, 1979
Posted on June 13, 2009 by andrew
When I saw R.E.M. last year, Michael Stipe introduced Ignoreland by talking about the Iranian Revolution (in a very Michael Stipe-ish sort of way that ended up confusing most of the people sitting near me, naturally). In Stipe’s view, the events of that revolution were the spark that allowed Reagan to come to power at home, and Ignoreland is his (admittedly bitter) indictment of the Reagan years. In turn, the reason I adore the song is because I find its emotion to be so perfectly parallel to my own feelings regarding the later Bush II years (even if, in terms of pure quality, Ignoreland hardly ranks among R.E.M.’s finest work; see also my feelings on Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief).
Anyway, all of this is a long way of saying that I’m totally fascinated by what is happening in Iran right now. At the moment, events in Iran appear as though they could result in a genuine turning point for the shape of the world. Is an unraveling of that 1979 Iranian Revolution following almost directly on the heels of what many of us hope will prove to have been the final gasps of the Reagan/Bush era in the United States? Or are we looking at a minor and soon to be crushed Iranian version of Tianamen Square? Is it right to even give serious thought to the former when the latter still seems so much more likely?
Like I said, I’m watching this really closely.
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The Washington Post Fans The Flames
Posted on June 12, 2009 by andrew
On each of the last two days, the front page of The Washington Post has been dominated by the shooting at the Holocaust Museum. Articles on various aspects of the attack have appeared in almost every section of the paper, thanks to the local nature of the crime. In the opinion section of today’s paper, one columnist ponders the question of anti-Semitism while another questions the right-wing establishment’s seeming willingness to allow extremism to flourish in its midst. The paper’s daily editorial cartoonist also makes the latter point, albeit more emphatically.
Meanwhile, on the very same page, Charles Krauthammer writes the following:
“And the Spirit of God hovered upon the face of the waters”
– Genesis 1:2When President Obama returned from his first European trip, I observed that while over there he had been “acting the philosopher-king who hovers above the fray mediating” between America and the world. Now that Obama has returned from his “Muslim world” pilgrimage, even the left agrees. “Obama’s standing above the country, above — above the world. He’s sort of God,” Newsweek’s Evan Thomas said to a concurring Chris Matthews, reflecting on Obama’s lofty perception of himself as the great transcender.
Not that Obama considers himself divine. (He sees himself as merely messianic, or, at worst, apostolic.) But he does position himself as hovering above mere mortals, mere country, to gaze benignly upon the darkling plain beneath him where ignorant armies clash by night, blind to the common humanity that only he can see. Traveling the world, he brings the gospel of understanding and godly forbearance. We have all sinned against each other. We must now look beyond that and walk together to the sunny uplands of comity and understanding. He shall guide you.
Charles Krauthammer has used The Washington Post to quite explicitly accuse our president- already the target of paranoid and racist fringe elements who see him as an embodiment of all their fears- of possessing a messiah complex. There is, as Krauthammer certainly knows, a history of that fringe element leveling the exact same charge against Barack Obama and using it as one of the central pillars in the conspiracy theories they’ve erected around the president.
I wouldn’t expect Charles Krauthammer to recognize the irresponsibility of running this column at this moment in time; his past performance indicates that he lacks much sense of decency. However, I very much wish I could expect better from The Washington Post. They displayed remarkably bad judgment in publishing this column today, and I would hope that it gives the editorial staff cause to seriously rethink their current direction.
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Things That Almost Make Me Cry At Work
Posted on June 11, 2009 by andrew
Not ashamed to admit that this post made my eyes water a little bit.
My instinct yesterday was to not let this attack feel personal, but Mark Blumenthal is right: It is personal.
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Quote of the Day
Posted on June 11, 2009 by andrew
“The responsible white separatist community condemns this,” he said. “It makes us look bad.”
(Via)
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People I Would Vote For
Posted on June 10, 2009 by andrew
If this party existed in the United States and was running on the exact same platform, and if I actually got to vote for representatives in Congress, I would absolutely1 vote for them. Not because they call themselves the Pirate Party, which is stupid, but because our current intellectual property laws are a joke.
- Giving myself some room to take that back, of course, if their candidates turned out to be crazy racists or something. ↩
» Filed Under Sweden, intellectual property | Leave a Comment
Obama At Buchenwald
Posted on June 5, 2009 by andrew
I can’t seem to find anything articulate to say here (although I’m obviously pleased to see the president pay his respects). I do have three brief and somewhat silly (in comparison to the gravity of where Obama was) thoughts:
1) For reasons I can’t quite explain, I really like that Elie Wiesel quoted The Plage in his remarks. It proves me right about how great my favorite novel is, or something? I don’t know, but the quotation pleased me.
2) For reasons that seem a bit more straightforward, Obama’s family connection to Buchenwald- and his apparently genuine appreciation for his great-uncle’s service- is one of those incidental details that make me see this president as more than just a politician whose policies I generally support. Our president’s family history is almost nothing like my own, but his is so unbelievably rich that there is still a direct connection between the two.
3) I’m not remotely surprised, but still pleased and relieved, to see that the current president declined to take fashion advice from disrespectful war criminal Dick Cheney prior to visiting a concentration camp.
» Filed Under Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Elie Wiesel, Holocaust | Leave a Comment
The Cairo Speech
Posted on June 4, 2009 by andrew
President Obama’s Cairo speech reminds me of nothing so much as the speech he delivered in Philadelphia one year ago on the topic of race. This is the Barack Obama I deeply admire; this is the Barack Obama I was eager and proud to vote for. This is the president who believes in the power of knowledge, learning, and dialogue above all else. This is the president who believes not in humanity’s inherent qualities of good or evil, but in our ability to choose to make a better world (as he says quite explicitly in the concluding section of this speech).
In the end, these are only words from a politician. Nonetheless, as an admirer of quality writing and oration, I am enormously impressed by these words. As an American, I am honored to have this man represent me to the world. As a person, I can only hope that Obama possesses the skills to turn his words into something more.
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Hey, Token Black Friend, I’ve Got A Question For You
Posted on June 3, 2009 by andrew
Was George W. Bush stupid or evil? I suppose we’ll never get a definitive answer (although the smart money is riding on “both”), but here’s more evidence for the first option:
Bush found himself perplexed by the flap over Joe Biden describing Obama as “articulate and bright and clean” in January 2007. So, naturally, the president turned to the top U.S. diplomat, the trusted Condi Rice, to explain what the heck this was all about.
I suppose the nice way of spinning this would be to say that Bush is so colorblind in seeing the merit of others that he failed to recognize the problem, but that’s edging into Colbert parody territory: George Bush doesn’t see people as black or white. People tell him he’s white and he believes them because he belong to a country club.
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Conan’s Debut
Posted on June 2, 2009 by andrew
I have to be honest here: I didn’t laugh once during the entire hour (although I had mostly stopped paying attention by the time Will Ferrell showed up; maybe his interview was funny). I spent most of the time thinking, “Really? I’m skipping Colbert for this?” The opening “running across America” gag went on way too long and seemed strikingly unoriginal and lacking in any hint of Conan’s oft-praised subversive streak. The monologue was not merely not very funny, it was strangely self-congratulatory in a way that took away from the host’s usual self-deprecation, the latter being one of his most appealing features. On top of that, the monologue and everything that followed were essentially just extended commercials for NBC’s parent/sister companies, GE and Universal. Very disappointing.
I watched last night because I used to love Late Night, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything more than a scattered clip here and there in six or seven years. Has Conan been this bad for that long, or was this just a matter of the first night being lousy?
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