Lil' Markie: listen and you will never be the same

Not the Biz, but Lil' Markie, who wrote "Diary of an Unborn Child," a hyper-creepy story of an unborn child, and the most unnerving and sickly display of anti-abortion propaganda if I've ever heard it. Some of you may have experienced this before, but I never have. Listen at your own peril.

Rumsfeld, caught with his pants down once again

And the media won't do a thing. Saddam's old pal turned enemy, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was also instrumental in supplying North Korea with its nuclear program, as he sat on the board of ABB, a Swiss engineering firm that provided key components and plans for the North Korean nuclear program. He sat on the board for 11 years. Joe Conason of Salon turned me onto the Fortune article detailing this potential conflict of interest. Of course it won't be a huge deal to anybody but the liberal blogging world, it's a must read. Here's the opening paragraph:

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors."

This is a must read! Look and see what our patriotic leaders are/were up to...disgusting.

Blues cruise

So this 20 year old woman goes on a cruise, but doesn't want to be there because she wants to be with here boyfriend, so she writes two threatening notes and leaves in the ladies' restroom hoping it will turn around. It does...and it's searched by bomb-sniffing dogs, etc. The clincher is that the third note she wrote tried to make it look like she was the target of the threats! Of course they figured out who it was. She gets arrested. What an idiot. Yeah, cruises can be kind of depressing, but still...free food and gambling!

I'm eating a salad right now, and all the animals are crowded around me whining and meowing and stuff, and I keep trying to reason with them, yelling "It's a frickin' salad! You don't want this, trust me! You won't eat it!" They are not swayed by my arguments. The pleading continues.

Holy junk!

I drove near this standoff right about the time it started. These police cars whizzed past me, coming from all directions. It was crazy, and I had no idea what was going on.

Between the thunderstorm outside and the "earthquake" that I apparently missed (even though I was awake at the time!), it feels like armaggedon around here, let me tell you. The end of the world. Yep. The end of the world...didn't the Bible say something about this? I hope so.

For the record, my favorite show of all time might be Cops. I love any kind of car crash or police chase show, and I especially like watching wasted rednecks tell policemen that it was their cousin's car, of course it wasn't stolen, and no, that's not my crack pipe. Mainly I just like watching rednecks. It's what keeps me coming back to Hee-Haw every week. Wait, is Hee-Haw still on the air?

The seemingly round-the-clock coverage of last night's Georgia/Alabama/Tennesee earthquake was pretty funny. No less than six people I saw on the news said that they thought it was a terrorist attack. Give me a fucking break, okay? Do you think Al-Qaeda really wants to take down Marietta? Are they gonna go after the Big Chicken? That'll show us arrogant Americans! A few other people said some really vague things along the lines of "My dog barked at nothing" (sounds like every night in the Wolfgang/Jensen household) and "I woke up for no reason!" Fascinating!

More allegations of college football hank-panky from my alma mater, Mississippi State University. If you're going to cheat, cheat to win, for Pete's sake! The team did terribly last year...I forget the record, but it was something like 3-9. Now they're probably going to be put on probation, and they have zilch to show for it. At least Alabama's in the shitter, too.

How can that woman on "Mr. Personality" take any of those guys seriously with those stupid masks on?

Apparently, our governor, Sonny Perdue, was joyriding in state helicopters without a license. I should be outraged, right? Instead, I think it's pretty fucking cool. Mame's mom dated him in high school.

Happy Birthday, Willie Nelson!

Sleep!

I just slept the sleep of the mummies, and I feel somewhat rejuvenated. One paper down, about ten billion to go. My paper was on the divergent developments of Christianity in East Asia (i.e. The Korean Peninsula and the Japanese archipelago) over history, and it could have been interesting if I'd devoted the whole semester to the subject. Some strange phantom researcher must have been doing the exact same topic because every book I really needed was checked out for two months and every journal I needed was missing from the shelves. Bastards.

Did you know that Korea used to be called Cella?

Did you know that Tokyo was once called Edo? Today I started writing a song called "Edo Shuffle" (get it? like the Boz Scaggs classic "Lido Shuffle"...oh, never mind) about the rise of the Zaibatsu conglomerates and their subsequent transformations into Keiretsu post WWII. Keiretsu are the giant megacorporations that dominate Japanese economics, like Matsushita, Sony, and Mitsubishi. Not many indie rockers have tackled the subject of Japanese corporate verticalization. The song sounds sort of like Joe Jackson right now.

There's a thunderstorm brewing outside and the sky looks absolutely amazing, a strange swirling mutation of purples and oranges. It smells nice in my front yard.

What the article doesn't say is...

...why these valuable works of art were found behind a toilet. Right where they belong! Haha! Just kidding.

Hmm.

Nothing to say about this, really. I just thought I'd post it.

High School memories

I played "Grey Cell Green" by Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Dinosaur, Jr.'s "Little Furry Things" today on my show. I doubt anybody on WUOG has played those songs in a while. It reminded me of a mix tape I had that I used to listen to while cruising the streets of Auburn in my 1982 Mazda GLC named Charlie (it came with seat cushions that had "Charlie" emblazoned across the backs in flowery script). You had to put a pencil underneath the tapes in the tape decks to get it to play in both speakers.

Anyway, here's what I played today:

Flare--Hung (half the record for our daily "Lunchbox" album feature

Deerhoof--L'Amour Stories
Starlight Mints--Goldstar (awesome!)
The Essex Green--The Boo Hoo Boy
The Marlboro Chorus--The Unrulable Child (great song)

Grandaddy--Now It's On
.22--Limelight (unfortunately not the Rush song)
Elliot Smith--The Ballad of Big Nothing

Tenderness--The Sound Of Your P
The Modern Lovers--Government Center
Dinosaur, Jr.--Little Furry Things
Ned's Atomic Dustbin--Grey Cell Green

Earman Ali--Santa Barbara
Sex Mob--Ruby Tuesday
Bossacucanova and Roberto Menescal--Nana

The Delgados--No Danger
Spacemen 3--Take Me To The Other Side
The Fruit Bats--Union Blanket

The Go-Between--Streets Of Your Town
Ride--Twisterella

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds--Death Is Not The End

The American Greetings Nazis

My favorite online comic strip, Penny Arcade, a videogame-based site (so don't be mad if it's not funny to you), is getting sued by American Greetings for a raunchy Strawberry Shortcake parody. I think they'll win. They retaliated today with this gem.

Sad

Another vehicle-related death here at UGA that could've been avoided. What the story glosses over is that he didn't receive medical attention for 24 hours even though he was severely messed up.

This reminds of a similar story from a while back where some frat guys here were doing some sort of initiation, driving the pledges (who were blindfolded and handcuffed and not wearing seatbelts) around when their SUV wrecked, throwing Ben Grantham from the car. What the article I linked to doesn't tell you (the Athens Banner-Herald archives are for shit) is that there was another car in the caravan that took off with most everybody involved. What it also didn't say is that the guys who stayed with Ben and the crashed car on the side of the road took off his handcuffs and blindfolds and threw them into the woods, so they wouldn't get in any more trouble. The police found them and were not happy. He might have lived if they had taken him to the hospital instead of leaving him on the side of a country road waiting for an ambulance while the driver of the wrecked car fled the scene of the accident.

The ATO chapter here at UGA was shuttered, and four of them were charged with vehicular manslaughter. If they hadn't acted to cover up they might not have been charged.

BREAKING!

Danny Bonaduce sucks.

Andrew Sullivan

I don't agree with him on much of anything, though he seems to have tempered his cries of "protestors=anti-American" lately, thankfully distancing himself from the indefatigable Ann Coulter. He has some really interesting things to say, as a gay conservative, about Ari Fleischer calling Rick Santorum an "inclusive man." Here's what he said:

"It hurts me to say this, Mr President, but your spokesman's statement today on your behalf has just made matters far worse. Senator Santorum believes that gay people should be subject to criminal prosecution for their private, adult consensual relationships. He has equated homosexuality with the abuse of minors. He has associated homosexual relationships with bestiality. If that is an example of "inclusiveness," then what would exclusiveness be? For the president to call the criminalization of an entire group of people the position of an "inclusive man" leaves me simply speechless. It indicates that the White House still doesn't understand the damage that this incident is doing, the fact that it is beginning to make it simply impossible for gay people and their families - or any tolerant person - to vote for the president's party."


It really does beg the question: how can a gay person vote Republican? This is a party that talks about small government but has members who want people arrested for adult, consensual, private sexual acts. It is clear, as Sullivan later notes, that the Republicans' "small government" stance is bogus, as they are all for government intrusion into people's personal lives (anti-euthanasia, pro-sodomy laws, etc.). There is a strong, creepy streak of big government (the streak that drives more conservatives to libertarianism each year, methinks) running throughout the GOP and this administration. I've heard reports that Bush's cabinet doesn't particularly get along with each other, and I think that these kind of issues have to drive a wedge between the more moderate Condoleeza Rice/Colin Powell faction and the John Ashcroft group.

From the Chicago Sun-Times (via Sullivan):

"How can we have any hope of creating a democratic government in Iraq free from domination by repressive religion if we cannot free our own laws of official faith-based biases inflicted on our fellow citizens?"

Georgia peaches

Someone found my weblog by searching for "big tits of GA" on Yahoo. Glad I could help.

I can't ever remember typing the word "tits," though. I mean, besides right now.

Time to get alone

I'm DJing Crisis! right now, but the noise is driving me crazy, so I'm listening to the Beach Boys on headphones while I work on a paper for my Geography of East and Southeast Asia class. It's not going so well. I just can't get enough information for the topic I picked, and some asshole checked out all of the books I needed about a month ago at the library and hasn't brought them back. Ask me something about Christianity in Korea. I never wanted to know this much about it.

I love Raymond Scott.

And I love Dennis Wilson.

No radio, just head

Does anybody else think that the title of the new Radiohead album, "Hail to the Thief," is the stupidest thing they've ever heard? Come on, guys! You're way too smart for a dumbass George W. Bush dig like that. I haven't heard the record yet (heard good things), but that turns me off from the beginning...and I hate the president! Could they be more fucking obvious? If it was a Negativland record or something, okay...no...wait...Negativland would never do something that up-front. It sounds like something some political punk band like Propagandhi would do.

Memo to Radiohead: it's not crass or funny...it's just plain idiotic.

Memo to Blur: write some songs for your next record.

No rest for the awesome

I have go so much work to do that, once again, blogging may slow to a trickle. I'm sorry about that. I have to write a paper on Christianity in the Koreas and Japan. I haven't started yet...it's due Tuesday. I also have to finish my almost-complete paper on Asian-American women, the myth of the "Model Minority," and education. It's pretty fucking good, if I do say so myself. And I do.

Don't you hate how everyone quantifies the difficulty of the papers they're writing with page numbers? "I've got a five-pager due Tuesday and a ten-page paper due on Wednesday!" "Well, I have a ten pager and a 12 page one due on Thursday!" It's like some fucking paper-page-number pissing contest, and it drives me fucking bonkers. What kind of satisfaction do you get out of having a bigger workload than someone else? I thought this shit would stop in grad school, but it lopes along, unfettered. It strikes me as painfully juvenile.

Now, on to my two fifteen plus pagers!

Oh, by the way, if you're thinking of seeing the Scooby Doo movie, don't. Scrappy Doo did it. There. I spoiled the ending for you, so you don't have to watch it. The only person who marches away from that turd unscathed is Matthew Lillard, who did a pretty amazing Shaggy facsimile.

The greatest American pop band

I just serenaded all of our animals with stirring, in-the-nude (well, wrapped in a towel) renditions of Beach Boys' favorites like "California Girls," "Wouldn't It Be Nice," and "Sloop John B.," as well as the more obscure "Time To Get Alone" and "Be Still."

They looked at me with complete indifference.

In defense of the indefensible

Dr. Frist on the Rick Santorum comments: "Rick is a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion in the Republican Party and in the Senate, and to suggest otherwise is just politics," Frist, R-Tennessee, said in a statement released earlier this week.

Yeah, right? I lose respect for DOCTOR Frist every week, I think.

Thank God Olympia Snowe and Lincoln Chafee stood up to Santorum. I like these two more than I like most Democrats these days; they have the balls to stand up to the prevailing "wisdom" in their own party. How many Democrats can you say that about? Two? None?

It's amazing how quiet the White House has been on this thing. But, really, should gays expect anything less from this administration? I don't know how intelligent people like Condoleeza Rice could work in such an atmosphere of paranoia and bigotry.

UPDATE: Bush weighs in. Of course he supports Santorum. Then, if the backlash gets too big, he'll change his tune, just like with Trent Lott. I doubt this will carry as far, though...unfortunately homosexuality doesn't carry as much weight as race does, debate-wise.

Chicks

I, too, think that the best way to answer criticism levied against you is to pose nude.

Salon challenges Bill O'Reilly...

...to a fight on their turf. Good, he's a big bully, completely insecure about any dissenting opinions. I used to have a modicum of respect for him. Not any longer. I'm not even sure that he, and the others who used it against anti-war liberals (or "traitors" as I like to call us), even read the article.

Gutless

A front-page WSJ article called "Why Are Americans So Scared?" (which I can't link to because I'm not a subscriber) points out what I've been thinking for a while now: that, since 9/11 (and even before it), the Americans have become a bunch of whiny, scared-of-their-shadow, chicken littles, afraid to do anything in one of the safest countries on earth. It's fucked up and it drives me crazy when people are scared to fly because of terrorism. So what? You run a greater risk of dying when you start up a car than when you step on an airplane. It's fucking ludicrous, and this country has turned into a bunch of fucking babies. It grosses me out. One of the guys in the article, a businessman, cancelled a trip to South Korea because someone might bomb it. Huh?

And what makes a terrorism death worse than a car wreck death? Why do the families of the people who died on 9/11 get millions when the wife and two kids of a guy who died in a car wreck get zilch, beyond insurance money? What makes his death less tragic? At what number of deaths should the government step in? 50? 100? 2000? It makes zero sense to me. Maybe the government should give out a mandatory 100,000$ to the families of anybody who dies. Then people would probably start killing each other, a la Double Indemnity. Who knows?

Our governor in Georgia, Sonny Perdue, is gutless as well. So is our legislature. They've spent the last few weeks dicking around with the flag issue when there's a budget crisis on hand. Can anybody say "special session?" It's absolutely unbelievable. Sonny refuses to take a stand on anything, and liberals and conservatives are grumbling. I know Sonny got elected by the rural bigots. He knows it. Everybody knows it. But if he were a real fucking man and not just a politician he would come out and shelve the flag proposal until next year in favor of his education reform packages, new ethics regulations, and a budget that makes sense without stupid, quick-fix, and surprisingly un-Republican like tax hikes on cigarettes and alcohol and huge cuts in education. But he won't take a stand on the flag because it's all part of his magical "healing process." What an idiot. Can anybody say "one-term?"

On another, completely different note, I gave a presentation today on Cambodia and have become obsessed with the country's history. It's quite fascinating and disturbing. The presentation before mine was called "Thailand: the Land of Smiles"; I should have called mine "Cambodia: the Land of Anguish, Hurt, Pain, Death, Suffering of the Oppressed, and Awfulness." I feel really bad for the Cambodian people. The place looks absolutely beautiful, especially the lovely Angkor Wat temple, and I'd love to visit there when things cool down.

Some crazy might bomb my plane or something.

Governor Dean on Rick Santorum

He says what I would say, only without as much cussin':

April 23, 2003


Following is a statement by Governor Howard Dean calling Rick Santorum's remarks immoral and demanding his resignation as Senate Republican Conference Chair.

Yesterday, I called on President Bush and the Republican Party leadership to condemn Senator Rick Santorum for his deeply offensive remarks comparing homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. As additional reports have come to light, revealing a disturbing history of inflammatory, anti-gay rhetoric by Senator Santorum, the deafening silence of President Bush and his party has become inexcusable.

Sen. Santorum has refused to apologize for his repugnant remarks, calling his comments "a legitimate public policy discussion." Gay-bashing is not a legitimate public policy discussion; it is immoral. Rick Santorum's failure to recognize that attacking people because of who they are is morally wrong makes him unfit for a leadership position in the United States Senate. Today I call on Rick Santorum to resign from his post as Republican Conference Chairman.

Once again, I call on President Bush to repudiate Sen. Santorum's remarks. The President of the United States must represent all Americans, regardless of race, gender, class or sexual orientation. In a nation dedicated to equality under the law, everyone must be equal under the law. By refusing to stand up for gay Americans under attack by members of his own party's leadership, this President sends a message that intolerance and bigotry is acceptable. That is not acceptable.

--Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

The Poet Laureate of Meteorology

Selections of today's forecast by Buzz Bernard, Sr., of the Weather Channel (note the use of "recalcitrant"...I want this guy to be famous):

South
Rough and tumble, maybe even violent, weather will carry its tough guy act eastward from the southern Plains and Texas tomorrow as a mean-spirited low aloft creeps across Kansas. Downpours, a scattering of severe storms and probably even a few tornadoes are expected to burst through the saloon doors into areas from the far eastern reaches of the Plains and Texas into the mid- and lower Mississippi Valley including western Tennessee and Mississippi.

Midwest
Missouri, southern Illinois and far western Kentucky, in fact, could see some of the storms turn nasty with powerful winds, large hail and even isolated tornadoes churning over the landscape as a lazy but somewhat malevolent upper-air low spins slowly eastward across the southern Plains.

Northeast
An upper-air low, taking its own sweet time about departing the Northeast, will continue to linger over New England tomorrow, doing its darndest to overstay its welcome...if it ever had one. Rain and snow showers are expected to linger over northern and eastern New England, with minor snow accumulations possible in the northern mountains. Meanwhile, after putting up with this nuisance system for too long, areas from New York State and southwest New England southward should enjoy a largely sunny day. Sunny, but not necessarily warm as high temperatures will continue to run just a bit below late April averages. From southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey southward, for instance, expect maxima in the 60s.

West
Recalcitrant upper-air lows will dog much of the nation tomorrow and the West will be no exception.

Maggot Brains and the like

This guy has really bad luck at the UGA dining halls. Co-worker Dave thinks that he's making it up to get a free meal plan.

I didn't wear socks today. I realize now how much my feet sweat and why socks are so important. Pepe le pew!

This is a bad album cover.

It must suck to be a Grateful Dead keyboard player. All of them, except Bruce Hornsby and Vince Welnick (formerly of the Tubes), have died. I remember Brent Mydland dying in 1990 (?) of an overdose, but their first and second keyboardists, "Pigpen" (stomach hemorrhage: drug-related) and Keith Godchaux (car crash) respectively, both died as well. I wouldn't take that position for anything. Oh, who am I kidding? Even with Jerry G. gone, I'd tour with "the Dead." Hell, I'd tour with anybody, save neo-Nazi bands. If Creed called up and said they'd like for me to play drums or keyboards or something, I'd do it. DC Talk...yes! Cannibal Corpse...yes! Like I said, I'd whore myself out to anybody. That's the beauty of living in a post-, post-, post-ironic age: everything's cool and nothing hurts!

ILDCandC is dead. Long live Reciprocity Failure!

Creature Features

Last night, around 3 AM or so, I was having trouble sleeping, so I decided to watch some HBO, namely a little movie by Larry "Kids" Clark called "Teenage Caveman," which bore little resemblance to the Roger Corman/Robert Vaughn vehicle of yore. Well, they're both really, really, really bad movies, but at least the Roger Corman one was sort of "funny bad." This movie was awful. When I say awful, I don't even mean campy awful or ha-ha awful...I mean, it made me angry. It made me angry like Gregg Arraki movies make me angry. That kind of "who fucking cares?" angry, "why waste the money?" angry, "are you fucking kidding me?" angry. There was this one actor in it, his character's name was Neill, I believe, who was soooo over-the-top that I wanted to reach through the TV set and give him what's for. It was one of those truly execrable "I'm crazy" performances that defied all notions of good sense and/or good acting. The women in the movie were bad actresses picked primarily, I guess, because they agreed to get naked a lot and have lots of uncomfortably realistic sex (all missionary style...?) with cholo-looking, coke-snorting, post-apocalyptic punks who wanted to become immortal. Or something. Most of the women exploded, but the men got off okay. I saw Bully the other day, another Larry Clark movie, and I thought it was pretty good, for once. Not this stinker, which I rank as one of the most atrocious movies I've seen since Natural Born Killers, the Cable Guy, Thirteen Ghosts (remake), or the Fifth Element. Except people actually liked those movies, presumably. I'm pretty sure no one with half a brain would like this one.

On another note, I saw Holes last night as well and it was pretty good, especially for a kids movie. It was sort of geared towards the pre-teen audience, but I found it surprisingly dark, adult, (a lot of killings...and interracial romance--awesome!) and complex. Sure, there are a lot of contrivances in the plot, but I think that's part of the whole mystical "curse" thing that's set up at the beginning with some semi-surreal flashbacks. If all kids movies could be as good as this, there wouldn't be a problem with kids wanting to watch stuff with more "mature" content. The reason that kids want to watch R-rated movies is probably because they look way cooler than crap like the Littlest Vampire or the Country Bears movie. They insult their intelligence.

The lead kid in Holes was a pretty good actor. And Jon Voight chewed some major scenery.

God help us all

Will somebody please tell Aerosmith to give it up?

One post to go before I sleep

Right now I'm consumed by my Cambodia presentation for Thursday, but I thought I'd post something from our ol' pal Rick Ross about the Moonies and the Prez. Enjoy!

The Agony and the, um, Agony

I find this to be one of the most disturbing postwar images, for some reason. (Thanks to V+)

It was very good year

When I was 17, I did some crazy-ass shit. I blew up a candy machine and my chemistry teacher's mailbox (the irony!) with a concoction of homeade napalm. Actually, it was myself and Allen Ensminger who did the dirty deed. I haven't spoken to him in years. Nobody has, it seems, which is too bad because he was always a good one to have around when you, well, wanted to do some crazy-ass shit. We did a lot of wild things around '92/'93. Things that were actually wild, not the typical "I got sooo drunk" stories that people misconstrue as actually being "wild." Being wild and crazy takes ingenuity and creativity. A faux-wild person gets drunk and yells at someone else's car. A truly wild person coats said car with maxipads in the middle of the night. Or makes fire tornadoes with gasoline on the high school air conditioners. Or spends the night on the roof of the Junior High with a few cases of Bud Dry. Or takes a bunch of mailboxes and suspends them from outdoor basketball goal nets across Auburn, AL. There's a certain amount of artistry involved, I'd say, and most people lack to necessary vision to be truly "wild."

I probably shouldn't be writing this stuff, since my mom (and new stepdad, Alan!) reads this blog. No pictures! No comment!

Holy smokes!

My blog has passed 2000 visitors (since I started keeping track). That's awesome!

Thanks, everybody! Maybe I should start another fund drive. I need to pay off some credit card debt. If everybody gave a dollar...

Well, shit.

Nina Simone died. Mississippi goddamn.

I think that David and I are gonna vote for this guy

Bush: It's Not Just His Doctrine That's Wrong
by Howard Dean

April 17, 2003

[Note: After reading a recent article that called into question my opposition to the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, I wanted to state my position clearly to set the record straight. I appreciate that the editors of Common Dreams have given me this opportunity.]

When Congress approved the President’s authorization to go to war in Iraq – no matter how well-intentioned – it was giving the green light to the President to set his Doctrine of preemptive war in motion. It now appears that Iraq was just the first step. Already, the Bush Administration is apparently eyeing Syria and Iran as the next countries on its target list. The Bush Doctrine must be stopped here.

Many in Congress who voted for this resolution should have known better. On September 23, 2002, Al Gore cautioned in his speech in San Francisco that “if the Congress approves the Iraq resolution just proposed by the Administration it is simultaneously creating the precedent for preemptive action anywhere, anytime this or any future president so decides.” And that is why it was such a big mistake for Congress to allow the president to set this dangerous precedent.

Too much is at stake. We have taken decades of consensus on the conduct of foreign policy – bipartisan consensus in the United States and consensus among our allies in the world community – and turned it on its head. It could well take decades to repair the damage this President and his cohort of right-wing ideological advisors have done to our standing in the international community.

Theirs is a radical view of our role in the world. The President who campaigned on a platform of a humble foreign policy has instead begun implementing a foreign policy characterized by dominance, arrogance and intimidation. The tidal wave of support and goodwill that engulfed us after the tragedy of 9/11 has dried up and been replaced by undercurrents of distrust, skepticism and hostility by many who had been among our closest allies.

This unilateral approach to foreign policy is a disaster. All of the challenges facing the United States – from winning the war on terror and containing weapons of mass destruction to building an open world economy and protecting the global environment – can only be met by working with our allies. A renegade, go-it-alone approach will be doomed to failure, because these challenges know no boundaries.

The largest, most sophisticated military in the history of the world cannot eliminate the threat of sleeper terrorist cells. That task requires the highest level of intelligence cooperation with our allies.

Even the largest, most sophisticated military in the history of the world cannot be expected to go to war against every evil dictator who may possess chemical weapons. This calls for an aggressive and effective diplomatic effort, conducted in full cooperation with a united international community, and preferably with the backing of the multilateral institutions we helped to build for just this purpose. This challenge requires treaties – such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – that this Administration has sometimes treated cavalierly. In any case, war should be a last resort or an option to be used in the face of an imminent threat.

The UN Charter specifically protects the right of self-defense against armed attack, and most agree that action against imminent threat is also justified. As President – as has been the case with all previous presidents – I would not hesitate to use our military might to protect our people or our nation from an imminent threat. But you will not find a Dean Administration turning to the option of force in the first instance as this President does.

The immediate task at hand of the next president will be to begin rebuilding our relationships with our allies so that we can work in concert on tackling these challenges.

The next president will need to undo the work of this band of radicals currently controlling our foreign policy – who view the Middle East as a laboratory for their experiments in democracy-building, where no such traditions exist. Their approach will drastically change the view that the world has had of the United States.

Our nation should be viewed as a moral and just power, a power that seeks to do good, one that has led by example and with a spirit of generosity, and one that works with the world community in advancing the ideals of human dignity and rule of law across the globe.

The people of this country must understand that this Administration has a far different concept of the role of America in the world. This concept involves imposing our will on sovereign nations. This concept involves dismantling the multilateral institutions that we have spent decades building. And this concept involves distorting the rule of law to suit their narrow purposes. When did we become a nation of fear and anxiety when we were once known the world around as a land of hope and liberty?

On day one of a Dean Presidency, I will reverse this attitude. I will tear up the Bush Doctrine. And I will steer us back into the company of the community of nations where we will exercise moral leadership once again.

And not only will I seek to heal the divisions this President has caused in the world community, but I would also begin the process of healing the divisions he has exploited here at home.

This President shamelessly divides us from one another. He divides us by race – as he did when he claimed that the University of Michigan uses quotas in its law school admissions. He divides us by class by rewarding his campaign donors with enormous tax cuts while the rest of us are deprived of affordable health care, prescription drugs for our seniors, and good schools for our kids. He divides us by gender by seeking to restrict reproductive choice for women. He divides us by sexual orientation by appointing reactionary judges to the bench, and as he did in Texas by refusing to sign the Hate Crimes bill if it included gay or lesbian Americans as potential victims.

It is a Bush Doctrine of domestic division, and I want to be the President who tears that doctrine up, too. I want to restore a sense of community in this country – where it’s not enough to worry whether your own kids have health care, but whether your neighbors’ kids have health care. I want to go to the South and talk about race. White southerners have been flocking to the Republican Party in recent years, but I want to offer them hope that their children will benefit from better schools and affordable health care, too. The Republican Party has done nothing for working people, black or white, and we need to remind Southern white folks that the only hope for better schools, and better job opportunities, and health care that is affordable is a Democratic President.

I am what is commonly referred to as a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. I am proud of the fact that as Governor I routinely balanced the budget – which I was not required to do by Vermont’s constitution – and paid down our state debt by nearly a quarter. I had to make tough decisions, and I will admit that some of them did not make the progressive community happy. But I made those decisions because I have a guiding principle that social justice must rest upon a foundation of fiscal discipline. Because of that approach to governance, Vermont today is not cutting education and is not cutting Medicaid despite the perilous economic times brought on by the Bush fiscal policies.

One of my goals as a Presidential candidate is to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party – a line made popular by the late Paul Wellstone. Some have questioned why I would so closely align myself with a politician whose politics were considerably more liberal than mine. The fact is that I admired Paul Wellstone greatly, not only because of his politics, but because he stood up for his beliefs and fought for them until the day he died. I can only hope that someday people will say the same about me – that I, too, remained true to my core principles no matter what. I believe that the Democratic Party needs to stand for something if we want people to vote for us. And by standing against the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war and domestic division, we may yet rediscover the soul of our Party.

Sincerely,

Governor Howard Dean

Dick Lugar

A voice of reason and caution in a party controlled by people like this. It's funny how the Republicans are so ready and willing to get out of nation-building after the easy nation-dismantling stage. It's nice to see a powerful Republican express concern over the US timetable in Iraq and the former Soviet republics and their WMDs.

So much to say, so much to say

A lot of stuff has been going down in the past few weeks for me, but I've failed to blog about any of it because, quite honestly, I haven't been in much of a "blogging mood" lately. For some reason, the war just doesn't interest me anymore, as if I was filled with so much righteous anger that the war section of my brain just imploded. Getting rid of cable had something to do with this, and I hardly fool around with the internet at home anymore. My web use goes in big cycles: six months on, six months off. Right now, I'm descending into a deep trough period, exacerbated by my severe schoolwork situation.

Right now, I'm DJing, so I'm having to multi-task, so I hope my prose isn't too choppy. I just played a terrible song by a bad band called "We Talked About Murder" from an Austin band, further cementing my opinion that the Austin scene is as overhyped as anybody's. I saw glowing press for that record a while back and it was the deciding factor for Austin in an Athens vs. Austin article in something (I'm trying to find it). Sorry, Brandon...

This morning, I read an interesting article re: tort reform by Jeffrey Toobin in the newest New Yorker. I love that guy and his articles even if I can't figure out all the legal mumbo-jumbo. I also tried to find the charger for my MP3 player (I come by my MP3s honestly...I'm still anti-download) to no avail. Our back bedroom is a missile testing zone, and I suspect it's in there. I went to Circuit City and bought a cheap cassette/radio walkman for purposes of jogging and Courtnie stalked me there, thinking I was going to buy something stupid. She knows of my proclivity for stupid purchases, particularly those involving electronics.

My mom's wedding was beautiful, succinct, and really good-natured, all pluses for small, second-wedding situations. I know she was tense beforehand, but I think it melted away once everything got going. She looked great, and Alan (my mom's new husband and my first--hopefully last!--stepfather) looked quite distinguished in his black suit. I hope that Courtnie wasn't too freaked out having to be in the wedding and photograph it. I think she handled it all with flying colors as she was able to dictate much of the order of events as official wedding protographer in lieu of a wedding coordinator, etc. Elise looked particularly stunning ("sexy" was how Courtnie's mom put it) in her pink dress. Stupid guys, eat your hearts out! I gave a pretty great toast, if I do say so myself, and gave quite a stirring reading of a passage from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I only practiced it once! Before the wedding, my mom had me thinking that the Unitarian church was really ugly or something, but it was really cute. I got all confused and told Courtnie it was modern (70s modern) looking, so imagine our surprise when we actually saw it! I thought it was going to look like a dentist's office or something.

That night we went and met some old high school friends at Ye Olde Auburn Brew Shoppe (something like that) and drank good beer for a change. I always feel a little disconnected whenever I meet up with them because I've been away from Auburn for so long, but they're really gracious people and it was like old times in no time. Courtnie and I both suggested to a soon-to-be-married couple to play "Come On, Eileen" at their wedding so they could see for themselves the insanely enthusiastic and orgiastic audience response it receives.

The Flaming Lips were amazing on Tax Day, playing an even split between Yoshimi and Soft Bulletin stuff...sadly only one song apiece from Transmissions... and Clouds... Still, who can complain with shows that audience-oriented, that euphoric, and that beautiful. It was easily the equal of the first two Athens show I witnessed in terms of musicality (Wayne plays guitar more now and they have a live drummer, their roadie Kliph!) and audience vibe. Wow! I think they're maybe the best live experience going right now. I wanted to be an animal onstage, but efforts were once again thwarted, this time by the 40 Watt's smallish stage (for such a big club). Of course, this will all fail to compare to the upcoming Transmatique/YMSP82 reunions!

Today on my radio show, I played these songs:

Deerhoof--Apple O' (half of the record)

The Feud--Tidy Sum (A Brilliant Idea For A)
The Impossible Shapes--Kids Need Creeks

Fruit Bats--Union Blanket
Written In The Sand--Arachnaphobia
Menthol--The Sun's Rays

Grandaddy--four songs from the new sampler (sweet!)

Mick Turner--Moth #6
Kevin Smith--#4
We Talked About Murder--Steppin' Out

Camper Van Beethoven--Sara
Herb and Skills--Can U Hear Me? (a request)
Big Star--Stroke It, Noel

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds--Black Hair
Galaxie 500--Summertime
Lenola--Medicine Glow

Black Dice--The Dream Is Going Down

Memo to myself

When I get time, I'll write about the Pacific UV show this weekend and the amazing Flaming Lips show I saw last night. I've just got to remember to do it. No time right now, though!

Nothing's gonna change my love for you

I just wanted to say that my blogging will be extremely light this week because I have tons of papers to work on (maybe it will increase when I'm procrastinating!), and, also, my mom is getting married this weekend, which is pretty excitin'. I have lots to talk about with you, fearless reader, but I lack the time and the drive to do so. I will say that I'm "happy" that a Knight Rider movie is getting made.

LeBron James

Man, what a punk. I've got a bad feeling about this kid. The NBA doesn't need more egos and primadonnas. No wonder nobody cares about today's NBA stars anymore...can Jalen Rose and Kobe Bryant even hold a candle to Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Dr. J, and Magic Johnson? It's pretty hard to relate to a fucking high schooler who only deigns to talk to his public in press conferences.

Will you still love me tomorrow?

I'm so exhausted right now. I can barely stand up. It was a rough weekend for both me and Courtnie. She had to shoot a wedding, and I, well, let's just say that I barely got any sleep and Courtnie's car broke down on me and I don't feel good and blah blah blah. I'll spare you the details for now, but I assure you that doing a noise/experimental show until 1 AM is the last thing I want to be doing at this particular time and place. I'm going to prepost the playlist tonight...here's what I expect to play:

Paul Guilford
Merzbow
Masonna
Pain Jerk
Haters
Clara Rockmore
John Cage
Max Neuhaus
Edgard Varese
...and more!

I know it's sort of a copout to post a playlist before I play it. Sorry...I think I'm going to go to sleep on the station couch. I should even whine, considering what V+ and Scarnsworth have been through recently.

Oh, I'm really glad they found those POWs...we don't have cable anymore, so I watched round-the-clock coverage of Ron Young et al's rescue on the local TV stations (he's from Lithia Springs, GA, I think). I had given those soldiers up for dead. It's nice to see stories like that.

Maggots are not gross! It's because we are babies!

No maggots here...but there are some here. Thanks to Beth! for the animal pics.

Just a couple of kooks

I love surfing the Net whilst scanning government documents (snore...) for sites run by cults and white supremacists and the like. I'd find these sites a lot scarier if they weren't so fucking laughable.

Rick Ross provides a great deal of info on cults, etc., including Athens' (and Georgia's) own Nuwaubians, who are going through a bit of troubles these days, you know, with the rape convictions and all. They were building this temple on Broad here in Athens that promised to be the gaudiest building this side of Gaudi (zing!), but apparently construction has stopped. I was really looking forward to the painted hieroglyphics, the UFO landing pad, and such.

Rick Ross, "Intervention Specialist," has a weblog! God, I love this stuff. Here's a connection between the Rev. Moon and a gun manufacturer. His son's name is Kook. Rev. Moon also controls the Washington Times and UPI, though some conservatives reject him. Aaaagh! I'm on Moonie overload, but I had no idea that he controlled so much of conservative politics, particularly in light of comments like this.

We'll make great pets

Not a great night of sleep for me. I was having trouble sleeping anyway and then the aforementioned cat pee incident happened, nearly ruining our mattress and Courtnie's sanity. It was the second kind of male cat pee, the tuna fish-y kind. Duncan is a really sweet cat, but he likes to pee on stuff, particularly clothes on the floor and this one spot on the bed. And a rug in the laundry room, which is not a big deal. Besides that, he doesn't pee on anything. It's weird. We probably need to let them outside more, but I worry about them running away and stuff. I really like having cats around, probably more than Courtnie does, and they are very nice cats, always cuddling and purring and stuff. It's really cute when they talk to hear them talk each other in those strange bird-like sounds that cats make. The rankings of pet badness in our house goes like this:

1. Duncan, for the peeing problem and just generally getting into everything and anything that can be gotten into, particularly closets and cabinets.
2. Charlie, also for peeing, but on a much smaller scale and sometimes our fault for being gone during the day. He also gets into stuff and tracks mud all over the place after digging in the dirt outside. Still, his cuteness outweighs most of his badness.
3. Beatrice is a distant third, her only problem being she cries a little too much sometimes and the "making biscuits" on Courtnie's chest thing.

All in all, I still think that our pets are very well-behaved, sweet, and cute. It could be a lot worse.

Oh, Courtnie's dad's company is doing this crazy promotion. Hell, I'd even buy Diet Pepsi for a billion dollars.

When you don't have much else going for you right now, you fall back on old favorites.

I don't know about the racist stuff (he comes across as a pretty affable guy when talking with black audiences, for what it's worth), but it was a pretty ballsy thing to say.

I don't trust this Chalabi guy at all.

Oops

I linked to an Observer article down there by accident, but it's worth reading anyway. It just casually mentions Leo Strauss. Here's a defense of Strauss that mentions the "conditions of freedom." I love it.

Even more here...something about David Horowitz, Chomsky, and neocons.

The British have it out for Strauss. Or at least the Observer does.

This is about the outing of Allan Bloom by Saul Bellow. I remember reading about this a few years back. It's pretty fascinating.


Brandon, you really opened up a can of worms here! You and V+ are probably the only ones who will care about this stuff. David, too. Sorry, everybody else. Did I mention the cat peed on the bed (and Courtnie!) again last night? She told him she hated him, but I don't think she meant it.

More Strauss

A series of things I've dug up about Straussians...here, here, and here.

I find a lot of what they say kind of creepy.

The mainstream critics who ate up The Closing of the American Mind when it came out all loved the chapters entitled "Music," "Sex," and "Relationships," which I personally think were written to sell the book. I've never seen much mainstream criticism, positive or negative, concerning such juicy chapters as "The Nietcheanization of the Left or Vice Versa" or "From Socrates' Apology to Heidegger's Rektoratsrede." Hell, I half-skimmed that shit myself. I think the meat of the book, the creepier stuff about social control and a virtuous society and elitism, has been glossed over because most of the public thinks reads the cultural stuff and the easy stuff on education and skips the rest. It's still a pretty interesting book.

My response to Brandon, typed furiously in 10 minutes without spell-checks or any editing whatsoever (read: it might not read so good)

Leo Strauss, who came from the University of Chicago, is basically the father of neoconservatism who influenced Allan Bloom, William Kristol, and the others who were former leftists turned far-rightists and basically dominate American foreign policy in the Bush administration. Strauss believed that the classic philosophers, the Romans and Greeks, had philosophies that were applicable in today's society. Think the contemporary Republic. The Closing of the American Mind by Bloom is a good place to start. Basically, there's nothing wrong with a group of elites (a la the Republic) molding the world in their own image, through force if necessary. It's incredibly arrogant, in my view, and antithetical to the supposed democracy that neocons are hoping to inspire. It's essentially top-down, as this war has been (I believe we both agree about this), and though I think there are better and worse people to lead, I think we have the worst people possible leading (except maybe the old Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice...maybe). The war has been propogated on a sham, the "disarmament of Saddam." You and I both know that it's bullshit. Have you even heard WMD mentioned by anyone lately? Somewhere along the way this war became about the liberation of Iraq? Oh, really? Even as late as March 17, Bush gave the reason for the war as the potential harm to the USA, oh, and by the way, the Iraqis would be better off. Well, duh. If Bush etc. had come out and said that the war was about liberating Iraq, it would have been a ballsy foreign policy decision. Instead he said it was about protecting America. Bullshit. What the fuck could Iraq ever do to us? If terrorist want WMD they can get them from a myriad of former Soviet states. I disagree with a war that's started under false pretenses and it surprises me that you're willing to accept these and sacrifice your morals (ethics?) because of the overwhelmingly positive outcomes. We should not take war lightly. We should not go to war for anything but the most just reasons. The liberation of Iraq is not the reason we went to war, despite current spin. You know that as well as I do.

I agree with you about all of the ancillary benefits of the war, the liberation of Iraq, etc. But to not look to the potentially harsh future of a country that's been under colonial and/or oppressive rule since at least the 1920s is just wrong. I'm sure we've already got a plan. Hell, they've already got a general as interim leader...yay! martial law! The people may be cheering now, but I think that they are going to become quite wary of our occupying force, which we might end of becoming. I actually don't mind that we might be in Iraq for a while...I think if you're going to do it, do it right, like the Marshall Plan or occupied Japan, to a lesser extent.

Part of your problem in arguing this is that you constantly are reminding me (as most hawks are want to do) about the hideousness of the Hussein regime. Agreed. Get over it! It's as if being anti-war means that somehow I'm denying the fact that Saddam was a bloodthirsty maniac. You've been reading too much Andrew Sullivan (who is absolutely off his rocker these days with insidious charges of half-treason...somebody needs to punch in the crotch), I guess. You might as well read Ann Coulter. Suddenly, she is the great liberator! I thought she wanted to convert them all to Christianity? Whatever...

And so what if the Red Cross situation isn't as bad as they thought...it's still fucking bad! To question civilian deaths in this situation is absolutely my right as a moral human being. Yeah...it's been a relatively humane war (something of an oxymoron), but the fact of the matter is that civilians are getting killed. By bombs. That were dropped after we thought we got Saddam. Wait, wasn't this about WMD? Bullshit. It was always about "regime change." And so what if I'm suggesting things can go straight to hell? They can, can't they? What happened to realism? How did idealism get coopted by conservatives?

I wasn't saying that you said we should go to war with Syria. I was saying that rumblings among the neocons are suggesting that it might be a future target, along with Iran (which boggles the mind...they are really trying to reform there against the wishes of the high priests of idiocy). And the War on Terror? Do you think the countries we really need in this thing have a lot of popular support for the US? Do you think the rifts we've created in the Western Alliance are worth it? Our focus is so narrow and so myopic that we will never, ever win the War On Terror at the rate we're going. I'm not sure it was a war that could be won, to be honest, but we haven't made things any easier. Why did we bother going to the UN? Everyone there saw through our bullshit. Now, as V+ has been pointing out to you, the world basically hates us. Oh, they want what we have. But they hate our hegemony and our perceived arrogance. And the Bush Doctrine (I can't believe that man has a doctrine) has only weakened our tenuous ties with the developing world. From the Rostow model of development to the World Bank to the IMF to our inaction in Africa and other hot spots, we come off as bad guys, whether we are or not. So, yeah, I think the War on Terror is over. That may be a bold and depressing prediction, and I'd love to be wrong.

I think a lot of liberals are misguided on this war, and I appreciate the liberal hawks like Josh Marshall and Paul Berman. I want to be with them, but I can't agree with a war that's fought for a false reason. This was never about WMD. It was always about remaking a portion of the world, a thorn in our side, in the image of a small group of elites in Washington, swallowed by groupthink and engorged by ill-fitting philosophies, who want to suppress democracy to foster it worldwide. I hold my head high knowing that I do not support them and their false claims, misinformation, and lies, even if, yes, I support the ends of their unjust war, the liberation of the Iraqi people from a tyrannical regime.

While the cameras focus on the celebrations...

...this is happening. Baghdad is in chaos and the Marines et al. need to stop helping the Iraqis pull down statues (which was actually kind of neat...watched it this morning on CNN International) and get to the task of restoring order in the city. I'm glad I've never lived through anything absolutely chaotic like this, except for maybe the time Mississippi State got into the Final Four and people were rioting and throwing beds off the top (9th floor!) of Suttle Hall. Yeah. That's a terrible analogy.

I'd say about 99% worse.

Norm Coleman is a snivelling, game show host-looking, lying, party-switching opportunist who was Mr. Clinton in the 90's and is now Mr. Bush. He won by default. If Wellstone had stayed on the ballot he would've lost to a dead guy. Fuck him.

No human activity

The daily war protests at the Arch have now been reduced to a single sign, scrawled on posterboard, that says "Defend your right to protest!"

Courtnie and her friend, Heidi, made a delicious pesto pasta dinner last night. It was just what I needed (cue the Cars). Afterwards, I went and saw the movie Phone Booth, which was not great, but not a usual Joel Schumacher-esque travesty a la Flawless or the Batman movies. Thankfully, it was really short, and this worked heavily in its favor. If you buy the truly preposterous premise it's a well-acted and fairly tense little film. Emphasis on the word "little." A decent Sunday afternoon HBO movie.

Maybe we should sent troops to the D. R. of Congo...this is from the Christian Science Monitor:

UN investigators went to the site in Congo where residents were claiming to have witnessed the worst atrocity in 4-1/2 years of civil war. Early reports said about 20 mass graves were found at the remote town of Drodo, near Congo's border with Uganda, along with dozens of wounded survivors. The reports said 966 ethnic Hema tribe members died in a three-hour dawn raid by rival Lendu tribesmen using guns and machetes. A Hema militia was vowing reprisals, but there was no word of new violence as the Monitor went to press.

Fragile...must be Italian

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to buy a Yes album sooner or later.

Geraldo sucks...but you already knew that

Even the arch-conservative WorldNetDaily, via Bill Press, is on the anti-Geraldo bandwagon. Good. This guy has been discredited so many times it's not funny...at least he's damaging FNC's credibility as well. Hell, maybe I was wrong. Maybe they should keep him around.

On a completely different note, Rhino Records is starting up vinyl-only reissues. Awesome! Those Dead LPs are mine!

Demos?

Here's a link to a new Wheat "demo" called "Do You Really Want Me?" that's a total monster. Holy shit, it's fucking big.

Master Blaster

We came in third in Rock and Roll Trivia last night, even though we tied for second. We lost a tiebreaker concerning Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster." We didn't know to whom it was dedicated. Even after hearing the answer, I still can't remember. We were one point away from first place, and I can't help but kick myself over a few questions I bungled, notably forgetting Andrew Kay from Roxy Music's name and the fact that one of the Ashetons played bass on Raw Power. Oh, well, there's always next week.

This weekend, I:
--forgot about a Jon Spencer Blues Explosion show I wanted to see.
--drank a lot of wine at the "Cake Lab" (don't ask) on Friday and ended up spending the night there because no one was fit to drive anybody anywhere. Adam's futon did the trick, but I felt bad for leaving Charlie and the cats alone all night. When I came home the next morning, I was greeted with a frenetic mixture of glee and panic.
--almost finished up the re-landscaping job, though the rain conspired against me much of the time. I was pretty sore yesterday from all the digging and chopping and planting. It felt pretty good to work outside, soreness aside.
--watched a lot of CNN International, which is much preferable to the American coverage. Why have I not seen this station before?
--started work on a major project for school.
--played a shitload of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, which keeps getting better and better, but is almost unfathomably large in its scope and detail. The actual quest itself is sort of short compared to Zelda games of the past, but there are soooo many sidequests that really appeal to my semi-OCD videogame-playing style. Right now, I'm trying to take pictures of every single monster and person to get statues made out of them. Why? I have no idea.
--watched Six Feet Under, the best of the season so far.

No one is really paying attention to the massacres in central Africa right now, but I hope someone--the US, the UN, somebody!--gets involved post-haste. We don't need another Angola or Rwanda on our hands, and the media's stentorian coverage of the war in Iraq has blacked out other hotspots in the world. 1000 people dead in 3 hours. What the...?!

Didn't the US troops know not to fire on the Palestine Hotel? The troops suggested that journalists hang white sheets out of their windows, so the military wouldn't fire on them. Um, that's a pretty stupid suggestion, seeing as how any potential snipers can do the same thing.

I'm still listening to the Equals (Eddy Grant?!) and the Kinks at work.

Mental exhaustion and WUOG

I have tons to blog about and I don't feel like blogging about anything right now. I need to write down something about my weekend or my memories will drift off silently into ephemera. Maybe later...

Here's what I played on this week's radio show...Mon. 12PM-2PM Eastern...WUOG:

Nobukazu Takemura--10th (first 8 tracks)

Treasure State--A Variation On Ambition
Gary Wilson--Forgotten Lovers
Crooked Fingers--Don't Say A Word
Phosphorescent--Where To Strip

Smog--Truth Serum
Calexico--Not Even Stevie Nicks...
The Good Ship--The Maco Light

Vitesse--Out Under Stars (this record has come up in rotation every day for, like, four weeks...weird)
New Order--Ceremony
My Bloody Valentine--Soon

Richard Buckner--Born Into Giving It Up
Centro-matic--One-Hundred Thousand Bridesmaids ("a goddamn soaker"--ED)
Centro-matic--Innocence Kindly Waits (I didn't mean to play two in a row, but it was a happy accident)

Songs:Ohia--Translation


Wow. What a beautiful mess of a show...an uplifting downer, if that makes any sense. I hope I gave listeners a respite from tepid techno and stupid emo for a while.

Death of an asshole. Death of a character actor.

Michael Kelly, the ludicrously awful Post op-ed writer and former New Republic editor/current Atlantic Monthly editor, is the first journalist killed in Iraq. I'm not sure how to feel, but, to be honest, I don't feel very sad about it. This is a guy who made his career out of slander and half-truths, some of which fomented the media assaults on Gore in 2000 and, in some small way, led to election debacle. This is a guy who argued that pacifists are pro-terrorists. Michael Kelly was a classic dissembler of the first order, so it's hard to muster sympathy for him...maybe for his family. Just being honest. I don't know. I guess I feel bad if anybody dies, and I don't want to come off like I support the death of journalists or anything like that. It sucks, but I'm sure he understood the risks involved, as did his family.

A different Michael, Michael Jeter, passed away on March 31 due to complications from AIDS. He was a great character actor and Terry Gilliam cameo fixture, probably best remembered (in my mind at least) as the cajun prisoner in the Green Mile. I liked him.

Oh, the Daily Howler is all up in Howard Kurtz and Andrew Sullivan's shit again. Good on 'im. This is one of my favorites anti-Sullivan pieces as well. I wonder what the incomparable Howler thinks about favorite target Michael Kelly's death?

Memoirs of an invisible man

Saddam Hussein sort of looks like Chevy Chase and/or Jackie Mason in his newest "live" broadcast. I smell a Caddyshack 3!

I've spent a good portion of the morning researching Fleetwood Mac's history. From Jeremy Spencer (Fleetwood Mac version 1) joining the Children of God cult while on tour to the McVie/Buckingham-Nicks breakups, there's enough material here for a few movies or a really good TV miniseries, like the ones they did for the Jacksons and the Beach Boys...not the execrable John Denver movie where they simulated his drug use by having him trip at some anonymous "raging" party featuring semi-sordid characters drinking...and smoking!

I want to find a copy of Tusk. On record if at all possible.

There's a guy who meditates for peace at the Arch every day, and one has to admire his persistence, seeing as how the rest of the war protestors have pretty much gone home. There doesn't see to be much of a point, really. It's not like the US is going to pull its troops out of Iraq because 100 people gather in Athens, GA and play bongos.

Male lions will often eat their own cubs to maintain genetic superiority in their pride. That wasn't in the Lion King!

Bitin' rhymes

I found a rhyming dictionary online, Rhymezone! It's a songwriter's best friend, I tell you. I've already used it to tidy up two future Big Gray masterworks. I'm trying to find a way to rhyme "awake" with "flank steak" in a song as we speak. "Lucas" rhymes with "mucus" and "valukas," whatever that is. No less interesting is the fact that "insular" rhymes with "kinsler" and "peninsular."

True?

I found this story on IMDb of all places...I haven't been able to find it anywhere else, but if the IMDb has it, surely someone else does:

Two Portuguese television reporters claimed today (Thursday) that they were arrested and beaten by U.S. soldiers in Iraq, deprived of food and water and had their equipment, tapes and vehicle confiscated. After four days of being held captive, the pair, both of whom had been accredited by Coalition Forces Central Command, were escorted out of Iraq by U.S. troops. In an interview with the Saudi Arabian English-language daily Arab News, one of the reporters, Luis Castro of RTP, the government-owned television network, said: "I have covered 10 wars in the past six years -- in Angola, Afghanistan, Zaire, and East Timor. I have been arrested three times in Africa, but have never been subjected to such treatment or been physically beaten before." Castro displayed a note that was passed to him by one U.S. soldier before he was released, which said: "I am so sorry that you had to endure such bad conditions, but remember that I care and pray you can forgive."

Not enough time...

...to play Zelda as much as I like, but rest assured, it's an amazing game.

Also, I have to write a small paper today, so blogging will be light at best. Sorry. Here are a couple of things I've found today:

I hope that this isn't true, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it is. As per usual, the diplomats are being superceded by the military in the Bush administration.

Behold! The Colossal Squid! Wow. This squid has two beaks, razor sharp hooks in its suckers, and glows in the dark. "If you fell in the water next to it you would be in big trouble." Indeed. I was obsessed by some giant squid book when I was a kid, probably because they've never really been seen alive, and I must have checked that puppy out about 30 times from the library. I'm glad to see giant--nay, colossal!--squids are still making the news.

Recruiting agents for Al-Qaeda

Here's a conversation between Mark Green, former New York mayor Ed Koch, and former US Senator Alfonse D'Amato (from New York magazine c/o Joe Conason):

Koch: I sent a letter to Rumsfeld saying he should advise the Iraqi government that if it wants to declare Baghdad an open city, there are ways to do it under the Geneva Conventions -- removing all soldiers, removing all artillery. And if they don't want to do that, then we ought not to fall into their trap. We should say to the Iraqi people living in Baghdad, "You have 48 hours to evacuate. After that, we're flattening the city with bombs."

Green: But how do we "liberate" a city we've flattened? And why inflame a billion Muslims worldwide who already see us as the devil?

D'Amato: I say it's a lot of bullshit to worry about their public opinion. That doesn't mean that you just go out and kill civilians. But there comes a time when if they refuse, and if it looks like we're going to get bogged down, better that we say, "Clear out, folks! Because we're gonna start bombing street by street!"

Green: I think you two are, in effect, recruiting agents for Al-Qaeda.

Stuff

Spotted in downtown Athens, GA:

--an old homeless guy wearing a Danzig shirt.
--a guy falling on his face trying to pick up a quarter.
--someone, who obviously neglected to read the weather forecast, wearing what seemed to be the entire 2003 North Face catalog. Multiple scarves were involved.

I played with Allison and Daniel (AKA Venice Is Sinking) again last night, and I think it went even better than the first practice. I think I've got a handle on which songs are which. After practice, I talked their ears off for about three hours. I was really wired for some reason. Sorry, guys.

Thank God Avril Lavigne is covering "Knocking On Heaven's Door."

If you don't read Buzz Bernard, Sr.'s national forecasts on the Weather Channel website, weather.com, you should. They are homey, poetic, overwrought, and wonderful. Here's a sample from today's forecast:

"Remember when your dad used to yell in the winter, "Close the door. What are trying to do, heat up the whole outdoors?" Well, some kid out on the Great Plains has had the door open for several days now. And he's succeeded in heating up a good chunk of the outdoors from the Plains to the Eastern Seaboard. The South, especially, will benefit from this challenge to patriarchal authority tomorrow as highs well up in the 70s and 80s are expected to bathe the entire region. Most of the area should remain dry, too, although isolated late-day thunderstorms could sprout over eastern Oklahoma, eastern Texas and western Arkansas."

Now that's weather!

Solo recordings from Shatter Creek

My review of the mighty fine Summer At Shatter Creek album has been posted to Dusted Magazine. Just letting you know. I noticed a typo or two that Sam and Co. didn't catch. Oops.

Fuck Saddam

...and how the US learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.

I almost puked in Geography class...

No, really. I feel excessively shitty. I didn't really drink too much last night at Rock and Roll trivia (which we won, by the way!): I had three PBRs and a Guinness (which I won, by the way, for identifying the Amazing Royal Crowns on the stereo). By the way, did I mention we won?

Anyway, I walked into Geography class, sat down, and was immediately, um, moved by a severe rumbling from deep within me, somewhere between the gizzard and the gullet, I'd surmise. I ran out of class to the nearest bathroom, which was being cleaned by the custodians of course. I ran to the next nearest bathroom (one floor down and across the building) and stood over a toilet, breathing deeply, for 10 minutes or so. Then it was gone! No more sick sensation. I still feel a little "off" though, and I might cut out of work early. We'll see.

Courtnie gave Charlie a haircut last night. He still looks really cute (how could he not look cute?), but she sorta gave him a Randall McMurphy lobotomy style buzz cut. At least he's not bumping into boxes and walls anymore...Courtnie told him to get a toy and he bit her hand because I think he couldn't tell what it was.